Alex C. Delos Santos

Karay-a writer, theater artist and cultural worker based in Metro Manila for 10 years, Alex C Delos Santos began theater work since he was a student. He founded Students Theater Arts Guild (STAGE) in college. He trained with the Philippine Educational Theater Association (PETA), and later under Frank G. Rivera at the Teatro Metropolitano.[3]

In 1988, he founded Tabig/Antique Writers Guild, and spearheaded the resurgence of writing in Kinaray-a. He was awarded the Literary Grant for Kinaray-a Poetry from the Cultural Center of the Philippines in 1992, and was accepted as a fellow in the Second Iligan National Writers Workshop in 1995. His poetry, stories and feature articles have been published in various anthologies, journals and magazines.

As cultural worker, he designs and conducts writing, theater, and media education workshops for schools and communities, and provides production support services to schools, corporations, and government and non-government organizations. He is a member of ACTION (Activating Communities Towards Inter-Cultural Orchestration Network), a group of artists, trainers, organizers and researchers doing cultural work in communities. His latest project is the design and conduct of Tanghal-Tula, a performance poetry workshop, commissioned by the Cultural Center of the Philippines for the Silay City Arts Association and the Department of Education, Culture & Sports of Silay City.

Delos Santos' first book The Rise of Kinaray-a published in 2003.[4] Ugsad kang Kinaray-a is the second book written entirely in Kinaray-a by Delos Santos, after his controversial collection of gay short stories Agi, Agi may putay sa dahi published in 2006. Ugsad kang Kinaray-a contains essays on the history of Kinaray-a literature, a guide to Kinaray-a orthography, a review of the ribald tradition in Karay-a poetry, and a discourse on language and othering. Ugsad kang Kinaray-a is not only merely a translation of his first book, but more significantly a translation of a mind entangled in the language of the colonial master. The book is lauded for its pioneering work in Kinaray-a, and for advancing the intellectualization of Kinaray-a as a language for academic discourse. [5] Delos Santos also authored Mga kanta ni Datu Lubay, a tri-lingual collection of his poetry in 2003, and edited Huwaran: Aniad best practices and Maaram: Studies on Antique.

As a cultural educator, he has been chairperson of Paranubliun Antique, and is currently the Executive Director of Binirayan Foundation, Inc., organizer of Antique's Binirayan Festival and the Karay-a Arts Festival. He finished his master's degree in Education from the University of the Philippines-Visayas, and has attended all the major writing fellowships in the country, including the Iligan, Dumaguete and UP national writing workshops. He has also read his papers on cultural and literary studies in national and international conferences, and he represents West Visayas in the National Committee in Cultural Education at the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA). He is also a critic, theater artist, and performer.[6]

• The Rise of Kinaray-a (2003)
  
• Mga kanta ni Datu Lubay (2003)
  
• Ugsad kang Kinaray-a
  
• Agi, Agi may putay sa dahi (2006)