Frozen in Time

a peek into Philippine prehistory

Filipinos may not be a museum-going lot but it isn’t stopping anyone from putting up museums to encourage people to start visiting and start learning more about their heritage. Last weekend, we had a chance to visit one of the relatively newer museums in town, the Light and Sound Museum in Intramuros, Manila.

It is a nondescript building located along Calle Victoria, and sits on what was once a Beaterio or a convent during the Spanish and American era. Although, the original structure may not have withstood the test of time, the museum was built to replicate the old convent, at least as far as the exterior walls go. Inside, however, is another matter.

At best, the museum is a decent attempt by the government to put up more cultural establishments in the country. The architecture and design of the lobby may not amount to anything much, neither telling people of the history of the place nor striving to bring anything new or of interest to the table with its rather blah state, but once inside the galleries, we can give its founders a point for their effort to make history more interesting.

the first Philippine hero, Lapu-Lapu, cast in bronze

No, there are no painting or artworks by the masters here in this museum. Rather are visitor go through galleries and vignettes that depict very specific periods in Philippine history. The brief history lesson start with Philippine prehistory and move on to a lengthy overview on the Spanish colonization and the valiant efforts of Philippine heroes to thwart the imperial power focusing on the life and works of Rizal.

a vignette depicting polo y servicios or forced labor

The museum helps people (especially those with short attention span) to relate to history on a visual and sometimes almost physical level through video, lighting, set design and animatronics. History buffs may not find the content any different from what is taught in schools but the presentation can be at times, engaging.

a vignette depicting the publishing office of La Solidaridad

The tour, however, conspicuously skips (leaps even) certain parts of our history, including that of the American and Japanese Occupation and contemporary history. Save for a video montage, contemporary history was reduced to scenes that showed all three EDSA revolts, and which showed prominently the faces of the more popular politicians of our time including of course, President Arroyo, Cory Aquino, and Dick Gordon…we wonder why.

The tour was followed by a short lecture by Dr. Fernando Zialcita, the director of Cultural Heritage in Ateneo de Manila University on the contextualization of history.

The Light and Sound Museum tour is organized by Youth Trip, an NGO geared to the promotion of Philippine culture and heritage.

Our Cross to Bear

Navigating through the streets of Manila always brings a mixed sense of wonderment and dread. An accidental drive through Sta. Cruz and Binondo area reintroduced me to this historic area. But for all of its rich historical and cultural past, it couldn’t be saved and what remains is a grimy ghost of its past glory, hardly recognizable. It is now a labyrinthine world of small shops, hawkers, narrow streets, and a multitude of people, electric cables draping and crisscrossing through the plaza.

It makes one wonder whether the people milling about its streets, going through their business ever stopped to appreciate the beauty what they actually have. Are places and time like horses that lose their meaning once they’ve ran a good run? Or is it the fact that I am an outsider looking in that makes it easier to see what others have been sorely taking for granted?

It seems that as a people we are constantly waging a war with our past, and the means to win it is to obliterate traces of our history and reduce what’s left to something that amounts to as little as possible. And it begs the question when we could finally be at peace and reclaim our heritage and our past.

We found photos of the old Sta.Cruz District and some recent photos of the area. See for yourself what we’ve made out of this treasure, then what can we do to save it. – TM

old sta.cruz church postcard (photo courtesy of manilahub)

sta.cruz church now (photo from manilahub)

plaza goiti then (photo from manila nostalgia)

sta cruz plaza now (photo from nostalgia manila)

A Northern Star

The province of Ilocos is known to be the turf of many of today’s powerful political figures, but by far, the most known of this lot is also the province’s favorite son and one who has exerted much influence over the whole country—former president Ferdinand Marcos.
During his rule, Marcos took residence in what is now known as Malacañan Ti Amianan, which translates to Malacañan of the North. A large mansion with its very own man-made lake, it was the site of many of the Marcos’s lavish parties.
The design is very much similar to the Hispanic bahay na bato (stone house), and shortly after the ousting of the former president and his family, the new government had seized ownership of the mansion.
More than 20 years had passed, the house shows signs of its age and has fallen into disrepair—wallpaper is already peeling off the walls, the pool had turned into a swamp—despite the efforts of its caretakers. It is such a shame that we are slowly losing another piece of history and perhaps thanks to the neglect and lack of funding from the government.
We do hope that we could still save whatever’s left of the Malacañan of the North before it’s too late.

the house

A Lost Art

One of Vigan, Ilocos Sur’s traditional crafts, the burnay jars are still made to this day the traditional way by adept potters. Each jar is shaped on a wheel almost in no time at all, as seen in this video. Each jar is then baked in a kiln dug from out from the earth.

Forgotten Heritage: A look at Quiapo and its architecture, part 2

We acknowledge the fact of how much influence man exerts on his environment, how our personalities, ideologies and even our politics have shaped our homes and cities. But we neglect the part that it is also a two-way process—we are also shaped by the environment we have created ourselves. We draw our identities as a people by the cities and structures we build.
During a lecture and discussion on architecture and their hidden meanings, I had used Plaza Miranda in Quiapo as example how even public spaces can have its own language, its own significance other than the obvious. They looked at me dumbfounded, with nary a glimmer of recognition of what I was talking about. Maybe they were too young. To another generation, Plaza Miranda had been the battlecry against tyranny and dictatorship, but to this group of wide-eyed college students, Plaza Miranda was nothing more than a site for bazaars and peddlers.
Quiapo is only a small fraction of, but it is quite telling of the shape our city is in now. We have achieved to create a city that holds no relevance anymore to both culture and history except to serve economics.
Heritage conservationists, the men and women who fight to preserve our built environment have been fighting a good fight. And as much as we laud their efforts, it makes me think how limited the scope of buildings and structures that they’ve tried so hard to save. And this begs the question about conservation itself: Do we save only those that have been held as the bastions of the elite, those that had been designed and built by the more famous architects? Do we disregard those we deem as pedestrian no matter if they hold architectural merit?
We talk about Manila, its charm and character but we’ve so much taken it for granted. We’ve grown so complacent about the way things are that we don’t notice that all its charm and character is crumbling away the same way its buildings are. And if our history, culture and identity is intertwined with our architecture and our cities, shouldn’t we endeavor their preservation, lest we forget who we are and where we came from? – TM

Forgotten Heritage: A look at Quiapo and its architecture, part 1

It is an unavoidable circumstance to overlook and take for granted what is right before you, and everyone is mighty guilty of this on a daily basis. After all, objectivity is hard to maintain once you find yourself embroiled in anything at all. It takes someone from the outside to actually point out what you’ve failed to realize all this time.
This goes for architecture as well. As soon as a building or structure loses its novelty then it becomes almost impossible for people to look at it in a new light. Most often, they are reduced to being dated and irrelevant, and like an old movie star, they lose their shine just waiting to be upstaged by the next young thing.
Such is the fate of most of the buildings found in downtown Manila, and particularly that of Quiapo. Once a relatively wealthy business district, Quiapo has now fallen to such neglect and disrepair and has devolved into the seedy part of Manila—dilapidated apartment blocks, adult movie theaters—and people these days rarely try to look beyond the grit and grime. It would be a lie to say that I’ve always seen Quiapo for both its historical and architectural value, and if it weren’t for a nasty traffic jam by the Quiapo bridge, I wouldn’t have had a new-found appreciation for the area.
A cursory look at the buildings reveal those built during the burgeoning stages of modernism here in the Philippines. Though not exactly skyscrapers, these buildings aren’t exactly lacking in interest either.
No taller than five stories, buildings were designed to have a very distinct humanized scale. Brise soleil or sunshades were commonly used to control admittance of light and heat, and façade embellishments may have been minimal but tasteful. And who knows, maybe during their heydays, these buildings may have held people’s admiration as it did mine now.
There was even a building with a distinctly Art Deco flavor, and it’s funny how people with a supposed interest in architecture can only think of the Metropolitan Theater as the only extant example of Art Deco architecture. Another building even bore on its façade a bas-relief, a detail that is now lost in an age where glass and steel had become commonplace, and is obviously overshadowed by a more famous bas-relief by National Artist Napoleon Abueva on the façade of the Insular Life in Makati.
They were all there—artifacts from a bygone era designed by unsung and nameless architect—but forgotten. People have been so busy attending to more practical matters that we have lost sense of history. We, with our short memories have tried to replace these tangible memories from our past with buildings void of soul, all in the name of progress. – TM