INQUIRER Global Nation

CALIFORNIA, United States?One unfortunate consequence of the ongoing National Artist controversy is that it has drawn much-deserved attention away from the others on the list of honorees.

One of them is the late, great novelist, Lazaro Francisco. During my last visit to Manila in June, I was thrilled to finally get a copy of his novel, ?Ilaw sa Hilaga.? And I was glad to later see his name on the list of new National Artists. Sadly, what should have been an opportunity to honor and let more Filipinos know about his achievements has been derailed by the controversy over Cecille Guidote Alvarez and Carlo J. Caparas.

Ka Saro was born in Orani, Bataan in February 1898, and died in June 1980. From the 1920s to the 1960s, he was a respected and widely-read novelist, who took on critical social and political issues in the Philippines, including the Japanese occupation and the peasant unrest in the 1950s.

My former UP professor Rogelio Sikat described Francisco as a ?nobelista ng tao at ng bayan, a novelist of the people.? ?Through his novels,? Sikat wrote in a foreword to Francisco?s ?Maganda Pa Ang Daigdig,? ?he enriched our country?s literature and tried to make our world as Filipinos more beautiful.?

Because he wrote in Tagalog, Francisco is not as well-known now to Filipinos as the other writers of his generation who wrote in English?which is sad. Other Filipino writers who wrote in Tagalog and other Philippine languages have endured a similar fate. Like Ka Saro, many of them should have been honored as National Artists a long time ago.

One of them is Sikat himself. His short stories, including the classics ?Impeng Negro? and ?Tata Selo,? are undoubtedly among the most powerful, beautifully-crafted in the history of Philippine literature.

Sir Sikat, as we fondly called him at UP, was an inspiring teacher as well. He was a major reason why I decided to write Tagalog fiction. I still remember him on the Diliman campus, a bespectacled man with a beard, who was always approachable, always ready for a friendly chat about literature or any other subject. His class was always lively and engaging.

One of the things he taught his creative writing students was to care for every character, no matter how small a part that person played in the story.

Years later, when I showed a draft of my novel ?Mga Gerilya sa Powell Street? to my friend, poet Lina Sagaral Reyes, she grilled me on the way I portrayed some characters in the story. Lina had also looked up to Sir Sikat and she reminded me how our late teacher had told us that you can?t just put a character in a story or in any work and then forget about that person. ?Dapat alagaan mo ang bawat karakter na ma-create mo. You have to take care of every character you create,? Lina wrote me in an e-mail.

From his writing, it was clear that Sir Sikat cared deeply for ordinary people, especially farmers. But he could also be impatient, even resentful, of writers who tried to write about the poor and the oppressed simply because it was the politically in thing to do.

I got to know him in the 1980s, during the exciting and chaotic final years of the Marcos regime. Like other aspiring writers on campus, I dreamed of becoming a writer of the people, whose literary aspirations were rooted in social and political realities. Knowing about Sir Sikat?s own political past, I naturally turned to him for support for and advice on my vision of the ideal literary life.

Roger Sikat gave me valuable wisdom that has sustained me as a writer and journalist.

I have kept two of his letters all these years. A three-page handwritten letter date September 27, 1982, critiqued a play I wrote for his class. It also contained nuggets of valuable insight into writing, language, and literature.

One advice that stands out: It?s great and noble to want to write about the poor and the oppressed, but you better know what you?re talking about. For Sir Sikat was unimpressed, to the point of being disgusted, with writers who mouth slogans and who write based on the current political fad.

?You are shaped by your life experiences,? he wrote in Tagalog. ?I don?t expect you to write well about things you don?t know much about. I remember some plays in the 1970s supposedly geared to workers and peasants but written without sufficient knowledge and insight. Nakakasawa! It got so tiring!

?Do not try to follow tradition just because it is tradition. Express yourself. Be true to yourself. ?

He also urged me to be wary of the influence of politics and dogma. ?Art is more resilient, and harder to take on, than politics,? he said. ?Nagtatagal and sining at ang pulitika ay pansamantala. Art endures, while politics is transitory.?

Art also takes commitment, he said, stressing, ?It is important, so important, for a writer, to master language. Read more. Force yourself to read more. Pilitin mo.? But he also warned, ?Mag-ingat ka rin sa iyong pag babasa ?pagkat baka lipas na ang timpla ng wika mong makuha. Be conscious in your reading for the language you absorb may be outdated and no longer relevant.?

It was important to understand the past and our history, he said, but he also counseled caution when it comes to the blinders of tradition.

?Kung minsan, naiisip kong masuwerte ka at ang mga katulad mo. Wala kayong nakagapos na tradisyon na kailangang baklasin. Sometimes I think people like you are lucky. You are not bound by traditions from which you need to break free.?

The letter ends with this simple, but powerful, line: ?Ang pagsulat ay pagtuklas. Lakad ka na. Writing is about discovering. Get on with it.?

Too late for this year. But maybe next year, another writer of the people, a great teacher, a true artist, who devoted his life to our literature and society, will get the much deserved honor of being officially called a National Artist.