Francisco Alonso Liongson (July 1, 1896 – May 14, 1965) was a Filipino writer and playwright. He was born into an Ilustrado family from Pampanga, Philippines at the turn of the 20th century and raised with the revolutionary values of an emerging Philippine identity which held freedom, justice, honor, patriotism and piety sacred. He witnessed the rapid changes that transformed the Philippines from a repressed society cloistered in a Spanish convent for over 300 years into modern, hedonistic consumers of American Hollywood glamor for 50 years. This period of transition brought instabilities to core family values as the generation gaps wreaked havoc on the social, political, economic and political foundations of a young nation. It was a period of experimentation where the natives began to grapple a new democratic way of life and self-rule; where sacred paternalistic relationships were giving way to egalitarian modes; where traditional gender and familial roles were questioned, and where a new foreign language and the need for a national alternative were alienating the nation from understanding the aspirations of its elders. Liongson, in his unique, inimitable literary style captured snap shots of these struggles with anachronism in plays and articles written in the language that he mastered and loved best, Spanish. His works have since become precious gems of Philippine literature in Spanish and historic records of the Filipino psyche and social life between 1896 and 1950.
Early years
"Don Paco", as he was better known, was born in Bacolor, Pampanga, Philippines, a month before the Philippine Revolution was unleashed on August 23, 1896. His father, Dr. Francisco Tongio Liongson, was a Spanish-trained medical doctor and a contemporary of José Rizal during his student days in Spain. A great influence on his son, Dr. Liongson was actively involved in the struggle for independence and became Pampanga's governor and first Senator to the Philippine Legislature. Don Paco's mother was Maria Dolores Alonso-Colmenares y Castro, a native of Badajoz, Spain whom his father met and married in Madrid. His mother died soon after his birth. He was raised since by his spinster aunt, Isabel Tongio Liongson.
His early studies were in his hometown school of Don Modesto Joaquin. He next transferred to the Colegio de San Juan de Letran in Manila where he earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1911 He pursued his university studies in law at the University of Santo Tomas where he graduated with the Licentiate in Civil Law in 1916. Having passed the bar examination given by the Philippine Supreme Court and was included into the rolls on November 6, 1916, he traveled to neutral Spain to meet his late mother's family for the first time. His trip to the United States was delayed by the latter's entry into the First World War. His extended three-year sojourn in Spain provided the opportunity to absorb the language, culture and literary arts of the Iberian peninsula. The literary works of Spaniard Miguel de Cervantes, particularly the early 17th century novel Don Quixote, would soon prove to be a propitious influence in the young man's future.
He traveled to the United States before returning to the Philippines in 1919 not knowing of his father's untimely death. Upon his arrival in Manila, the shocking, unexpected news of his father's demise caused the first epileptic seizure that will continue to debilitate him for the rest of his life. Restrained from pursuing an active professional practice, he engaged in a more leisurely lifestyle administering a sugar fortune that he inherited at a young age. He married his first cousin, Doña Julita Eulalia Ocampo, who would become his indispensable partner in life and particularly in his contributions to Philippine literature in Spanish.
Circulo Escenico
Don Paco was one of the founders and first president of the Circulo Escenico, a Spanish dramatic club of aficionados founded in Bacolor, Pampanga that rose to national prominence and became the longest surviving organization of its kind in the Philippines.