AIDA Rivera Ford, a highly decorated writer, playwright, and educator who founded the Ford Academy of the Arts in 1980, the first fine arts school in Mindanao, has passed away just days before her 100th birthday.
Rivera Ford died on January 18, 2026. She would have turned 100 on January 22.
Widely regarded as a trailblazer in Philippine literature, Rivera Ford left an enduring legacy in fiction, theater, and arts education. The literary journal Sands and Coral, which she co-founded in 1948 while still a student at Silliman University, described her as a “trailblazer in Philippine literature.” The journal has since become recognized as Asia’s oldest continuously published literary journal.
“Today we mourn the loss of Aida Rivera Ford, one of our founding editors. A trailblazer in Philippine literature, a fictionist and playwright who advocated for students in literature,” Sands and Coral said in a Facebook post.
Born on January 22, 1926 in Jolo, Sulu, Rivera Ford graduated cum laude with a Bachelor of Arts in English from Silliman University in 1949. Her early promise as a writer later blossomed into national and international recognition. Her book Now and at the Hour won the Hopwood Award at the University of Michigan in 1954.
Her short stories “The Chieftest Mourner” and “Love in the Cornhusks” became staples in Philippine literature courses and remain widely studied in colleges across the country.
Rivera Ford spent more than a decade at Ateneo de Davao University, where she chaired the Humanities Division from 1969 to 1980. During her tenure, she wrote and staged plays for students and served as moderator of the student publication Atenews during the Martial Law years, guiding young writers through a difficult period in Philippine history.
In 1980, she co-founded the Ford Academy of the Arts, pioneering formal fine arts education in Mindanao. The institution produced generations of Mindanao-based artists in visual arts, theater, music, and dance, helping shape the region’s cultural landscape.
Her published works include Now and at the Hour and Other Stories (1958), Born in the Year 1900 and Other Stories (1997), and Heroes in Love: Four Plays (2012).
Rivera Ford received numerous honors throughout her career, including the Datu Bago Award from the Davao City Government in 1982, the Parangal for Writers of the Post War Years in 1991, the Gawad CCP in English in 1991, the Outstanding Sillimanian Award for Literature and Creative Writing in 1993, and a National Fellowship for Fiction from the University of the Philippines Creative Writing Center in 1993.“In 2025, Ateneo de Davao University conferred on her the Fr. Theodore Daigler Award for Mindanao Culture and Arts.”
Wake services will be held on January 22, 2026 at 2 p.m. at the Our Lady of the Assumption Chapel, Ateneo de Davao University, Jacinto Campus, followed by a Mass at 6 p.m. and a memorial tribute at 7 p.m.
The Sands and Coral community and the wider literary world mourn the passing of a woman whose words, teaching, and vision shaped Philippine and Mindanaoan arts for several decades. DEF