The Palanca Awards turn 55!

Another glittering occasion on the First of September: over 400 people congregate at the Rigodon Ballroom of the Manila Peninsula Hotel in Makati. More than half of the assembly is made up of writers, while the rest are the guests of the Palanca clan: their relations and friends. At the central table, with Sylvia Palanca-Quirino, head of the Carlos Palanca Foundation, are the night’s guest speaker, Dr. Emerlinda Roman, the first female president of the University of the Philippines, together with Dr. Lourdes Montinola, chair of the Far Eastern University and herself a distinguished writer. Behind them are other round tables with a dozen guests each. The tables are marked Winners, Judges, or Guests. It’s Palanca Night!

Last Thursday marked the 55th edition of the most prestigious annual literary award for Filipino writers. Most elated on this night of course were the first-timers, although a number of relative veterans were also on hand to receive prizes. We were surprised, for instance, to note that the esteemed Domingo Landicho was still joining the contest. He did win second prize in Short Story in Filipino, between Agustin "Don" Pagusara Jr. of Davao City who bagged first, and John Iremil Teodoro of Iloilo City at third.

Now that’s a good development, having our Southern writers trying their hands, and pens, in Filipino, rather than restrict themselves to Cebuano or Hiligaynon.

By the by, by "we" I meant our table of judges in various genres, which included the board chairmen Gemino Abad for Poetry in English, Cirilo Bautista for the Novel in English, Isagani Cruz for Full-Act Play in Filipino, and Butch Dalisay for Futuristic Fiction in English. Also seated with us were fellow judge Antonio Hidalgo, for Novel in English, and our guests Shirley Lua of DLSU and UP-Mindanao chancellor Ricky de Ungria (no, they weren’t out on a date), plus Mesdames Bautista, Cruz, Hidalgo and Yuson.

Oh, and for a while there, Anvil Publishing director Karina Bolasco also sat with us. Latecomers Marne Kilates and RayVi Sunico, chairman of judges for Short Story for Children in English, also tried to horn in on our table, maybe because right behind us was the desserts buffet, and beyond that the smoking area. But we shooed them away, since they appeared to be prematurely inebriated, while dinner had yet to be announced.

A big winner was Dean Francis Alviar who earned the grand prize for the Novel in English, which is only given every three years. We felt doubly happy for Dean when we found out that the lady from whom he borrowed his colorful tapis for the night, his wife Nikki Alfar, had also won a Palanca – third prize for Short Story for Children in English. Talk about a conjugal victory. Hmmm. Must be the lucky tapis.

Counterpart big winner for the Novel in Filipino was Ellen Sicat, who had her daughter Luna ready to proxy for her, except that she made it in time for her big moment on the Palanca awarding stage.

The biggest winners were the latest Hall of Famers in the persons of Manuel Buising and Luis Gatmaitan. Buising copped his fifth first prize in the Teleplay in Filipino, while Gatmaitan got his in the Essay in Filipino. They brought the number of Hall of Famers to 18, since the honor was started in 1995.

I was also happy to see a strong Visayan contingent that managed to secure a table right beside the dinner buffet. Stalwarts of that boisterous group included chairman of judges for the Short Story in Cebuano, our compleat diplomat Vicente Vivencio "Butch" Bandillo, who leaves shortly for Dubai, as he informed us.

With him were his fellow judges Marjorie Evasco and Grace Monte de Ramos-Arcellana, Macario Tiu who won first in Short Story in Cebuano, and Don Pagusara who got second in the same category, for a double-win. Later in the evening, the Port Area habitué Juaniyo Arcellana was seen joining that table, thence humming along to Poetry in Filipino judge Michael Coroza’s operatic interpretation of Usahay – this during the post-photo-ops, drag-down hour when all teetotalers had departed.

But of course my delight became complete in seeing three young people go onstage to claim their prizes in Poetry in English, which I had helped judge.

Ana Maria "Mookie" Katigbak’s "The Proxy Eros" won third prize, from which here’s a sample, her poem titled "Clenched": "Because she holds herself reined in, chained/ In, because her body rolls itself into itself,/ torso to elbow, rib cleaved to bone, her/ body the origami for stone because stones/ hurt when hurled against world, but world/ is world, so hurl. Be stone. What’s stone but fist/ the body folds into, and what’s body but folded/ wings. Flight imminent where shoulder draws bone./ Not stone, I am clenched. I am shielding."

Yavanna "Naya" Valdellon’s "Evasions" won second. Here’s her poem "Lost and Found": "For the hundreds that are lost within its reach/ every day, the city returns double, tells us/ to keep the change. The street sweeper/ on her hourly rounds knows this, as her broom/ harvests shards and wrappers, more of the same/ with the same destination. The garbage collector/ with his loot of green and black bags knows it,/ as does the scavenger who ekes out a living/ by looking down a junk heap, scrabbling/ for the salvageable. We who have the luxury/ of moaning for what and whom we’ve lost/ never had to go through someone else’s trash./ When we find something we call it chance,/ not currency. Consider the dull five-peso coin/ picked up and pronounced lucky by the only man/ all day who stooped over the sidewalk for it,/ whose lips arte swollen from too many goodbyes."

And Joel Toledo’s "What Little I Know of Luminosity" won first. Here’s his poem "Everything’s in Place": "The dark vein of the pen, the petrified hand.// Strand after strand of impeding light./ The paper sitting in its secrecy./ There must be something more// to these objects straining for movement,/ solid and heavy, caught in the light./ The night keeps such cruel arrangements.// But how you can easily break// this symmetry. Now you are here,/ pursing your lips, blowing strokes of smoke./ The air shimmers in your white noise.// The room is hung with the smell of wine,/ tipping the bottles, rearranging the furniture./ I gather the punctuations, the shards// your breathing cuts into every corner./ The labor of speaking, lonely/ as stones. I will leave, you will leave,// someone will write a poem."

Jimmy Abad, Danton Remoto and I had a difficult time selecting these winners from a very competitive field, from which any of the entries among our final seven to eight choices could have landed among the top three. But we settled unanimously for a reversal of last year’s top two, when Naya had placed first and Joel second. Theirs are very mature and conscientiously crafted poetry all right. And Joel, who teaches at Miriam College, is only hitting his third decade, while Naya, who teaches in Ateneo, is in her early 20s.

For her part, Katigbak’s poetry has toughened up and gained much in quality of edgework, so I will presume that this was the result of further honing at The New School in New York, where the young AdMU dean’s lister took an MFA in creative writing. Well, I’m still proud to say that both Naya and Mookie had been in my AdMU poetry class years ago, and had also been fellows at the National Writers Workshop in Dumaguete – same with Joel, and Dean Alviar, and Maryanne Moll and Pearlsha Abubakar who won their first Palancas (in Futuristic Fiction and Short Story in English, respectively), and Joseph Rosmon M. Tuazon who won first in Poetry in Filipino.

Congrats too to our UMPIL secretary Becky Añonuevo who won second in Poetry in Filipino; our man in London Edgar B. Maranan for placing second in Short Story in Filipino; occasional drinking buddy Reuel Aguila for bagging first in Full-Act Play in Filipino, Alexis "Exie" Abola of our AdMU EngDept for his first in Short story in English; Lakambini "Bing" Sitoy who’s currently criss-crossing Europe, for her first in the Essay and second in Short Story in English; and Glenn Sevilla Mas who joined the double-winners with a first in Full-Length Play and second in One-Act Play in English. These were the 55th Palanca Awards winners we’re familiar with. Kudos too of course to all the other winners, and to Vim Nadera and Teo Antonio for simply being there, to account for half of the beer consumption.

Top prize as Entertainer of the Night must be shared by Michael V. who conducted a superb, hilarious monologue that was Christopher Martinez’s winning One-Act Play Welcome to Intelstar, Pete Lacaba who read poems from the top two winners in Filipino, "Isha" aka. Pearsha Abubakar who sang some of her Candid record numbers, and piano accompanist (for Coroza, Kilates and Dalisay as the Three Tenors) AIM Prof. Federico Macaranas, chairman of judges for the Essay in English.

Finally, here’s sharing excerpts from the eloquent address of guest of honor Dr. Emerlinda Roman, who also received the Gawad Dangal ng Lahi from Mrs. Sylvia Palanca-Qurino and her daughter Atty. Christine Q. Pacheco.

"I am aware that for our writers, receiving a first Palanca award represents much more than the cash reward, although, of course, the cash is much appreciated. I believe they see it as a signal from their peers that they have earned their spurs, that they have, in a sense, arrived. If before this they may have had their doubts, this is confirmation and encouragement for them to continue along that path. And I know that for the older writers, this yearly event, the Palanca Awards night, is more than just a social gathering, more than just a celebration. It is an expression of solidarity with each other, perhaps even a declaration of faith.

"For, at a time when so many of our institutions are being exposed as dismayingly – perhaps even fatally – flawed, no shadow, no taint, has ever fallen on the Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature. No one has ever questioned the integrity of the Carlos Palanca Foundation. And I have been assured that – though the judges may have been on occasion criticized for eccentricity, capriciousness, bad temper, gluttony and inebriation – they have never been accused of dishonesty. So I think we would be justified in saying that, tonight especially, the Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards are one clear spot of light in the creeping darkness that threatens to engulf us all….

"…I do believe, that at times like this, we could do worse than turn to the writer, to artists in general – for guidance, more perhaps even than to priests, certainly more than to politicians. It is the artists who remember the past and can recite for us again those lessons we seem unable or unwilling to learn. It is also the artists who can imagine the future, a future less bleak, less tormented; a future tranquil, hopeful, even joyous. It is artists who can give shape to our dreams, fashion the myths that will bind us together rather than rip us apart; enable us to see ourselves steadily, and see ourselves whole. We do ourselves and our country a disservice in not taking advantage of this precious human resource, and in not giving it its due."

Bravo! And again, to the Palanca Foundation, for this joyous night of hope, salamuch!