Ilagan persisted with the kind of plays that did not exactly endear him with the military. In fact, not only did he do away with being nameless, he also did away with noms de plume, using only these because it was required in the contests that he joined, but eventually acknowledging the works as his. And the plays, though liturgical and historical, were actually thinly veiled assaults against martial rule.

Perhaps what somehow provided a shield to Ilagan was the recognition that his series of political plays acquired: “Pagsambang Bayan” (1977) won in the Palihang Aurelio V. Tolentino; “Katipunan,” retitled “Sigaw ng Bayan” (1978) won first prize in the Palanca; and “Langit Ma’y Magdilim” (1979) was first prize in the Cultural Center of the Philippines contest. Even as his subsequent plays continued to garner awards, what was more fulfilling to Ilagan was that the plays were actually produced and came out alive onstage to be experienced by audiences.

As writer for television and the movies, his scripts have won in the Catholic Mass Media Awards (Best Television Historical Drama, “Bisperas ng Kasaysayan,” 1985; “Heneral Antonio Luna: Pag-iimbot o Paglilingkod?,” 1984; “Duyan ng Magiting,” 1983; and “Panagpo sa Pasong Tirad,” 1982); the Philippine Movie Press Club Star Awards (“Bisperas ng Kasaysayan,” 1995) the Film Academy of the Philippines (“The Flor Contemplacion Story,” co-written with Ricky Lee, 1996); and the Gawad CCP (“Bisperas ng Kasaysayan,” 1995).

Two of his plays are featured in the CCP Encyclopedia of Philippine Art as major works in Philippine theater.

During the commemoration of the centennial of Philippine independence, Ilagan was
conferred the CCP Centennial Honors for the Arts, one among the 100 awardees chosen from among “the most outstanding Filipino artists and cultural advocates in the last 100 years for their contribution to the development of the nation through cultural work and the arts.” Ilagan was UP Creative Writing Center National Fellow for Drama in 1989.

In the just concluded sarswela writing tilt of the College of Arts and Letters of the UP, Ilagan, together with music composer Lucien Letaba, was given a Special Prize for “Ang Señorita at ang Hukbo,” the only entry that seemed to come up to some standard set by the jurors who decided that no one deserved the grand prize.

Ilagan awaits the judgment of the audience when his latest play is finally mounted.

Marili Fernandez-Ilagan is one such, compelled to become one under the circumstances of the theater of poverty in Mindanao where she honed her artistry, theater organizing and management skills in the island’s vibrant people’s cultural movement in the 1980s.
She was active in Kulturang Atin Foundation, Mindanao Community Theater Network, and the Davao Popular Aesthetics and Traditions. She is among the pioneers of the Kaliwat Theater Collective, performing in all its major productions until she migrated to Manila in 1986.

Aside from doing the whole gamut of theater work both in the rural and urban settings in her home front and overseas, she has conducted multicultural workshops participated in by Japanese communards and students; artists, migrant Filipinos and drama students in Australia and England; gypsies in Ireland, development workers in Cambodia; artists of the International Theater Institute-Unesco and the Women Playwrights International (WPI); and of course, cultural activists in the Philippines. She also had a stint as resident artist with the Drama Department of Flinders University, Australia in 1995.

Fernandez-Ilagan’s plays on women’s issues and the indigenous peoples have been performed extensively. A series of monologues about women which she directed in 2007-2008 had been presented in the Philippines and Indonesia. Last May, she did the music and stage design for “Sa Ngalan ng mga Naghihirap” mounted by the community group Teatro Oasis in Payatas, Quezon City.

Some of her feminist essays on theater and the indigenous women were published in various journals, including those of the Cultural Center of the Philippines.

In television, Fernandez-Ilagan was in the children-oriented shows “Tara Let’s” & “Jr Watch” as cameraperson and researcher, the public service “Nora Mismo” as researcher, and the histrorical pageant “Duyan ng Magiting” as dancer and researcher for RPN-9; “Children Living in Asia” and “Balik Kalipay” as researcher for NHK; and “Malaala Mo Kaya” as production consultant for ABS-CBN.

She is currently dramaturge and project director of “Empowering Indigenous Women to Write their Own Plays” in the Saving the Babaylan Program of WPI-Philippines in Mindanao. This December, she did “Uyayi sa Digmaan,” a co-production of CCP and Tag-ani Performing Arts Society, Inc. as a choreographer-director.

Fernandez-Ilagan is the founding chair and artistic director of Tag-ani Performing Arts Society, Inc; and also a board member of Bagong Lumad Foundation, Kodao Productions, and WPI-Philippines. She is taking up her master’s studies in theater arts at the UP Diliman.