[1] Lumbera is known for his nationalist writing and for his leading role in the Filipinization movement in Philippine literature in the 1960s, which resulted in his being one of the many writers and academics jailed during Ferdinand Marcos' Martial Law regime.

[7] He was barely a year old when his father, Timoteo Lumbera (a baseball player), fell from a fruit tree, broke his neck, and died.

[10] Lumbera then received a Fulbright Fellowship that allowed him to earn a master’s degree in comparative literature at Indiana University Bloomington, graduating in 1960.

[11] It was while writing his dissertation at the Indiana University Bloomington that Lumbera took an interest in the American Civil Rights movement, which he credits for beginning his awakening as a Filipino nationalist.

[3] Coming back to the Philippines after earning his PhD, Lumbera returned to teaching at the Ateneo at period when the campus was going through social change.

He was soon elected chairperson of an organization of progressive writers, Panitikan para sa Kaunlaran ng Sambayanan (PAKSA, lit.

[2][1] Cynthia Nograles, his former student at the Ateneo de Manila University, wrote to General Fidel Ramos for his release, which pushed through in December 1974.

Initially, the Philippine Educational Theater Association (PETA) requested him to create Nasa Puso ang Amerika, a musical based on Carlos Bulosan’s America Is in the Heart.

Lumbera took up a post as visiting professor of Philippine Studies at Osaka University of Foreign Studiesfrom 1985 to 1988, so he was in Japan when Ferdinand Marcos was deposed by the 1986 People Power Revolution.

That year, the Ateneo de Manila University Press published his dissertation as “Tagalog Poetry, 1570-1898: Tradition and Influences in Its Development,” and the UST Faculty of Arts and Letters gave him the Outstanding Alumnus in Literature award.

Sa Sariling Bayan: Apat na Dulang May Musika, an anthology of Lumbera's musical dramas, was published by De La Salle University-Manila Press in 2004.

In such ways, Lumbera contributed to the downfall of Marcos although he was in Japan during the 1986 EDSA People Power Revolution, teaching at the Osaka University of Foreign Studies.

Lumbera was also the founding chairperson of the Board of Trustees of the multi-awarded media group Kodao Productions and a member of the Concerned Artists of the Philippines and the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan.