(1928-2010)
Daniel Aguila, internationally famous artist, cartoonist, editor and satirist, died on September 28 at Skyline Medical Center in Nashville, TN. He was just four days past his 82nd birthday. {{more}} He was born on September 24, 1928 to the late Governor Doroteo Aguila of La Union and the former Donata Dumuk. After graduating from Silliman University High School in 1948, he enrolled at the University of the Philipines where he earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1952. Additional academic honors include graduate studies at Syracuse University from 1956 to 1958 where he was a Fellow in Audio Visual and Television Education.
Aguila, who used the professional name “El Dani” in his work, spent most of his adult life as an editorial cartoonist, journalist, and design artist. He garnered professional awards for his art work, too many to mention both in the Philippines and in the United States, the latter mostly in the state of Tennessee where he migrated to Nashville in 1967, following a successful career in the Philippines as an artist and professor at the University of the Philippines. In 1963, during the bicentennial celebration of his native town of Bauang, La Union, he was one of five that received the “Outstanding Son of Bauang” award. In 1976, at the diamond jubilee of Silliman University, he received the Outstanding Sillimanian Award in Communication Arts. And In 2005, he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Humanities, honoris causa by Philippine Christian University in Manila.
He is survived by his wife, the former Norma Alampay, a fellow student leader at the University of the Philippines whom he married in 1960; his children Normalinda Parochka, Daniel Bliss Aguila and Dina Belle Russ; and two grandchildren, Kathy and Andrew.
Memorial services were held in Nashville, TN with Pastors Herbert Lester, Ben Alexander and Michael Williams officiating, and family members participating and offering remembrances. On October 10, a service will be held at the Church of the Risen Lord located at the campus of the University of the Philippines, where both Dani and Norma spent years as parishioners and pioneers of the U.P. Christian Youth Movement (UPCYM). In charge of the services are his brother David Aguila and Dr. Lily Rosqueta Rosales.
