Sir Aurelio Agcaoili

PERSONALITY PROFILE

Joel B. Guerrero

A professor from the University of Hawaii at Moana (UHM), Professor Aurelio S. Agcaoili, PhD is the coordinator for the Ilocano Program and a faculty member of the Indo- Pacific Languages and Literature in the said university.

There at the University of Hawaii, he also teaches film, philosophy, and culture. Sir Aurelio Agcaoili also specializes in Ilocano and Amianan studies.

He also became an associate for LIKHAAN, the University of the Philippines (UP) Institute of Creative Writing and also became the Vice President and General Secretary of “Gunglo dagiti Mannurat nga Ilokano iti Filipinas” or Ilocano Writers Association of the Philippines or GUMIL FILIPINAS. He was also the founding president of KAGURO.

Sir Aurelio also known as “Lakay Ilyong” to his fans, has published numerous Ilocano works such as his English Ilocano dictionary entitled “Contemporary English-Ilocano dictionary”, “Kontemporaneo a Diktionaryo nga Ingles-Ilokano” and others. He also published literary works such as Ti Ligsay, Ti Anniniwan, Ken Ti Daton, and also his poems like the “Ti Agimmamannaniw iti Balay a Sarming, “Ti Mannaniw ket Bulbullagaw”, “Dagiti Mangsirsirok iti Alukon iti Ewa”, and many more poems like the “Babantot iti Abagatayo” which is inspired by R. Zamora’s article entitled “People’s Burden” where “a member of a leftist urban poor group bears a symbolic bamboo cross on his shoulder on which hangs a sign demanding the resignation of the President as he and other activists rally in front of the LTA building in Makati, owned by the family of former First Gentleman Jose Miguel Arroyo, as part of their ‘Bwisita Ahensya’ (Pestilential Agencies), a play on the Lenten tradition of visiting churches”. The article was published on March 28, 2008 at the Inquirer.

He launched his book Signos or sign at Mt. Cloud at Casa Vallejo last March 6. He dedicated Signos/Sign in honor of his dear brother, friend and colleague, Dr. Julius Bajet Soria who passed away last year. Signos is a compilation of his Ilocano poems with their English translations He presented also his book through poetry book reading where he recited some of his works like signos 1 and others.

He also invited his friend, Ronnie an engineer and Junley Lazaga, a faculty member at the college of arts and communications at the University of the Philippines Baguio or UP Baguio to recite some of his works.

And also three volunteers from the audience were given a chance to recite some of his poems wither they read the Ilocano or the English translation.

For those who are interested to buy Sir Aurelio’s Signos/Sign, they are now available at Mount Cloud at Casa Vallejo, Baguio City. (Joel B. Guerrero is Mass Communications student of University of Baguio and an intern of Northern Philippine Times)