Progeny as next-generation creatives
Congratulations to Monica Macansantos for her 20th Annual Marguerite and Lamar Smith Fellowship, entitling her to live and work at the Carson McCullers Center for Writers and Musicians in Columbus, Georgia, throughout the fall of 2025. She also recently launched her nth book, Returning to My Father’s Kitchen: Essays at the Majestic Repertory Theatre in Las Vegas, with support from the Black Mountain Institute.
A source of continued gratification over my engagement with creativity is sharing in the frequent news about milestones racked up by children of old friends—some of whom have passed on. A poet I had the good fortune of starting friendship with in Dumaguete City was Monica’s dad Francis “Butch” Macansantos, who became a regular in what is presently being nominated as a UNESCO City of Literature. Butch and I also met frequently in Baguio City.
Another writer-friend who adopted Dumaguete as a second hometown was fictionist Leoncio Deriada from Iloilo. We were fellow literature teachers at Silliman University at the outset of the 1970s. Our growing sons shared bikes and ninja items whenever we visited from Manila. Leo and I also frequently celebrated together on Palanca Night in September.
His daughter Dulce Maria, herself a writer-scholar teaching literature in UP-Iloilo, upholds her dad’s literary legacy by organizing the annual Leoncio P. Deriada Conference on Teaching Literature and Language as well as other cultural activities for West Visayan writers, who also compete for the Deriada Prizes for Fiction in various genres.
Another Dumaguete transplant in the 1960s/’70s was poet Merlie Alunan, who took over the Silliman Writers Workshop on years the Tiempos had to stay abroad during summer. Originally from Tacloban, Merlie became a professor emeritus of UP Visayas. She edited The Dumaguete We Know for Anvil in 2012, and has translated works from Ilonggo and Filipino to Waray. By the 1990s, my stints in Dumaguete led to friendship with her son Babbu, a terrific visual artist who painted on large cloth panels, besides operating a cafe-bar called Memento right across Silliman.
Also a dear friend from Dumaguete is painter Cristina “Kitty” Taniguchi, who established the Mariyah Studio and Art Gallery, eventually influencing her daughter Maria to forge her own sterling creative exploits internationally. Working across a fascinating range of media, while focusing on concepts of composing, constructing, and framing, Maria won the Hugo Boss Asia Art Award in 2015. She is said to “construct painted architectures, rather than images.”
The homegrown poet Ma. Luisa Aguilar Igloria, whom we first met in Baguio City in the early 1980s, went on to accomplish such remarkable success in the USA. With a PhD from University of Illinois at Chicago, she taught and rose through the academic ranks at Old Dominion University in Virginia. The 20th Poet Laureate of Virginia (2020-2022), she has authored some 15 books of poetry, garnering awards such as the May Swenson Prize and the Resurgence Poetry Prize, the world’s first major ecopoetry award.
A daughter, Ina Cariño, gained the 2021 Alice James Award for her first poetry collection, Feast, published by Alice James Books in March 2023, a 2022 Whiting Award, and the 2025 Lucille Medwick Award. She also plays music. So does older sister Jenny Cariño, also a visual artist, still Baguio-based. Younger sister Gabriela A. Igloria is also an artist.
A friend since the ’70s is the filmmaker who used the monicker Kidlat Tahimik. Now a National Artist for Film, Eric de Guia has three sons who all became notable artists. Sadly, the oldest who was a do-it-all creative, and who was called Kidlat, passed away a few years ago. His brother Kawayan is an accomplished visual and multimedia artist. The youngest, Kabunyan, is a mosaic artist and interior designer now based in Davao City.
The formidable painter Danny Dalena’s daughters are Sari, Kiri, and Aba—filmmakers, musicians, and avant-garde artists. Their mother Julie Lluch is a distinguished sculptor.
The departed Jaime de Guzman, painter and muralist non pareil, also a ceramist, raised several children with Anne, originally the potter in the family. I used to visit them in Liliw thence Tiaong and Candelaria in the ’70s, before they moved to Sagada for several years. As a young boy, oldest son Fausto would lead me to the beach with his brother Orlando, presently a cinematographer and first-rate international journalist.
Some of my oldest friends pride themselves in daughters who followed their footsteps. National Artist for Literature Gémino H. Abad collaborates on literary titles with Cyan Abad Jugo, herself a prizewinning fiction author and anthologist. It’s been decades since author Ani Rosa Almario, daughter of National Artist Virgilio S. Almario, turned Adarna House into the largest children’s book publishing entity. She also co-founded the progressive Raya School. The brilliant sculptor Agnes Arellano’s daughter Mishka Adams is presently in Senegal with her guitarist-husband Beto Calleti to perform at a Latin American jazz music festival. Some of her albums are available at Apple Music. Lensman-about-town Wig Tysmans’ daughter Nash Tysmans is still in Europe as a scholar, photographer, and cultural researcher. I recall when I used to tease her long ago at the Ateneo campus for being a “professional student.” Author Angela Stuart Santiago’s daughter Katrina Stuart Santiago, herself a writer, has established a small press as a successful independent publisher with the Everything’s Fine PH bookstore-gallery in Makati. The EF Catalogue is now available online, with its “themed bundles and all of our bestselling original titles.” Check it out here.
Of course, harking back, the oldest creative progeny we know are author Rowena Tiempo Torrevillas and dazzling poet-writer Juaniyo Arcellana, themselves successors to National Artists. Futurewards, other friends are adding third-generation creatives.
Actor, singer, and musical director Jaime Fabregas has overwhelmingly talented progeny. Actor Minco also composes. Multimedia artist Emilio plays guitar with the band Bonsai! Bonsai! Paulo is a painter and comics maker, with his popular Filipino Heroes League series joining his other highly-rated books on Goodreads. Like Emilio, Leandro has appeared on TV’s Family Feud Philippines. He plays bass for Rusty Machines. Their older sister Lara, former actress, now raises sportive sons in Scotland. With 12 grandchildren, Jaime’s sure to add more creatives to a large, festive, harmonious family!
Already having contributed successive generations of creatives are certain lifelong buddies. National Artist BenCab recently spawned collaboration with daughter Jasmine Isabel Cabrera, whose fashion art billed as Skywatcher by JazCab Collective recycles her dad’s sunset photos into design components for all sorts of dress items. “The sky tells a story and now it’s woven into our designs.” Meanwhile, her sister Mayumi, former model, takes pride in raising son Ronan, now 14, as a classical pianist. His sister Ione is a budding stage actor.
Adelaida Lim, writer and culinary marvel, and Antonio “Butch” Perez, photographer and filmmaker, contribute daughters Padmapani Lim Perez, author and anthropologist, and her sister Fifi, educator, photographer, and Mt. Cloud bookstore co-operator in Baguio City. Padma’s daughter Solana Lim Perez joined last year’s equestrian endurance race, the Mongol Derby, and wrote about it. She can’t help but arrest attention with her paintings and writings.
Indeed, it’s an incessantly extended family that gratifies us all. We’re not sportsmen whose genetic lineage may assure us of torch-passing. But thank heavens we’re not Filipino politicians either.
