Mila Aguilar (a.k.a. Clarita Roja) was born in 1949 in Iloilo. She started writing poetry at the age of nine. She edited the school paper at the UP High School. At 18, she was features editor of the Phil. Collegian and graduated with a BA English degree at UP Dil. Then, she took her master's degree, taught English at UP, and joined Graphic magazine. A progressive writer, she was among those hunted when Martial Law was declared in 1972.

The Women Color Press, New York, published her poetry collection, A Comrade Is As Precious As a Rice Seedling (1984). Its second edition, l987, includes twelve from her collection of prison poems, Why Cage Pigeons? Some of these poems were also published in Pintig (1985), an anthology of prose and poetry by political prisoners, as well as numerous other publications in the Philippines and abroad. In 1996, the UP Press published her collection of poems, Journey: An Autobiography in Verse (1964-1995).

She has written for Manila Standard since 1995 to complement the underground tracts she wrote on the woman question, democratic centralism, the united front and revolutionary mass movements in the period when she was hunted. Her 48 video documentary titles, produced, written or directed by her (1989-1997), can be seen on her Web site: http://www.sequel.net/~pinoytok. As a webweaver, a term she invented, she has designed her own web pages as well as the website of an NGO.

She is teaching at the DECL, CAL, UP Dil. Aguilar is at work on her 7th book of poems, tentatively entitled Poemes Suisse. She has temporarily postponed finishing her semi-autobiographical novel, One Woman's Testament, as she completes her long-delayed work on Tricksterism as a Filipino Survival Mechanism.

back to authors | home