13/09/2025
Today we remember 𝗔𝗺𝗮𝗱𝗼 𝗛𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗮𝗻𝗱𝗲𝘇 on his birth anniversary.
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Amado V. Hernandez—poet, playwright, and novelist—was one of the foremost advocates of “committed art” in Philippine literature. For him, the writer’s role was to be the conscience of society and to uphold the dignity of the human spirit against injustice and oppression. He revolutionized Tagalog prose by shedding its ornate style in favor of language closer to everyday speech. His groundbreaking novel Mga Ibong Mandaragit, written while he was in prison, is considered the first Filipino socio-political novel, laying bare the agrarian and social problems of the 1950s.
