UNIT

ypes and ous of

Creatue Monfiction
ccording to the Merrian-Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature, creative
nonfiction is a form of prose "based mainly on fact rather than on the
imagination, although (it) may contain fictional elements." Scott Edelstein
in 100 Things Every Writer Needs to Know provides us with another
definition: "a work of nonfiction that uses some of the techniques of fiction, and/
or that concerns itself primarily with providingan emotional (rather than a]
merely
intellectual) experience" (75).
As amajor literary genre like poetry, fiction, and drama, creative nonfiction
also has many literary types and forms. Generally speaking, creative nonfiction can
be divided into three broad categories: biographical narratives,
narratives, and various kinds of personal or informal essays. autobiographical
Under the category of biographical narratives are the full-length biography, the
profile, the character sketch, and the interview story. The full-length biography, which
can either be single-volume or multi-volume,can be further subdivided on the basis
of the subject into the popular biography, the literary biography,and the historical
biography. On the other hand, under the category of
are the full-length autobiography-which can also eitherautobiographical narratives,
be single-volume or mlti
volume- the memoir, the diary, and the journal. Finally, under the category of the
personal or informal essay are the literary reportage, the descriptive essay, and the
reflective essay.
Special types of creative nonfiction, whose rise in popularity can be attributed to
the growth of the middle class, and the increase in the accessibility and affordability
of traveling to different places, are travel writing, food writing, and nature writing. Other emerging
forms of creative nonfiction which also deserve attention-although they may not be as literary as
the other types-are the testimonio, the blog, and the Facebook post.
InCreative Nonfiction: A Manualfor Filipino Writers, prolific creative nonfiction writer and prose
stylist Pantoja Hidalgo delineates the range and ambit of this literary genre:
Atone end of the spectrum would be literary journalism (what used
to be called "new journalism") writing in a personal way about the
facts in anews event which is still close to traditional reportage.
And at the other end is the literary memoir, what Annie Dillard
referred to when she said that "works of nonfiction can be coherent
and crafted worksof literature" (11).
Itmust also be said that the aforementioned literary types and forms often intersect in very
interesting ways. As a literary genre, creative nonfiction is comprised of a corpus of writing
that is highly malleable and thus prone to literary hybridity and genre crossings. For instarce, a
which means that it
memoir might be written using the journey or quest motif as its framework,
Would contain some of the elements of travel writing, but at the same time, it might also include
descriptions of the landscape of the author's childhood (which makes it reminiscent of nature
writing) and recipes of his or her favorite dishes (which makes it similar to food writing). This
memoir might also include snippets of poetry and song, dialogue written in dramatic format,
Certainly,
uolts of overheard conversations and commentaries, and all sorts of miscellanea.
s Kind of flexibility present in creative nonfiction, along with the availability of subjects
and
aterials, Contributes to the genre's continuously growing popularity among literary readers and
writers.
 Lesson
Biograykicalanatve

EXPLORATORY ACTIVITY
Expected Outcomes

o Define and differentiate

Your teacher will randomly call on five students to take
from one another
turns in doing the following in frontof the class:
the various types of
biographical narratives: the 1. Narrate the life story of one of your parents.
biography, the profile, the 2. Include details that you think are most significant about
character sketch, and the
your parent's life, such as your parent's birth, baptism,
interview story educational background, courtship, marriage, etc.
o Identify anddistinguish the
literary biography and the 3. In three minutes, prepare and organize your thoughts.
historical biography from 4. Deliver your narration in three to five minutes.
the popular biography
Even if you do not get called, listen carefully as your
B Write an interview story
classmates deliver their narrations. Take note of the details
about a person whose life they include in their narrations. Then, think of how you would
one finds interesting or narrate the life story of one of your parents. On a piece of paper,
intriguing write down your narration in one paragraph. Submit this to
your teacher at the end of the activity.

EXPLAINING KEY CONCEPTS

Biographical narratives can be classified according to ther

length, scope, and amplitude into the full-Hength biograplty, tne
profile, the character sketch, and the interview story. The
full-lengtn
biography can either be single-volume or multi-volume, and can
be further subdivided on the basis of the
subject into the popui
biography, the literary biography, and the historical biography.
82 TYPES AND FORMS OF CREATIVE NONFICTION
Biography
As the etymology of the term implies -bíos (life) and gráphein (writing)-the biography is
basically the narrative of a person's life written by someone else, in contrast to the autobiography,
which is the chronicle of a person's life written by the author himself or herself. According to
Harmon and Holman, "In England the word biography first came into use with John Dryden,
who, in 1683 called it the history of particular men's live" (59). Biography today, then, may be
defined as "the accurate presentation of the life history from birth to death of an individual, along
with an effort to interpret the life so as to offer aunified impression of the subject (Harmon and
Holman 59)."

Afull-length biography typically covers the entirety of the subjece's or the featured
person'sexistence (i.e., all the significant events surrounding his or her life from womb to
tomb). It usually includes a family tree and a chronology of milestones in its appendices
to further guide potential readers of the book. Technically, the full-length biographies
of literary and historical figures are easier to write than those of people who have left
behind very little written or pictorial documents; correspondingly, the historical or literary
biographer faces the tremendous challenge of reading and sifting through vast amounts
of textual and visual materials to come up with a coherent life story. An ideal fullHength
biographe, therefore, must have the necessary patience and stamina, as well as the clear
vision and powerful imagination, to reconstruct or put together a more or less truthful
narrative of the subject's life. This includes some, but not all, of the subject's hopes and
wishes, his/her fears and apprehensions, and all the other details that would help the
biographer produce a faithful portrayal of the subject's life and personhood.

The popular biography, as the term implies, refers to the life story of a famous and/or
successful person-ashow business personality, a professional athlete,a business tycoon,
a political leader, a fashion celebrity, a reigning monarch, or even a serial killer. Since the
main purp0se of the writer of the popular biography is to disclose or reveal to the most
number of people the personal tale of the public figure he or she intends to immortalize, he
or she usually foregoes the creation of mood and atmosphere in order to focus on the main
action and the nitty-gritty details of the narrative and the subjece's life. More often than
not,the writer of the popular biography also rides on the popularity or notoriety of his or
her subject. Apopular biographer who is quite opportunistic may even sensationalize the
life story that he or she is telling by focusing on the dirty linen or the scandalous and the
Outrageous aspects of his or her subject's existence.

LES^ON 1: BIOGRAPHICAL NARRATIVES 83

 biography and the historical biography, on the other hand
The literary
necessarily intended for popular or mass consumption, so they need not cater to the
common people'sfondness for gossip and rumors. Pantoja Hidalgo defines the literary
its
writtenin a manner
that would warrant being considered part
biograply as "biography society,
literature of a particular , not
ofnecessarily
that bodybiography recognized as particularly
of works about men and women in letters" (Creative Nonfiction: AManual190),or
the
On the other hand, the historical biography may be defined as a narrative of the existence of
historian, who is interested not only
a historical figure writen by another writer, usually a
in the personal circumstances and historic events that have shaped his or her subject, but
also on how his or her subject has shaped history in return. Both the literary biographer
the truth than the biographer
and the historical biographer are more concerned in telling
historical facts. Althoueh
the former in sharing poetic truths and the latter in revealing
being reticient
there are not many official biographies written in the Philippines, Filipinos
examples featured in thic
or even secretive when it comes to their private lives, the two
lesson are excerpts from very well-written official biographies of two important Filipino
the Filipno.
personages in Philippine history and economics: Washington Z. Sycip,
Chinese founder of the Asian Institute of Management (AIM) and the accounting firm
Sycip Gorres Velayo and Company (SGV & Co.), and Don Pio Pedrosa, whose career
climaxed during the administration of President Elpidio R. Quirino, whom he served as
Secretary of Finance, Chairman of the National Economic Council, and President of the
Philippine National Bank.

Examples

The Life, Times and Thoughts of Don Pio Pedrosa

(an excerpt)
Antonio A.Hidalgo

One
Don Pio

here are no set rules in the Philippines for affixing the honorific title of "Don" before a person S
name. In more avowedly class conscious societies with an embedded monarchical
traditi01,
such as Great Britain, titles are bestowed according to specific criteria and are conferred with
mut
pomp and ceremony. It is not so in our society, which has imbibed the aristocratic traditions o
Spain and overlaid these with the democratic traditions of the United States of America as aresult
of our peculiar colonial history. Hence, the titless of "Don" and "Doña" in our society are conferred
democratically, by informal acclamation among one's peer groups and in the mass media,though
they serve the purpose of providing class distinction to a person's identity.

84 TYPES AND FORMS OF CREATIVE NONFICTION

 Originally used in Spain to denote a nobleman or gentleman, "Don" was a title prefixed
to a person?'s Christian name. Over the centuries, "Don" in the Philippines has reverted to its
more archaic meaning, s1gnitying a person of consequence. Often, this consequence is measured
in terms of wealth, especially the extent of landholdings, hence founders of the large sugar and
oonut haiendas throughout the country were invariably bestowed the title of "Don" or "Doña."
As in the tradition of the aristocracies in monarchic societies, these titles have often been passed
on to the inheritors of the haciendas.
The title can also be conferred for great age, particularly when a person, aside from being
very old, is also the progenitor of a clan of impressive size which enjoys a certain degree of social
respect within its community.
In today's Philippines, standards have varied more accurately than before, and there are
"Dons" and "Doñias" in small towns who have been popularly acclaimed as such by virtue of their
nurturing a hardware store or a rice mill over a lifetime. There is also the somewhat pejorative
meaning to the ternm popularized by Mario Puzo in his "Godfather" novels, which are peopled
with Mafia lords who are addressed as "Don." The local jueteng lords who are called "Don,"
doubtless derive from this recernt convention in the popular culture.
Don Pio Pedrosa earned his honorific title by virtue of the nobility of his character, his
considerable achievements, his service tothe nation, and his exemplary behavior throughout his
humble
long and full life. He had neither great wealth nor vast haciendas. He surmounted his
to
origins in Palo, Leyte, and the death of his father and his mother while he was still in high school,
make his mark on our national history purely through his extraordinary intelligence and industry.
He worked his way through high school in Palo, Leyte, and through an A.B. in Commerce
and an M.A. in Economics at the University of the Philippines. Starting as a clerk in the
government service during the Commonwealth period, he worked his way up to become the
under
Budget Commissioner under President Manuel L. Quezon; the Budget Commissioner
President Manuel A. Roxas; and Finance Secretary, Chairman of the Monetary Board, Chairman
of the National EconomicCouncil, and President of the Philippine National Bank under President
Elpidio Quirino.
He earned international reputation by ably representing the country in several important
conferences, including the International Trade Organization in Geneva in 1950, when the newly
independent Philippines was still groping its way within the community of nations. After retiring
from the government service, he became President of the Prudential Life from 1956 until his death
on October 1, 1985 at the age of 85. While in the private sector, Don Pio served on the board of
directors of several large corporations, like Esso Fertilizer. He also became something of a roving
ombudsman, delivering eloquent and insightful speeches on topics of national importance in
order to influence national policies. His speeches are remarkable for their perspicacity and many
of his ideas remain relevant to our public discussions today.
One of Pio's great projects was his family. He married his childhood love in Palo, Luisa
Acebedo, and they had nine children: six boys and three girls - Jose Antonio, Ramon, Lourdes
Maria, Alberto, Fernando, Ana Josefina Delfina, Augusto, Leticia Victoria Dolores and Ricardo
LESSON 1: BIOGRAPHICAL NARRATIVES 85
 (Jose Antonio died as an infant) as
Carlos. Theyeducated
Christians, broughtthem up eight
well, and children

Thanks to the high

god-fearing
oftheprovidedthem with good examples as active laymen in the
priority Pio and Luisa gave.to
upCatholic
their children - allitsofcharity
Church and work.
bringng
them became professionals, contributedtheir efforts and talents to the
country in their chosen fields, and brought up their own families in astable, caring environment
Only Augusto, who is a Diocesan priest, did not marry. Six of the children still survive, Fernand
having died on November 5, 1990 and Lourdes Maria having passed away on March 30,1995.
At theend of his life, Pio was called "Don" not only by his clan and the people who knew him

and worked with him, but also by a grateful nation.

Two
The Early Years
on May 4 10n.
A true child of the previous century, Pio Pedrosa was born in Palo, Leyte
and was baptized the following day, May 5, which was Saint Pius V's day, from whence, came his
Christian name.
service in 1951, Pio wrote his
In his later years, after he had retired from the government
memoirs, some of them typewritten, some handwritten, and preserved tor posterity the facts
illustrious career in the
of his early years in Palo, Leyte and of critical periods in his long and
government service (Pio Pedrosa Undated and Unpublished Memoirs).
Carlos, the Father
His father was Carlos, a master carpenter and boat builder with a hectare or two of land
which he planted to palawan, a tuber used in Leyte for subsistence when the rice crop was short.
rice, corn and coconuts.
Carlos Villas Pedrosa was born on November 2, 1876 and married Martina Durango Puebla,
who was born on November 10, 1877, on July 11, 1899. Carlos and Martina had seven children, of
whom Pio was the first-born. Pio's brother, Nicolas, and sister, Emilia, who were twins, died as
infants. His sister, Felicidad, also died in infancy. Hence, Pio grew up with three sisters, Angeles,
Trinidad and Clotilde.

In Pio's memory, his father, Carlos, was renowned for his strength. He remembered that a
particularly destructive typhoon in 1912 had severely damaged the roof of the town church (now
the Palo Archdiocesan Cathedral), dislodging its truss beams from their moorings. Several maestro
de obra from nearby towns were called in to right the church roof, but they failed. It was Carlos, the
local carpenter, who finally succeeded in mooring the truss beams by hoisting himself daily, harnd
over hand, from the church floor to the ceiling on a thick rope hanging from the rafters.
Carlos was also the town scribe who prepared in ornate penmanship on papel de catalan al u
deeds of mortgage or sale of farm and town lots in Palo. He built three lorchas (two-massed salli
vessels) in his lifetime: one on the beach of Dulay, Leyte for a Chinese firm in that town, anouie
on the beach of Panalaron, Tacloban for the abaca-buying firm of Yu Biao Suntua, and a third ao

86 TYPES AND FORMS OF CREATIVE NONFICTION

shipvardbythe Embarcadero River in Tanawan, Leyte for the copra buying and selling house of
Tacloban
Tan Sen Guan Hermanos in
Pio accompanied his father in sailing the third ship from Tanawan to Tacloban and
ememberedIthe thrill of riding astride the control beam of the tiller, under the watchful eyes of
Carlos, with the left and right guide ropes in his hands.
Martina, the Mother
Pio's mother, Martina, was a seamstress who owned a Singer sewing machine operated by
afoot pedal. To augment the family income, Martina cut and sewed sayas, camisas and kimonas,
for the women of the town and trousers, shirts and camisas de chino for the men. She also raised
pigs and laying hens in their backyard. Occasionally, the pigs and chickens provided special food
for the family on Easter Sunday or the town's fiesta. Most of the time, she sold the pigs, eggs and
chickens for cash and prepared simple meals of rice, fish and vegetables for the family.
Like the other families in Palo, Carlos and Martina were deeply religious: the entire family
would rise at four a.m. each morning to recite the rosary, with Carlos leading them. At six, Pio
would accompany his mother to the church to attend the daily mass. When he was old enough,
Pio served as an acolyte at mass and sometimes rang the bell in the church belfry to call the
townspeople to mass. Pioenjoyed this latter duty and remembered throughout his life the names
Honorata
and the respective tones of the bells: one was called "Honorata" after its donor, Doña
Reyes-Biao Asensi; another was called the "Purisima Concepcion" and had the deepest ring;
athird was named the "Santo Rosario" and had a higher-pitched tone, being smaller than the
"Purisima."

Early schoolingand a precocious first love

Pio learned reading, arithmetic and the Doctrina Cristiana at a private elementary school run
communion when he was
by the couple of Mano Diok and Mana Pastora. He received his first
three days in
nine and remembered having to prepare for it with several other communicants for
Carias who spent
a santo ejercicio (holy retreat). Their retreat master was an old man called Mano
hell. With
most of his time vividly describing to them the glories of heaven and the miseries of
his fellow communicants, Pio received his first communion in short white pants, white socks,
As he
white shoes, white shirt, white tie and white armband decorated with a chalice and a host.
received communion, two elderly ladies, Felicidad Acebedo and Remedios Sevilla, stood opposite
each other in front of the altar, and held a length of white muslin cloth at each end beneath the
officiating priest's hands - to catch any crumb of the host that might fall.
It was in this school that Pio first developed a crush on Luisa Acebedo. He was in Grade V
and she in Grade II. He was thirteen (a bit late in his schooling as he had to help his father in tilling
the land) and she was eight. He often saw her outside of school, while tending goats for her uncle,
the Mayor of Palo. The goats were kept beneath the house and as he attended to them, Luisa,
who lived with her uncle, would sometimes come down from the front staircase. He was always
mesmerized by the sight of the little mestisa girl, whose slim, beautiful legs had the complexion of
porcelain, so clear that he could see the bluish veins running through her legs in a marble pattern.
LESSON 1: BIOGRAPHICAL NARRATIVES 87
 it
about his hopeless crush,though must have been
But it was not the time to do anything him one time at class
Luisa...Pio
obvious enough tor some of
loves
his
classmates
Luisa,"
male
to surround
Luisa belonged dismissal
to the prominentAcebedo clan whichto
chant: "ioloves LL which counted amone its
Virginmembers
oil milling and
selling and coconut of
General of the Religious the
was into Copra buying and Mother Mary.
bishop andthe seamstress
and part time
several alcaldes, priests, nuns, a school pupil, son of a carpenter and
He was still only Pio, elementary
goatherd. known, at that time, was
and even Pio may not have that
know, possessed in,
However, what Luisa did not birth sign, who abundance
the
subject of this
Pio was born of Taurus, an exceptional obstinacy, even the bullheadedness of the aFimal
determination, itself. It
legendary qualities of stamina, other than the feared Bull would take
personifies the denizens of this sign none himself in the largest arena
that within
Pio would have tosurvive first, then prove true to his
many, many years:
Philippines;: but he
would remain dream and
his reach the Insular Government of the
letter.
attain his love in Manila more than a decade

Zarzuelas of Pio's youth nf

parents were deeply involved in the church and parish activities
Pio remembered that his the fiesta in honor of St. Anne;
another
the Hermana Mayor at
the town. One year, his mother was expensive to
was the Hermano Mayor at the festivity of the Sta. Cruz de Mayo. lt was
father
year, his
the townspeople on the visperas of the celebration
preside at these celebrations, provide a feast for they
drama presentation in the town plaza. When
and on the day of the fiesta, and sponsor the
hearing his parents fretting over the expenses
presided over the town celebrations, Pio recalled
damage to their family finances. Nonetheless, they
they could shoulder only with considerable
did their part when called upon by the church.
by the zarzuela that year, which
When Carlos was Hermano Mayor, Pio was enthralled
which Jesus Christ was crucified. St. Helena,
revolved around the discovery of the original cross in
discovered the cross and proved that it was,
the mother of the Byzantine Emperor Constantine,
dead man, who forthwith sprang
indeed, the original cross by laying a chip of it on the chest of a
for a Christian lay-in
back to life. Pio remembered a Moro office in the play declaring his love
waiting to Queen Helena with the following words:
Mapapanas an kabukiran
Manhuhubas an kasasalugan
Kundi diri mahugpoy
An akon ha imo paghigugma
(The mountains willbe levelled,
The rivers will dry up
But the fire of my love for you
Will never die) (Pedrosa Undated: 7)

88 TYPES AND FORMS OF CREATIVE NONFICTION

 Pio recalled another memorable zarzuela in his youth. It was about the judgement being
rendered onthe soul of a man who had just died:

The soulwas Mano Jose Sevilla, who later became Mayor of Palo. His guardian angel,
Remedios Sevilla, a beautiful girl in ashimmering white gown, with her wings sprouting
out of her shoulders, was by his side, protecting him against the onslaughts of the devil,
Eusebio Acebedo, who was dressed tightly in black, with wings like those of a big bat,
his face and hands painted red, with two horns of a cow sticking out of his head. His
entrance and swagger on the stage were spectacular, he would have a mouthful of
petroleum which, upon entering the stage, he would blow on a lighted candle so that
abig ball of fire would momentarily be blasted in front of him, scaring the "angel," the
"soul' and the audience. Another angel of rather austere mien, St. Gabriel, was holding
a balance (borrowed from the meat dealer in the market) on one plate of which was
loaded a thick book of the "soul's" sins in life, and on the other, a rather thin volume
containing his good works. Naturally, the big book outweighed the smallone, until the
guardian angelproduced a rosary upon which the "soul" had said his prayers prior to
his release from his dead body. The guardian angel placed the rosary beads on the plate
containing the record of his good works, upon which, lo and behold! the balance swings
in favor of the guardian angel, and the "soul" goes to heaven, to the discomfiture of
the "devil," who immediately leaves the stage with another explosion of fire from his
mouthful of petroleum accompanying his exit (Pedrosa Undated: 8-9).
High school
After completing his elementary education in Palo, Pio enrolled in the Leyte High School
in Tacloban, the only high school in the province of Leyte at that time. The school was several
kilometers away from their town, so Pio walked back and forth everyday with his only pair of
leather shoes slung on his back to spare them. He hitched rides on carromatas whenever he could
and stripped sugar cane by the wayside with his teeth for his mid-day snack. Pio's son, Ramon,
says that he tried this once on a visit to his father's hometown. It was not easy, for extracting the
juice was like chewing gum incessantly, and stripping the bark required really strong teeth. Mon
nearly lost his doing it and swore to never try it again.
Pio commuted to school in this way for several months without complaining. However,
Carlos had noticed the dificulty his son was experiencing and built him a smallhouse on arented
lot near the school grounds to ease his burden. Pio shared the house with five other boys from Palo
who were enrolled in the same high school. The arrangement was that each brought two gantas
of rice and P1.50 of marketing money per week. They took tums marketing, cooking and cleaning,
and in the process, acquired the life skills needed for an independent existence. So adept did they
become at managing their household that Pio remembered how they would often save enough
from the marketing money to take in amovie which cost them 20 centavos each.

LESSON 1: 8IOGRAPHICAL NARRATIVES 89

Tragedy strikes
This exciting independent existence lasted less than a year. While Pio was still in
Year of high school, Carlos dies after a brief illness on August 1, 1916, when Pio was only his first
old. It was a tragedy of major proportions for the young Pio. The father he had
strength and intellect was suddenly gone, plunging the family into poverty, as
main breadwiinner. Pio recalled bitterly that Carlos must have died of the injuries he
idCarlolizoeds 16yewasforartheshis
from a fall while repairing the church roof after the typhoon of 1912. Carlos' greathad
sustained
then, which had established his reputation for strength and skill
insidiously caused his death.
as a master carpenter.
achievemealnsto
had
At the wake of his father, Pio gallantly offered to take Carlos' place in tilling their
of land. Martina would not hear of it and firmly encouraged Pio to continue with his little parcel
this was the only way he could get ahead in life. It was Martina who tried to fill the yoid as
left by the studies,
death of Carlos by working harder at her income-generating activities.
Thus was Pios future temporarily saved and his character slowly forged by
While continuing with his studies, he tilled the land on weekends and took on odd jobsmisfortto uhel
ne.,
his mother. A year later, when he was junior in high school, he worked as a clerk for the scho
principal, Jasper Ross Boyd, who paid him P20 a month. This temporarily stabilized his situation
after the death of his father and allowed him to continue with his studies.

Tragedy strikes again

The stability did not last long. however. When Pio entered his senior year, Martina dies on
July 31, 1919 and Pioand his three sisters were orphaned. It was an unlikely melodramatic spate of
family disasters within a brief period of three years which would have tested the mettle of an older
man. Pio was only nineteen when he was, once again, severely tested by the harsh circumstances
of his life.

He wanted toquit school at thispoint to provide for his sisters, but was dissuaded by Lester
Rivers, his teacher in physics, and Lester's wife, his teacher in English. They prevailed upon him
to complete his studies so that he might fulfill the potential that they had seen in him. Fortunately,
Insi Lucia, a spinster sister of the late Carlos, took in Pio's sisters. This allowed Pio to follow the
advice of the Rivers couple.
He devoted himself to completing high school and managed to graduate a year later a
salutatorian despite being a working student. The valedictorian was his childhood friend, Eduardo
Quintero, who would later become an Ambassador and gain fame for exposing the bribery I
President Marcos unleashed on the 1972 Constitutional Convention.
Following his graduation, Pio took the first grade Civil Service examination in Tacloban
during the summer school break. While waiting for the results of the test, he applied for, and
obtained, a job as a fourth grade school teacher at the Tacloban Elementary School, to teach class
IV-A.

90 TYPES AND FORMS OF CREATIVE NONFICTION

 Plothe teacher

He liked teaching and was able to inspire the spirit of inquiryin his pupils. Being a novato
teacher fresh out of high school himself, he adopted an encouraging, permissive style in
contrast with the prevailing norm of authoritarian teaching at that time. His pupils responded
by rowdily competing with one another to recite in class, sometimes standing up and shouting
"1,Sir, I, Sir!" to get Pio's attention. The aggressive attitudes he engendered enabled his pupils
to emerge as champions in the arithmetic and spelling contests in the Tacloban District Inter
Scholastic Competition in 1920, where they beat the representatives from all the other schools in
Leyte province. But this type of behavior in his classroom also brought Pio to the attention of his
supervising teacher, Saturnino Mari, an old school administrator in the disciplinarian mode. Mari
considered Pioone of the worst teachers in the entire school district because of his permissive style
and oftern lectured him on his deficiencies,
Pio's unhappy situation in his teaching job came to an end in September of that year. The result
of the Civil Service examination he had taken in Aprilcame out and Pio was one of the only two
Leyteñios who passed that year out of some thirty ranking officers of the provincial goverrment
who had tried. He has passed with a grade of 78.4% to become a first grade Civil Service eligible.
Itwas a welcome vindication for Pio, since Mari, his supervisor, was only a second grade eligible
and the Principal of the elementary school, who had sided with Mari on the dispute about Pio's
teaching style, had no civil service eligibility.
To Manila-for fame and fortune
There was a special significance attached to Pio's becominga first grade eligible which is not
readily apparent in today's context. The year was 1920. In 1900, the Taft Commission enacted the
Civil Service Law for the Insular Government. By 1903, about as many Filipinos as Americans,
some 2,697, were employed in the Civil Service bureaucracy. Following the intent of the law,
the ratio of Filipinos to Americans in the Civil Service increased rapidly in the following years.
Around the time Pio qualified for the Civil Service, there were about 13,000 Filipinos to only 600
Americans in the government bureaucracy (Boncan 1999:85). Important portions in the Insular
Government were rapidly opening up for Filipinos. And Pio, in faraway Tacloban, had just
qualified for these positions.
This gave Pio the confidence to decide to seek his fame and fortune in Manila - the largest city
in the country, where the very seat of government lay. He resigned from the Tacloban Elementary
School and booked his third class passage to Manila abord the SS Suntua. Before leaving, he
remembered to give his sisters his share in the small parcel of land left by his parents. He asked
his aunt to sell one of the two carabaos owned by the family. His aunt gave him P60 from the
proceeds of the sale. Half of this went to pay for his fare and the remainder he added to his last
month's teachers pay of P40 as his baon for embarking on a new life.
Pio had P70 in his pocket when he finally sailed for Manila in December, 1920.

LESSON 1: BIOGRAPHICAL NARRATIVES 91

 Wash, Only a Bookkeeper:
ABiography of Washington Z. SyCip
(an excerpt)
Jose Y. Dalisay, Jr.

Building up the firm

even greater importance to Wash than building ahouse was building up the
had started. Far from the international accounting giant it would eventually company he
SyCip &Co. was an extremely modest firm, operating in the shadow of
connected companies owned and run by foreigners.
become,welW.l.
long-established.
Wash couldn't afford to meet that kind of competition head-on, so he decided
what would become one of SGVs hall1marks: gettingthe best people, givingthem goodtoi invest in
and training them to do their job better.
"When I started the office, I could not pay the staff what the bigger firms
incentives,
told them If you join me, were paying. So I
your pay may be lower, but every quarter we will have a bonus'
I made it apoint that their income would not be lower than what the And
foreign firms paid," Wask
says. Beyond simple remuneration, Wash also offered his recruits something even the best of
them
could scarcely hope to achieve in a typical British accounting firm: the promise of
becoming a
partner in the firm if they worked exemplarily well, and if the company grew.
It also helped that Wash continued to teach
accounting in some top universities, because he
was then able to spot and recruit the brightest students.
In 1947, Wash took in Vicente Jose, a BIR tax
examiner, as partner. "The practice was growing,
and we needed a tax person. My father was the one who
introduced Enteng to me. My father said.
"He's an honest man. If you need a tax man, then why don't you get
Enteng to join you?"
By the time Enteng Jose--indeed quiet and
competent, never flashy--came on board, the
company was occupying a larger office space at the Trade and Commerce Building, He would
be joined there by other prize recruits among them, two
Villanueva and Lourdes Taliry.Linda was the sister of Wash's very bright young women, Linda
friend Bert Villanueva, who alerted
Wash to the fact that Linda was about to graduate from UST;
Lourdes was also an honors graduate whom Wash talked into Wash promptly signed her up.
joining the firm.
The SyCip spirit was infectious. Rodolfo "Jake" Jacob was
when he heard about this new firm that was taking on the already working for White &Page
British
attend one of Wash's lectures at FEU. Iwas curious about him," firms. "Intrigued, I decided to
Iheard. He was obviously ake would write. "I liked what
concerned with more than just rebuilding, which was everyone's cre
Concern after the war. He saw
accountancy as a
play in national development. Here was a man withprofession, and as having an important roleto
a vision,, to which he seemed truly
Idecided to join up." comiteu

92 TYPES AND FORMS OF CREATIVE NONFICTION

 By 1951, the firm had grown to 26 people. The partners and staff usually worked through
Sunday, and Wash began a practice of treating them to Sunday lunch at the Savory Restaurant near
lones Bridge, walking from the Trade and Commerce Building. Wash made a point of being there
and setting the example for others, especially the partners. "Very often,we took the inventory on
Sundays,so I involved myself in it. Imay not have been the one doing the counting, but I would
always show up there, so no one would think that Iwas taking it easy while they were hard at work.
We would all get together for lunch-partners and janitors alike. Everyone knew each other then."
Wash was no office tyrant, but he was known to be strict. "Ihad to maintain discipline. They knew
that I would not ask them to be on time ifI was not on time. So I always made it a point to be there
earlier. I told all the partners, 'Don't ask your staff to be on time if you yourself are playing golf.
You have to set an example."
In those early years, Wash did the hiring himself. Carlos "Charlie" Alindada-SGV Chairman
and Managing Partner from 1996 to 1999-joined SGV in 1954. "All you had to do was bring your
transcript of records," Charlie would recall. "SyCip was the one who interviewed me directly."
Alindada must have impressed Wash, because he started the next Monday with a salary of P150 a
month. "But he loaded me with all kinds of difficult jobs. He was waiting for me to burst. He'd test
vour limit. He wanted to see how much work you could handle." Later, Charlie Alindada would
remember spending Christmas Eve on top of fuel tanks doing inventory work.
It would happen, over the many decades of his helmsmanship of SGV, that Wash would
find himself leaning harder on his people to get the desired results. When the wife of a partner
complained that they continued to be cash-strapped when Wash knew otherwise, he took the
partner aside to straighten him out; the partner had been keeping his quarterly bonus to himself.
When another partner's amorous liaisons caused him to sleep on the job, leading to the loss of a
valuable account, Wash promptly fired the fellow..
Sometimes Wash's legacy as a boss would survive in more subtle ways. Charlie Alindada
confessed that his dark, knee-high socks were a throwback to Wash. "That's Wash SyCip's
influence. He says skin shouldn't show and is a stickler for conservative dressing." Wash also
observed certain office formalities. When Alindada asked SyCip in 1972 if it was time to let Roy
Navarro-who had already been made partner and sent to Thailand-to call him "Wash," the boss
said, "Not yet," because Roy was only second in command in Thailand then.

Fred Velayo comes on board

Soon, Wash was meeting more and more people in business, and many of their early clients
came that way. He joined the Jaycees, and there met his lifelong friends, Ramon (Monching) del
Rosario, Roberto (Bert) Villanueva, Jose (Jobo) Fernandez, P.L. Lim, and Charlie Palanca. He also
became a member of the Philippine Institute of CPAs (PICPA).
But one personal friendship and professional partnership stood out in these early years:
Wash's lifelong association with the man who would provide the "y" in SGV, Alfredo "Fred"
Velayo. Fred had been Wash's childhood schoolmate, playmate, and buddy. Wash remembers
Fred's mother making colorfulshirts for him.
LESSON 1: BIOGRAPHICAL NARRATIVES 93
 Fred, in turn, remembers that their first encounter wasn't too auspicious. It wa. the
of their first grade in Padre Burgos Elementary School; they were five years old, first day
elder siblings and relatives, and as soon as the bell
companions had to leave all of them but Wash, who sat
rang, the children started
unperturbed, because
agood friend of the principal and was allowed to stay on. "Right that first day,
,ac ompmotaniheedr
bawin g
hi
of
by
s when their
was
hated him. Naturally. He was looking at us, saying,'Why the hell are youlitle kids Course, we all
remembers with a chuckle.
he had to
crying" Fred
That was probably as much privileging as Wash ever got, because prove himself
promotion" (asthe term for
the rest of the
way- and he did, getting a "double
then) along with Fred, who was just as bright-or almost, because Fred got accelerated.
acceleration was
Wash jumped ahead of the line thrice. Only much, much later-when Wash retired from SGVbutin twice,
1996-did he casually let slip the factthat hesqueaked past Fred that third time because there was
room in the other class for just one more boy, andthe teacher chose
him-alphabetically. When
Fred demanded an explanation for all the decades he had spent in torment, Wash
smiled andsaid, "Fred, Ithought you knew it allalong" Supposedly
In any event, Wash finished grade school a semester ahead of Fred; and then they met up
again in V. Mapa High School, remaining buddies. "We both lived in Sta. Mesa. We both o
walked to school. For me, I wasliving in nthe rice fields, and I often walked to)school,even barefoot,
with my shoe hanging, or whatever, so we took ashortcut, the water pipes, which wentt
through from San Juan to Manila, and nearer Burgos, where we got off, but these were over rive straight
and marshes. What the hel! We were young kids. We jumped from the big pipe to the small pipe.
Thank God, we never had any accident."
It was afriendship-and afriendly rivalry-that would endure on to college at the University
of Santo Tomas and to their professional life at SGV. "We were always the best," Fred muses.
"There was never any rivalry in abad sense. We were just better than anybody else. Except in
one subject in Santo Tomas, in Spanish." Fred's father had been a teacher of Spanish, so it was
a language he knew well, certainly better than Wash. "After we were walking out of that exam,
he rushed to me. I walked very fast all he time, and he always ran because he's so short." Wash
asked him the answer to aquestion in the 30-point exam; it was the translation for "Shut the door"
which was "Cierra la puerta." Thinking on his feet-or perhaps clutching at straws-Wash had
cobbled together some Tagalog words he knew into "Susi-ar la pinto." Again, it was a very rare
case of Wash being left behind in anything. Eventually, to no one's great surprise, Wash finished
his four-year course in two-and-a-half years, graduating afullyear ahead of Fred, and ending up
being Fred's teacher in one subject at the ripe old age of 17. Amazingly, Fred would close the gap
a bit by also getting to teach in his junior year, also at 17.
"The friendship was always there," says Wash. Wash and Fred corresponded while Wasn
was in Columbia, although rarely. Fred later worked for Don Albino at the Internal Audit of Chna
Bank. It was inevitable that Wash's and Fred's paths would cross again.
They completelylost touch with each other during the war, but were reunited in Manila
were
when Wash returned in 1945. Fred had married a pretty lawyer named Harriet and they

94 TYPES AND FORMS OF CREATIVE NONFICTION

livingin SannJuan, but Harriet was an American citizen, and her family moved to the States after
he war. Fred went with Harriet to the US, and he began studying for a masters degree at the
University of Southern California but was soon drafted into the US Army for aone-year tour.
When, late in 1946, Wash had to leave the practice to fulfill a six-month residency requirement
in the US, he needed someone he could trust to mind the business while he was gone. "I didnt
intend to be smal, so Ihad to have partners that Icould trust," Wash says. So, before he left, he
wrote Fred Velayo to invite him to join the firm. Getting together in business was the most natural
thing for the two best friends to do. They had both specialized in accounting, and knew the other
probably better than anyone else.
The letter that Wash wrote Fred remains among the most treasured of SGV memorabilia.
Dated December 16, 1946, it says:
"Dear Fred,

Received your letter from Alaska the day after Imailed my last letter-but hasten to write
you this note. You should try to return as soon as possible as the top opportunities here
are excellent-the earlier you start the better. Master's degree doesn't mean much-ninety
percent of the FEUaccounting faculty do not have anything more than a bachelor's
degree -including some of the highest paid ones.
But now is the time to get started as I believe that the more you put it off, the greater
willbe the competition when you get settled. There's a lot of accounting work-and you
can combine this with teaching and importing (with Miller-Gates)the returns are much
larger here than in the States and the competition for a capable person is much less. So
cabron, get the hell out on that boat and come out here. The various bills before Congress
willundoubtedly increase the work of CPAs-but youhave to get in on the ground floor..
so come over fast. You can also try your hand at insurance-good and profitable line. Cost
of living has been going down during the past month in spite of strikes in the States.
Housing isn't worse than in the States so make up your mind-be your own boss-and
come to virgin territory! See you soon.
Wash."

Fred was stationed with the Army in Fairbanks, Alaska at that time, and was loath to leave;
he and Harriet had practically just begun their married life in the US, and were looking forward
to raising afamily. Initially, Fred declined Wash's invitation. But just afew weeks later, in January
1947, Fred changed his mind, packed his bags, and went home. As he explained it to Harriet, Fred
understood what Wash was aiming for with the company he had set up; he could see what Wash
was seeing, and the prospects looked to0 good to pass up on the opportunity to get in almost at
the beginning, so he said yes and agreed to come home from the US to help his old friend out.
(Typically, Fred jests that Wash "lied" to him, masking the real reason for needing him in Manila.)

LESSON t: BIOGRAPHICAL NARRATIVES 95

 Fred flew home on a P'an Am plane from San Francisco, leaving his wife
pregnant with their baby Cathy: on that same flight were two men whose paths would Harriet, awholso
was
with Wash's-Carlos P. Romulo and Leonides Virata.
cros
Ihe office that greeted Fred was what Wash and his brothers had set up at the
Commerce Building in Binondo: Alex's law firm, David's export-import business.
fledgling accounting practice. Wash and Enteng Jose were being helped by a[mall andTradeWass
and
included Jose Quintos, Bernardo San Luis, and Lourdes Taliry. With Fred's arrival team
that
the
moved to Room 407 of that same building.
Wash knew exactly how Fred wouldfit in. He wasn't going to assign Fred to
group
the way tax cases went to EntengJose; Wash and Fred would size up cases as the speciic
cient cases
and decide between themselves who would handle it best. Blessed with
and an easy manner, Fred was the ideal "people person"-someone who could deal movie-star came
good looks
in,
with
suited forclients
well as he could take care of internal administration."His temperament was well as
relations," explains Wash, "so he took care of alot of the problems, questions, and public
tasks. Fred was a lot of fun. He was very good|in human relations, with people, and he
songs!"
recoullationsd hsiipng
And so emerged the firm that was briefly known as SyCip, Velayo, Jose &Co. (SVJ) before ite
eventual transformation to SGV. By his own reckoning, Fred Velayo's best contribution to the fir
was the separation of duties that his presence enabled. From the very beginning, beyond being an
audit partner, he took care of training, hiring, and internal administration.
And so it was that Wash would find the clients, ("Iguess I had the
advantage of my father's
name attached to me") Enteng would take care of tax cases, and Fred would
handle clients as well
as personnel relations and administrative management. Like Wash, Fred
took on teaching jobs
outside of the firm; Enteng Jose did not.
At first, Fred didn't receive equal dividends from the
business, since it was Wash who had
put up the capital. But as time wore on and the business prospered, it was
Wash himself who
insisted on equal shares. Wash probably couldn't think of himself as an
employer to Fred for long.
"It was a case of knowing each other sowell that sooner or later
the equal partnership was bound
to follow."

How did the writers present their subjects? What

aspect of their subjects' lives did they
each chooseto focus on and what techniques or
character of their subjects? Which biography dosources did they use to develop the image
you consider more effective or interestins
Why?

96 TYPES AND FORMS OF CREATIVE

NONFICTION
Profile
ÁCording to Peter P. Jacobi, "Cities can be profiled. So can streets. So can buildings. So can
institutions. Mostly, however, we profile people. Aprofle recreates the subject, makes it come
alive on paper, gives the subject shape and meaning, causes us as readers to meet and know that
subject, that city, that institution, that person (217). Shorter than aful-length biography, aprofile
is a kind of biographical narrative that normally concentrates on a single aspect of the featured
person's life. Although some background information of his or her origins is included, the profile
for the most part focuses on the circumstances and events that have made the featured person
important and/or farmous. The best examples of the profile as a literary genre is Lytton Strachey's
Euinent Victorians, in which the distinguished member of the Bloomsbury Group narrates the
interesting lives of Cardinal Manning, Florence Nightingale, Dr. Arnold, and General Gordon.
Heavily influenced by Sigmund Freud, the father of psychoanalysis, Strachey portrays Florence
Nightingale as apassionate, determined woman who is intolerable in her personal dealings with
family and friends, but admirable in her achievements as a nurse in the public health profession.
An excerpt of Florence Nightingale's profile written by Strachey is one of the featured examples
of the short biographical narratives in this lesson.

Example

Florence Nightingale
(excerpts from Eminent Victorians)
Lytton Strachey
fer position was, indeed, an official one, but it was hardly the easier for that. In the hospitals
it was her duty to provide the services of herself and her nurses when they were asked for
by the doctors, and not until then. At first some of the surgeons would have nothing to say to her,
and, though she was welcomed by others, the majority were hostile and suspicious.But gradually
she gained ground. Her good will could not be denied, and her capacity could not be disregarded.
With consummate tact, with all the gentleness of supreme strength, she managed at last to impose
her personality upon the susceptible, overwrought, discouraged, and helpless group of men in
authority who surrounded her. She stood firm; she was a rock in the angry ocean; with her alone
was safety, comfort, life. And so it was that hope dawned at Scutari. The reign of chaos and old
night began to dwindle; order came upon the scene, and common sense, and forethought, and
decision, radiating out from the little room off the great gallery in the Barrack Hospital where
day and night, the Lady Superintendent was at her task. Progress might be slow, but it was sure.
The first sign of a great change came with the appearance of some of those neçessary objects
with which the hospitals had been unprovided for months. "The sick men began toenjoy the use
of towels and soap, knives and forks, combs and tooth-brushes. Dr. Hall might snort when he
heard of it, asking, with a growl, what a soldier wanted with a tooth-brush; but the good work
went on. Eventually the whole business of purveying to the hospitals was, in effect, carried out
by Miss Nightingale. She alone, it seemed, whatever the contingency, knew where to lay her

LESSON 1: BIOGRAPHICAL NARRATIVES 97

 with
could dispense her stores readiness;
et27,iquet000atbeo.ve This she
wanted: she alone
hands on what was circumventing the pernicious influences of official al
dione possessed the art of by it. On one occasion
she was baffled was
and sonetimes even
her greatest enemv,
Home Government, arrived, were landed, and were only
shirts, sent
aunpacked.
Board." But
the
Out at her insistence by "Purvevor" intervened; "he could not unpack them." he said,
official pleadedin vain; the sick and wounded lay half-naked shivering fn
MisstheNightingale
elapsed before the Board
released the
shirts. A
wait"nwgithtoonbae
want of clothing; and three weeks
Miss toNightingale felt that she could assert Iher own itdle later,
ordered aon
however, asimilar occasion,
Government consignment

by, wringing his hands in departmental agony.

authority.She
be forcibly opened, while the miserable "Purveyor stood

from England lay, she found, engulfedin

of thequantities
abyss Vast stores sent
valuableHouse.
Turkish(ofCustoms
thebottomles
Other ship-loads, buried beneath munitions. of war destined
for Balaclava, passed Scutari without asign, andthus hospital materials were sometimes carried
to and fro three times overthe Black Sea, before theyreachedtheir destination. The: whole system
was clearly at fault, and Miss Nightingale suggested to the home authorities that a Government
Store House should be instituted at Scutari for the reception and distribution of the consignments.

Six months after her arrival this was done.

the laundries in the hospitals m
In the meantime she had reorganised the kitchens and
intervals, which had hitherto been the
ill-cooked hunks of meat, vilely served at irregular
diet for the sick men were
replaced by punctual meals, well-prepared and appetising, while
luxuries," snarled D
strengthening extra foods-soups and wines and jellies ("preposterous Th
she could not effert
Hall)-were distributed to those who needed them. One thing, however,
rule was that food must
separation of the bones from the meat was no part of official cookery: the
be divided into equal portions, and if some of the portions were all
bone-well, every man mus
requirea
take his chance. The rule, perhaps, was not a very good one; but there it was. "It would
new Regulation of the Service," she was told, "to bone the meat". As for the washing arrangements,
the
they were revolutionised. Up to the time of Miss Nightingale's arrival the number of shirts
authorities had succeeded in washing was seven. The hospital bedding, she found, was "washed'
in cold water. She took a Turkish house, had boilers installed, and employed soldiers' wives to
do the laundry work. The expenses were defrayed from her own funds and that of The Times; and
henceforward the sick and wounded had the comfort of clean linen.

Then she turned her attention to their clothing. Owing to military exigencies the greater
number of the men had abandoned their kit; their knapsacks were lost for ever; they possesseu
nothing but what was on their persons, and that was usually only fit for speedy destruction In
"Purveyor," of course, pointed out that, according to the regulations, all soldiers should brig
with them into hospital an adequate supply of clothing, and he declared that it was no buse
of his to make good their deficiencies. Apparently, it was the business of Miss Nightingae
up
procured socks, boots, and shirts in enormous quantities; she had trousers made, she rigged
dressing-gowns. "The fact is," she told Sidney Herbert, "I am now clothing the British Arny
wounded
All at once, word came from the Crimea that a great new contingent of sick and occupied
mightshortly be expected. Where werethey to go? Every available inch inthe wards was

98 TYPES AND FORMS OF CREATIVE NONFICTION

the affair was serious and pressing, and the authorities stood aghast. There were some dilapidated
nooms in the Barrack Hospital, unfit for human habitation, but Miss Nightingale believed that if
measures were promptiy taken they might be made capable of accommodating several hundred
beds. One of the doctors agreed with her; the rest of the officials were irresolute: it would be a
very expensive job, they said; it would involve building; and who could take the responsibility?
The proper course was that a representation should be made to the Director General of the Army
Medical Department in London; then the Director General would apply to the Horse Guards, the
Horse Guards would move the Ordnance, the Ordnance would lay the matter before the Treasury,
and, if the Treasury gave its consent, the work might be correctly carried through, several months
after the necessity for it had disappeared. Miss Nightingale, however, had made up her mind,
and she perstuaded Lord Stratford-or thought she had persuaded him-to give his sanction to the
required expenditure. Ahundred and twenty-five workmen were immediately engaged, and the
work was begun. The workmen struck; whereupon Lord Stratford washed his hands of the whole
business. Miss Nightingale engaged 200 other workmen on her own authority,and paid the bill
out of her own resources. The wards were ready by the required date; 500 sick men were received
in them; and allthe utensils, including knives, forks, spoons, cans and towels, were supplied by
Miss Nightingale.
This remarkable woman was in truth performing the function of an administrative chief.
How had this come about? Was she not in reality merely a nurse? Was it not her duty simply to
tend the sick? And indeed, was it not as aministering angel, agentle "lady with alamp," that she
actually impressed the minds of her contemporaries? No doubt that was so; and yet it is no less
certain that, as she herself said, the specific business of nursing was "the least important of the
functions into which she had been forced." It was clear that in the state of disorganisation into
which the hospitals at Scutari had fallen the most pressing, the really vital, need was for something
more than nursing; it was for the necessary elements of civilized life-the commonest material
objects, the most ordinary cleanliness, the rudimentary habits of order and authority. "Oh, dear
Miss Nightingale," said one of her party as they were approaching Constantinople, "when we
land, let there be no delays, let us get straight to nursing the poor fellows!" "The strongest will
be wanted at the wash-tub," was Miss Nightingale's answer. And it was upon the wash-tub,and
all that the wash-tub stood for, that she expended her greatest energies. Yet to say that is perhaps
to say too much. For to those who watched her at work among the sick, moving day and night
from bed to bed, with that unflinching courage, with that indefatigable vigilance, it seemed as if
the concentrated force of an undivided and unparalleled devotion could hardly suffice for that
portion of her task alone. Wherever, in those vast wards, suffering was at its worst and the need
for help was greatest, there, as if by magic, was Miss Nightingale. Her superhuman equanimity
would, at the moment of some ghastly operation, nerve the victim to endure and almost to hope.
Her sympathy would assuage the pangs of dying and bring back to those still living something
of the forgotten charm of life. Over and over again her untiring efforts rescued those whom the
Surgeons had abandoned as beyond the possibility of cure. Her mere presence brought with it
a strange influence. A passionate idolatry spread among the men: they kissed her shadow as it
Passed. They did more. "Before she came," said a soldier, "there was cussin and swearin,' but
after that it was ´oly as a church." The most cherished privilege of the fighting man was abapdoned

LESSON 1: 8I0GRAPHICAL NARRATIVES 99

 shel
of human misery," as
torthe sake of Miss Nightingale. In those"lowest
never heardthe use of one expression"which
sinks
could distress a gentlewoman." herself
put it, she
were the humble tributes paid by those grosser mould to
of
high She was heroic:
quality. Certainly, these
andshe was heroic. Yet her heroism was not of that simple sort so dear hatto
the readers of novels and the compilers of hagiologies-tthe romantic sentimental heroism with
stuff
darlings: it was made of sterner the To
which mankind loves to invest its chosen
soldier
the on hissurgeons,
military and theshe
couchhof agony might well
orderlies,
appearin the guise of agracious angel
\of but
and her own nurses, and the "Purveyor." and Dr. Hal.
wOunded
mercy;
and even Lord Stratford himselfcould tell a different story. It was not by gentle Sweetness and
womanly self-abnegation that she had brought order out of chaos inthe Scutari hospitals, that,
from her own resources, she had clothed the British Army,that she had spread her dominion over
method, by
the serried and reluctant powers ofthe official world; it was by strict stern discipline,
by rigid attention to detail, by ceaseless labour, by thefixed determination of an indomitable will.
Beneath her cool and calm demeanour lurked fierce and passionate fires. As she passed through
the wards in her plain dress, So quiet, so unassuming, she struck the casual observer simply as the
pattern ofa perfect lady; but the keener eye perceived something more than that-the serenity of
high deliberation in the scope of the capacious brow, the sign of power in the dominating curve
of the thin nose, and the traces of aharsh and dangerous temper something Peevish, something
mocking, and yet something precise in the small and delicate mouth. There was humour in the
face; but the curious watcher might wonder whether it was humour of avery pleasant kind, might
ask himself, even as he heard the laughter and marked the jokes with which she cheered the spirits
of her patients, what sort of sardonic merriment this same lady might not give vent to, in the
privacy of her chamber:. As for her voice, it was true of it, even more than of her countenance, that
it "had that in it one must fain call master." Those clear tornes were in no need of emphasis: "Inever
heard her raise her voice," said one of her companions. Only, when she had spoken, it seemed as if
nothing could follow but obedience. Once, when she had given some direction, a doctor ventured
to remark that the thing could not be done. "But it must be done," said Miss Nightingale. Achance
bystander, who heard the words, never forgot through all his life the irresistible authority of them.
And they were spoken quietly-very quietly indeed.
Late at night, when the long miles of beds lay wrapped in darkness, Miss Nightingale would
sit at work in her little room, over her correspondence. It was one of the most formidable of all her
duties. There were hundreds of letters to be written to the friends and relations of soldiers; there
was the enormous mass of official documents to be dealt with; there were her own private letters
to be answered; and, most important of all, there was the composition of her long and confidential
reports to Sidney Herbert. These were by no means official communications. Her soul, pent up all
day in the restraint and reserve of a vast responsibility, now at last poured itself out in these letters
with all its natural vehemence, like a swollen torrentthrough an open sluice. Here, at least, she,did

not mince matters. Here she painted in her darkest colours the hideous scenes which surrounded
her; here she tore away remorselessly the last veils still shrouding the abominable truth. Then she
would fill pages with recommendations and suggestions, with criticisms of the minutest detailsof
organization, with elaborate calculations of contingencies, with exhaustive analyses. and statistical
statements piled up in breathless eagerness one on the top of the other. And then her pen,inthe

100 TYPES AND FORMS OF CREATIVE NONFICTION

.ilence of its volubility, would rush on to the discussion of individuals, to the denunciation of
an incompetent surgeonor the ridicule of a self-sufficient nurse. Her sarcasm searched the ranks
af the officials with the deadly and unsparing precision of a machine-gun. Her nicknames were
terrible. She respected no one: Lord Stratford, Lord Raglan, Lady Stratford, Dr. Andrew Snith,
Dr. Hall, the Commissary-General, the Purveyor-she fulminated against them all. The intolerable
futility of mankind obsessed her like a nightmare, and she gnashed her teeth against it. "I do well
th be angry," was the burden of her cry. How many just men were there at
Scutari? How many
who cared at all for the sick, or had done anything for their relief? Were there ten? Were there five?
Was there even one? She could not be sure.

Character Sketch
The character sketch is a formn of biographical narrative that is shorter than a
profile. Like a
visual sketch or a pen-and-ink drawing, the character sketch can be described as a
cameo or a
miniature life story. As a literary subgenre, the character sketch has a long history whose origins
can be traced back to ancient China, where Sima Qian in his Shiji ("Historical
Records") featured
highly animated character sketches. These sketches were brief but full of anecdotes and
dialogue,
and were arranged according to character types, like "rash generals," "maligned
and "assassins." Other noteworthy character sketches from ancient times are statesmen,"
the Noble Grecians and Romans and Suetonius Lives of the Caesars. From the
Plutarch's Lives of
High Renaissance,
the most notable character sketches are compiled in Giorgio Vasari's Lives of the
Most Eminent
Italian Painters, Sculptors, and Architects,and from 17th-century Great Britain, the most significant
character sketches are included in Thomas Fuller's History of the Worthies of England. An
excerpt
of the character sketch written by Pantoja Hidalgo about Elsa Martinez
Coscolluela, an important
contemporary Filipino woman writer based in Bacolod City, is one of the featured examples of the
short biographical narratives in this lesson.

Example

Elsa Martinez Coscolluela (in Six Sketches of Filipino Women Writers)

(an excerpt)
Cristina Pantoja Hidalgo
Isa Martinez Coscolluela tells me that these days her life is very quiet. We are sitting in the
dining room of the Casino Español, empty now, because the other participants of the NCCA
Mterature festival that we are both attending have dispersed to the different session rooms. We
have stayed behind so we can have this chat.
She lives alone,with just her household staff,though her middle son lives next door, Elsie
tells me. "I'm
semi-retired, you know," she adds. What she means is that she has stepped down
LESSON t: BI0GRAPHICAL NARRATIVES 101
 Affairs of the
from her former position as Vice President for Academic
in Bacolod. University ot St. La Sal
But l know that the university has made her Special Projects Director and F
Profes or
Solask her to describe atvpical day in her lite.
Elsie tells me that she rises at around six every morning, has a coffee,
oT sO in her garden. Then she sits down to breakfast and along bath. by nine or
and Emerit
spends hour
us,an
at work. Usually, there are meetings and people to se, and lots of papers on her rine-desthk.irty Sheis
poice"Speoffitcaerls
Projects" covers alarge range of activities, from managing a master's program for
throughout the province to running the University Press. There is askills
out-of-school youth, both funded l by the Eduardo Cojuangco Foundation and training progrbyam for
government units; Supervising and expanding the university's Institute for
was founded two years earlier, and which is now pronounced by Elsie to be "a Culsuppor
great
inary teArtd s, local
which
She's also in charge of developing new paper product lines for the internal
the development of the Ecopark in the university's 55-hectare extension market; supersuccess"
vising
campus
in
supervising the school for special children, established by the university two years ago. Granada:
she drafts new project proposals and the like. .Finaly,
Lunch Elsie generally takes at the office, except for a weekly lunch date with her best
Nana Yulo, Ising Benedicto, Elsa Streegan, and Maia Ramos, all from USLS. friende
Before7 PM, she is home. That's when she does her homework, ift there's anything urgent 0:
she relaxes with a DVD, until the late news. "But there are times when sleep overtakes me andI
miss the late news," she smiles.
When I say that this doesn't sound like "semi-retirement" to me, Elsie says: "Oh, ie's not x
hectic as my schedule used to be. My days used to be really crammed full. As you can see Ihave
become acreature of habit."
What happens on weekends? Iask.
"Ah, weekends are strictly family days,/" she replies, the smile breaking out. "I go marketing
on Saturdays, and do my weekly general housecleaning to the max-am kind of 0.C. when it
comes to housecleaning and gardening. As in! After an early dinner Ihave my weekly spa ritual,
unless there is a school event or a dinner date or a social obligation.
Sundays are the best days of the week. "We have family dinners either at my home, where
I prepare the entire menu, using my mother's best recipes and then some. Or we go to my eldest
son's house for swimming and dinner. When that happens, he and my daughter-in-law and ldo
the cooking for the two other sons and four grandsons, my mom-in-law, and some very close
laws and relatives. Sometimes we stay over to watch the latest movies. So Sunday is abig family
day, atradition Icarry over from both my late mother and my mom-in-law. Ie's asimple lif.. D
a busy one."
Elsie grows a bit pensive. "You know, Ithink that because Iam actually afree spirit, Idecue
required
long ago to harness my 'freeness and turn myself into adisciplined professional as

102 TYPES AND FORMS OF CREATIVE NONFICTION

career, marriage, motherhood. So I became really O.C. But when I break free, hala! Then I just laze
rund. Itake a leave and do nothing that matters. As in Ihibernate. And sometimes..Iwrite."
She has just said the key word-writing. Iam struck by the fact that she says it is something
ahe iust does "sometimes." But before Ican jump in, Elsie continues, "But then, I've always been
a bit reclusive. It was my husband who was the more sociable one. When he pasedaway in 2005
from a massive heart attack, my life became more quiet. I now only see my colleagues at La Salle,
friends."
myold
The last time Elsie and I were together was 2003, when she hosted the UP Press Book
Caravan. But the first time I had met her was some years earlier, in Davao, where she was one
of the speakers at the British Council's Philippine-British Literature Conference. I realized then
that Elsie Coscolluela was the Elsa Victoria Martinez that I had heard of (like each time she won
a new Palanca) back when I was myself starting out on my writing career. She was a striking
woman. Handsome. Elegant. Even perhaps a bit intimidating, Very much one's idea of the lady
of the manor. The fact that she was also a high-ranking academic administrator seemed like an
aberration. But when she spoke, the voice was soft; the tone lilting, musical. That old-fashioned
term occurred to me-cariñosa. Unfortunately, we didn't get to spernd much time together that
time.

Iwas touched by the talk she gave, though. She mentioned the difficulty of keeping the faith
(as a writer) in relative isolation, among people who didn't really see the point. I assumed she
meant the hacienda culture of which she was a part.
Back in the early '60s, writers weren't as mobile as they are now, communications weren't
as advanced, relations weren't as close. So Elsie and I had never met before. Like Aida Rivera
Ford and Tita Lacambra Ayala, who lived in Davao, Renato Madrid and Resil Mojares who lived
in Cebu-much-admired writersshe was just a name to us. Only the Tiempos, and the now
legendary writers' workshop they established in the '60s, brought the south closer to us. Or, more
correctly, brought us to the south.
Linda Panlilio, Nening Manahan, and Ihad gone together to that literature conference. I
recall that we were met at the airport by Chita Gallaga-Castillo, and taken for great meals at Bob's
and Pendy's, where I had my first taste of the incomparable Bacolod batchoy. And then we were
invited to an elegant dinner at the Coscolluela residence.
Later Elsie was to tell me that this was Santa Clara Village, where she and her husband
had built a"second home." They intended it to be their "retirement home," which was why the
master's bedroom was on the ground floor, and it had no windows, a protection against fall ash,
since fallash gives Elsie asthma, and there was "a tiny, cozy kitchen just a few steps away from
the bedroom, because I love to cook."
Their first home-where they lived for twenty-seven years and raised their three sons - is in
Mountainview, another residential area.

LESSON 1: BIOGRAPHICAL NARRATIVES 103

 Book Caravan, and discovered her to
lgot to know Elsie alittle better in 2003, during the UP
surprised me. What had Iexpected?
be both very gracious and very simple. Whichfor some reason
(2009):
l have written of that visit in another book, Looking for the Philippines
"Elsie... told me about her student days in Silliman, about how the Tiempos had nurt, nurtured
her and helped her with her writing. After graduating with honors, she had gotten a. scholarship to
to be admitted into its graduate program. So the
lowa University. But she was too young Tiempos
suggested she enroll for afew courses at La Salle Bacolod, to bide her time. They hadn't counted
But bov.
on her falling in love witha Bacolodnon, marrying him, and making Bacolod her home.
could it have been otherwise, given the gorgeous and gifted Elsie?
"It had been tough for her in the beginning, she said. 'Oh, I had to work so hard to fit in.' she
sighed, and the memory of itclouded her eyes. In her husband'scircles, women weren't writers
"And Iremembered that poem of hers about the mountain they call Cuernos de Negros;
"The gentle rustle of mountain spirits
Unspool memory as the lamplight leaps
Into a sudden dance: once a child
He had watched his father clearing grass
Grown wild.'"
But it is 2010 now, and we are at the Casino Español. Elsie is telling me that she was born in
Dumaguete in 1945. Her father was Celerino Leon Martinez, a lawyer, and her mother, Carmen
Cabello, was a teacher of Spanish, and what Elsie describes as "very religious."

Compare and contrast the profile of Florence Nightingale and the character sketch of
Elsa Martinez Coscolluela in terms of character development and richness of details. Show
your answers using a Venn diagram.