Tributes pour in for National Artist F. Sionil Jose, while others remember his recent controversies

In her blog post, Filipino American author and publisher Cecilia Manguerra Brainard posted some of her "joyful pictures" with Jose, as she's lost for words for "still processing" the "really really sad" news.

Felipe Jocano Jr., the son of renowned anthropologist F. Landa Jocano, said Jose was a "good friend" of his father, noting that they're journalists who worked for the same paper back in the 1950s.

"Goodbye po, sir Frankie. You'll be up there with Dad, talking about all sorts of things once more," Jocano Jr. wrote.

Writer and editor Alma Cruz Miclat, the president of the Maningning Miclat Art Foundation which holds the Maningning Miclat Trilingual Poetry Awards and the Maningning Miclat Art Award, described Jose's 97 years of life as illustrious and exemplary.

Miclat said Jose's "Brave Heart," in reference to his final Facebook post, may have stopped beating but the stories he wrote will live forever. She also thanked him for supporting her foundation and her family "all these years."

Veteran essayist-fictionist Cristina Pantoja Hidalgo, meanwhile, recalled how Jose was already in his heyday as writer and owner of Solidaridad Bookshop, home of the country's best Filipiniana titles, even when she was still an undergraduate.

Even so, Hidalgo said Jose had always been welcoming.

As they've taken their respective career paths, Hidalgo said she and Jose remained friends in the last five decades. Though she also acknowledged that they disagreed on political issues sometimes, so much so that she's taken aback by his "peremptory ways."

"But never did we experience anything but support and encouragement from Frankie," she said.

Others who remembered Jose also pointed out the more controversial aspects of the literary titan's life.

National Artist for Literature Virgilio Almario, through the  online journal Filipino Ngayon where he is editor emeritus, remembered how Jose minced no words in stating his thoughts about other people in the discipline.

For instance, Almario said Jose was so enraged upon learning that Joma Sison, founder of the Communist Party of the Philippines, was conferred the Southeast Asian Writers Award in 2015. In another occasion, Almario noted how Jose also looked down upon National Artists for Dance Leonor Goquingco and Ramon Obusan, deeming their craft as not true art.

"Rio Alma" also pointed out Jose's racism and bigotry against the Filipino Chinese community. In 2015, Jose urged the government to shut down all Chinese schools "unless they are like the schools for the children of foreign nationals."

In a Jan. 19, 2019, column for the STAR, Jose suggested violence against the local ethnic Chinese, which he accused of being silent about the West Philippine Sea dispute, the way the "very good model" Vietnam did: expel them and confiscate their properties, even burn their factories.

Screenwriter Jerry Gracio, who's running in the 2022 polls as first nominee of the Kapamilya party-list, said Filipinos would be inclined to remember Jose not for his novels, "kundi sa pagkampi niya kay Duterte, pagpabor sa pagsasara ng ABS-CBN, at iba pang blunders sa mga huling sandali ng kanyang buhay."

Ang nakakalungkot, maaalala natin siya, di dahil sa kanyang mga nobela, kundi sa pagkampi niya kay Duterte, pagpabor sa pagsasara ng ABS-CBN, at iba pang blunders sa mga huling sandali ng kanyang buhay.

— Jerry B. Grácio (@JerryGracio) January 6, 2022

Jose has been a Duterte supporter and in a June 14 column for STAR wrote that President Rodrigo Duterte "may yet be the best president we ever had next to (Ramon) Magsaysay," in spite of his administration's controversies, including the bloody war on drugs, lukewarm stance on China, and pandemic response.

When ABS-CBN shut down last May 5, 2020, in compliance with the National Telecommunications Commission order to cease television and radio operations following the lawmakers' denial of a new congressional franchise, Jose in a Facebook post on May 8 that same year said he'll "not mourn the passing of ABS-CBN," adding that the Filipinos "do not really need ABS-CBN. It does not produce food or goods."

Veteran journalist Joel Pablo Salud, a long-time friend of the Joses who has taken him to task on social media for his pro-Duterte stance, also posted a farewell note.

Salud said goodbye to a " friend," with whom he never had the chance to iron out their differences, "grave as they may be."

In another Facebook post, the former PhilSTAR L!fe columnist recalled the moment that "Manong Frankie" bestowed him a gift, an ancient tree trunk sculpted by the river's current. The trunk fell and broke in two, and Jose gave him the other half, Salud noted.

"This is perhaps 500 years old,' the National Artist wrote in the letter. It included a blessing: 'May your prose be read in the future and survive as did this thing of beauty.'," his Facebook post read.

Edgar Samar of the Janus  Silang  young adult novel series fame, meanwhile, acknowledged that while he's disapproved of Jose's stance on matters in the past decade, he wrote in Filipino that he feels regret as he's an avid reader of Jose during his younger years.

A certain Mar Escalona, meanwhile, tweeted that Jose still left a mark in Philippine literature, even if he "might have turned questionable during his later years."

F. Sionil Jose might have turned questionable during his later years, however it cannot be denied that he still left a mark in Philippine literature. After all, he won’t be National Artist for nothing.

Sumalangit nawa, Nick Joaquin will be waiting for him there. https://t.co/xlzG23iFby

— Mar Escalona (@escalonamar) January 6, 2022

Escalona added that National Artist for Literature Nick Joaquin, Jose's contemporary and friend, "will be waiting for him there" in heaven.