Famous writer in the Philippine

Guillermo Gomez Rivera

is a Filipino multilingual author, historian, educator and linguistic scholar whose lifelong work has
been devoted to the movement to preserve Spanish culture as an important element of the Filipino
identity, born in September, 12, 1936
He is the most senior academic director of the Academia Filipina de la Lengua Española of the Real
Academia Española. In 1975, he was awarded the Premio Zóbel, the Philippines' highest literary
honor bestowed on the best works in Spanish.] Due to his expertise in the Spanish language as well
as his knowledge of various Philippine languages, including Cebuano, Hiligaynon, Tagalog/Filipino,
and Chavacano, he was appointed secretary of the Commission on the Filipino Language
Committee of the Philippine Constitutional Convention (1971–73).
As a Spanish professor at Adamson University he authored textbooks on Spanish grammar, speech
and composition while working for San Miguel Corporation, a food conglomerate. He used his
academic position to try to influence national debates on the question of whether or not Spanish
should be retained as a compulsory subject in Philippine high schools and universities, a battle that
many pro-Spanish advocates believe they had lost with the passage of the 1987 Constitution but
which some Hispanists say started with the 1973 Constitution.
Having done extensive research on Spanish dances, including flamenco and Sevillanas, he formed
a dance school to teach students of all ages an appreciation of Spanish culture through the dance
art. He traveled to Spain to improve his skills, learning from Spanish masters of these dance forms.
He is considered a maestro de flamenco in the Philippines.
In an hour-long broadcast devoted to Asia on September 24, 2013, Spanish Radio and Television
Corp. (RTVE) described Gómez Rivera as a "writer, journalist, historian...[who] has tracked
incessantly Hispanic legacy in the Philippines and has recovered part of an endangered
folklore. During the same broadcast, RTVE played songs from an LP of rare Filipino compositions in
Spanish that Gómez Rivera recorded in 1960 and reissued in 2006 after it had been digitally
remastered.
In addition to his contributions to Philippine literature] and history, Gómez Rivera 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
Philippines, he is also conversant in Italian, Portuguese, Kinaray-a and Cebuano, and has made an
extensive study of the Visayan and Chavacano languages.
Guillermo Gómez Rivera (born September 12, 1936) is
a Filipino writer, journalist, poet, playwright, historian, linguist,
and scholar of Spanish and British descent from the province of Iloilo.
Gómez Rivera is an academic director of the prestigious Academia Filipina de la Lengua
Española (Philippine Academy of the Spanish Language), the local branch of the renowned Real
Academia Española based in Madrid, Spain, and part of the Asociación de Academias de la Lengua
Española (Association of Spanish Language Academies). He is also a teacher of various Spanish
dances, and is considered the undisputed maestro of Flamenco in the Philippines.

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.

Literature, history, and culture

Critics regard him as the Spanish equivalent to his friend Nick Joaquin'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 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.

He won a Premio Zóbel 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.
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 what he observed as local pro-compulsory "ONLY-English-language
government officials" who he accuses as vile puppets of US WASP neocolonialism. Many of his
writings boast of proofs against these people he accuses. 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 ("la primera película hablada y cantada en español producida en Filipinas").
Flamenco
Much of Manila society knows Gómez as the country's leading instructor of Flamenco. He learned
Flamenco as well as many other Spanish dances from his maternal grandfather José Rivera
Franco's second wife, Rosa Jiménez, a Flamenco dancer from Sevilla, Spain. Jiménez taught him at
the age of four. Later in his life, he was able to choreograph dances. 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".
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.
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.

Educator
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 [http://stepsdancestudio.ph] 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.

Media
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.

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.
Biography
Gómez, as he is fondly called by his friends, students, and contemporaries, hails
from Dingle, Iloilo on the southeast portion of Panay Island. 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 Letrán.
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 teacher with strong convictions. It is claimed by

some that he inspired true nationalism and Filipinism among several of his students, based on the
original Hispanic identity of the Philippines.

While teaching in Adamson, he also worked for San Miguel Corporation when the said conglomerate
was still at the helm of Andrés Soriano III, a Filipino of Spanish descent.
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 Corazón Aquino took over from where former strongman Marcos had left.
He is a grandnephew of Guillermo Gómez Windham, a famous Filipino writer and former Philippine
Customs Commissioner during the American Occupation. Gómez Windham was the first Filipino to
have been awarded a Premio Zóbel medal in 1922.

Gómez has two children: Marién and Guillermo Gómez Ordóñez. He currently resides in Makati City.
He has transformed his home into a virtual Spanish dance studio and library of Filipiniana materials.
v
/
v