Leading Filipino Women: Magdalena G.

Jalandoni
Magdalena G. Jalandoni

Prolific Ilongga Woman Writer and Artist

(1891 - 1978)

Magdalena Jalandoni was known as Western Visayas first woman writer. She is now
remembered as one of the most prolific Filipino writer in the Hiligaynon language. She was
the first recipient of the Republic Culture Heritage Award for Literature in 1969 by
President Ferdinand Marcos. She also wrote poems and novels in Filipino and English
language. She did 36 novels, 122 short stories, 231 short lyrics, 8 narrative poems, 7
novelettes, 5 corridos, 7 long plays, a number of sculptures and hundreds of paintings
throughout her lifetime. Her works are said to have left permanent and significant
milestones in Philippine literature.

Birth and Early Years

She was born on May 27, 1891 in Calle Alvarez (now Calle Benedicto) in the old city of
Salog (now Jaro, a district of Iloilo City) to the pious, devout Catholic couple Gregorio
Jalandoni y Jopson from Jaro and Francisca Gonzaga who hails from the town of Pavia.
Magdalena had an only younger brother Luis who later married Amelia Benedicto
Ledesma , also of Jaro.

Her formal schooling started in the school of Clemente Gonzales and his wife Donata. In
June 1902 she studied at the Colegio de San Jose where she was a day boarder, and in
1904 she entered the same school as an enterna. She wrote her fist corrido Padre Juan
and Beata Maria at the age of ten, and Don Juan Gonzaga also a corrido at the age of
twelve. Later on she wrote Lucibar and Portivillar, Principe Recaredo and Heneral
Manfredo. Her mother brought these corridos at the La Editorial Publishing House where
these were printed and sold to the public.
On November 6, 1906 she entered the Iloilo High School. She stopped her studies after
the first year because her mother did not approve of co-education and just stayed at their
home where she wrote in her native tongue.

Childhood and Early Works

She began writing at a young age wherein she already had her poems published at the
age of 12. At the age of sixteen, she published her first novel in Hiligaynon, "Ang Mga
Tunoc Sang Isa Ca Bulac" (The Thorns of a Flower) which she finished in December of
1907, which was later followed by many novels, compilations of poems and short stories.
Jalandoni only wrote for publication purposes due to the male-dominated society at the
time. Back then, female voices in literature were not taken seriously by the general public.
Although her mother strictly forbade her to take literature seriously, she refused to do so
and devoted her life entirely to literature.

In her childhood autobiography Ang Matam-is Kong Pagkabata (My Sweet Childhood),
she cites: "I will be forced to write when I feel that my nose is being assaulted by the
scent of flowers, when my sight is filled with the promises of the sun and when my soul is
lifted by winged dreams to the blue heavens."

Significant Works

Her famous poem Ang Guitara (The Guitar) is read in classrooms all over the country
today. Literary critics and historians claim that she has mastered a special talent for
poetry and description as well as dramatic evocations of landscapes and events in her
novels and short stories. Her works span from the coming of Malay settlers in the Middle
Ages up to the Spanish and American colonial era as well as the Japanese occupation of
World War II, all portraying the history of Panay and the evolution of the Ilonggo culture.
According to Riitta Varitti of the Finnish-Philippine Society in Helsinki, "Jalandoni was the
most productive Philippine writer of all time."

Other famous works include Anabella, Sa Kapaang Sang Inaway (In the Heat of War), Ang
Dalaga sa Tindahan (The Young Woman in the Market) and Ang Kahapon ng Panay (The
Past of Panay). Throughout her turbulent and displaced life, she still managed to publish
36 novels, 122 short stories, 7 novelettes, 7 long plays, 24 short plays and dialogos in
verse complied in two volumes, seven volumes of personally compiled essays including
some translations from Spanish and two autobiographies. She has been displaced from
her hometown twice and has survived the Philippine Revolution, the Filipino-American
War and the Japanese Occupation. In 1977, she received the prestigious Republic Cultural
Heritage Award for her literary achievements from the government, about one year before
her death.

Her works are kept in the University of the Philippines in Diliman and in the Visayas, the
Ateneo de Manila, the Universities of Iloilo and San Agustin, the Universities of Syracuse
and Yale in the United States and in the National Library.
Death Of A Great Writer

She died on September 14, 1978 at the age of 87. At the time of her death she had written
a total of 66 volumes composed of 24 novels, long poems, dramas, historical epics,
translations, meditations, poems, her autobiography, a bibliography of her works and
many other literary pieces. The author lost twenty novels during the Second World War
when these were burned inside the Archbishops Palace in Jaro where she kept them.

During her lifetime she had received many awards recognizing her contribution to the
enrichment of Hiligaynon, her native tongue and the genius that made her such a prolific
writer. She never married. She is now survived by a few nieces as well as several other
close relatives. Magdalena Jalandoni's birth place and ancestral house still stands today
as a historical landmark and a museum not far from the cathedral of Jaro and is
frequented by students. A street at the Cultural Center of the Philippines complex in
Pasay City, Philippines is named in her honor.

Sources:

Magdalena Jalandoni Wikipedia entry, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magdalena_Jalandoni

First Thoughts: Magdalena G. Jalandoni blog,

http://andyesperancilla2.blogspot.com/2010/09/magdalena-jalandoni.html

Magdalena Jalandoni Blog, http://magdalenajalandoni.blogspot.com/

Photo Sources:

Today In Philippines History, The Kahimyang Project May 26, 2012,

http://kahimyang.info/kauswagan/articles/1150/today-in-philippine-history-may-27-1893-
magdalena-jalandoni-was-born-in-jaro-iloilo-city

Heroines, News Today December 13, 2007,

http://www.thenewstoday.info/2007/12/13/heroines.html

Magdalena G. Jalandoni Ancestral House Facade, ExploreIloilo.com,

http://imgarcade.com/1/magdalena-jalandoni/