Lazaro Francisco, Cabanatuan’s pride

I made a sentimental visit to my parents’ hometown in Nueva Ecija this week, and though I was disheartened that it was no longer the Cabanatuan of my childhood summers of sago and gulaman, duhat from the trees, and the turkeys to be mercilessly chased in my Lolo Leonardo Sta. Romana’s home on Rizal Street in Barangay Bonifacio—was this why we grew up with a strong sense of country?—something pleasant and surprising awaited me on that very street where my father and his 10 siblings grew up.

It was only on my recent trips there that I noticed that the house close to the corner, by the big public school that was always my landmark, now bore a sign: Museong Lazaro Francisco. Who was he? I had never had the leisure to stop, but got more and more intrigued reading Amadis Ma. Guerrero’s articles on Lazaro Francisco and those by his son, Dr. Floriño Arrieta Francisco.

How could I not have known that there once lived a National Artist for Literature seven houses away? Could my cousins and I have met Ka Saro on the street, said to have been a distinguished-looking gentleman always properly attired and wearing his de rigueur Panama hat?

Dr. Floriño, who hosted Ateneo University Press director Karina Bolasco and myself, introduced the museum with a trace of apology. It is not a regular museum, he said, but a writer’s museum, with a treasure trove of Ka Saro’s memorabilia. But don’t we go to such lengths to visit the homes of other such authors abroad?

The heirs of Lazaro Francisco decided to convert their home into a museum in 2000, to honor their father after their mother passed on and left the house uninhabited. On their own initiative and using personal funds, they have maintained the museum and developed a tastefully designed shrine at the spacious backyard where his remains are.

The scholars of Tagalog (now called Filipino) literature like National Artists Bienvenido Lumbera, Virgilio Almario, Rogelio Mangahas, Mona P. Highley, Consolacion Alaras and Soledad Reyes have long discovered and appreciated the genius of Francisco, hailing him as the most outstanding novelist of the 20th century. His 12 published novels in Tagalog are acclaimed for his impeccable use of Tagalog—not boringly polemical even as they conveyed his strong sense of social consciousness, always upholding the rights of farmers and workers while dramatically portraying their exploited state.

Among these novels, originally serialized in Liwayway, are “Binhi at Bunga,”  “Cesar,” “Ama,” Bayang Nagpatiwakal” (serialized in Alitaptap), “Singsing na Pangkasal,” “Ilaw sa Hilaga,” “Sugat ng Alaala,” Maganda Pa ang Daigdig” and “Daluyong.” A number of them have been turned into films. It is said that whenever Ka Saro joined literary contests, other writers would concede to him early on by saying that the rest of them were vying only for the second prize.

But, if he was such an outstanding writer whose weekly stories were much awaited by the Liwayway faithful, why is he hardly known to the rest of us?

Only a handful of his novels have been published by the UP Press and Ateneo Press. The books are in Tagalog, restricting their accessibility to the larger national and international audience. That is why it comes as welcome news that award-winning poet and translator Marne Kilates is at work on “Light in the North,” the English translation of “Ilaw sa Hilaga,” a project of Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino.

Francisco had been nominated as National Artist for Literature many times, but it was only in 2009 when he was formally selected. The official awarding was in 2016, two months before President Benigno S. Aquino III ended his term of office, due to the lamentable controversial selection issues of other awardees.

Still, his selection, though posthumous, was a major feat. He was only the second Tagalog novelist to be so honored, following Amado V. Hernandez. The other awardees from 2009 are also no longer with us—Federico Aguilar Alcuaz for Visual Arts and Manuel Conde for Cinema.

Lazaro Francisco received several major awards during his lifetime. But this highest distinction as National Artist, though long overdue, brought him a measure of the public attention he so deserves. Let us not allow an outstanding novelist to be without honor in his own hometown, and in his own country.

Neni Sta. Romana Cruz (nenisrcruz@gmail.com) is chair of the National Book Development Board and a member of the Eggie Apostol Foundation.