A Brief History of the Premio Zóbel
100 years ago the Premio Zóbel was established to promote Filipino literature in Spanish by businessman Don Enrique Zóbel de Ayala (1877–1943) who upon seeing the situation of Spanish believed that something had to be done to preserve it status in the Philippines against American influence, which was in preponderance by that time. After the Spanish era came the American era in the Philippines due to the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1898, in which the Spanish empire relinquished sovereignty of the Philippines to the United States of America. As a consequence, English started to spread in the daily life of Filipinos. Spanish was replaced for English in public education, the courts, advertisements, newspapers etc. Someone had to do something to preserve the Spanish language and the Hispanic culture of the Philippines.
“I do not want the Spanish language to die in the Philippines!” said Don Enrique, and for that the premio was born.
To be eligible in joining the premio, the contestant must be a Filipino and present his/her original work to the panel. Political and religious topics were forbidden. The contestants could submit novels, poems, theatrical works and the like. The ceremonies took place at the Casino Español Filipino which is located in Manila. The awarding ceremonies were first celebrated on the day of St. James the Apostle (July 25), later moved to the Día de la Hispanidad (October 12), and finally on the death anniversary of Don Enrique (February 17). The premio was established to promote Filipinoo literature in Spanish and spread the Hispanic culture in the Philippines. It awarded the most illustrious writers who knew how to write with such mastery in that if one shows their works to readers from Spain and Hispanoamérica, they would not know any difference when comparing them to works written by Spaniards and Hispano-Americans unless a reference to the Philippines is made. With its efforts it ushered in a flourishing of Fil-Hispanic literature. The newspapers would report about the successes of the winners, encouraging prospective writers to join the premio with the hopes of winning it and achieving the fame of being a writer with such masterful command of the language of Cervantes. The winners of the first period of the premio like Guillermo Gómez Wyndham (1922), Manuel Bernabé and Jesús Balmori (1926), Antonio Abad (1928 and 1929), Flavio Zaragoza Cano (1929), Pacífico Victoriano (1934), and Evangelina Guerrero de Zacarías (1935) had shown that Filipinos were able to write great works in Spanish, destroying the myth that we did not have any knowledge of this language on this far corner of Asia as propagated by the Americans. For 19 years (1922–1941), before the beginning of the Second World War in Asia, the Premio Zóbel had awarded numerous writers from all parts of the Philippines for writing timeless works. Certainly, the Philippines had its own Golden Age of Fil-Hispanic Literature, thanks to those writers who made it possible.
The arrival of the Japanese in 1941 suspended the Premio Zóbel. The Japanese were insistent on the suppression of Western influences in the Philippines and the other colonies of the European empires, wanting to create an Asia for Asians. The truth is that the Japanese wanted to create an Asia aligned to their ideals. The different cultures of Southeast Asia did not matter to them, in which the Philippines was the only Spanish colony in said part of the continent.
After the destruction of Manila in 1945 during the bloody battle for its liberation, the activities of the premio did not resume until the 1950s. In 1953 the premio resumed without Don Enrique as he died during the war. With the new situation in which English started to dominate Filipino culture while Spanish was declining in influence, the premio still continued in awarding writers who wrote in Spanish with a new generation Filipino Spanish speakers. The first winners came from those who lived under Spanish rule. By this time the premio will have winners from those who grew up under American rule, in which their education was in English. The winners from this period include Enrique Fernández Lumba (1954), José Bantug and María Adelina Gurrea Monasterio (1955), León María Guerrero (1963), and Nilda Guerrero de Barranco (1964).
For six years from 1967–1973, the premio was suspended in order to revise the rules. The original rules were difficult for those who wanted to join the premio. Instead of being a literary contest, the decision was made that those who made any contribution for the propagation of the Spanish language and the Hispanic culture in the Philippines could be awarded, even those who did not join the premio officially. There were those who still presented their literary work like historian Antonio Molina y Memije, who presented his work La historia de Filipinas and won the premio in 1985. Anyone can one win the premio regardless of line of work. Those who won the premio with the change of rules include Bienvenido de la Paz (1974, owner of the newspaper La Voz de Manila), Belén Santos Argüelles (1982, head of the division of Spanish and culture of the Ministry of Education), Raúl Manglapús (1986, Department of Foreign Affairs secretary under the administration of Corazón Aquino) and Juan José Rocha (1987, ambassador of the Philippines to Spain).
In 1985 however, a problem surged among the members of the Zóbel family about the existence of the premio in relation to the situation of the Spanish language in the Philippines at the time. It was proposed that the original goal, the propagation of Spanish in the Philippines, be replaced into promoting the English language instead. But the daughter of Don Enrique, Doña Gloria Zóbel de Padilla, was adamant and said “I do not want to throw in the towel”. For that she bore the responsibility of running the premio. After her death in 1986, the responsibility of running the premio was given to her two children; Doña Georgina Padilla y Zóbel de Mac-Crohon and Alejandro Padilla y Zóbel.
Since the last awarding of the premio in 2000, it is currently working on republishing the works of its winners in bilingual editions. Lourdes Castrillo de Brillantes, winner of the premio in 1998, published in 2006 her book 81 Years of Premio Zóbel. This book shares to its readers the history of the premio, the Zóbel family, the winners, and their respective works. In 2013, the novel La oveja de Nathán (Nathan’s Sheep) by Antonio Abad was published by Doña Georgina Padilla y Zóbel de Mac-Crohon, Filipinas Heritage Library, and the Ayala Corporation, Inc.
Although it has already ceased to exist, its efforts to propagate the Spanish language and the Hispanic culture of the Philippines will never be forgotten. One should remember that there were Filipinos who expressed their love for the Philippines and its Hispanic culture in their writings. This heritage must be preserved for the posterity of Filipino culture and to show that the Philippines are a part of the Hispanic family.
