UE to confer honorary degree on alumnus National Artist
National Artist for Literature Virgilio Almario, who is also the incumbent chairman of the Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino, will be conferred the degree of Doctor of Literature, honoris causa, by his alma mater, the University of the East, on Sept. 20, 2 p.m., at the Conference Hall in UE Manila.
Also known for his pen name Rio Alma, Almario is a Filipino artist, poet, critic, translator, editor, teacher and cultural manager.
Initially a high school teacher in his native Bulacan, Virgilio Almario began his poetry career in the early 1960s as a UE student, taking up subjects under the University’s Bachelor in Secondary Education and Master of Arts in Education courses and becom ing the managing editor of the Dawn, UE’s well- known student newspaper.
He is credited for spearheading the second successful modernist movement in Filipino poetry together with Rogelio Mangahas and Teo Antonio.
His earliest literary criticism pieces were collected in the 1972 book Ang Makata sa Panahon ng Makina, which is now considered the first book of literary criticism in Filipino.
Almario has also been translating into Filipino works by the best contemporary poets of the world, as well as plays such as by Nick Joaquin and Bertolt Brecht and Jose Rizal’s
Noli Me Tangere and El Filibusterismo.
For his work on those two landmark novels, chairman Almario was given the 1999 award for translation by the Manila Critics Circle.
He had been an instructor at the Ateneo De Manila University from 1969 to 1972. In 2003, he was appointed dean of the College of Arts and Letters of the University of the Philippines, from which he had earned his Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and Master of Arts in Filipino degrees.
Almario has received numerous awards, including several Palanca awards, two grand prizes from the Cultural Center of the Philippines, the Makata ng Taon of the Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino, the Ten Outstanding Young Men (TOYM) award for Literature, and the Southeast Asia Write Award of Bangkok. He was proclaimed National Artist for Literature in 2003.
Almario will be only the 33rd recipient of an honorary UE degree in the University’s 70-year history.
This honorary-degree conferment upon him coincides with UE’s foundation anniversary celebration this year, whose theme is “UE Going Great @ 70.”
For more info about UE, please visit www. UE. edu. ph, like University of the East (UE) on Facebook and follow @ offi on Twitter.