INSTITUTO Cervantes de Manila Cultural Department Head Jose Maria Fons Guardiola just authored the book Los variados avatares de Chejov. It marked another exciting chapter in his career that is now firmly rooted in the country.
The book is about novelist David Sentado, who apparently has no readers and claims to be the only remaining Filipino writer using the Spanish language. He also happens to be Guardiola’s alter ego.
In the book, Sentado receives a peculiar job offer from a prestigious American university. It wants him to design the brain of an android destined to restore the Filipino-Hispanic cultural world and to write the great Fil-Hispanic novel, the work that Jose Rizal left unfinished.
“When I write, it happens that I have two modes, so to speak—the ‘Fons Guardiola’ mode and the ‘David Sentado’ mode. As a writer, David Sentado is like my Filipino alter ego. I made up David Sentado,” Guardiola said.
He explained that Sentado, in his early 20s, is the pen name of a mature Filipino writer who was heavily influenced by Nick Joaquin.
Sentado took after his mentor’s ideology to the extreme and writes only in Spanish and brushing aside the American occupation of the Philippines.
“A few years ago, I published an anthology of some of David Sentado’s essays. But since he did not make the best-seller author list, I decided to degrade him to the role of a novel character. In Los variados avatares de Chejov he is one of the characters and the main narrator of the story,” Fons said.
Still Guardiola clarifies that Sentado is not the only Filipino author who writes in the Spanish language. He said there is still a tiny group, including University of the Philippines professor and poet Daisy López, poet Edmundo Farolán and Guillermo Gómez-Rivera, who just released last year a new novel set in Iloilo, Quis ut Deus?
According to Guardiola, one of the long-term projects undertaken by Instituto Cervantes de Manila is the preservation of the Philippine-Hispanic literature, especially the works written in the Spanish language.
“Due to several reasons, part of that valuable Filipino literary heritage is currently in danger of extinction. So, back in 2007, Instituto Cervantes, with the collaboration of the Embassy of Spain and other institutions, embarked on a project to preserve and publish books by Filipino authors from the first part of the 20th century,” Fons said.
A witness to the media evolution
Before coming over to the Philippines 14 years ago, Guardiola had a brief career as a journalist in Spain.
Guardiola recalled his time in the media during the mid-1990s with a lot of fondness, even as he described those years as a period of change for the newspaper business.
“It was a good time for newspapers in the 1990s. But in those days things were changing. Bigger groups were absorbing smaller newspapers. It started to be run by business interests and not by journalists,” Guardiola said.
Guardiola, who used to write in the business and education section of a regional Spanish newspaper, said that they used to have daily 10 a.m. meetings in the office to divide the coverage and have the editor-in-chief assign tasks.
Guardiola added that they are allowed until 4 p.m. to submit one story a day, which he usually writes in the office after his coverage.
“I come from a different background, which is poetry and literature. Being a journalist, I have to produce a story every day. You lose the fear of being published. Literature can scare you to death,” Guardiola said.
He said it was a fantastic feeling at the beginning to have his name in the newspaper and that his dream then was to cover the matches of powerhouse football team Real Madrid.
Guardiola laments the fact that today, because of technology, everyone can claim to be part of the media.
“Everyone now has access. The filters and standards are no longer there. The established media has standards. You have to go to primary sources and you do not publish anything that is not confirmed,” Guardiola said.
He added that opinions, facts and information are, at times, being distorted with the Internet changing the whole landscape.
As for heading their Cultural Department, Guardiola finds it funny to be on the other side of the fence and explained that he has to be careful in everything he says as it might be misunderstood.
The teacher
Guardiola holds a bachelor’s degree in Filología Hispánica and a master’s degree in Journalism. As a teacher, his first encounter with students was during his practicum in Spain, where he described the students as noisier.
He had his first teaching job abroad in New Zealand. It was his first time outside Spain. He was the only Spaniard in Wellington and he described the country back then as very quiet.
“I was 25 back then, and wanted to go out at night. Those days were not that easy,” Guardiola said.
However, Wellington was still good to him as they saw Spaniards as those who ride horses, run with the bulls and go to Carmen in the afternoon.
“They saw the romantic side,” Guardiola said.
As a teacher, he handled several hundreds of students in different levels. However, what made the situation unique was that he conducted his classes on air. This meant that students had to listen to his program on the radio.
“They send their assignments by mail. I correct them, then record on cassette my comments. Notebook was used only in the beginning,” he added.
Then, after a brief teaching stint in his home country, he was assigned by the Spanish government in Slovakia and Italy.
“I knew there will be openings. A part of Europe suddenly opened to us and I wanted to see how it was developing,” Guardiola said.
Unlike his situation in New Zealand, Guardiola had the traditional classroom setup in those two countries. He taught high-school students in Slovakia and college students in Italy.
Guardiola added that he was impressed in the interest and curiosity among Slovakian students on the Spanish language.
“The knowledge of the language is great among the students. Eastern Europe has good hardworking people. I am proud of having those kids. Some of them are still in touch with me through Facebook. And we talk in Spanish there,” Fons said.
Afterward, he became a lecturer in Ateneo de Manila University. It is there where he started doing the magazine Azucar, a Cuban expression that means “Let us have fun.”
It was his stint in Ateneo that eventually led him to his long-standing job in Instituto Cervantes de Manila.
Making everything fresh
Internet has greatly impacted both the media and educational institutions, its effect is also felt in the work they do.
“Internet has changed the world so much. Cinema has changed because of it, because film materials are in the Internet. We had to reinvent events and create something new. We had to convince people that their two hours invested in it are valuable,” Guardiola said.
Aside from film festivals, Instituto Cervantes de Manila conducts regular literary and book events, along with poetry reading and concerts.
Those are events that Guardiola said he will never lose the passion for in working and making them successful.
“I love cinema and literature. If you do not feel like it, the quality will show. I also love to meet and talk to people,” Fons said, while adding that he also never gets tired of attending social functions.
Guardiola, who is married to a Filipina, considers the Philippines as his second country and would love to retire here in the country.
Image credits: Jimbo Albano