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Pablo Tariman: Tireless Chronicler of the Arts, Cultural Impresario, Late-Blooming Poet

Pablo Arcilla Tariman (b. 30 December 1948 – d. 9 October 2025) stood as a tireless chronicler of the arts, a cultural impresario, and a late-blooming poet whose life was a symphony of resilience, generosity, and devotion. Born in Baras, Catanduanes, Tariman’s journey from provincial roots to national prominence was marked not by wealth or privilege, but by an unwavering commitment to beauty, truth, and the transformative power of art.

The Impresario of the People

Tariman’s legacy as a concert producer is legendary. He brought classical music to unlikely venues—from provincial gymnasiums to intimate cafés—ensuring that the music of Filipina classical pianist Cecile Licad’s piano or British Romanian soprano Nelly Miricioiu reached ordinary folks and civil servants, not just Manila’s elite. His guerrilla-style outreach concerts, often funded through sheer will and friendship, democratized access to the arts.

During the early years of their outreach concert tours, Pablo Tariman, the late National Artist for Film Marilou Diaz Abaya and Cecile Licad (credit: Business Mirror)

Writing for the Business Mirror (25 February 2024), Tariman recalled his first meeting with the child prodigy who became one of the world’s acclaimed pianists, “I first met Cecile Licad at the Cagsawa Church Ruins in Daraga, Albay one day in August of 1975 when she was only 14 and I was 26. That was the year she performed at the St. Agnes Academy in Legazpi City. On the night I first heard her Ravel’s Sonatine with a PNR train hooting in the nearby railroad track. I also got married to her music.”

The last leg of Licad’s outreach concert tour in 2025 was in Virac, Catanduanes, Tariman’s native province. He followed, supported and chronicled Licad’s career from her early teens to the present. He helped organize the concerts of her homecoming and this year was no exception.

Sadly, he never got to see Licad perform in his home province. He passed away on October 9, a few days before her outreach concert. She said that Catanduanes had a special place in his heart as she extended her condolences to his family and friends, “He is one of the Philippines’ truly great writers, poets. He has dedicated his life passionately to writing for the arts, music, films, and culture. A very intuitive and sensitive person. He will be missed by many people he had inspired.”

A Journalist with a Poet’s Heart

For nearly five decades, Tariman’s byline graced the pages of the Philippine Inquirer, Philippine Graphic, and Vera Files, a non-profit online news organization. His reportage captured the pulse of the Philippine performing arts scene. He was more than a documentarian, he was a listener, a friend, and a writer of lucidity and empathy.

Pablo Tariman (photo: ABS-CBN)

Tariman was no stranger to poetry. He grew up reading Edna St. Vincent Millay and Walt Whitman; books he got hold of from American Peace Corps volunteer named William Keating. Two of his poems were selected for the anthology “The Best Asian Poetry 2021,” which featured 160 Asian poets and was published in Singapore. He was the author of “Love, Life and Loss: Poems During the Pandemic,” self-published by his own company, Music News and Features (10 January 2022).

His series of soul-wrenching poems that initially appeared on Facebook after the COVID-19 lockdown drew him the widest and most receptive audience he has ever known. So wide that even the young American poet laureate Amanda Gorman posted one of his poems, “The Poet Is a Lonely Hunter,” on her FB timeline.

Tariman resumed writing poetry after 50 years when he found himself in a long lockdown due to the pandemic, “My modest poetry output during the pandemic was literally an act of re-opening my poet’s eyes after a silence of almost 50 years. I could say that my second literary life, ushered in by the pandemic, dramatically shifted during the lockdown.”

In 2023, he received the Graphic Salute Award as one of the poets honored at the Nick Joaquin Literary Awards by the Philippines Graphic magazine. In fact it was at the Graphic where he had started his career as a young proofreader in 1971 after pursuing a journalism degree from Manuel L. Quezon University.

Encounters in the Arts

In 2024, Tariman assembled his arts reportage into the 586-page anthology ‘Encounters in the Arts.’ Journalist and poet Elizabeth Lolarga wrote in Vera Files, “From the weight and thickness of ‘Encounters in the Arts’ alone and the starry names that fill the contents page and photo folio, the author has veritably compiled his life’s work.”

Pablo Tariman with Cecile Licad (photo: The Diarist)

In interviews, conversations, and feature stories, Tariman covered a Who’s Who of world artists: Licad, of course, but also Van Cliburn, Luciano Pavarotti, Jose Carreras, and many others. He also wrote about Lea Salonga, cinema stalwarts like Nora Aunor, Ishmael Bernal, Lino Brocka, Peque Gallaga, Ricky Lee, and even younger names like John Lloyd Cruz. Music, opera, literature, cinema, dance—Tariman would write about them all in a career spanning over 48 years.

Tariman wrote about his magnum opus, “Encounters in the Arts is my second book after my first book of poetry, Love, Life and Loss: Poems During the Pandemic. It summarizes my life as a performing arts writer and impresario for close to 50 years”

He added, “A life simply lived is reflected in what I write, not in how I am expected to behave during my lifetime. I’ve had my good moments and bad ones, even tragic ones, too. But as the wise men say, there is no such thing as a perfect human being. I can fall, stumble, and only then can I bring myself back to living a borrowed life. Yes, Encounters in the Arts sums up my life in the last 76 years.”

A Loving Father, Fierce Advocate

Pablo Tariman and grandson Emmanuel posing in front of the portrait of Kerima, his daughter and Emman’s mother (credit: The Diarist)

Tariman’s personal life was marked by profound loss. He was the father of slain revolutionary poet Kerima Tariman and father-in-law to Ericson Acosta, killed by state forces in August 2021 and November 2022, respectively. Their tragic deaths deepened his poetic voice and steeled his resolve to raise their son Emmanuel with love and dignity. Friends recall his generosity—offering concert proceeds to help a friend’s grandchild, sharing suman and ube jam despite his own financial struggles, and never expecting anything in return.

A Joyful Sendoff

On October 14, 2025, artists, journalists, and friends gathered at UP Diliman for “In the Key of Memory,” a musical thanksgiving for Tariman’s life. Soprano Stefanie Quintin Avila, baritone Roby Malubay, and pianist Najib Ismail performed kundiman and classical pieces in his honor. Cecile Licad played Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata.” The night was filled with laughter, tears, and tributes that painted Tariman as a man of “intellectual class although short in social graces,” whose guffaws could shatter etiquette but whose heart embraced all.

A Philanthropic Generosity

This eulogy would not be complete without citing journalist, poet and dear friend Elizabeth “Babeth” Lolarga for her loving tribute which she wrote in Vera Files:

“At last Tuesday’s service for journalist-poet-concert organizer Pablo A. Tariman, a number of eulogists spoke of his generosity not only in handing out complimentary tickets to Cecile Licad and other concerts but in being a real friend. I would like to state on the record that I was also on the receiving end of this man’s philanthropic generosity. He carried himself with dignity despite living close to “abject poverty,” as a friend told me.

“More than ten years ago, this freelancer wasn’t paid by a client an amount that could’ve gone to my coming first grandchild’s savings kitty. I was tearful and angry, and I unburdened myself to Pablo who was more than familiar with the uncertainties of a freelance writer’s, occasional hack’s, life.

“Immediately, he told me over the phone: “Babeth, help me sell tickets to my concert. I won’t give you a commission. Whatever you sell, sa iyo na ang proceeds para sa magiging apo mo (the proceeds will go to your forthcoming grandchild).” I was touched to the quick by this man who could barely make monthly rent. I tried to pay him back for the gesture forward.

Pablo Tariman is survived by his wife, the poet Merlita Lorena-Tariman, his children, and grandchildren (photo: Vera Files)

“He gave my sisters access to, among others, the concerts of opera singer Arthur Espiritu. I told my sisters to give either a voluntary monetary donation or gifts in kind. So, to him went boxes of suman, pastillas or kakanin which he enjoyed despite his diabetes. We’d send him a bottle of ube jam from Baguio or an apple pie made by Noona’s Kitchen. Each time Pablo said, “thank you” and never exhibited a sense of entitlement to these treats.

“So, when I told my sisters that he was gone, they were dismayed and grieved along with me. Evelyn taught me the prayers for the dead apart from shedding tears for Pablo and his surviving but orphaned grandson Emmanuel Acosta.

“The mourning isn’t over. But I remember how Pablo threw himself into writing furiously when, in quick succession, his daughter Kerima, then her husband Ericson Acosta, were killed by state forces.”

His Spirit Lives On

Tariman was 76 years old when he passed on. He is survived by his wife poet Merlita Lorena-Tariman, his children, grandchildren and his extended community of writers, musicians, and artists who consider him mentor and guide. His spirit lives on—in the concerts he produced, the poems he penned, and the lives he touched. In the Bicolano tradition of honoring the dead with song and story, Pablo Tariman’s life is a luminous canticle.

The header features a portrait of Pablo Tariman by Allan Cosio (credit: VeraFiles). This article was written by Jojo De Jesus for Dateline Ibalon based on the following references:

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