| The Workshop Founders / Edilberto K. Tiempo On Edith Lopez Tiempo By Lakambini A. Sitoy Originally published in Woman Today, 15 March 2000 Edith Lopez Tiempo was declared a National Artist in December of 1999, a fitting culmination to a lifetime of words, of nurturance and of creativity. Born 22 April 1919 in Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya, Tiempo, poet, fiction writer, teacher, wife, mother, spent most of her childhood and early adolescence in Manila, Surigao and Samar. She was quite a beauty, and at age 18, ventured into the movies. But her show biz career was short- lived: her family did not approve. Just as well Philippine literature in English would have been very different otherwise. That same year, 1937, she began a correspondence with Edilberto K. Tiempo, a writer teaching in Maasin, Leyte, whom she finally met the following year through her eldest sister. They married in 1940 the start of a fruitful partnership that would last a lifetime. The couple moved to Silliman University, in Dumaguete City, Negros Oriental, a school that had been founded by American missionaries and was at the time one of the best in the country. They had two children, Rowena, now a professor of English at the University of Iowa, and Danny. Edith’s education was interrupted by the war years, but in 1947 she did graduate, magna cum laude, from Silliman. She and her husband joined the school’s faculty. In succeeding years they traveled to the United States to further their education, Edith earning an MA from the University of Iowa and a PhD from the University of Denver, prestigious schools then as now for the study of literature. Edith’s life career has involved two fields teaching and writing. Her poetry and fiction had seen publication as early as 1939; throughout the Fifties and Sixties, she continued to write and be published, in the Philippines and abroad, earning recognition for beautifully crafted work that sought the abstract and metaphysical in things as everyday as coaxing violets to grow. Edith’s body of work would probably have been enough to earn her the National Artist Award she received in December last year, but it has been her role as co-director (with her late husband; Ed Tiempo passed away in September 1996) of the National Writers Workshop, which they founded in 1962, that has made her an indispensable part of the Philippine literary scene. After retirement from classroom instruction, she says, I concentrated, very happily, on writing. It is in this latter field where my late husband and I were privileged to help our young writers for over 30 years, and I continue to do so through the National Writers Workshop, which is now in its 38th year of operation. Writers' haven Some 40 years ago, before the Tiempo workshop was founded, there was no way for a budding writer to hone his or her skills or meet up with others similarly inclined. Creative writing talent was either buried in diaries or underwent prosaic transformations in language-dependent fields like journalism or law. Literary studies prepared young people for teaching careers or contributed to the battery of accomplishments expected of young women before they could be married off. My experience as a teacher of English and literature showed me the need for developing a more properly comprehending reader-audience; the National Writers Workshop, together with the classroom teaching, worked to that goal, Tiempo says, by way of explaining her career choices. Shipping anywhere from 12 to 20 workshop fellows and panelists (usually senior writers and/or teachers) from all over the country to Silliman University in Dumaguete City, housing and feeding them for three weeks each summer, and conducting daily afternoon sessions, was no laughing matter. For the Writers Workshop, the main problem was funding, and still is, Tiempo says. Even when the workshop was conducted under the auspices of Silliman University, the two Tiempos and their colleagues worked on a shoestring budget and constantly searched for money. When university administrators voted to drop funding in the early 1990s, the Tiempos were pleased to find it had supporters in the business world, particularly the College Assurance Plan conglomerate, as well as a number of government agencies, and the Creative Writing Foundation, set up by prominent workshop alumni. Despite the decades-old movement for Tagalog-based Filipino to be accepted and used as the national language, the Tiempo workshops have always been conducted in English, the language of choice of Edith and her late husband. Initially, she reveals, the promulgation of Pilipino as the national language was a deterrent in the teaching of English and literature. Matters improved over the years as the academic system also improved the teaching procedures of Pilipino in the curriculum. They had no problems finding writers who wanted to train in the Writers Workshop. There has always been an abundance of Fellowship applicants, even those from disparate fields like engineering, medicine, the seminary, the law (we have had two appellate Justices in the Workshops so far), and from related fields like humanities and the arts. The woman angle In the late Eighties and throughout the Nineties, the feminist movement gained strength, and the country became aware of women’s issues. There’s no question that a macho country like the Philippines needs some re-education, on crucial matters like domestic violence or sexual harassment, but in some quarters, it’s become quite trendy to call oneself a "feminist" without comprehending what it means or entails. Edith Tiempo will not jump on the bandwagon. I look forward to the day when there are no more so-called ‘women’s issues,’ she declares. In fact, honestly, I consider the Filipino woman most fortunate, more than those in other Oriental countries. Particularly, our women in the more enlightened brackets find no husband or male entities hindering their careers or other engrossments. The women in the rural areas and other deprived places are another matter, Edith adds by way of qualification. Any help should be concentrated in these directions, but it is help that is simply in the general category of welfare-in-common, and not necessarily because they are women. While there are hindrances to women that can be attributed to the biological endowments of both sexes, even in biologically and culturally acknowledged male fields like athletics and the military, women have long been accepted and active, Edith points out. Asked in what way Filipinas have made significant contributions for the country, Edith opines: By striving to excel honorably in their occupation, no matter how humble, and not joining the ranks of male crooks, murderers and other violators. She also thinks Filipinas have, and should always, continue to uphold the accepted mutual respect between men and women and not be unduly deprecatory of the men of the species: so that the time may yet return when men shall automatically stand up and give their seats to women on crowded buses -- would that be the day! To her children the values she is pleased to have imparted are typically practical and spiritual: first, not to be stupid, because others involved suffer from your unwarranted errors, particularly when you hold a position of authority; second, be kind, even when you are attempting to help others out of their weaknesses and errors; and, third, refuse to witness any instance of injustice or violation in your vicinity without speaking out or doing something about it and always proceed judiciously and reasonably. Edith Tiempo, 80 years old this March, has lived a happy, generous and fulfilled life. Still, she wishes that in the years to come, she will find herself blessed: With the best of all Heavenly gifts -- to keep the little old pens moving, and in the right directions! / Read About Edilberto K. Tiempo |
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