Background
He was born in Balamban, Cebu, where he grew up and had his early schooling.
He was born in Balamban, Cebu, where he grew up and had his early schooling.
He once studied for the priesthood in Galway, Ireland, but left the seminary to take up law. He attended Saint Francis Academy for his secondary education, and then went to Saint Clement"s College in Iloilo City, where he did a year of college.
After years of practicing law, he was appointed Regional Trial Court judge. In Ireland, he went to University College, Galway. Author/ Ypil, Lawrence L. (July 2003), "Representations of the Unconscious in Simeon Dumdum"s The Gift of Sleep", Kritika Kultura (3).
Love Makes the World Go Round, excerpted from Love Gathers All: A Philippine-Singaporean Anthology of Poetry.
He has published ten books - The Gift of Sleep (poems), Third World Opera (poems), Love in the Time of the Camera (essays), Selected Poems and New (poems), My Pledge of Love Cannot be Broken (essays), "Ah, Wilderness: A Journey through Sacred Time" (essays), "If I Write You This Poem, Will You Make lieutenant Fly" (poems), "To the Evening Star" (poems), "Eighty-four Words for Sorrow" (poems), "The Poet Learns to Dance (the Dancer Learns to Write a Poem)" (poems). He won the Don Carlos Palanca Memorial Award for English poetry five times, and the Manila Critics Circle"s National Book Award five times. In 2005, he received a medallion for writing the best decision in a criminal case, second level courts, in the Judicial Excellence Awards sponsored by the Supreme Court of the Philippines.
