Oragon Jun Balde on a roll

Serial congrats and kudos to our friend Abdon M. Balde Jr. or “Jun” for presently exulting on a writer’s roll.

When it rains, it pours, he’s likely to be saying to himself, but in a manner other than dejected, or how those who were and are still flood-stricken have been telling themselves. For Jun Balde, it’s been a positively propitious pail-full/brimful of news that seems to confirm the signification that, like unwelcome glitches, good luck comes in threes.  

Over a week ago, on Oct. 9, to help celebrate the birthdays of John Lennon and Leonardo da Vinci, Jun Balde donned his spiffiest barong Tagalog, put his best foot forward, bowed, and received the 2009 SEA Write or South East Asian Writers’ Award from His Royal Highness Crown Prince Maha Vajiralongkorn and his Royal Consort HRH Princess Srirasm of Thailand.

This was at the SEA Write’s 31st awards presentation held in the Royal Ballroom of Bangkok’s Mandarin Oriental, where Jun and seven other ASEAN writers were feted for a full week’s royal freebie in luxurious suites.

The awardees were taken on tours to the Grand Palace and Emerald Buddha Temple, the Royal Arts & Culture Centre, and on a Chao Phrya River cruise to the ancient city of Ayutthaya. A cocktail reception was hosted by the Bangkok Bank at the Queen’s Gallery, while an al fresco dinner on the grounds of the splendid Suan Pakkad Palace featured a poetry reading. 

Another treat was having the highly popular American writer Paul Theroux take part in the series of activities that began with a press conference at the Thai National Library. Theroux served as the guest speaker in the culminating rites.

Jun Balde was nominated for the prestigious award that comes with a handsome cash prize by UMPIL or Writers Union of the Philippines, which retains the mandate to do so for odd-numbered years. Every other year, it’s the PEN Philippines’ turn to select the Filipino awardee. In recent years, UMPIL’s selection has included poets Vim Nadera, Marne Kilates, Cesar Ruiz Aquino (also a fictionist) and Teo Antonio.

Fictionist and poet Jun Balde’s streak of literary recognition actually started on Sept. 29 when he received the 2009 Bikolinismo Most Outstanding Artist Award for Literary Arts from Naga City Mayor Jesse Robredo and guest speaker National Artist Virgilio S. Almario. This inaugural award was held in the ballroom of the Avenue Park Hotel to honor “artists who have contributed in building a Bicolano and Filipino sense of nationhood and who have pioneered in a mode of creative expression or style, thus earning distinction and making an impact on succeeding generation of artists.”

Per his inspiring CV, Jun Balde is the son of a lowly rice farmer from barrio Busac in Oas. He became an engineer at the urging of his father who did not believe that a life could be raised out of writing stories. Thus, he spent 33 years of his early career in construction — building roads and highways, airports and runways, bridge and irrigation projects. Jun supervised the completion of the construction of Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu, Nepal. He has traveled extensively in pursuit of construction opportunities. He rose from the rank of a field engineer to become vice president of one of the largest civil works contractors in the Philippines.

In 2000 he retired from work and turned to writing, vowing to write and publish a book every year. Thus far he has kept his word, authoring four novels, three short story collections and a book of essays on aging, 60ZENS: Tips on Senior Citizenship, which was launched by Anvil Publishing last Friday, Oct. 16, at the Glorietta 5 branch of National Book Store. Another novel is due out late this year, from UST Publishing House.

Three of Balde’s books — Mayong, Hunyango sa Bato, and Calvary Road — won National Book Awards. His works have also won the 2004 Juan C. Laya Award for Best Novel and the 2005 Juan C. Laya Award for Best Book of Fiction. In 2003, just as he turned 57, he became one of the oldest first-time recipients of the Palanca Award. He has also gained the 2003 Rokyaw Ibalong Award for Literary Arts, the Premio Arejola Lifetime Achievement Award for Literature in 2007, and the 2008 Omaw sa Oragon Award.

Balde writes novels, stories and poems in three dialects of Bikol and in Filipino. To hear it from him, the SEA Write and Regional Artist awards confirmed his belief that one can only best express what is in the mind or in the heart through one’s native language.

All the SEA Write awardees this year write in their native languages. During the awarding ceremonies, the recipients were asked to deliver their acceptance remarks in their national languages. Balde rendered his speech in a mixture of Bikol and Filipino. Delivered in front of the Philippine Ambassador, his parting words rang: “Sa mga namumuno ng aming bansa, sana’y marinig ninyo at maunawaan kung paano at bakit sa panig na ito ng mundo ay pinahahalagahan ang sariling wika. Umunlad sila habang ginagamit ang sariling wika. Sana, ganoon din tayo. Tangkilikin natin ang mga wika natin; tangkilikin natin ang Wikang Pambansa.”

Balde is currently vice chair of UMPIL as well as the National Commission on Language and Translation, a board member of the Filipinas Copyright Licensing Society and Wika ng Kultura at Agham, a member of the Kabulig Bikol Writers Group, and a consultant for National Book Store.

For a hat trick, Jun has also been invited to speak on Oct. 29 at the Singapore Writers Festival’s Professional Literary Symposium billed as “Read ASEAN: A comparison of consumer book-buying habits and trends within the ASEAN.” The following questions are to be addressed by the speakers: How do book-buying habits compare across different markets in the region? Do readers in the ASEAN consume books in native languages or foreign publications? Do inter-ASEAN translations play an important role?

The panel speakers include Vasin Permsup, Vice-President of the Thailand Booksellers Association, and Hiroshi Sogo, GM of Book Kinokuniya, a retailer with branches in Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia. To be moderated by Peter Schoppert, the discussion is expected to provide statistics and overviews of book-buying trends in the region, and result in a comparative study on the retail perspective as opposed to the author’s perspective.

The Singapore Writers Festival starts on Oct. 24 and ends on Nov. 1, with topics as varied as writing novels, stories and songs; global perspective on literature; investigating culture and crime in fiction; the business of books and publishing; discovering new writers and finding new readers; crafting anthologies; comics entrepreneurship; creative writing experiences; graphic novels and fantasy; and many other aspects of writing, publishing and selling literary works.

The formidable list of guest writers includes Edwin Thumboo, Wena Poon, John Boyne, Mark Waid, Joyce Gan, Miguel Angel Mendo, Patrick Forsyth, Anwar Ridhwan, Mark Ravinder, our very own 2008 MAN Asia Prize winner Miguel Syjuco, and graphic novel legend Neil Gaiman.

Again Jun Balde will be in excellent company, almost as special as the one that will miss him on Oct. 30 at a full-afternoon event billed as Pagpupugay kay Rio Alma, along with the launch of Fundasyon Bahay Bulawan, both to be held at the municipal hall of San Miguel, Bulacan.

Jun will also be there, in spirit. He says: “Ipagtitirik ko na lang ng kandila ng pasasalamat sa templo ni Buddha sa Sentosa.”

From Sentosa to San Miguel, then, should waft the oracular white fumes of a confrere’s gesture, while we make pulutan of pastillas de leche and quaff the soulful river of spirits that Rio Alma has promised. And for sure we’ll also be toasting Jun Balde: Mabuhay ka, Oragon!