Guillermo Gomez Rivera

From WikiPilipinas: The Hip 'n Free Philippine Encyclopedia

Guillermo Gómez Rivera is a Filipino writer, journalist, poet, playwright, historian, linguist, and scholar of Spanish and British descent from the province of Iloílo. Known as the country's leading instructor of flamenco in the Philippines, he also teaches various Spanish dances.

[edit] Early Life

Gomez was born on 12 September 1936. He is from Dingle, Iloílo on the southeast portion of Panay Island. Rosa Jiménez, a Flamenco dancer from Sevilla, Spain and his grandfather Felipe Gómez Windham's second wife, taught him lamenco as well as many other Spanish dances. Later in his life, he was able to choreograph dances. He is a product of the University of San Agustin in Iloilo City, where he earned degrees in Bachelor of Science in Commerce and Bachelor of Science in Education. In 1967, he earned his Bachelor of Arts degree from the Colegio de San Juan de Letran.

[edit] Career

Gómez's career in journalism started with the magazine El maestro during the 1960s. The magazine's aim was to aid the predicament of the Filipino teacher in Spanish.

In addition to his contributions to Philippine literature and history, Gómez is also an accomplished linguist and polyglot. He speaks and writes fluently in his native Hiligaynon as well as in English and Tagalog. Aside from being an acclaimed master of the Spanish language in the country, he is also conversant in French, Italian, Portuguese, Kinaray-a, and Cebuano, and has made an extensive study of the Visayan and Chabacano languages.

Critics regard him as the Spanish equivalent to his friend Nick Joaquín's English. Joaquín's body of written works were discreetly about the "Hispanic soul" of the Philippines brought about by three centuries of Spanish rule. Joaquín's stories in particular were sentimental, reminiscing the Philippine's Spanish past as well as its decline. Gómez wrote on the same theme, more thoroughly about the decadence of the country's "Hispanic soul," but his style was much more frank and straight to the point-—the White Anglo-Saxon Protestants (WASPs) were the cause of Spanish decline in the Philippines. Also, unlike Joaquín, Gómez focused more on fiery essays than short stories.

Much of the theme for Gómez's poetry, as well as his essays and short stories, lie mainly on the destruction of which he calls the "Filipino Cosmos," i.e., the destruction of Philippine languages and culture due to American neocolonization.

Gómez is a very belligerent writer, as can be gleaned by his scathing attacks in his Spanish weekly newspaper Nueva Era against the Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo government, which he accuses as a mere puppet government of US neocolonialism. Through his monumental body of literary works, he has advocated his Filipino readers to "rediscover" their Spanish past in order for them to gain knowledge of their true national identity.

Another way of doing this is through cultural dissemination, particularly through dance. Aside from sharing his knowledge of flamenco, he has made several researches on Philippine songs and dances, especially those of Hispanic influence, which he was able to contribute to the internationally acclaimed Bayanihan Philippine National Folk Dance Company. In fact, most of the Spanish-influenced native songs and dances choreographed by the said group can trace their origins from Gómez's researches, which earned him the role of an adviser for Bayanihan.

He was also a recording artist, having recorded Filipino songs that were originally in Spanish, as well as Chabacano songs that used to be popular in areas were Chabacano is prevalent.

Gómez is also credited for reintroducing into the modern local film industry the now forgotten film Secreto de Confesión. It was the first film that was produced in the Philippines that was spoken and sung in Spanish.

He also learned short courses from Spanish international dancers such as Los Chavales de España, Antonio Ruiz, and José Greco who visited Manila in the 1970s and 1980s.

To date, he has a repertoire of more than a hundred choreographed dances, mostly for the Gypsy and Andalusian schools. Flamenco has six schools, namely: Escuela Andaluza (Andalusian), Escuela Bolera, Escuela Creativa (or de Fusión), Escuela Folklórica, Escuela Gitana (Gypsy), and Escuela Popular.

Gómez has trained the likes of Manila socialites Marissa Aboitiz, Marités Cancio-Suplico, María Emma Estrada, Cecile de Joya, actress Maggie de la Riva, former Philippine Basketball Association coach Dante Silverio, Perla Primicias (daughter of former Philippine Senator Cipriano Primicias), and daughter Marién Gómez de Lizares.

Throughout the years, Gómez has developed a five-level flamenco course that has been proven effective. He has come up with an entertaining teaching system called "choreographic immersion" with preliminary drills in footwork, hands, and movements that also include the compás of fours and twelves. Many of his students also learn many of these dances with or without castanettes.

Gómez also spent several years teaching Spanish grammar, Philippine history, and philosophy in Adamson University. For a time, he also served as the head of the Adamson's Spanish Department. He retired from the university in 2001, but he still teaches flamenco in his home and in Steps Dance Studio in Makati. He occasionally offers Spanish language tutorials.

During his teaching stint, he was also the president of Corporación Nacional de Profesores en Español (CONAPE), an organization of Filipino educators who teach the Spanish language.

He is also an academic director of the prestigious Academia Filipina de la Lengua Española (Philippine Academy of the Spanish Language), the local branch of the renowned Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española.

Aside from being the current editor of Nueva era, the only existing Spanish newspaper in the Philippines today, he also edits The Listening Post and The Tagalog Chronicle. These three newspapers are published weekly and are only accessible via subscription.

In 1997, he was a segment host of ABS-CBN's defunct early morning program Alas Singko Y Medya. In the said show, he hosted a five-minute Spanish lesson.

Gómez has been a staunch advocate of Filipino-Hispanic language and culture all his life. Most of his written works are aimed towards the preservation of the Filipino-Hispanic way of life, particularly the Spanish language.

In Adamson University, he gained notoriety as a radical teacher, having inspired anti-Americanism among several of his students.

While teaching in Adamson, he also worked for San Miguel Corporation when the said conglomerate was still at the helm of Spanish-Filipino Andrés Soriano III.

He was also the National Language Committee Secretary of the Philippine Constitutional Convention (1971-1973) during the presidency of Ferdinand Marcos. As part of the committee, he fought for Tagalog to become the country's national language. In the same convention, Gómez teamed up with other nationalists to preserve Spanish as one of the country's official languages. Spanish, however, was only made as an optional language (together with Arabic) from the Freedom Constitution of 1987 when Corazon Aquino took over from where former strongman Marcos had left off.

[edit] Awards

He won a Premio Zobel in 1975 for his play El caserón (The Big House) which was published in 1976. He has since been a longtime master of ceremonies for the said award-giving body. Prior to this, Gómez won second place in the Premio Manuel Bernabé for an essay on the historical and nationalistic value and import of the Spanish language.

[edit] Trivia

• During conversations, Gómez affectionately refers to Rosa Jiménez as his 'adopted stepmother'.
• He loves watching cartoons, particularly DC Comics' The Batman series of cartoons.
• During Mexican-American telenovela star Thalía's promotional visit to the Philippines in 1996, Gómez served as her translator.
• He played the role of Don Perico in the Spanish version of Nick Joaquín's classic play A Portrait of an Artist as Filipino. It was translated into Spanish under the title Un retrato del artista como Filipino by 1998 Premio Zóbel awardee Lourdes Brillantes. The play was shown in 2001 at St. Scholastica's College in Manila.
• Gómez has an uncanny skill (especially for his age) of shooting down house flies by flicking them with rubber bands.

[edit] Reference

• Brillantes, Lourdes. 81 Years of Premio Zobel: A Legacy of Philippine Literature in Spanish. Philippines:Filipinas Heritage Library, 2006.

[edit] External links

• "El Caserón (La fortaleza escondida): Comedia Filipina en tres Actos." / Versión aumentada y corregida por el autor respecto a la original publicada en 1978. (full text). Accessed on 15 July 2009.
• THE FILIPINO STATE/ EL ESTADO FILIPINO
• Influencia española en el tagalo (I)
• Influencia española en el tagalo (II): GRAMATICA.
• BAYANIHAN: The Treasure Chest of Filipino Dances and Culture
• EDITORIAL: HOMENAJE A GUILLERMO GOMEZ RIVERA
• Ang Pinanggalingan ng 'Tatarin'

[edit] Original Source

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