Jose Claudio B. Guerrero Biography And Some Of His Notable Works

This is the Jose Claudio B. Guerrero biography and some works he famed.

JOSE CLAUDIO B. GUERRERO BIOGRAPHY – Here’s the story and some of the works of Jose Claudio B. Guerrero a.k.a Butch Guerrero.

Also known as Butch Guerrero is Jose Claudio B. Guerrero. He has a BA in English Studies at UP Diliman and had his MA in Creative Writing from a similar institution. He was known for writing fiction, short stories, and essays until he met his unfortunate death in December 2013.

SEE: Essence By Jose Claudio Guerrero – The Full Story Of “Essence”

“Essence” is his very famous work. He also co-wrote Ilocos Norte Travel Guidebook, the book that won the 2004 National Book Award for Travel. In 2008, he won a Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature, First Prize, for his essay “Talking to a Fu Dog on a Wedding Afternoon”.

The essay tackles the imaginary conversation between the person and the Fu dog, a statue outside a church. What triggered the persona is the boredom he encountered when he attended the wedding and the architectural fascination he has with the church. It can be told that the person is gay. A part of the work said he’s “always been partial to men”. He also liked the Fu dog more than the female one.

Here’s a small part of his award-winning essay:

Talking to a Fu Dog on a Wedding Afternoon

Warm chandelier light bounces off San Agustin’s vaulted ceiling and descends gently on the congregation below. The air is sweet with the scent of mock orange blooms festooned on the retablo and around the nave. Interspersed with the white fragrant flowers are large heads of hydrangea and sprays of Easter lilies and asters. A string quartet plays Vivaldi as the groom and the congregation await the arrival of the bridal party. The groom has never looked more handsome. He wears a barong Tagalog of pineapple cloth that took three women half a month to embroider. The congregation, too, is dressed in fabrics as expensive and as painstakingly crafted as the groom’s barong. Everyone gathered in the church nave has waited long for this wedding, and both families have done everything possible to make it beautiful.

As one of the groom’s cousins, I, too, am wearing a barong of embroidered pineapple cloth. This makes moving quite difficult since barongs wrinkle easily. I find the atmosphere in the church stifling and slip out to get some fresh air and look for a drink. I manage to find a vending machine inside the museum in the church complex. Since my family has once again excluded me from the entourage, I figure they won’t mind my absence too much.

I stand right outside the church doors sipping my Coke. A fu dog stands before me, his gaze steady and unblinking. He holds a ball in his paw, his claws partly unsheathed. He is both playful and menacing. I smile and toast him with my Coke can. This fu dog is believed to watch over the building. His partner, standing guard from the other side of the façade, is female and holds her cub instead of a ball. She is supposed to watch over all that is within the building. The female fu dog is better preserved, but I like the male better. This may be because I’ve always been partial to men.

I wink at the fu dog and smile. The guardian still has not moved from his position. The ball is still in his paw. He is an old friend and we’ve survived many weddings together—those of my family, my friends, and even those of total strangers. I stand there contrasting the current wedding with the ones we’ve both attended in the past. Some of them were beautiful, most of them less so, and a few were just too horrible for words. Doubtless though, members of all the wedding parties think theirs was the most beautiful by far. It costs a pretty penny to get married in this16th century church, so those who get married here are dead serious about having a beautiful wedding

This is the Jose Claudio B. Guerrero biography and some works he famed.

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