AT age 16, Ed Maranan topped a national essay competition and was sent as Philippine delegate to the 1963 New York Herald Tribune World Youth Forum. From St. Louis College high school in Baguio he went to UP Diliman and finished a bachelor’s degree in foreign service. He remembers fondly his tutelage under professor and poet Gemino Abad who must have inspired him to write poetry.

In the 60s idealistic youth immersed themselves in activism. Young Ed joined Kabataang Makabayan in 1966 and upon graduation, he taught political science in Diliman. During the First Quarter Storm in 1970 he became a member of PAKSA (Panulat para sa kaunlaran ng sambayanan), and SAGUPA (Samahan ng mga guro sa pamantasan), national democratic groups. It was then that I came to know him.

When martial law was declared he went underground. He was arrested in 1976, released in 1978, and taught in the UP Asian Studies Center. In the underground and in prison he wrote poems in English and Filipino —which appeared in his first books Agon and Alab and in a Canadian anthology of Filipino poetry titled The Guerrilla is Like a Poet. In 1985 he was the Philippine fellow in the Iowa International Writing Program, and in 1992 a British Council fellow in the University of London and Oxford University.

In 1993 he became information officer of the Philippine embassy in London and served until 2006.

From his travels since 1983 he has put together his poems about places and seasons in his 2007 collection Passage. He now sees himself as a free-lance writer.

What is quite remarkable in Ed Maranan’s literary career is that he has won every prize in national contests in practically all categories of poetry, fiction, drama, essay, translation, and children’s literature. The Palanca Hall of Fame distinction is achieved after winning more than five first prizes. He achieved this in 2000. He has in fact garnered 33 Palanca top prizes (the highest number won by a writer in the 60-year old history of Palanca) and many other awards in other contests for his works in English and Filipino.

Maranan’s preoccupation these days is children’s literature. The Secret of the Cave and other stories for young readers (2011) is his latest work in the genre introduced by Anvil Publishing at the last international book fair (at the SMX convention hall, Mall of Asia). The cover design and inside page illustrations of The Secret were well done by Dorotheo Ysabel Maranan, a Baguio-based artist.

Four stories ostensibly for young readers will delight adults as much for the themes tell us for one (“The Secret about the Cave”) about a legend behind the Manunggul Jar, the centerpiece of any exhibit of our cultural prehistory, with the story given an imaginative twist about the union of the prehistoric past and the present. At the same time “The Secret” instructs the reader about the meaning of our cultural heritage and the necessity of conserving nature in the context of technology and climate change.

“The Day the Crocodiles Came” gives the reader, both young and old, as Nina Yuson of the Museo Pambata says, “ a glimpse of the horrors of war, the separation of families, and the endless search for a good life.” Historical and social awareness is taught as readers encounter wild life and reality in this tale.

“Lolo Magno and the Sweetest Mango in the World” is a poignant story about a grandfather and his grandson who lost his parents and his grandmother early in life as well as a meditation on the national fruit which Filipinos abroad pine for in moments of homesickness.

“Neighbors” is a moving take on the familiar “Pepe and Pilar” stories taught in grade school. Life in an impoverished barrio is rendered in the story of the two young characters who strive to go beyond what their parents achieved – to be able to get to high school and hopefully to finish college so they could become professionals. Pilar’s mother is forced to work abroad when the father is incapacitated and just as the mother is able to send financial support to Pilar and her sick father, tragedy strikes the working mother. Pepe and Pilar continue to hope that they would overcome their difficulties and reach their ambition of becoming a doctor and teacher, respectively.

It is the poet’s sensibility, elegant prose and social vision that place Ed Maranan’s stories well above the usual children’s literature. He is a wizard with words turning what may appear to be playful puns and nonsensical rhymes in his Google Book into meaningful lines with social and political relevance. Google Book published by Anvil will soon be in the market. As I noted in a blurb for the book, Ed Maranan “manages to entertain children who love funny rhymes and word play and make them appreciate serious issues about society, nature, and the cosmos.”

(I regret I have been unable to watch his plays and musicals on stage but I can imagine the wondrous effect on the young audience that he loves.)

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