Wilfrido Ma. Guerrero

Call me Flory

Biography

Wilfrido Maria Guerrero (January 22, 1911 - April 28, 1995) was a Filipino playwright, director, teacher and theater artist. Guerrero wrote well over 100 plays, 41 of which have been published. His unpublished plays have either been broadcast over the radio or staged in various parts of the Philippines.

After the Catholic Women's League staged his first three-act play, The Forsaken House, Guerrero decided to make theatre a profession.

His first English play, Half an Hour in a Convent, was written when he was a sophomore in UP in 1934.

He was born in Ermita, Manila. He wrote his first play at the age of 14 in Spanish, entitled, "No Todo Es Risa." This play was produced at the Ateneo de Manila University when he was 15.

Guerrero worked as a reporter and proofreader for La Vanguardia, a Spanish newspaper, and as a drama critic for the Manila Tribune.

He also worked for some time in the Philippine film industry as a scriptwriter.

Among the most popular

ones were:

• Women Are Extraordinary, 1937
• Hate Begins, 1938
• Romance in B Minor, 1939
• Movie Artists, 1940
• Wanted: A Chaperone, 1940
• Forever, 1941
• Condemned, 1944

Biography

In 1962, Upon the suggestion of UP President Carlos P. Romulo, Guerrero organized and directed the U.P. Mobile Theater, which travels around the Philippines to give performances. It had more than 2,500 performances all over the country. It also presented his plays in English and in regional languages for 19 years.

He served as director of the UP Dramatic Club for 16 years. Under his leadership, the club has produced over 120 foreign and Filipino plays and casting and training future directors who were then neophyte actors like Behn Cervantes, Tony Mabesa, Jonee Gamboa, Lino Brocka, Ishmael Bernal, Celia Diaz-Laurel, Jun Roy, and Joy Virata in his production.

He retired from UP in 1982 after 35 years of service. He was named professor emeritus the following year. The theater in the Arts and Sciences building at UP was named after him in 1976: The Wilfrido Ma. Guerrero Theater

His Life as a Child

Guerrero grew up in an affluent family. His father, Manuel Severino Guerrero, was renowned for having a “clinical eye” which could diagnose illness just by studying a person’s outside appearance.

Guerrero and his brothers attended high school at the Ateneo in Intramuros. They became choristers to receive free tuition, but this required their presence at Mass every day. Even with their tuition exempt (Php60.00 per semester), they still needed money to purchase their textbooks.

By Wilfrido's third year at the Ateneo, he purportedly had his fill of hearing daily Mass. This emboldened him to approach Don Alejandro Roces, Sr., a patient of his father and husband of a close friend of his mother. Having heard Guerrero's proposal in his office at the Manila Tribune, Don Alejandro readily agreed, thereby paying Guerrero's tuition for his last two years in high school and ostensibly freeing him from daily Mass.

Why He Started Writing

It was Guerrero's favorite aunt, Maria Araceli, who discovered his writing ability. When he was 12 or 13 she noticed him writing on scraps of paper and then hiding them inside his cabinet drawer.

After his aunt's death, Guerrero wrote some of his most popular comedies, "Movie Artists," "Basketball Fight," and "Wanted: A Chaperone." He also made her the basis for the principal characters in "Forever" (Maria Teresa) and "Frustrations" (Maria Araceli). “Both women are like my aunt: imperious, strong-willed, wise, but also humane,” he wrote.

Guerrero received three national awards:

• The Araw ng Maynila Award in 1969
• Rizal Pro-Patria Award for Drama, 1961
• Republic Cultural Heritage Award for Literature, 1972

The U.P. Mobile Theater received two awards when he was director: The Citizen's Council for Mass Media Trophy (1966) and the Balagtas Award (1969).

In 1997, Guerrero was posthumously distinguished as a National Artist for Philippine Theatre.

Vocabularies

• Collaborate- to work with another person or group in order to achieve or do something
• Modest- Having or showing a moderate estimation of  one's own abilities, accomplishments, or value
• Suffocating- to destroy by preventing access of air
• Distinction- a noticeable difference between things or people
• Prestige- the respect and admiration that someone or something gets for being successful or important

• Snob- a person who imitates, cultivates, or slavishly admires social superiors and is condescending or overbearing to others
• Aloof- at a distance, especially in feeling or interest
• Hoi poloi- ordinary people : people who are not rich, famous, etc
• Distasteful- not pleasant or enjoyable
• Disposed- to cause (someone) to be likely to do or have something
• Contradict- to say the opposite of (something that someone else has said)

• Resent-to be angry or upset about (someone or something that you think is unfair)
• Meek- having or showing a quiet and gentle nature : not wanting to fight or argue with other people
• Embroider- to sew a design on a piece of cloth
• Pretentious- having or showing the unpleasant quality of people who want to be regarded as more impressive, successful, or important than they really are

Wilfrido Ma. Guerrero