Bienvenido Lumbera

Lumbera died peacefully at his home in Quezon City on the morning of September 28, 2021, due to complications of stroke. As a National Artist of the Philippines he was given honors and a burial at the Libingan ng mga Bayani (Heroes' Cemetery) in Taguig.

Lumbera was also the founding chairperson of the Board of Trustees of the multi-awarded media group Kodao Productions and a member of the Concerned Artists of the Philippines and the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan. From 2009 to 2021, he served as chair of the Alliance of Concerned Teachers (ACT), a national organization of more than 40,000 teachers and employees in the education sector.

Lumbera was named National Artist for Literature in 2006.

He was the editor of Sanghaya (National Commission on Culture and the Arts). The launching of Bayan at Lipunan: Ang Kritisismo ni Bienvenido Lumbera, edited by Rosario Torres-Yu and published by the University of Santo Tomas Publishing House, was celebrated by the University of the Philippines in January 2006.

Bienvenido Lumbera was proclaimed National Artist in April 2006.

Sa Sariling Bayan: Apat na Dulang May Musika, an anthology of Lumbera's musical dramas, was published by De La Salle University-Manila Press in 2004.

In 1996, Lumbera received the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature, and Creative Communication Arts. The citation recognized him for "asserting the central place of the vernacular tradition in framing a national identity for modern Filipino."

Lumbera took up a post as visiting professor of Philippine Studies at Osaka University of Foreign Studiesfrom 1985 to 1988, so he was in Japan when Ferdinand Marcos was deposed by the 1986 People Power Revolution. That year, the Ateneo de Manila University Press published his dissertation as “Tagalog Poetry, 1570-1898: Tradition and Influences in Its Development,” and the UST Faculty of Arts and Letters gave him the Outstanding Alumnus in Literature award.

He taught Literature, Philippine Studies and Creative Writing at the Ateneo de Manila University, De La Salle University, the University of the Philippines Diliman, and at the University of Santo Tomas.College of Arts and Letters, U.P. Diliman, and Professor of Literature at De La Salle University. He was also appointed visiting professor of Philippine Studies at Osaka University of Foreign Studies in Japan from 1985 to 1988 and the very first Asian scholar-in-residence at the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

In 1976, Lumbera began teaching at the Department of Filipino and Philippine Literatures, U.P. College of Arts and Letters. In 1977, he served as editor of Diliman Review upon the request of then College of Arts and Sciences Dean Francisco Nemenzo Jr. The publication was openly against the dictatorship but was left alone by Marcos' authorities.

He also received several awards citing his contribution to Philippine letters, most notably the 1975 Palanca Award for Literature; the 1993 Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature, and Creative Communication Arts; several National Book Awards from the Manila Critics Circle; the 1998 Philippine Centennial Literary Prize for Drama; and the 1999 Cultural Center of the Philippines Centennial Honors for the Arts.

In January 1974, Lumbera had come to believe that he was relatively safe from Marcos' arrests of academics and writers, but a wave of sudden arrests led him to suddenly be concerned. He went out to warn fellow PAKSA member Ricky Lee at his house on España Boulevard, only to find Marcos' forces already there. He ran away but was eventually caught on the corner of Banawe Street.

Cynthia Nograles, his former student at the Ateneo de Manila University, wrote to Gen. Fidel Ramos for his release, which pushed through in December 1974. Lumbera married Cynthia a few months later.

When Ferdinand Marcos declared Martial Law in September 1972, Lumbera knew that he was likely to be among the many academics and writers who were on Marcos' priority arrest lists. So he immediately went into hiding.

Lumbera also established his leadership among Filipino writers, artists and critics by co-founding cultural organizations such as the Philippine Comparative Literature Association (1969); Pamana ng Panitikan ng Pilipinas (1970); Kalipunan para sa mga Literatura ng Pilipinas (1975); Philippine Studies Association of the Philippines (1984) and Manunuri ng Pelikulang Pilipino (1976). In such ways, Lumbera contributed to the downfall of Marcos although he was in Japan during the 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution, teaching at the Osaka University of Foreign Studies.

Upon returning to the Philippines, he taught at the College of the Holy Ghost (now College of the Holy Spirit), and at the Ateneo de Manila University. He then went back to Indiana University Bloomington where he earned his Ph.D. in Comparative Literature in 1967.

Lumbera then received a Fulbright Fellowship that allowed him to earn a master’s degree in comparative literature at Indiana University, graduating in 1960.

Lumbera received his Litt.B. degree from the University of Santo Tomas, Manila in 1954.

Bienvenido Lumbera (April 11, 1932 – September 28, 2021) was a Filipino poet, critic and dramatist. Lumbera is known for his nationalist writing and for his leading role in the Filipinization movement in Philippine literature in the 1960s, which resulted in his being one of the many writers and academics jailed during Ferdinand Marcos' Martial Law regime. He received the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature and Creative Communications in 1993, and was proclaimed a National Artist of the Philippines for literature in 2006. As an academic, he is recognized for his key role in elevating the field of study which would become known as Philippine Studies.

Lumbera was born in Lipa on April 11, 1932. He was barely a year old when his father, Timoteo Lumbera (a baseball player), fell from a fruit tree, broke his neck, and died. Carmen Lumbera, his mother, suffered from cancer and died a few years later. By the age of five he was an orphan. He and his older sister were cared for by their paternal grandmother, Eusebia Teru.

For his dissertation, he wrote a historico-critical study of Philippine literature on Francisco Baltazar, which would eventually be published chapter by chapter in a local academic journal, and later as the influential book Tagalog Poetry 1570-1898: Tradition and Influences in its Development.