The Incurable Romantic

Jose dela Cruz, better known as Huseng Sisiw, was a romantic person at heart. Two short poems became definitely identified with him: Singsing ng Pag-ibig (The Ring of Love) and Awa sa Pag-ibig (Pity in Love). The first one expressed the poet's futile love likened to a ring that was lost in a sea. The other one is a much longer poem; it consist of four stanzas, with four lines each. It tells of unretuned love.

Dela Cruz was a native of Pandacan, Manila. He was largerly a self-taught poet who gained his second name for accepting young chickens as payments for writing love poems. This many sounds extraordinary but Jose never cared much for money. Hence, even the poor can afford to pay Jose's services since chickens abound and are not hard to find.

It was said that Huseng Sisiw was Balagtas' Teacher in Tagalog poetry. Baltazar, however, was a far better educated writer than Huseng Sisiw. Long before he met dela Cruz, Balagtas was already writing verses while in College and after his graduation.

The extent of dela Cruz's writing is known to us through his original works. We know their titles and often their classification. For instance, he had written a considerable number of metrical stories and moro-moros. Some of the corridos he wrote were: Clarita, Adela at Florante, Teodoro at Clavela, and Segismundo, his masterpiece. His moro-moro plays are La Guerra Civil de Granada, Hernandez at Galisandra, Reyna Encantada o Casamiento por Fuerza, and Rodrigo de Vivar. The greater part of Sisiw's plays were staged in the Tondo Theater.