Biography of florentino hornedo
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"With those plots, how can you expect the masses to appreciate your work?"
Citing the difference between a good story teller and a "piece of paper wrapped in gray letters," Hornedo cited the times when poems were performed rather than recited.
"We have lost a lot in Philippine literature because everything is reduced to the written word," he said.
HIS MIEN and mustache make him appear like a creature from a fabled golden age. He was laid to rest in Sabtang Island, his birthplace, in Batanes on December 14.
Who is Florentino Hornedo and what are his contributions to literature?
FLORENTINO HORNEDO – Batanes native Florentino Hornedo is a scholar, professor, and cultural studies pioneer.
Prolific scholar-writer Florentino Hornedo is a professor, pioneer in cultural studies, and expert in Ivatan culture.
They know how to handle our pride. It's either you give up or accept the challenge and you get the best of things," Hornedo said.
"In our Spanish class, we couldn't answer our teacher in English, so we had to answer in Spanish no matter how broken our Spanish. "Teachers today were made readers than performers, thus alienating the very essence of literature from their students."
But when he is not too preoccupied with all this writings and researches, Hornedo suddenly becomes a painter.
"Later on, she would introduce me as her teacher in painting. 2 no.1, 1989, he expounded on the term “Filipinicity” and theorized that Philippine folk and popular literature was the result of forces such as significant and important events in Philippine history.
“Our Filipinicity is the late Frank Lynch’s dictum: Today’s native was yesterday’s visitors, Hornedo said.
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A.G. Divinagracia and L.T. Panti
Montage Vol. 10 • December 2006
Author's Note: I studied philosophy under Dr Hornedo in the UST Graduate School, and later as a faculty member, worked under him as associate editor of ad veritatem, UST's graduate research journal. These include the conferences on the Preservation and Promotion of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (Tokyo,1998), Preservation and Promotion of Traditional/Folk Performing Arts (Bangkok,1999), Building a Network for Preservation and Promotion of Traditional/Folk Performing Arts (Tokyo,2000) and Promotion of Safeguarding Intangible Cultural Heritage (Osaka,2004).
He has also served various posts in the Philippine government, such as being a commissioner of the Komisyon ng Wika and vice-chairman of the Committee for the National Sciences of the Philippine Unesco (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization) Commission.
in Literature in 1977 and a post-doctorate in History and Political Science in 1988, both at the UST Graduate School.
Views of Ivatan: typical houses built with stone and coral with an Ivatan boat. Second row: ruin of an ancient fort; a festival in native costumes.
But even before he finished his doctorate, he was already a faculty member of the Ateneo de Manila, where he, together with Bienvenido Lumbera and Rolando Tinio, formed a fearsome troika of Dominican-trained Thomasian professors who would hold sway over a generation of Ateneans under the very noses of the Jesuits.
Trailblazer
In 1979, as chair of the Cultural Society of the Philippines, Hornedo, together with his co-Ateneo professors Lumbera and Nicanor Tiongson, visited China on the invitation of Beijing authorities to see for themselves and the world the cultural progress that had been achieved there after the Mao Tse Tung years and the disastrous Cultural Revolution.
"Initially, we visited China to study the Peking Opera of Chinese theater.
Looking back they did not make things difficult to defeat you but difficult enough to challenge you. It was under Dr Hornedo's stewardship that ad veritatem attained the distinction of an international journal which it enjoyed for more than two decades. He is also focused on studying the Ivantans, Bago-o people, and Kankanay culture.
He was a full professor at the Ateneo de Manila University, a professorial lecturer at the Graduate School of the University of Santo Tomas, and a visiting professor in 20 universities in different countries like Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, China, and the USA.
Check out some of his famous books below:
- “Laji: An Ivatan Folk Lyric Tradition” (1979)
- “Pagmamahal and Pagmumura Essays” (1997)
- “Culture and Community in the Philippine Fiesta and Other Celebrations” (2000)
- “Taming the Wind: Ethno-Cultural History on the Ivatan of the Batanes Isles” (2000)
- “The Glitter of Gold in Batanes Cultural Heritage” (2000)
- “The Favor of the Gods: Essays in Filipino Religious Thought and Behavior” (2001)
- “Ideas and Ideals: Essays in Filipino Cognitive History” (2001)
- “Pagpapakatao and Other Essays in Contemporary Philosophy and Literature of Ideas” (2001)
- “Epics and Ballads of Lam-ang’s Land and People (Bago-o Traditional Literature of the Bakun and Amburayan River Valleys)” (2006)
Some of his achievements:
- commissioner of the Unesco National Commission of the Philippines
- commissioner for Ivatan language at the Commission on Filipino Language
- consultant to the Southeast Asian Arts and Culture project of the Asean and Unesco Center for Asian Culture in Tokyo, Japan
- chair of the Unesco International Committee and drafted the “Statement on International Intangible Heritage” at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C.
in 1999
- Parangal Hagbong for Lifetime Achievement in Letters from the Varsitarianduring the 27th Gawad Ustetika student literary awards
- several Palanca Awards for his essays
- Pilak Award by the Cultural Center of the Philippines in 2004
- Most Outstanding Thomasian Alumnus in the Arts and Humanities in 2006
- Catholic Authors Award
- National Book Award
- Batanes Provincial Achievement Recognition for Cultural and Social Research
- Recognition Award for Social Research from the UST College of Education Alumni Association
Hornedo was born on October 16, 1938, and died at the age of 77.
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What can you say about this?
"Identifying the core problems of human nature is one way of improving one's craft because it brings the writer closer to reality.
"Reality, in a sense, helps empower social consciousness."
Amid the tendency of many writers to gaze at their navels, Hornedo prefers to swim against the tide.
"Literature people nowadays are in an unhappy position of talking to themselves because the audience, mostly the lower class, does not have a profound understanding of their works," he said.
He said many writers often deal with the lives of the elite.
"Literature is for people, not only for the elite," he said.
The diversity could be gleaned from some of the titles of the books: Laji Anu Maddaw Ka Mu Lipus: An Ivatan Folk Lyric Tradition (1997); The Power To Be: A Phenomenology Of Freedom (2000), Culture and Community in the Philippine Fiesta and Other Celebrations (2000), Taming the Wind: The Ethno-Cultural History on the Ivatan of the Batanes Isles (2000), Pagpapakatao and Other Essays in Contemporary Philosophy and Literature (2002), The Favor of Gods: Essays in Filipino Religious Thought and Behavior (2001).
He passed away on December 9, 2015, in his home province of Batanes. When someone gave him a nice Swiss knife, he instantly fell in love with sculpture.
"I may not have any professional background in those forms of art, but I love doing them and as a professor of aesthetics, I think I also had something to say about art as a whole," Hornedo said.
An Ivatan and native of Sabtang, Batanes, he devoted much of his scholarly research to the Ivatans as well as the Bago-o people and Kankanay culture.
He was a prolific writer, researcher and author of journal articles, monographs and books such as Laji: An Ivatan Folk Lyric Tradition (1979), Pagmamahal and Pagmumura Essays (1997), Culture and Community in the Philippine Fiesta and Other Celebrations (2000), Taming the Wind: Ethno-Cultural History on the Ivatan of the Batanes Isles (2000),The Glitter of Gold in Batanes Cultural Heritage (2000), The Favor of the Gods: Essays in Filipino Religious Thought and Behavior (2001), Ideas and Ideals: Essays in Filipino Cognitive History (2001), Pagpapakatao and Other Essays in Contemporary Philosophy and Literature of Ideas (2001) and Epics and Ballads of Lam-ang’s Land and People(Bago-o Traditional Literature of the Bakun and Amburayan River Valleys) (2006).
He was a full professor of the Ateneo de Manila University, professorial lecturer at the Graduate School of the University of Santo Tomas and a visiting professor in 20 university in Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, China and the USA.
He was commissioner of the UNESCO National Commission of the Philippines, commissioner for Ivatan language at the Commission on Filipino Language and consultant to the Southeast Asian Arts and Culture project of the ASEAN and UNESCO Center for Asian Culture in Tokyo, Japan.