Lagmans of Albay part of untold migration story
By Marlen V. Ronquillo
February 5, 2025
PATRIOT-parliamentarian Edcel Lagman developed a close friendship with Pampanga's second district representative Emigdio Lingad during their term in the 8th Congress, and the why is easy to explain. Emy's father, Joe Lingad, a fierce opponent of martial law, was assassinated after winning the Pampanga gubernatorial race in 1980, then lost in the Comelec count.
Hermon Lagman, Edcel's lawyer-brother who defended workers and trade unions, disappeared during the early years of martial law, never to be seen again.
Hermon C. Lagman and Jose B. Lingad are names etched on the Bantayog ng Mga Bayani memorial.
And on top of the shared tragedy was regional kinship. Edcel Lagman's forefathers were originally from the Guagua-Floridablanca area, two Pampanga towns that Emy Lingad represented in Congress then. Emy Lingad, who died a few years back, told Edcel he was familiar with one wave of migration involving Kapampangans moving to Mindanao, the Land of Promise, that offered at least 8 hectares of land to new settlers. But the migration to Bicol, he told Edcel, remains an unexplored but interesting story.
Indeed, it is an interesting migration story. The movement from the Kapampangan-speaking plains to the Bicol Region, mostly in the early 20th century, was made more interesting by the prominent names that were byproducts of that migration, including the Lagman family, who turned out three unapologetic dissidents and non-conformists: Edcel, Hermon and Popoy.
Tabaco City in Albay, whose incumbent mayor is a daughter of Edcel, has its place in Philippine literary history. Angela Manalang-Gloria is the name attached to Tabaco, Albay's place in Philippine literature.
Angela Manalang, her maiden name, was born in Guagua, Pampanga. Yes, the same town from where Edcel Lagman's forefathers came before their migration to Albay. Angela Manalang was still a child when her parents moved from Guagua to the Bicol Region and it was during her early school years in Bicol when she first realized her preternatural precocity with words.
During her university years, Angela Manalang competed with another poetic genius for the literary editorship of the Philippine Collegian. She got the editorship at the expense of one name, her competitor, who is now immortalized in Philippine literature, Jose Garcia Villa. While her writing years were short-lived (she edited literary magazines after graduating summa cum laude from UP), the body of poetry she left behind is still recognized today for its vibrancy, relevance and originality.
She was ambushed by the Japanese military with her husband and son in 1945 in Batangas. Her husband died, and she returned to Tabaco and became a successful businesswoman.
Bienvenido N. Santos, who died in Legazpi City in 1996, gained literary acclaim in three genres: novel, poetry and short story. And in two settings: America and the Philippines. He won an American Book Award for his short story collection, "Scent of Apples," in 1980. He was also a Guggenheim Foundation Fellow. For almost 10 years, he was writer in residence and professor of creative writing at the Wichita State University. He won three Palanca prizes for short story writing, among the many honors he received in his native country.
The simple chronology of his life lists Tondo, where he was born; the United States, where he studied as a pensionado and the place where he earned his well-deserved place as one of the more prominent Asian American writers of his generation; and then his return to the Philippines and his final years in Albay.
Like Edcel Lagman, Bienvenido Santos had a great friend surnamed Lingad. He was Genio Lingad of Sta Cruz in Lubao, Pampanga, where the forefathers of the literary giant came from. In the compilation of the letters he wrote from the US, from Manila during his university years and elsewhere, Santos had fond recollections of his youthful days with Genio Lingad. There were several letters describing his visits to Lubao with Genio Lingad as his guide and companion. The trek through the paddies, the sight of a young woman who gained his attention and at one time intended to marry, the lively fiestas.
Lubao was not a distant place in the consciousness of Bienvenido Santos despite the many years — and many honors gained — in America.
Any mention of Filipino American businesswoman Loida Nicolas-Lewis in the Philippine context always centers on her Sorsogon roots. She was born there and raised there. That is where much of her philanthropic work, with a focus on education, is being carried out. But like the Lagmans, both parents of Nicolas-Lewis were children of Kapampangan migrants from Tarlac. The surname of her mother, Manalac, is a giveaway. Just like Vitug or Manalang or Barin or Lagman, anyone with the surname Manalac could have originated only from Pampanga or the Kampampangan part of Tarlac.
Like the Lagman brothers, Loida Nicolas-Lewis has been the bĉte noire of strongmen and autocrats.
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