NATIONAL Artist for Literature F. Sionil Jose passed away on Thursday, January 6. He was 97.

Jose died at the Makati Medical Center, where he was confined ahead of a scheduled angioplasty on January 7, according to his wife Tessie.

Tessie said Jose died in his sleep.

Just hours before his death, Jose took Facebook page to post what would become his final words.

“Thank you brave heart. There are times when as an agnostic I doubt the presence of an almighty and loving God. But dear brave heart you are here to disprove this illusion, to do away with the conclusion that if you doubt Him, you kill Him. I cannot kill you dear heart; you have to do that yourself,” he wrote.

“For 97 years you have been constantly working patiently pumping much more efficiently and longer than most machines. Of course, I know that a book lasts long too, as the libraries have shown, books that have lived more than 300 years,” he said.

“Now that I am here in waiting for an angioplasty, I hope that you will survive it and I with it, so that I will be able to continue what I have been doing with so much energy that only you have been able to give.

Thank you dear brave heart and dear Lord for this most precious gift,” he added.

Jose is one of the most widely read Filipino authors in the English language. Some of his books have been translated into 28 languages.

He won the Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature five times, and has also received other awards including the Cultural Center of the Philippines’ Centennial Award in 1999, France’s Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et Lettres in 2000, as well as the Pablo Neruda Centennial Award in Chile in 2004.

In 2001, the Philippine government bestowed upon him the prestigious title of National Artist for Literature.