Performing Art Centers, Theaters, Museums, and Galleries

[Animo]

By Lito Zulueta
Inquirer
Last updated 05:21am (Mla time) 06/19/2007


MANILA, Philippines -- Twenty-eight oil paintings by a Filipino artist depict key scenes in Jose Rizal’s “Noli Me Tangere,” the first time that the novel has been so extensively celebrated in oil on canvas.

Although Juan Luna did illustrations for the “Noli” as a gift to Rizal, these were never published with the novel.

The series by painter Leonardo Cruz was launched recently and is on view at the Rizal Shrine in Fort Santiago, Intramuros, Manila, in time for the celebration of the 146th birth anniversary of the national hero on Tuesday.

The painting series by Cruz shows that 120 years after its publication, the “Noli” continues to hold sway in the popular imagination and remains an intriguing subject to be mined in popular culture by artists and thinkers.

Only recently, Penguin Books published a new translation of “Noli Me Tangere” as part of its exclusive Penguin Classics line, effectively canonizing the work as one of the classics of world literature.

Penguin Classics bills the “Noli” as “the book that sparked the Philippine revolution” and “the great novel of the Philippines.”

Childhood dream

Cruz, 74, said he had long dreamed of rendering in oil paintings some key scenes of the “Noli” and got the chance to do so only in the last several years after retiring from advertising and going into art full time.

He said his interest in Rizal’s novel started when he was a young boy. As a young man, he would visualize scenes from the book “as if they actually happened yesterday” and as if he were an eyewitness to the events.

First published in Berlin in 1887, “Noli Me Tangere” tells the story of Crisostomo Ibarra, who returns from his European studies to find his old town in the grip of social inequity and decay. His efforts to introduce enlightenment and modernism are defeated at every turn by the Spanish colonial establishment as represented by abusive civil and military officials and obscurantist friars.

Because of its scathing portrayal of Spanish colonial depredations, the book was banned in the Philippines, but copies were smuggled into the country for clandestine reading by educated Filipinos.

The “Noli,” along with its dark sequel, “El Filibusterismo,” which tells of the return of Ibarra as an avenging angel a la “The Count of Monte Cristo,” became the bible of the Philippine revolution against Spain in 1896.

Although Rizal denied any involvement in the revolution, his name became the password of the Filipino revolutionaries, and he was executed by the Spanish authorities on Dec. 30, 1896.

Blood from the heart

Cruz said he did the paintings because he shared the feeling of Ferdinand Blumentritt, Rizal’s German friend, who wrote the fictionist when the novel was published in 1887: “Your work, as we Germans say, was written with blood from the heart, and because of that, the heart also speaks.”

Cruz added that he took to heart Rizal’s explanation why he wrote the “Noli” in his letter to the painter Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo:

“I have endeavored to answer the calumnies which for centuries had been heaped on us and out country; I have described our social condition, our life, our beliefs, our desires, our grievances, our griefs; I have unmasked hypocrisy which, under the guise of religion, came to impoverish and brutalize us … I have raised the curtain to show what is behind the deceitful, glittering words of our government; I have told our countrymen our defects, our … cowardly complaisances with our miseries.”

Tagged by art writers as a “classical impressionist,” Cruz said he had sought to recreate the rhythm of life and death in a typical rural town in the Philippines in the late 19th century, or “San Diego,” the fictitious town that is the setting of Rizal’s novel.

Because Cruz’s style runs along both classicist and impressionist veins, the paintings gravitate between vividness and moodiness. The figures are well delineated but cast in a bath of light, with chiaroscuro studies in some.

Chiaroscuro studies

And perhaps because Cruz had a background in comics drawing (when he was younger, he did illustrations for Bulaklak and Ramon Roces Publications and later, for Pendulum Publishing in Orange, California), the paintings have a comics-style friendliness --dramatically composed, dynamic, and nearly literal in their renditions.

Time will tell whether the paintings would give tribute to Rizal and his novel the way the drawings of Sandro Botticelli and Gustav Dore have done for Dante’s “Divine Comedy” and Coleridge’s “Rime of the Ancient Mariner.”

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquire...ticle_id=72042

Check link to see the photos.

[TheAvenger]

Clark Museum / Museo Kapampangan - 4th July 2007


Owing to insufficient lightings inside the Museum, I just shot few pictures.
















Scenery in the vicinity of the Museum Building.

[Rence]

Postal Museum and Library !

For those who are interested in the walking tour It will be held on July 15, 2007 (sunday )

Assembly Time: 12:30 to 1:00 pm in the Bonifacio monument in Liwasang Bonifacio

Tour Start at 1:00 pm

[Animo]

By DJ STA.ANA
ABS-CBN News

If he didn’t go into show business and politics, former president Joseph Estrada would have probably made a fortune as an architect.

Having no formal training but just relying on his eye and personal style, he drew, designed and chose the furnishings and finishing for his Spanish villa inspired Presidential Library inside his property in Tanay, Rizal.

Estrada bought the 15-hectare property in 1963 at two pesos per square meter and used it as a movie backlot -- using cogon covered hills, rock streams and small forests to shoot cowboy movies with best friend, the late Fernando Poe Jr.

Estrada started building the Presidential Museum in 2002. He picked a small hill in his property as the site of the museum because it was his favorite spot to sit and pray.

“This is a labor of love,” Estrada recounts while sitting inside the Presidential Library surrounded by the portraits of all the Philippine Presidents hanging on the walls.

“I learned to love this place ever since. Maybe God has a purpose for bringing me here because this is where I pray.”

“When I was still a movie actor, I’m always here every weekend. I pray every morning once the sun rises because God said he is the light, the way and the truth,” Estrada added.

His detention gave him the time to look over the property and plan his museum. He saw the museum as an opportunity to tell his story including his ouster as President in 2001.

“I don’t like wasting my time doing nothing so I’d rather do something. If I’m no longer around, people will see the truth, what really happened,” he said.

One of the main sections of the museum is EDSA DOS, described as “A Dark Time For Democracy.” The display’s main theme is black and prominently displayed is an enlarged mugshot of “Joseph Ejercito Estrada cc# 26558" after his arrest in April 2001.

Asked why he included this, Estrada said: “That’s part of history, I want the people to know the truth why I was thrown into prison.”

The museum
The stucco and red roofed museum is located on a hilltop near the main entrance of Estrada’s Tanay resthouse. A Philippine flag flies on the flagpole located at the center of the cobblestone driveway.

A bronze statue of a waving Estrada stands at the entrance of the Joseph Ejercito Estrada Museum and Archives. Also at the entrance is an image of a carabao made of white granite, which was donated by China. Estrada’s pet Senate bill (no pun intended) was Senate Bill 1165, which created the Philippine Carabao Center to propagate and promote the Philippine carabao.

Inside, the first thing that will greet visitors is a wall of photographs showcasing Estrada’s accomplishments as an actor before he became president. On the wall hang his numerous awards including one for Famas Best Actor.

The tour is divided by the various chapters of Estrada’s life. The first display is entitled “The Actor’s Got Heart: 1957 – 1989.” Among the displays are life-like mannequins of the former president in various roles including the grease-gun-wielding Asiong Salonga and that of Estrada holding aloft a baby in the movie “Ito Ang Pinoy.”

Positioned near the Asiong Salonga Erap mannequin are two old film cameras stamped with “Joseph Estrada Productions.”

In a glass case is his tuxedo and black Converse rubber shoes, which he wore in the 1965 movie, "Deadly Pinoy."

The next display's title is “This Mayor Performs: 1969 - 1986.” Unlike the movie displays, the Estrada mannequins are dressed in short sleeve polo barongs – similar to the ones he wore as mayor of San Juan. There is also an explanation on why Estrada entered politics and how he was belittled as "merely an actor."

“All these so called elitists and intellectuals, they were all laughing at me and it was only the masses who were behind me,” Estrada recounted.

And then there is Estrada “The Pro-Poor Legislator: 1987 – 1992” and Estrada as the “crimebusting Vice-President: 1992–1998.”

Highlighted in the last display are Estrada’s campaign as head of the Presidential AntiCrime Commission, including the killing of Red Scorpion Group leader Joey de Leon.

The next display is “The Warrior President: 1998 – 2001.” Highlights of the section are the actual jeepney used by Estrada in the Jeep Ni Erap campaign; a diorama of Estrada wearing an army uniform and raising the Philippine flag at the recaptured MILF camp, and; a replica of Estrada’s desk and office inside Malacanang.

Around the replica office are Estrada photos with other world leaders and business tycoons: US President Bill Clinton, Chinese President Jiang Zemin, South African President Nelson Mandela, the late Palestinian President Yasser Arafat and Microsoft’s Bill Gates.

The final display is the dark, black themed “A Dark Time For Democracy”, detailing Estrada’s ouster from Malacanang. To this day, Estrada maintains he did not resign and that he was illegally removed from office.

The display highlights various commentaries from foreign media, which criticized EDSA Dos. “Even the foreign press said it was wrong.”

In one part of the museum is a small theater were the main highlight is an hour-long documentary, produced by the Estrada camp, highlighting Estrada’s political career and what they said is the real story behind his ouster.

The documentary blames the oligarchs and the political elite as those behind his ouster. It said Estrada's order to look into anomalies committed in the past administration and his refusal to give in to demands of businesses, especially on water, power and basic utilities, led the elite to move against him.

Estrada’s documentary identifies these oligarchs and elite, and highlights Chief Justice Hilario Davide’s now famous ambush interview saying he (Davide) would administer the oath of acting president on then-vice-president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

Outside the museum is a black granite tomb, where he wants to be buried, which overlook his Tanay property. Inscribed at the wall beside the tomb is a quote from Estrada’s Inaugural speech: Walang tutulong sa Pilipino kung hindi kapwa Pilipino.

The Presidential Library displays the different gifts he received from other heads of state as well as books on leadership and Philippine history. Also prominently displayed is Estrada’s biography.

Forgiveness, politics

Five years on, Estrada claims he has forgiven those who were behind his impeachment.

“I’ve talked to the former vice-president Teofisto Guingona. We’re very, very good friends. He was the first one who made the privilege speech in the Senate, the 'I Accuse' speech. I was even kidding him, 'Now, you can say 'I Acquit,'” Estrada joked.

As both defense and prosecution gave their summations on the Estrada plunder case, the former president believes that based on the merits of the case, he would be acquitted of plunder and perjury. He recounted how emissaries from the Arroyo administration offered not to file charges against him if he left the country, which he flatly refused. To this date, he insists he will make no deals with the Arroyo administration.

“I want to be acquitted on the merits of the case, not because I had negotiations with them,” he stressed.

Estrada is also looking toward the future and 2010 presidential election. His frontrunners are: Senators Panfilo Lacson, Manuel Roxas and Manny Villar. He admits he has not decided on who to support but tacitly acknowledges the opposition must unite by 2010.

On the outcome of the Senate race, he sees the opposition win as the result of a protest vote against the present leadership. “People are suffering. They claim that the economy is moving forward… but majority of our people, specially the masses don’t feel it,” he said as he lounges in a chair inside his Presidential Library.

When asked about the defeat of his political rival Chavit Singson, Estrada wryly smiled and said: “God is not sleeping and they will be put in their proper places.”

He admits that he is disappointed with the defeat of Tito Sotto, whom he still considers a close friend. While acknowledging politics forced Sotto to join the administration party, this has not diminished their friendship.

“Naaawa ako dahil kumpareng buo ko yan… I don’t know what happened,” he said, “But our friendship is beyond politics – we have been friends for a long time.”

Will he run again for President if he is acquitted? Estrada said he has had enough and it's time to let the young people serve.

Doing a Nixon or a Carter

If given a choice, the former president sees himself as a peacemaker or in his description: Doing “a Nixon or a Carter.”

“If they will give me a chance to go out in Mindanao or with the New People's Army, just to unite the country [I will do it],” he said.

In the end, Estrada wants to be remembered for one thing: The masses made Joseph Estrada.

“I want to be known when I’m no longer president as the President who championed the cause of the masses. That’s why I said in my museum, whatever I am now, I owe it to the Filipino masses.”

http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/storypage.aspx?StoryId=83498

[Animo]

image hosted on flickr


image hosted on flickr


image hosted on flickr


image hosted on flickr










Source: http://senorenrique.blogspot.com/

[Hawayano]

Thanks for the Malacañan pics, Animo--the museum looks rather interesting. Do they display many of the Palace's old Philippine furniture that survived WWII? There were once some superb pieces in there at one time. I can see how Malacañan can become a hodge-podge of stuff, considering that Imelda collected antique pieces and was also a patron of the Betis wood-carving industry.

Can anyone in here provide an update on the Geronimo Berenguer Reyes Museum that was/is in one of the industrial parks in Cavite? I recall visiting there about a decade ago, and they had a very good collection of late 19th century photos, early maps, and spectacular rare Chinese porcelains.

[Rajah_Soliman]

ito ba ang mga apo ni Don Emilio Aguinaldo (nice pics )

Originally Posted by Jhaelnis

04.21.07 - Aguinaldo Shrine, Kawit, Cavite

Welcome to E. Aguinaldo Shrine

[TheAvenger]

Wall of Remembrance at the Bantayog Memorial Center at Quezon Avenue and Edsa in Quezon city.


“As we enjoy our liberation, let us not forget those
who fell during the night. Let us honor the Filipino patriots who struggled valiantly against the unjust and repressive rule of Ferdinand Marcos. Let us build a memorial to those men and women who offered their lives so that we may all see the dawn.”




Office of Bantayog ng mga Bayani

[overtureph]

One of the few places one could visit in the heart of Manila, the Nakpil-Bautista house in Quiapo.















Photos by overtureph.

[PINOYmeat]

CEBU city museum and library







pasensya na, camphone lang po...

[Wonderboy]

Originally Posted by Hawayano

Can anyone in here provide an update on the Geronimo Berenguer Reyes Museum that was/is in one of the industrial parks in Cavite? I recall visiting there about a decade ago, and they had a very good collection of late 19th century photos, early maps, and spectacular rare Chinese porcelains.

Really would like to go there but it's just too far. But I'll try to go there before the end of this year. In the meantime, below is the weblink for those who would like to visit the GBR museum:

http://www.gbrmuseum.com.ph/

[overtureph]

Lim promises 50-year lease to Museo Pambata

By Allison Lopez
Inquirer
Last updated 00:37am (Mla time) 08/24/2007

MANILA, Philippines – Manilans of all ages were assured of a more “wholesome” form of entertainment on Roxas Boulevard for at least 50 years more after Mayor Alfredo Lim promised yesterday a new five-decade lease for the Museo Pambata, the country’s first interactive museum for children.

Lim, who recently dismantled Baywalk’s bars and restaurants, told a cheering audience, “How long do you want the Museo Pambata extended? I leave it up to you to decide how long you want to stay here … I’ll sign it with eyes closed.” But when Museo president Nina Lim-Yuson replied she wanted it “forever,” the mayor laughed and said since he could not put “forever” in the contract, he would write down 50 years instead.

“In essence that is perpetual already. I will not be here for 50 years more,” the 77-year-old mayor said with a big smile.

It was in 1993, during his previous term as mayor, that Lim allowed the historic Elks building to be converted into the pioneering children’s museum.

Now 13 years old, Museo Pambata has entertained almost three million visitors through its seven “hands-on” theme rooms, a departure from the usual “hands-off” policy of most museums.

At the blessing of the Museo’s new annex building yesterday, Yuson called Lim one of their heroes, thanking him for his continued support. The three-story structure would house the administrative offices and the children’s library and resource center.

It was built with the support of the City of Manila, the C Com Foundation in Singapore, and the Leandro V. Locsin Partners.


Copyright 2007 Inquirer. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/inquire...ticle_id=84391

[SugarFreak]

Another viewing offered to Bacolod residents is the Dizon-Ramos Museum that was blessed and inaugurated Wednesday at Burgos Street in Bacolod City. It is located at the ancestral home of the late Raymundo Dizon and Ermelinda Ramos and displays a photographic record of the family, its members and their accomplishments, and collections of art pieces by the couple and their children. The museum is open daily, except Mondays. A donation of P10 for minors and P30 for adults will be welcomed for its maintenance. Brother Roly Dizon, foundation president, is asking other Bacoleños to also put up their own collections of memorabilia.

[SugarFreak]

08/19/07
The Home is Now a Museum

Another showcase of the heritage and way of life of a Negrense family is now open to those who are interested in things of the past. The ancestral home of the late Raymundo Dizon and Hermelinda Ramos-Dizon at 42 Burgos Street in Bacolod City was opened Wednesday as a museum.

Bro. Rolando Dizon, who inherited from his parents the two-story home that reflects the blend of neo-classic and modern architecture of post-WWII Bacolod, donated it to the J.R.R. Dizon, Foundation, which had it transformed into a museum this year after his mother died in June 2006. The house was built in 1950.

The museum is now owned by the foundation with Bro. Roly as chair, Ed Pestaño as president and the members led by Josefa Dizon Alunan Puentevella.

At the museum opening, Bro. Roly said the museum features not only the history of the Dizon family, starting in 1937 when his parents were married but also the parallel history of Bacolod City through the reproduced photos that have captured the details of events for the past eight decades. Together, the photos and the museum pieces give the viewer a glimpse into the noble past of a city and a family, he said.

These documents are displayed on the main exhibit hall at the first floor, where the three bedrooms showcase the family memorabilia and a modest collection of paintings, including those of famous artists Malang and Pachico. The second floor is a showcase of the family's way of life and also contains pieces of furniture, a number of them antiques.

The museum has a wide collection of crystals, porcelain paintings and jewelry acquired from all over the world as the Dizon-Ramos family traveled extensively, particularly Bro. Roly whose work as a well-known educator brought him to many conferences and gatherings abroad.

Among the family memorabilia displayed in the bedrooms are academic medals and plaques of Bro. Roly, including those presented to him and his late brother, Raymundo Jr., former mayor of Bacolod City. The two brothers have the rare distinction of having been chosen the Philippine Jaycees' Ten Outstanding Young Men of the Philippines awardees.

A museum shop sells souvenir items and art works.

Serving as managing director of the museum is Remedio Bantug with Raymund Bayot as curator and Paterno Corpez Jr. as manager and Ramon Hofileña and Irene Gaston as senior consultants.

Pestaño and Tessie Limjap unveiled the marker at the Wednesday opening and Rudy, the eldest of the Dizon children, Patching Puentevella, the youngest, and Hofileña cutting the ceremonial ribbon. Fr. Narciso de la Cruz officiated the blessing.

"The museum stands as a living testimony to the commitment of our parents to tear down the walls of social injustice and division and the building of a city and nation truly united, free, just, harmonious and prosperous," Bro, Roly said.

The Dizon-Ramos museum is open Tuesday to Sunday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. It is open to individuals and small groups anytime. The management, however, requests groups of 10 or more to make prior appointments (through Tel. No. 034-434-8512). .

[overtureph]

THERE’S THE RUB
Museum

By Conrado de Quiros
Inquirer
Last updated 02:39am (Mla time) 08/29/2007

There’s a part in Gabriel García Márquez’s “One Hundred Years of Solitude” where the residents of the village of Macondo begin suffering from an affliction of forgetfulness. Not just amnesia or loss of memory but total blackout. They forget the use of household articles and even their names. To help them recall what they are and what they do, they attach labels to them. But soon they forget the meanings of the words themselves and the letters that form them.

I leave the reader to learn what happens afterward. But I remembered it after I read about the Bantayog ng mga Bayani now having a museum that houses memorabilia about martial law, including a reproduction of the cells that held the people who fought it. It’s not exactly Madame Tussaud’s House of Wax, there are only life-sized photographs of Ferdinand Marcos and Jose Diokno in lieu of lifelike wax figurines of Torquemada and Joan of Arc, but it does a creditable job of showing a horrific part of our history. Beats any tent of horror in a traveling "perya" [circus].

I remembered Márquez particularly in light of one thing. The point of the museum, as Carolina Malay points out, is to help our youth remember one of the darkest moments of our past and make sure it doesn’t happen again. “It’s not their fault that they don’t have memories of martial law. It’s up to us, their parents, to show them something about martial law and impart lessons to them.” That is admirable, except for one thing: Most of the youth, and adults, of this country don’t remember Bantayog ng mga Bayani [Monument of Heroes]. Hell, most of them don’t even know there’s one.

The word “museum” to refer to the place that houses the martial law memorabilia is not a little unkindly ironic. Museums, of course, are not the most popular places in other countries, luring only the occasional tourist or the class of a determined teacher -- hence “museum piece” to refer to forgotten, or ignored, relics -- but they are not also horrendously unpopular ones. To go by the fate of our National Museum itself, a near-magical place where our past unravels in tangible vitality before your eyes, but which drags in only the cat and bedraggled groups of people who look like they’d rather be elsewhere, museum for us doesn’t just rhyme with mausoleum, it might as well be synonymous to it.

It’s nice to have reminders, if you can remember what they mean -- or where they are.

FYI, Bantayog ng mga Bayani is in a perfectly accessible spot of this earth, which is the corner of Quezon Avenue and the Edsa highway, a stone’s throw (by a very feeble stone-thrower) from the Metro Rail Transit's Quezon Avenue station. You can do worse than spend a nice Sunday afternoon there, while the breezes blow and the sun shines, looking at the names carved on the Wall of Remembrance, which belong to those who did something heroic for us in more recent times, which claimed many of their lives, and which is why the breezes blow and the sun shines for us today. You can do even worse than going to the National Museum itself and bathing in the waters of the past, which flow copiously into the present.

In this light, I’d like to repeat the suggestion I made a couple of weeks ago on how to improve our education by leaps and bounds, which is to emphasize history. My other suggestion, of course, is to line up the crooks that steal education money at the Luneta and make them history. I do think that Bantayog ng mga Bayani, the National Museum and their kind are beacons in a windswept sea, but I don’t know why we should always flounder in the storm when we can sail in balmy weather. This country’s inability to remember martial law is but a drop of water in the deep well that is this country’s inability to remember what went before. Jason Bourne at least was determined to recover his past, Juan de la Cruz isn’t. We’re a rudderless country drifting aimlessly in the present.

My suggestion comes from my own experience, which I’ve told readers countless times over the past 20 years. (Come to think of it, this column will be 20 years before the end of this year!) That is that when I began devouring books on Philippine history in my college years, flailed on by the activism of my time, I had the sensation of having my eyes opened after being blind all my life. I read “Noli” and “Fili” outside of class, not inside it, out of dogged curiosity and not out of abject assignment, and saw Rizal climb down from his monument in Luneta and join our “dg” (discussion group) as it was called at the time. It was the first time I felt a sense of home, it was the first time I got to know who I was (you’ll never know who you are until you know who you were). It was the first time I felt proud to be a Filipino.

We want to produce citizens with idealism and purpose, I don’t know anything more guaranteed to do it than to make the kids read history. By whatever means, the classroom being the least of them. I’ve always said that if I were to run for president of this country (I really should apply for it given that the position is vacant), I’ll have only three things on my agenda: food, history and education. The first should take care of the present, the second of the past, the third of the future. None of those elements is dispensable. We need all three to survive, we need all three to flourish.

Of the three, teaching history is what we most need to do because it is what we most lack. That (and, yes, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo) is what’s producing the mammoth ills we see today, not least history repeating itself. Not least the little shop of horrors in the Bantayog museum spilling over into our lives again today. The past is Ariadne’s thread leading out of the Minotaur’s cave. We don’t have a past, we won’t have a future.

We’ll just be, well, a museum or mausoleum, take your pick.

http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquirer...ticle_id=85263

[overtureph]

PAST FORWARD
Treasures in old houses

By Joeber Bersales
Cebu Daily News
Last updated 12:33pm (Mla time) 08/30/2007

I was in Aloguinsan and Tuburan last week to help plan and establish town museums together with local government officers and members of the local tourism and heritage council. Like many in Cebu, both these towns have gradually moved their offices out of old municipal buildings and are looking forward to converting these into museums.

Quaint and sleepy Aloguinsan, a southwestern “off the beaten track” town due to the accident of geography, would make an ideal place for retirement and getaway from the madness of Metro Cebu. It is run by a vibrant and pretty mayor Cynthia Moreno, now on her third term, who has transformed the sloping park just above the new municipal building. Harvard-trained landscape architect Socorro “Bajing” Atega has conceptualized a small but world-class park, with renowned landscaper Jaime Chua implementing her plans.

(I still have to learn about the history of Alguinsan, though, as the visit there was brief but I managed to climb a bluff with conservation architect Melva Rodriguez-Java, and talk to locals about a possible archaeological site partially looted in the 1970s. Aloguinsan, if I am not mistaken, was once a locale of the Pulahanes, the much misunderstood millenarian sect that wreaked havoc in these parts, including Pinamungahan, during the pre-war years.)

The town of Tuburan, located on the northwestern corridor of Cebu, used to be run by another lady mayor, Rose Marie Suezo, who has since become vice mayor with her husband, Cresencio, now at the helm. She invited me to stay last week at her resort which was strewn with evidences of a possible pre-Hispanic habitation site, exposed due to an excavation for a swimming pool. Marie Tabo-tabo, a first-term councilor, had asked me to help build the museum collection and recover what we could from the rich history of this town, home of the last Katipunero to surrender to the authorities in Cebu, Gen. Arcadio Maxilom.

Because I had only a few hours in Aloguinsan but three days in Tuburan, I shall dwell on the experience I had in the latter while helping locals set up their museum collection. In Tuburan, I was shown some thirty pieces of items loaned from various sources in the town, to be displayed temporarily in the museum. These comprised mostly of household items like pre-war kitchenware, art deco furniture, and a few agricultural implements (stone corn grinders, a wooden plow, etc.). For a permanent museum collection, these would not do, as these were too generic---things that I am sure every town museum would be proud to display. We needed some things that were unique to Tuburan, things that would tell part of their past.

And so I went with Necel Comilang-Yamson and Ariel Sabio, both Tuburanons trained in the basics of heritage conservation, to look for old houses and see what they contained. We were not disappointed with what we found. In one house, 90-year old retired teacher Beatriz Allego showed us her mementoes that included pre-war photo albums of schools and other sites in Tuburan, Sagay (in Negros Occidental where she taught for over 30 years) as well as her alma mater, U.P Cebu. Ms. Josefina Gerasta, an 84-year old teacher, allowed us inside her pre-war home where huge 1920s colorized photo-folios of her parents hung on walls, aside from more colonial period photos and a gramophone that still worked. Eva and Shielda Montecillo-Rodriguez, granddaughters of Mayor Panfilo Montecillo, also rummaged through a plastic bag full of old photos that would help chronicle the life of Tuburan in the early 1920s. We were also told that many more things of the late mayor lay hidden in the ceiling of their ancestral house, including books.

The photographs we have gathered will form part of the museum collection, even as I await news on the search for the long-lost saber and other personal effects of Gen. Maxilom. It is indeed amazing how much lies hidden in old houses and I challenge local governments to take a hard and closer look at old houses in their midst before development and time erase what memories lie inside waiting to be found. Who knows what treasures they hold, which will surely boost the chances of having a museum that really represents the town’s past.

To subscribe to the Cebu Daily News newspaper, call +63 2 (032) 233-6046 for Metro Manila and Metro Cebu or email your subscription request here.


Copyright 2007 Cebu Daily News. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.



http://globalnation.inquirer.net/ceb...ticle_id=85580

[overtureph]

The museum at Bacolor, Pampanga located at the old convento of San Guillermo church.






















Photos by overtureph.

[Animo]

By Ambeth Ocampo
Inquirer
Last updated 03:22am (Mla time) 09/07/2007


MANILA, Philippines -- Writer Jessica Zafra, who has an uncanny knack for finding the most engaging books in the most obscure places or bargain bins, gifted me with “The Book of Lost Books: An Incomplete History of All the Great Books You’ll Never Read” by Stuart Kelly (Random House, 2003). Heck, it’s another way to enlarge my stock of useless information, but it was quite a treat to know that there is more to great authors, from Homer and Ovid to Hemingway and Dylan Thomas, than we know about or were forced to read in school.

Authors have been known to lose or destroy their own manuscripts. Sometimes they get help from fire, flood, termites and the most destructive of all, fellow humans. Then we have the destruction of great libraries, from the legendary one in Alexandria to medieval scriptoriums ransacked by barbarians.

In our own time and place we have seen much the same happen. The Philippine Library and Museum that boasted the finest collection of Filipiniana in its time was one of the casualties of the Battle for Manila in 1945. The late historian Teodoro Agoncillo related how he had packed his most important books and brought them to the University of the Philippines Library at the outbreak of the war, assuming that the enemy would respect an academic institution. Many other scholars and collectors, like Jaime C. de Veyra and E. Arsenio Manuel, felt the same way and deposited their precious libraries in UP, only to watch helplessly as the Japanese made a bonfire from their books. You have to be a researcher to get an idea of what was lost during the war.

Over a decade ago, when I was researching in the Great Reading Room of the British Library in Bloomsbury, London, I requested a rare 17th-century pamphlet on the Philippines and was told that it could not be located. I requested the same item thrice that day and got the same result, so I sought out a supervising librarian and inquired why it could not be found. She looked through her records and declared, “Well, Mr. Ocampo, I’m afraid you will have to blame the Germans for the loss of this item.”

I didn’t quite understand what she meant, so she explained, “London was bombed in 1944, a section of the British Library was hit and one of the casualties of that bombing is the book you need.”

If the book does not exist, I asked, why keep it in the card catalogue? Can’t you at least strike it off or mark it as such? Smiling, the librarian replied, “That’s just it, you have to blame the Germans during the war for destroying the book you need today.”

When I related the above to some friends, I was told a story, probably apocryphal, that there was an unwritten agreement between the British and the Germans regarding air raids. While maximum death and destruction was the object of the game, it was said that the Germans agreed to spare Oxford and Cambridge from air raids and in exchange the British were to spare Heidelberg and Tübingen.

If the story is true, it would show that in the midst of the last great war, these four great university towns were saved. Was it because the commanders were alumni of these universities, or did they, despite the war, retain respect for academic institutions?

Manila was an open city, the University of the Philippines campus on Padre Faura Street was obviously an academic institution, but its library went up in smoke. Some great Philippine books we will never read.

I remember going over the “Florante at Laura” in high school and being told that the great Francisco Baltazar, better known as “Balagtas,” learned the craft of rhyme from a village bard, “Huseng Sisiw,” so-called because he charged a chick per verse. Where are the lost works of Huseng Sisiw?

Likewise, Balagtas obviously wrote a great deal more than “Florante at Laura.” Now required reading in school, could this be his mediocre work? He allegedly filled a whole “baul” [chest] with writings, none of which survived.

Fortunately, another lost work of Balagtas, “Orosman at Zafiro,” was recovered by Dr. Buenaventura Medina in recent years. Surely, there is a lot more somewhere.

“Florante at Laura” survived because it was printed in various editions. Jose Rizal himself brought a copy with him to Europe. But even if the printed text had gone out of print, some people, like Apolinario Mabini, memorized the whole work. While Mabini was in exile in Guam, he wrote out, from memory, the entire “Florante at Laura” and presented the manuscript to an American who inquired if Filipinos had literature.

In my own area of expertise, I have recovered the draft of Rizal’s third novel after “El Filibusterismo” and placed it in the canon as “Makamisa,” a work he began in Tagalog and later tried to continue in Spanish. There are other missing Rizal works, like a manuscript study on the “sakhit latar” or “mali-mali” that was believed to have been written in Dapitan together with his treatise on the “mangkukulam.” I have also been told that Paciano Rizal translated “Noli Me Tangere” from the original Spanish into Tagalog, that his brother Jose corrected this, and that the unpublished manuscript was last seen in Paciano’s Los Baños home before the war. It is the lost definitive Tagalog translation of the “Noli.”

A literary historian going through the writers of the 20th century will find not only finished books but also lost great books we will never read.

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Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu.

http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquirer...ticle_id=87173

[overtureph]

The museum besides the church of San Guillermo, Bacolor, Pampanga. Try visiting the place and see the multiple holes on the roof or is it the theme of the place or decor to have a dilapidated look.




Holes on the roof of the museum besides San Guillermo church, Bacolor.























Photos by overtureph/bogs.

[overtureph]

Carrozas and andas left outside or being kept outside the old convent (museum) of San Guillermo church, Bacolor, Pampanga.

I don't know if these are antiques and if they are, they are poorly stored or sheltered.

















Photos by overtureph/bogs.