The 1980 Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature and Creative Communication Arts

RESPONSE of Francisco Sionil Jose

In times like these when a writer can best express himself, perhaps, in allegory, let me tell you a very short story.

A long time ago there lived in the Central Plain of Luzon a boy who liked to read. His forefathers had come down from the north and had cleared the virgin land only to be dispossessed by influential men afterwards. The little boy's mother was God-fearing and hardworking and she taught her children those solid Ilocano virtues of patience and industry, without which they would not be able to endure the drudgery of the village.

That boy was free; he raced the wind and breathed God's sweet air. He learned how to read and a new world opened up for him. His teacher lent him the novels of Rizal and he wept over the fate of that hapless, demented woman, Sisa, and her two sons. He wandered with the settlers in the prairies of Nebraska in Willa Cather's My Antonia. And at night, when there was no kerosene for their lamp, he would walk to the far corner where, under the streetlight, he joined that knight errant, Don Quixote, in his misadventures.

Then the boy left home; kindly relatives took him to the city to study. He worked his way through college, writing short stories for a living since that was the only thing he knew. He fell in love, got married and raised a family. In time, he traveled far and, on occasion, he even dined with the mighty. He lost a bit of his naivete and his good humor but, always, he treasured memories of the village where he was born.

After many years he returned to it, and to his profound dismay he saw that the village had hardly changed, that his relatives and his old friends had not read what he had written. And seeing them, he asked himself why they were still poor and why he was comfortable.

His city friends asked why his novels were sad. They were sad because memory had chained him to a past afflicted with injustices and, as he looked around him, the same injustices still prevailed. His stories were melancholy because he realized the inadequacy of his response— the futility of words.

In writing it was not his intention to present a bleak human landscape. He had sought communion with any man in any village, hoping that he would be able to express the aspirations of those he had left behind. It was their agony, instead, about which he wrote. The boy who had raced the wind was now shackled. He had become a man and deep in his heart he knew he had left his village forever.

Please bear with me and the memory with which I am burdened. This Award makes it lighter. I accept it gratefully, remembering the many individuals with whom I have worked who believe in the dignity, not only of writers, but of all men, particularly those who have less in life and therefore less in law—whereas they should have more.

I accept this Award humbly, remembering those I have left behind who have suffered for truth and justice with a courage and fortitude that will never be mine.