BACOLOD City – Bacolodnon lawyer and professor Raymundo Torres Pandan won the grand prize in the 2022 Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards (CPMA) – Novel Category for his work “Bittersweetland”.
The Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature, popularly known as the Palanca Awards, are a set of literary awards for Philippine writers. Usually referred to as the “Pulitzer Prize of the Philippines”, it is the country’s highest literary honor in terms of prestige.
“Bittersweetland”, according to Pandan, was written for the province and the Negrosanons who must sustain its crops to endure a bittersweet life.
The novel is set to be published in December 2022 or early 2023.
Pandan is the project director of lyas National Writers’ Workshop based in Bacolod City, one of only four writers’ workshops funded by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA).
Because of the works and accolades of Pandan that give pride and honor to the city and give inspiration to other budding Bacolodnon writers and literary artists, the city council passed a resolution commending him.
“Pandan has been a lawyer for 32 years and was the country’s youngest law school dean in 1997 at the University of Saint La Salle-Bacolod,” read part of the resolution.
The resolution shall be inscribed on a plaque and formally presented to Pandan on an appropriate occasion.
Aside from his novel “Bittersweetland”, Pandan also won the Cirilo F. Bautista Grand Prize for the novel category for his work “When Will This War End?” in 2015.
He had also won two Palanca Awards for poetry in 2006 and for children’s poetry in 2012.
In 2018, the NCCA granted him the Taboan Awards for his “masterful craft of poetry and fiction” and a “full life of exemplary service as a committed defender of justice and staunch promoter of Philippines letter.”
The CPMA Awarding Ceremonies will take place on Nov. 30, 2022, at Bonifacio Global City in Taguig. (With report from Bacolod City PIO)/PN
