Philippine Studies Historical and Ethnographic Viewpoints
© Ateneo de Manila University
70, NO. 1 (2022) 137–45
Bienvenido
L. Lumbera
1932–2021
When Bienvenido L. Lumbera died on 28 September 2021, the work of
understanding his life and legacy had begun. He was 89 years old, passing
on peacefully in the middle of a raging pandemic, seven days after the
nation marked the 49th anniversary of the declaration of martial law, during
which he became a political prisoner. The Filipino postcolony, to which
he dedicated his art and imagination following the US grant of nominal
independence in 1946, was only 75 years old, 14 years his junior, at the time
of his death. In a strange twist of fate, the son was older than his postcolonial
motherland.
Lumbera was born in Lipa on 11 April 1932, when the country was a
colonial possession following the defeat of the Spanish Empire by the US
in 1898 and of the Filipino revolutionaries shortly after, which resulted
in about 200,000 native casualties, often forgotten figures of the so-called
first Vietnam War. Orphaned at a young age, Lumbera started his early
education when American flags flew all over the archipelago. He came
to master English, the colonial language, and was drawn to such Western
classics as Pride and Prejudice. He eventually graduated from the University
Obituary