an article with my Palanca

Saturday, August 21, 2004
Dabawenyos win Palanca awards
By Antonio M. Ajero

* Arnel Mardoquio garners grand prize in Cebuano short story writing; Don Pagusara is second
* Mac Tiu's history book also picked finalist

KADAYAWAN Festival revelers have something to thank the Almighty for aside from Davao's perennial abundance of fruits, flowers, vegetables and other crops.

It is the unusually bountiful harvest this year in the field of literary writing. Three Dabawenyos won top plums in Carlos Palanca literary awards, the country's most prestigious.

Arnel M. Mardoquio, a University of Mindanao economics graduate whose magnificent obsession as a child was to be recognized as a great storyteller, won the grand prize of the 2004 Carlos Palanca Awards in Cebuano short story writing with his entry "Ang Katapusang Sonata sa Clarinet ni Nikolet."

It is story of a poor child's burning ambition to be educated intertwined with his mother's struggle to liberate herself from the hold of his wife-battering father.

The second prize went to Don Pagusara, another Davao City resident who teaches at the Ateneo de Davao University. Pagusara's winning entry is entitled "Talia Migrante."

Another outstanding Dabawenyo writer - Dr. Macario Tiu, also of Ateneo de Davao, was chosen finalist in history book category. Dr. Tiu's entry was "Davao 1890-1910: Conquest and resistance in the Garden of the Gods."

Earlier in 2002, Tiu won the grand prize in Cebuano short story with his "Ang Bata nga Dili Matulog."

Pagusara who migrated to Davao City from Northern Mindanao is himself not a stranger to awards, having won the grand prize of the Bisaya magazine national short story writing contest five years ago.

Mardoquio, 39, started writing short stories in Cebuano two years ago, but his very first entry in 2003 Palanca awards entitled "Tikbalangkapre" won third place.

Mardoquio who wrote storylines and scripts of protest street plays during
Martial Law when still in high school recently left a high-paying marketing job promoting San Miguel Corporation's Ginebra San Miguel to concentrate on serious writing.

Before he tried his hand in Cebuano story writing, he already made a name as a multi-lingual playwright, lyricist, poet and theater actor among literary and art enthusiasts in Davao City and elsewhere in the country.

Observers of the literary scene say that the victory of Mardoquio following that of Pagusara and Tiu earlier is another confirmation that Davao writers can beat their Cebuano counterparts, who in the past were said to enjoy a kind of monopoly of the awards because of their presumed mastery of the Cebuano dialect.

Actually the "breakthrough" was made much earlier by another Dabawenyo literary great - Prof. Leoncio Deriada, who studied and taught at the Ateneo de Davao, later at the Silliman University in Dumaguete City and now at the University of the Philippines in Iloilo City.

Deriada won the grand prize in the Palanca short story writing in Cebuano. He also won two other Palanca grand prizes in English and Hiligaynon, making him qualified to be installed as a Palanca hall-of-famer.

As Palanca allows hall-of-famers to still compete for the annual award, Deriada's entry this year was one of those bested by Mardoquio's, thereby adding luster and significance to the grand prize that the young writer won.

(August 21, 2004 issue)