under the pen name Quijano de Manila. His journalism was both intellectual and provocative, an unknown genre in the Philippines at that time, and raised the country's level of reportage. Joaquin deeply admired José Rizal, the national hero of the Philippines, paying him tribute in such books as The Storyteller's New Medium – Rizal in Saga, The Complete Poems and Plays of Jose Rizal, and A Question of Heroes: Essays in Criticism on Ten Key Figures of Philippine History. He translated the hero's valedictory poem, in the original Spanish Mi Ultimo Adios, as "Land That I Love, Farewell!".[5] Joaquin represented the Philippines at the International PEN Congress in Tokyo in 1957, and was appointed as a member of the Motion Pictures commission under presidents Diosdado Macapagal and Ferdinand E. Marcos.[5] After being honored as National Artist, Joaquin used his position to work for intellectual freedom in society. He secured the release of imprisoned writer José F. Lacaba. At a ceremony on Mount Makiling attended by First Lady Imelda Marcos, Joaquin delivered an invocation to Maria Makiling a diwata and the mountain's mythical maiden. Joaquin touched on the importance of freedom and the artist. After that, Joaquin was excluded by the Marcos regime as a speaker at important cultural events.[5] Joaquin died of cardiac arrest in the early morning of April 29, 2004, at his home in San Juan, Metro Manila. He was then editor of Philippine Graphic magazine, where he worked with Juan P. Dayang, the magazine's first publisher. Joaquin was also publisher of its sister publication, Mirror Weekly, a women's magazine, and wrote the column “Small Beer” for the Philippine Daily Inquirer and Isyu, an opinion tabloid.[5] Works Recognition Literary prominence, as measured by different English critics, is said to rest upon one of Nick Joaquin's published books entitled “Prose and Poems” which was published in 1952. Published in this book are the poems “Three Generations”, “May Day Eve”, “After the Picnic”, “The Legend of the Dying Wanton”, “The Legend of the Virgin Jewel;”, “It Was Later than we Thought”. Among these, the first of the mentioned written works were deliberated by editors Seymour Laurence and Jose Garcia Villa as a “short story masterpiece” (1953). The poem was also chosen as the best short story published in the Philippine Press between March 1943 and November 1944. Nick Joaquin, as a member of the Philippine Free Press staff, submits weekly