TWO ARTLETS emerged as winners of the Filipino short story category at the 2026 F. Sionil Jose Young Writers Awards, a literary contest named after National Artist for Literature and former Thomasian F. Sionil Jose to uphold the legacy he left on Philippine literature.
Creative Writing faculty Benjamin Gutierrez won first prize for his short story “+1,” which follows the day of Jaysee, a motorcycle rider who grapples with the predatory nature of gambling and the struggles of being a ride-hailing app driver.
Meanwhile, Creative Writing alumnus and UST Graduate School student Jericho Lopez won the third prize for “Kasalang Bayan,” a social critique told through the form of a tabloid that draws on the myth of how a tikbalang is allegedly getting married when it rains during the day.
In this year’s iteration, the contest implemented a stricter evaluation process to ensure that entries have not been generated by artificial intelligence.
The award-giving body stated in its call for entries that its requests for evidence of authorship, such as drafts and revision histories, must be entertained by applicants. Failure to comply with such requests were considered grounds for disqualification in the contest. Gutierrez said that acknowledging AI-generated work is both an act of acceptance and resistance as it allows both writers and readers to realize why its use should be rejected in creative disciplines such as writing.
“AI hits the many definitions of ‘beauty,’ but it does not have that emotional aspect…Tao sa tao dapat ang komunikasyon kasi walang puso ang makinang kinapapalooban ng AI,” the Creative Writing instructor told The Flame.
(Communication should be between one person to another because the machine that AI resides in does not have a heart.)
“It’s so easy to write a story for the sake of just writing a story especially in the time of progress that we have now in society. You can teach that to a machine. But can it shed light on the plights of the marginalized and community sectors?”.
While Lopez expressed concerns that writers now have to worry about AI’s capability to replicate the techniques and styles of literary greats, he said that it also challenges writers to be organic in the stories they tell and wholly take from their experiences.
“I think that’s where we can see the value of creative writing, in how writers continue to tell stories from and use their own words to share their desires to the world, even if there is an easy way out. Wrestling with a blank page is really part of the writing process,” Lopez said.
The F. Sionil Jose Young Writers Awards is funded by Jose’s children and managed by PEN Philippines.
The awarding took place at the De La Salle University on Oct. 10. F — Bettina Katryn Reyes
