Unit 3 - Lesson 1 - EAPP12
Unit 3 - Lesson 1 - EAPP12
EXPLORATORY ACTIVITY
Expected Outcomes
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.
Examples
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.)
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
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
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
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
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.
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.