TWO professors from the Ateneo de Manila University were among the recipients of 2023 Gawad Pambansang Alagad ni Balagtas given by the Unyon ng mga Manunulat sa Pilipinas.

Dr. Nicanor Tiongson received the Kritisismong Pampanitikan award while Assistant Professor Danilo Reyes was named as the awardee for the Tula sa Ingles.

Tiongson is the author of several books in Philippine theater, film, and literature and is the editor in chief of the CCP Encyclopedia of Philippine Art.

Among his accomplishments are his pioneering studies of Philippine religious theater forms, the sinakulo and the komedya; the Uriain anthologies, his chronicle of the development of Philippine cinema from the 1970s to the first decade of the twenty-first century; and The Women of Malolos, a family history that is also an account of a significant moment in Philippine education and women’s rights.

Meanwhile, Reyes is the author of a collection of poems entitled Promising Lights, shortlisted for the National Book Award in 1999.

He is also a regular panelist at writers’ workshops for various universities.

The Gawad Pambansang Alagad ni Balagtas is “given to writers for their distinctive body of work in whatever Philippine language and for their contribution to the development of Filipino literature.”