Fernando Canon

Fernando Canon-Faustino y Alumno (August 6, 1860 – July 18, 1938) was a Filipino revolutionary general, poet, inventor, engineer, musician, and the Philippines' first National Chess Champion in 1908.

Life and career

Fernando was born to Fernando Canon-Faustino y Guevara, a watchmaker, and Blasa Alumno y Salvador, a wealthy landowner in Biñan, Laguna. When he was young, his family moved from Biñan to Calle Cabildo in Intramuros. He studied at the Ateneo Municipal de Manila and subsequently pursued his medical studies at the Universidad Central de Madrid (now the Universidad Complutense de Madrid). While in Spain, Canon-Faustino met María Teresa Batllé Casas, a Barcelona native who would become his wife.

A childhood friend of Jose Rizal, the two maintained an extensive correspondence; their letters are in possession of his granddaughter Maria Teresa García-Canon. Like Rizal, Canon-Faustino was a polyglot, speaking six languages: French, Spanish, Tagalog, German, English, and Italian. Canon and his wife smuggled copies of La Solidaridad and Noli Me Tángere in the Philippines, disguising them as bank ledgers. He was exiled to Spain, where he taught electrical and mechanical engineering and ran a clinic. He refused to swear allegiance to the United States and rejected his pension as a veteran of the Philippine-American War. Upon returning to the Philippines in late 1907, he taught at the Liceo de Manila.

Fernando Canon-Faustino died on the July 18, 1938.

Literary works His first published poem, under the pseudonym kuitib, was the sonnet A las dalagas malolenses, which appeared in the newspaper La Solidaridad in 1889. It was an ode dedicated to the young women of Malolos, who petitioned for Spanish classes in the evening, celebrating hidden progress and changes: Gold, though covered by slag, emerges much brighter through fire.