Simeon Dumdum Jr.
Simeon Dumdum Jr. (born March 7, 1948) is a former Regional Trial Court judge in Cebu City, Philippines, and a published poet. He briefly studied for the priesthood in Galway, Ireland, but left the seminary to study law. After practicing law for years, he became a Regional Trial Court judge. He has won poetry prizes and his work has been read in the Philippines and abroad.
Dumdum was born in Balamban, Cebu, where he grew up and began his education. He finished high school at St. Francis Academy and spent a year of college at St. Clement’s College in Iloilo City. In Ireland, he studied at Cluain Mhuire and University College Galway.
He has published 18 books, including poetry and essays. Some titles are The Gift of Sleep; Third World Opera; Love in the Time of the Camera; Poems Selected and New; If I Write You This Poem, Will You Make It Fly; To the Evening Star; Marawi and Other Poems; Sonnets from Jerusalem; and The Sigh of a Hundred Leaves (written with his wife Ma. Milagros T. Dumdum).
His awards include the 2001 Gawad Pambansang Alagad ni Balagtas Award for Poetry in English from UMPIL; multiple second and third prizes in the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Award for English poetry; five National Book Award honors from the Manila Critics Circle. Three of his books won the Golden Book Award: Ah, Wilderness: A Journey through Sacred Time (2010); If I Write You This Poem, Will You Make It Fly (2012); and Aimless Walk, Faithful River, The Poet Learns to Dance, the Dancer Learns to Write a Poem (2018). In 2005, he received a medallion for writing the best decision in a criminal case, as part of the Judicial Excellence Awards sponsored by the Supreme Court.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 05:07 (CET).