NAKAKAPANGGALIT that F. Fionel Jose should be cited with contempt because on the gutter-sewage mind of the citer, Jose is merely a lifelong academe who also write novels on the side. Deplorable. Jose's 15 or so major novels have been translated so far in seven languages, including Russian. His sprawling epic-like work is ranked with Feodor Dostoyevsky. Jose also owns an Ermita-landmark bookshop named Solidaridad, which is the only one of its kind in the country in terms of variety and choices. Jose couldn't have find a comfortable welcome in academic/campus reading because his pervading theme on much of his literature is socio-political injustices and retribution, most of the time its disturbing and will upset ones who uphold, and ones who're fully entrenched, in the status quo.
I used to disdain Bencab because it looks like even his doodles could command top prize and collectors. A puzzle that doesn't seemed right to me, because even if I had the expendable money I would not take a Bencab in any medium. He also dances in front of television the Igorot canao ritual dance - in jeans, which is irreverent and hypocritical. Tingin ko mayabang si Bencab, and I could not appreciate at first his paintings and etchings. But after two decades, folk like me realizes Bencab could actually draw. Thats his true artistry, being able to draw. He also represented the country in an unofficial way, by doing art exhibits in London and other European cities since the 1970s, letting Westerners know our art is high-level. And for that he deserved to be cited as among our Artiste Nacional.
The contemptuous citer, on the other hand, is suspected to be a potential draftee of the usurper-President for her Senate slate, putting this komiks writer and massacre-meister as the newbie clown supplanting another Kapampangan clown who slept and skipped his way to the Senate. Such wa-es, clever gall - putting a clown to cover her putrid rectum once the retribution comes. Years ago, Levi Celerio receives a government pension as National Artist for something like P27,000 a month. Celerio lives, as I could recall best, in Camelot Hotel in the 90s. While that pension is handsome, generous, Celerio truly deserves it, not only for writing Ibong Pipit, but also for being an entry in Guiness as a lone man who could hum a melody out of a plant leaf. His living in Camelot is not also capricious because Celerio was alone. Today, a NA awardee receives P24,000 monthly pension and over a million in collected bonuses. Does this pretender who badly needs a barber job deserves to be paid that?
