Guillermo Gómez Rivera

Guillermo Gómez Rivera (; born 12 September 1936) is a Spanish Filipino multilingual author, historian, educator and linguistic scholar whose lifelong work has been devoted to the advocacy to preserve Spanish culture as an important element of the Filipino identity (according to Hispanista movement).

Gómez is the most senior academic director of the Academia Filipina de la Lengua Española. He was appointed secretary of the Commission on the Filipino Language Committee of the Philippine Constitutional Convention (1971–73).

Biography

Guillermo Gómez y Rivera was born in Dingle, Iloilo on the southeast portion of Panay Island and graduated from the University of San Agustin in Iloilo City with degrees in commerce and in education. In 1967, he earned a BA from the Colegio de San Juan de Letrán. Shortly afterwards, he obtained a doctorate in Philippine Literature under the tutelage of a Jesuit academic. As secretary of the National Language Committee of the Philippine Constitutional Convention (1971–1973) during the presidency of Ferdinand E. Marcos, he favored Tagalog to become the basis of the country's national language. In the same convention, he joined forces with other nationalists to preserve Spanish as one of the country's official languages. Spanish, however, was later made an optional language (together with Arabic) under the Constitution of 1987 which was promulgated under the presidency of Corazón Aquino who abolished the 1973 constitution under Marcos.

Literature, history and culture

Literary critics regard Gómez's writing style as combative.

Organizers of the Premio Zóbel, in awarding him the prize in 1975, cited "his efforts to preserve the Spanish language and culture in our country," although some literary historians mistakenly believe he won the award solely for his play "El Caseron." Prior to winning the Premio Zóbel, Gómez won second place in the Premio Manuel Bernabé for an essay on the historical and nationalistic value and importance of the Spanish language.

He views cultural dissemination as a tool to accomplish his advocacy, particularly through dance. His research on Philippine songs and dances, especially those of Hispanic influence, was used by the internationally acclaimed Bayanihan Philippine National Folk Dance Company

Gómez is also a recording artist who has cut an album of Filipino songs that were originally in Spanish as well as in Chavacano. He is credited for reintroducing to the modern local film industry the now forgotten film Secreto de confesión, the first locally produced film spoken and sung in Spanish (la primera película hablada y cantada en español producida en Filipinas).

His efforts to bring back the Filipino national identity based on Spanish have led some critics, such as poet-academician Edmundo Farolán and poet-novelist Gilbert Luis R. Centina III, to call him El Don Quixote Filipino.

In May 2015, Gómez published his first novel, Quis ut Deus (Who Is Like God), the first Spanish-language novel published in the Philippines in the last 55 years.

Flamenco

Gómez honed his dancing skills in short courses conducted by Spanish international dancers such as Los Chavales de España, Antonio Ruiz and José Greco who visited Manila in the 1970s and the 1980s. But his introduction to flamenco came much earlier at the age of four when he learned it, along with many other Spanish dances, from Rosa Jiménez. She was a flamenco dancer from Sevilla, Spain and the second wife of his maternal grandfather, José Rivera Franco. La nueva Babilonia (2018);

Novel Quis ut Deus, o el Teniente Guimô, el brujo revolucionario de Yloílo (2015);

Essays The Filipino State And Other Essays: Is Rodrigo Duterte the Savior of the Filipino People? (2018);

Musical recordings Pascuas en Manila (1967); Nostalgia Filipina. Antología del folclore filipino de los siglos XVIII y XIX (2007); El collar de Sampaguitas y Zamboanga Hermosa (2009);