By Ambeth Ocampo
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 01:24:00 10/31/2008
The main shopping district in San Francisco, California, radiates from Union Square. All the main hotels and name shops—Macy’s, Louis Vuitton, Williams-Sonoma, Baccarat, Victoria’s Secret, Goyard, etc.—can be found around it on Powell, Post, Geary and Stockton streets.
Union Square boasts of a large, and historically, the world’s first, underground parking lot. If you stroll around the square today you will see many Filipino old-timers killing time and many tourists with shopping bags resting after a spending spree.
Union Square was dedicated in 1850, and got its name from the pro-union rallies held there during the US Civil War although no trace of this history remains, except in the name of the place. Aside from coffee shops, ice cream vendors and an outlet of See’s Chocolates, one of its landmarks is a gaudy heart, popular among tourists and lovers, indicating that Union Square is the heart of San Francisco. It could also refer to the song “I Left My Heart in San Francisco.”
The late Bienvenido Santos wrote a novel, “What the hell for, I left my heart in San Francisco,” with his picture on the cover. Santos was photographed, with the Golden Gate Bridge in the background, wearing the attire of a Filipino old-timer: jacket, cap, and ancient face. This is an iconographic image captured by National Artist Bencab in a series on drifters, the most famous being “Pinoy Old-Timer in Chicago.”
What many Filipinos in San Francisco today tend to overlook is the main landmark on Union Square, a slender monument topped with a woman depicting “Victory,” which makes reference to the Philippines and Philippine-American history. The monument commemorates George Dewey’s victory in the Battle of Manila Bay on May 1, 1898.
I sat around this monument on previous visits to San Francisco but only noticed the text on its base two years ago, while waiting for friends shopping in the area. One side reads: “Erected by the Citizens of San Francisco to commemorate the victory of the American Navy under Commodore George Dewey at Manila Bay May first 1898. On May 3, 1901 the ground for this monument was broken by President William McKinley.”
The historic telegram is etched on granite on another side of the base: “Secretary of the Navy John D. Long to Commodore George Dewey April 24, 1898. War has commenced between the United States and Spain. Proceed at once to the Philippines Islands and capture or destroy the Spanish fleet.”
A short and dramatic narrative is to be found on the third side of the base: “On the night of April 30th 1898 Commodore Dewey’s Squadron entered Manila Bay and undaunted by the danger of submerged explosives reached Manila at dawn of May first 1898. Attacked and destroyed the Spanish fleet of ten warships. Reduced the forts and held the city in subjection until the arrival of troops from America.”
Finally, there is a list of the names of the US ships that saw action in the Philippines: “American Squadron Manila Bay, Olympia (flagship), Baltimore, Raleigh, Boston, Concord, Petrel, McColloch. On May 14, 1903 this monument was dedicated by President Theodore Roosevelt.”
Textbook history teaches us that the Battle of Manila Bay was one of the greatest naval victories of the United States. The destruction of the Spanish fleet by Commodore (later Admiral) George Dewey was commemorated on the bayside drive in Manila made famous by postcard pretty sunsets, one of the city’s main streets where the Embassy of the United States of America is located.
“Dewey Boulevard” has since been renamed after the post-war Philippine President Manuel Roxas, further obscuring a part of Philippine-American history. There is little left to remind Filipinos of the Philippine-American War. For example, streets in the Malate district near Manila Bay used to carry names like Kansas, Oregon, Pennsylvania, and Arkansas (pronounced as written by Filipinos as AR-KAN-SAS), memorials to the US Army regiments that fought in the Philippine-American War.
If Filipino tourists take time out from shopping and visiting relatives, they will encounter a lot of common history in San Francisco. Two years ago, an old Philippine flag was found in a museum in San Francisco and it was alleged that this was the first, the original flag sewn in Hong Kong by Marcela Agoncillo and others in 1898, shortly before Emilio Aguinaldo was transported to the Philippines on an American vessel to continue and finish the Philippine revolution against Spain that began in August 1896. That flag led me to open my files again and read up not just on the flag but on the Philippine-American War.
Many of these flags were taken in battle and brought back to the United States as souvenirs or war trophies. At the Historical Institute, we have two or three donated by people who found these in their attics among their grandpas’ things. The flag found in San Francisco was an authentic flag of the period. It had flown in battle, but unfortunately it was but one of many contemporary flags, not the Mother of all Philippine flags.
San Francisco and Manila became sister cities in 1986, and it is hoped that both the American and Filipino historians from both cities can re-visit our shared history.
* * *
Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu.
Friday, October 31, 2008
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Problems with names
By Ambeth Ocampo
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 02:38:00 10/29/2008
Most Read
There is a website that deals with names. My name generated this useless information: First, “42% of the letters are vowels. Of one million first and last names we looked at, 22.8% have a higher vowel makeup. This means you are well envoweled.” Second, “In ASCII binary it is... 01000001 01101101 01100010 01100101 01110100 01101000 00100000 01001111 01100011 01100001 01101101 01110000 01101111.” Third, “Backwards, it is Htebma Opmaco.” Fourth, “in Pig Latin, it is Ambethway Ocampoway.” Fifth, “People with this first name are probably: Male or female...We don’t know yet. We’re working on it!” Sixth, there was nothing on word or name origins. Seventh, my personal power animal is a “Giant Weta” (whatever that is). Eighth, “Your ‘Numerology’ number is 4. If it wasn’t bulls**t, it would mean that you are practical, tenacious, traditional, and serious. You are well organised and have a strong work ethic.” Ninth, “According to the US Census Bureau, fewer than 0.001% of US residents have the first name ‘Ambeth’ and 0.0072% have the surname ‘Ocampo’. The US has around 300 million residents, so we guesstimate there is only 1 American who goes by the name Ambeth Ocampo.”
Further surfing revealed that: I share the name “Ambeth” with an Indian Member of Parliament, Shri Ambeth Rajan. There is an Ambeth Street in Farmington, Michigan, USA. There is a tour guide in Intramuros who doesn’t know me or my work and probably copied his spiel from Carlos Celdran. There are a number of Filipinos, both male and female, with the same nickname, and on YouTube there is a plump woman in shorts named “Ambeth” who dances seductively. (You can spend hours on the Net on sites infinitely more engaging than porn.)
After four columns on names, naming, and pseudonyms in Philippine life, this will be the last for a while.
Today I share an email response. From Rudy Coronel: “Indeed, ‘Names can be fun’ (Philippine Daily Inquirer, 10/24/08)! Your column suddenly resurrects this once-upon-a-time related experience of mine. It was our town fiesta, and there was to be a Mass baptism in our parish. My first-born, Rubelyn (I coined it from my and my wife Belen’s names) was among the ‘newborns’ awaiting the occasion. Inside the church, the priest first assembled us—parents, children and sponsors—side by side into a semi-circle, then one by one asked each child’s name prior to conducting the simultaneous ritual. On hearing my daughter’s name, the Among remarked with unconcealed insult: ‘Oh, you people are really fond of unChristian names. Call her Maria Rubelyn!’ We meekly said, ‘Amen!’ When the father next to me was asked his child’s name, his immediate reply was: ‘Tigre po, Padre!’ [‘Tiger, Father!] That all the more provoked the clergyman’s temper, as he retorted: ‘Bakit, hayop ba yang anak mo?’ [‘Why, is your child an animal?’] To which the unperturbed father answered: ‘Gusto ko lang pong lumaki siyang matapang, Padre! Paris din marahil noong isang ama na nauna ninyong tinanong at sa naging tugong Leon po, Padre, ay ‘di kumibo. [‘I want him to grow up brave, Father! It’s like the way the father you asked and you said nothing when he replied, Leon, Father.’]
“Well, whatever else happened next in the church is beside the point. The point is, what can you say about such commonplace stupidity of some priests as I have related? I couldn’t care less about the Tigre or Leon thing! The sad thing is many, many years thereafter, my daughter, who had since adopted Maria Rubelyn in all the schools she attended, was denied a passport when she applied for one, because the name in her original birth registration was only Rubelyn. In hindsight, I should have probably gone back to the civil registrar after my daughter’s baptism to have her registered name amended to include the additional name given by the priest. But could the civil registrar, in those days, just do that without a court order? Besides, to be honest, which father could be so intelligent and exceptionally farsighted as to have thought of that, if he were in my shoes.
“At any rate, thanks to a so-called Angara Law (I haven’t yet read it), my daughter’s problem was solved. According to a lawyer-friend of mine, that law allows simple changes in one’s name in the Civil Register without court action. But here’s the rub! In our midst and times, when everybody wants to go abroad and direly needs a passport, and given the countless other people who had once been a ‘victim’ of the Church in the same way I was, it is unfortunate that most civil registrars have been making a killing out of the situation by charging exorbitantly prohibitive fees for quite a very simple clerical process. Maybe, the true objective of the law along this light needs to be revisited.”
Frankly, I am seriously considering going to court to change my awful baptismal name (it’s not Ambrosio) into my professional name. I wouldn’t be surprised if my NSO certificate will yield another name. My mother was close to 70 when she had to get an NSO certificate for a passport application. All her life she was known as “Belen” but her civil registry read “Valeriano.” If you think getting a man’s name was bad enough, Valeriana was the name of her wicked stepmother! My mother assumed that when the priest or civil registrar asked for the name of the child, the stepmom, who was hard of hearing, gave her own name. Then, the clerk, also hard of hearing or stupid, or both wrote down “Valeriano.” I know of similar cases but will not mention them here to protect the innocent.
* * *
Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu.
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 02:38:00 10/29/2008
Most Read
There is a website that deals with names. My name generated this useless information: First, “42% of the letters are vowels. Of one million first and last names we looked at, 22.8% have a higher vowel makeup. This means you are well envoweled.” Second, “In ASCII binary it is... 01000001 01101101 01100010 01100101 01110100 01101000 00100000 01001111 01100011 01100001 01101101 01110000 01101111.” Third, “Backwards, it is Htebma Opmaco.” Fourth, “in Pig Latin, it is Ambethway Ocampoway.” Fifth, “People with this first name are probably: Male or female...We don’t know yet. We’re working on it!” Sixth, there was nothing on word or name origins. Seventh, my personal power animal is a “Giant Weta” (whatever that is). Eighth, “Your ‘Numerology’ number is 4. If it wasn’t bulls**t, it would mean that you are practical, tenacious, traditional, and serious. You are well organised and have a strong work ethic.” Ninth, “According to the US Census Bureau, fewer than 0.001% of US residents have the first name ‘Ambeth’ and 0.0072% have the surname ‘Ocampo’. The US has around 300 million residents, so we guesstimate there is only 1 American who goes by the name Ambeth Ocampo.”
Further surfing revealed that: I share the name “Ambeth” with an Indian Member of Parliament, Shri Ambeth Rajan. There is an Ambeth Street in Farmington, Michigan, USA. There is a tour guide in Intramuros who doesn’t know me or my work and probably copied his spiel from Carlos Celdran. There are a number of Filipinos, both male and female, with the same nickname, and on YouTube there is a plump woman in shorts named “Ambeth” who dances seductively. (You can spend hours on the Net on sites infinitely more engaging than porn.)
After four columns on names, naming, and pseudonyms in Philippine life, this will be the last for a while.
Today I share an email response. From Rudy Coronel: “Indeed, ‘Names can be fun’ (Philippine Daily Inquirer, 10/24/08)! Your column suddenly resurrects this once-upon-a-time related experience of mine. It was our town fiesta, and there was to be a Mass baptism in our parish. My first-born, Rubelyn (I coined it from my and my wife Belen’s names) was among the ‘newborns’ awaiting the occasion. Inside the church, the priest first assembled us—parents, children and sponsors—side by side into a semi-circle, then one by one asked each child’s name prior to conducting the simultaneous ritual. On hearing my daughter’s name, the Among remarked with unconcealed insult: ‘Oh, you people are really fond of unChristian names. Call her Maria Rubelyn!’ We meekly said, ‘Amen!’ When the father next to me was asked his child’s name, his immediate reply was: ‘Tigre po, Padre!’ [‘Tiger, Father!] That all the more provoked the clergyman’s temper, as he retorted: ‘Bakit, hayop ba yang anak mo?’ [‘Why, is your child an animal?’] To which the unperturbed father answered: ‘Gusto ko lang pong lumaki siyang matapang, Padre! Paris din marahil noong isang ama na nauna ninyong tinanong at sa naging tugong Leon po, Padre, ay ‘di kumibo. [‘I want him to grow up brave, Father! It’s like the way the father you asked and you said nothing when he replied, Leon, Father.’]
“Well, whatever else happened next in the church is beside the point. The point is, what can you say about such commonplace stupidity of some priests as I have related? I couldn’t care less about the Tigre or Leon thing! The sad thing is many, many years thereafter, my daughter, who had since adopted Maria Rubelyn in all the schools she attended, was denied a passport when she applied for one, because the name in her original birth registration was only Rubelyn. In hindsight, I should have probably gone back to the civil registrar after my daughter’s baptism to have her registered name amended to include the additional name given by the priest. But could the civil registrar, in those days, just do that without a court order? Besides, to be honest, which father could be so intelligent and exceptionally farsighted as to have thought of that, if he were in my shoes.
“At any rate, thanks to a so-called Angara Law (I haven’t yet read it), my daughter’s problem was solved. According to a lawyer-friend of mine, that law allows simple changes in one’s name in the Civil Register without court action. But here’s the rub! In our midst and times, when everybody wants to go abroad and direly needs a passport, and given the countless other people who had once been a ‘victim’ of the Church in the same way I was, it is unfortunate that most civil registrars have been making a killing out of the situation by charging exorbitantly prohibitive fees for quite a very simple clerical process. Maybe, the true objective of the law along this light needs to be revisited.”
Frankly, I am seriously considering going to court to change my awful baptismal name (it’s not Ambrosio) into my professional name. I wouldn’t be surprised if my NSO certificate will yield another name. My mother was close to 70 when she had to get an NSO certificate for a passport application. All her life she was known as “Belen” but her civil registry read “Valeriano.” If you think getting a man’s name was bad enough, Valeriana was the name of her wicked stepmother! My mother assumed that when the priest or civil registrar asked for the name of the child, the stepmom, who was hard of hearing, gave her own name. Then, the clerk, also hard of hearing or stupid, or both wrote down “Valeriano.” I know of similar cases but will not mention them here to protect the innocent.
* * *
Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Names can be fun
By Ambeth Ocampo
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 02:29:00 10/24/2008
MANILA, Philippines—When Juan Luna’s second child, a daughter, was born, he asked his friend Jose Rizal to be one of the godfathers. Asked to propose a name for the infant, Rizal replied that it would be appropriate to call her Maria de la Paz, in honor of the Blessed Virgin and of course the mother Paz (whose nickname was “Chiching”). Perhaps every relative or godparent who had a say in the naming of the child was accommodated because her full baptismal name was Maria de la Paz Blanca Laureana Herminigilda Luna y Pardo de Tavera. The poor child must have had difficulty writing her entire name on quiz papers and so she was called “Bibi” (I think that’s their version of “Baby”) for short. (Reading the wedding and baptismal notices in our parish reveals that complicated compound names are making a comeback.)
My own unfortunate experience is to be named after my paternal grandmother and my father. My mother always got a kick out of my baptismal name, not knowing how much I hated it and that I never used it. Since I am publicly known under my pen name “Ambeth” (guess where that came from), I’m seriously considering going to court to have my name changed. The only problem is my superstitious belief that St. Peter won’t find my nickname in his register when I turn up at the gates of Heaven, and if I go to the hot place where all the fun people are, it might be better not to be in the devil’s books either.
Nobody believes me when I tell them how a Mass card created a stir during my grandfather’s wake. In true Kapampangan fashion, my overweight aunts were all in black and wailed every time someone approached the coffin and asked for yet another narration of my grandfather’s long illness and peaceful death. Late one afternoon instead of playing mahjong, my aunts decided to open and list down all the Mass cards and wreaths received. An aunt shrieked and started to laugh. The Mass card was passed and was met with laughter every time. When it reached me, I saw why: It had been sent by a certain Circumcision Garcia. She was a contemporary of my grandfather and was known by her nickname, “Apung Tuli.”
Obviously, her unimaginative parents picked her name from a Catholic calendar. You still see these in kitchens (it is often in blue and red and contains the phases of the moon). On each date you will find two names of Catholic saints whose feasts are celebrated on that day. The names are often in the Spanish form and can be made feminine or masculine by changing the last letter, hence: Mario/Maria; Jose/Josefa; Jesus/Jesusa; Dionisio/Dionisia; Gregorio/Gregoria and so on. You will also notice some obscure and wonderful names like Walburga, Epictetus, Expedita and Gorgonio.
“Apung Tuli” was born on Jan. 1, which was not marked as New Year’s Day in the old Church calendar but commemorated as the Feast of the Circumcision of our Lord. One old abbot claimed he used to receive every New Year’s Day from a convent of nuns a greeting card that said, “Happy Circumcision Day!” Of course, in our more politically correct and gender-sensitive day, the Feast of the Circumcision has been changed to the Solemnity of Mary Mother of God.
Can you imagine all the fun and hilarity that these calendars can give us? They also make us rethink some names that are not really names: Asuncion (Feast of the Assumption, Aug. 15); Concepcion (Feast of the Immaculate Conception, Dec. 8); Dolores (Our Lady of Sorrows); Nieves (Our Lady of the Snows). Guadalupe and Lourdes are place names, the sites of Marian apparitions.
If you find the kitchen calendar too limiting, you can get names from TV, movies, radio, even the Internet. In bookstores, you can find pocket-sized books that provide “5,000 names for baby.” If you are into Filipiniana, you can understand why some people are called Rizal or Mabini or Luzviminda (Luzon, Visayas, Mindanao), Filamer (Filipino-American) or Marcial (martial law) or even Edsa. There are political figures with quaint names like Jejomar Binay (Jesus, Jose and Maria, which tells us why old people used to exclaim, “Susmariosep!”) or Heherson Alvarez (He, Her and Son).
Such can be analyzed from real names, so why bother with pseudonyms?
But to end this series, here are a few more from the University of the Philippines’ list of pseudonyms, with my own additions: Nick Joaquin signed some of his works “Quijano de Manila.” Jose Garcia Villa was “Doveglion” or signed his first name in Russian characters as “Xoce.” The most popular National Artist for the Visual Arts, Benedicto Cabrera, is simply “Bencab,” and some stupid folks don’t take the trouble to check and simply proceed to print his name in promotional literature as “Benjamin” Cabrera.
I don’t know who Julio Blanca is and why he chose to become “El Diablo Negro” (black devil), in contrast to Carlos Omana who was “El Diablo Rojo” (red devil as in the Tabasco sauce).
Some took names from nature: Ariston Villanueva took the flower “Kampupot” while the revolutionary Mariano Trias was “Labong” and Briccio Pantas “Bungahan.” I forgot who it was in Philippine history who chose the name “Platano” (banana).
If one is curious one can find delight in simple things like names. If you are a constipated academic, you squeeze the life from learning by focusing on theoretical frameworks and other boring stuff.
* * *
Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu.
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 02:29:00 10/24/2008
MANILA, Philippines—When Juan Luna’s second child, a daughter, was born, he asked his friend Jose Rizal to be one of the godfathers. Asked to propose a name for the infant, Rizal replied that it would be appropriate to call her Maria de la Paz, in honor of the Blessed Virgin and of course the mother Paz (whose nickname was “Chiching”). Perhaps every relative or godparent who had a say in the naming of the child was accommodated because her full baptismal name was Maria de la Paz Blanca Laureana Herminigilda Luna y Pardo de Tavera. The poor child must have had difficulty writing her entire name on quiz papers and so she was called “Bibi” (I think that’s their version of “Baby”) for short. (Reading the wedding and baptismal notices in our parish reveals that complicated compound names are making a comeback.)
My own unfortunate experience is to be named after my paternal grandmother and my father. My mother always got a kick out of my baptismal name, not knowing how much I hated it and that I never used it. Since I am publicly known under my pen name “Ambeth” (guess where that came from), I’m seriously considering going to court to have my name changed. The only problem is my superstitious belief that St. Peter won’t find my nickname in his register when I turn up at the gates of Heaven, and if I go to the hot place where all the fun people are, it might be better not to be in the devil’s books either.
Nobody believes me when I tell them how a Mass card created a stir during my grandfather’s wake. In true Kapampangan fashion, my overweight aunts were all in black and wailed every time someone approached the coffin and asked for yet another narration of my grandfather’s long illness and peaceful death. Late one afternoon instead of playing mahjong, my aunts decided to open and list down all the Mass cards and wreaths received. An aunt shrieked and started to laugh. The Mass card was passed and was met with laughter every time. When it reached me, I saw why: It had been sent by a certain Circumcision Garcia. She was a contemporary of my grandfather and was known by her nickname, “Apung Tuli.”
Obviously, her unimaginative parents picked her name from a Catholic calendar. You still see these in kitchens (it is often in blue and red and contains the phases of the moon). On each date you will find two names of Catholic saints whose feasts are celebrated on that day. The names are often in the Spanish form and can be made feminine or masculine by changing the last letter, hence: Mario/Maria; Jose/Josefa; Jesus/Jesusa; Dionisio/Dionisia; Gregorio/Gregoria and so on. You will also notice some obscure and wonderful names like Walburga, Epictetus, Expedita and Gorgonio.
“Apung Tuli” was born on Jan. 1, which was not marked as New Year’s Day in the old Church calendar but commemorated as the Feast of the Circumcision of our Lord. One old abbot claimed he used to receive every New Year’s Day from a convent of nuns a greeting card that said, “Happy Circumcision Day!” Of course, in our more politically correct and gender-sensitive day, the Feast of the Circumcision has been changed to the Solemnity of Mary Mother of God.
Can you imagine all the fun and hilarity that these calendars can give us? They also make us rethink some names that are not really names: Asuncion (Feast of the Assumption, Aug. 15); Concepcion (Feast of the Immaculate Conception, Dec. 8); Dolores (Our Lady of Sorrows); Nieves (Our Lady of the Snows). Guadalupe and Lourdes are place names, the sites of Marian apparitions.
If you find the kitchen calendar too limiting, you can get names from TV, movies, radio, even the Internet. In bookstores, you can find pocket-sized books that provide “5,000 names for baby.” If you are into Filipiniana, you can understand why some people are called Rizal or Mabini or Luzviminda (Luzon, Visayas, Mindanao), Filamer (Filipino-American) or Marcial (martial law) or even Edsa. There are political figures with quaint names like Jejomar Binay (Jesus, Jose and Maria, which tells us why old people used to exclaim, “Susmariosep!”) or Heherson Alvarez (He, Her and Son).
Such can be analyzed from real names, so why bother with pseudonyms?
But to end this series, here are a few more from the University of the Philippines’ list of pseudonyms, with my own additions: Nick Joaquin signed some of his works “Quijano de Manila.” Jose Garcia Villa was “Doveglion” or signed his first name in Russian characters as “Xoce.” The most popular National Artist for the Visual Arts, Benedicto Cabrera, is simply “Bencab,” and some stupid folks don’t take the trouble to check and simply proceed to print his name in promotional literature as “Benjamin” Cabrera.
I don’t know who Julio Blanca is and why he chose to become “El Diablo Negro” (black devil), in contrast to Carlos Omana who was “El Diablo Rojo” (red devil as in the Tabasco sauce).
Some took names from nature: Ariston Villanueva took the flower “Kampupot” while the revolutionary Mariano Trias was “Labong” and Briccio Pantas “Bungahan.” I forgot who it was in Philippine history who chose the name “Platano” (banana).
If one is curious one can find delight in simple things like names. If you are a constipated academic, you squeeze the life from learning by focusing on theoretical frameworks and other boring stuff.
* * *
Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu.
Tuesday, October 21, 2008
What’s in a pen name?
By Ambeth Ocampo
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 00:23:00 10/22/2008
Most Read
After the semestral school break, I should really take the time to return to the University of the Philippines Main Library in Diliman, Quezon City, to take notes on the rest of the pseudonyms listed on those yellowing pieces of newsprint in that forgotten drawer of useless information. The list is only useful to literary historians, and I do wonder who was the strange bird who compiled all this data and for what purpose? Has the research been discontinued or is there someone still compiling pseudonyms, nicknames and pen names, bringing everything (e.g., “Jose Velarde” and “Garci”) up to date?
In recent political history, one only has to look at media to see how airtime and column inches were saved by compressing: Corazon C. Aquino into “Cory” and Joseph Ejercito Estrada into “Erap.” Fidel Valdez Ramos is “Eddie” to friends, “Tabako” to those fixated on the unlit personalized cigars he would chew on, and “FVR” to the media. It is also significant that Cory and Erap were referred to in the familiar, while others were known by their initials. One oddity though was that while Ferdinand Marcos was referred to as “FM,” his wife Imelda was never referred to as “IRM,” the initials in her personalized license plates; rather she was simply “FL,” for “First Lady,” in the same way that Jose Miguel Arroyo, the current First Gentleman, is referred to as “FG.” President Estrada’s spouse was simply “Loi,” and Ramos’ spouse was just “Ming.” I will leave the political analysis on names and naming to Randy David and the anthropological analysis to Mike Tan, but someone should really look into all this someday because it may reveal something about us as a people.
Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is definitely a mouthful, so this has been shortened to “GMA.” Unfortunately, those initials can also stand for “Greater Manila Area,” long before Marcos-era technocrats coined the word Metropolitan or Metro Manila. GMA, depending on the context, can either mean the President or it can be mistaken as the television network GMA7. To avoid this confusion and instill some respect in government, employees (who should not address the President in the first person) have transformed “GMA” into the formal “PGMA” (for President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo). The added “P” is for the dullards who don’t know or don’t recognize her as president.
With regard to signatures, those familiar with documents emanating from Malacañang know that the President usually signs important papers with her full name. There are some documents signed only with her married name—“Gloria Arroyo”—and, if in a hurry, with the simple initial “Gma.” (Note the distinct capital “G” and the lower case for the surnames.) In rare moments, the President make a letter more personal with the familiar “Gloria.” Naturally, no document signed by the President is official and binding unless it is attested to and countersigned by Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita, with his now familiar scrawl under the words “By the President.” This may partly explain why executive secretaries—from Jorge Vargas under Manuel Quezon to Ermita under Arroyo—are referred to as the “Little President.” All these are small details, trivial to most, but they must be significant in some way.
Going back to the University of the Philippines’ list of pseudonyms — Jesus Balmori, a writer and poet in Spanish, used the pseudonym “Baticuling,” a type of wood; Jose Corazon de Jesus was either “Bato,” “Batute,” or “Huseng Batute”; Antonio Luna, who was of Ilocano ancestry but was born in Binondo, Manila, close to the Pasig River, used “Taga-ilog,” which, when further contracted, becomes “Tagalog.”
Others played on their initials, like the bibliographer Gabriel A. Bernardo who was simply “B.A.G,” “Gab” or “Bargeli Barderon.” Claro M. Recto was a poet before he became a senator, nationalist icon, and street name, so he signed himself “Clovis Ronsard.” Kapampangan playright Juan Crisostomo Soto was simply “Crissot,” and his plays became a genre known in literature as “Crissotan.”
Some writers actually make the trouble to make allusions to earlier and greater literature hence the poet Cecilio Apostol used “Catulo,” “Calipso” and “Calypso.” Felipe Calderon took names from Rizal’s novels and signed as “Simoun” or “Elias.” Marcelo H. del Pilar had a number of names: “Carmelo,” “O. Crame,” “D.M. Calero,” “Hilario,” “Kupang,” and “M. Dati.” Jose Ma. Sison is now known as “Amado Guerrero,” the byline appearing in the book “Philippine Society and Revolution.” I asked him to autograph my little red book, and he signed it “Jose Ma. Sison” — with a star as a flourish at the end. I asked why he chose the pseudonym Amado Guerrero, and he chuckled: “It means ‘Beloved Warrior.’” He then added that he was not as conceited as someone else in the movement who used the name “Salvador del Mundo” (Savior of the World).
Come to think of it, the hard-hitting prewar newspaper columnist Amando Dayrit used the pseudonym “Cyclops,” which could mean the monster in Greek mythology or that he was the one-eyed man in the kingdom of the blind.
Virgilio S. Almario is the name used by the dean of the University of the Philippines College of Arts and Letters when he signs official papers, but when the muse takes hold of his pen he becomes “Rio Alma” (River Soul).
What possessed Diosdado Macapagal, the Philippine president who was a poet earlier in life, to take the name “Dandelion”?
What is in a pen name or pseudonym? A lot.
* * *
Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu.
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 00:23:00 10/22/2008
Most Read
After the semestral school break, I should really take the time to return to the University of the Philippines Main Library in Diliman, Quezon City, to take notes on the rest of the pseudonyms listed on those yellowing pieces of newsprint in that forgotten drawer of useless information. The list is only useful to literary historians, and I do wonder who was the strange bird who compiled all this data and for what purpose? Has the research been discontinued or is there someone still compiling pseudonyms, nicknames and pen names, bringing everything (e.g., “Jose Velarde” and “Garci”) up to date?
In recent political history, one only has to look at media to see how airtime and column inches were saved by compressing: Corazon C. Aquino into “Cory” and Joseph Ejercito Estrada into “Erap.” Fidel Valdez Ramos is “Eddie” to friends, “Tabako” to those fixated on the unlit personalized cigars he would chew on, and “FVR” to the media. It is also significant that Cory and Erap were referred to in the familiar, while others were known by their initials. One oddity though was that while Ferdinand Marcos was referred to as “FM,” his wife Imelda was never referred to as “IRM,” the initials in her personalized license plates; rather she was simply “FL,” for “First Lady,” in the same way that Jose Miguel Arroyo, the current First Gentleman, is referred to as “FG.” President Estrada’s spouse was simply “Loi,” and Ramos’ spouse was just “Ming.” I will leave the political analysis on names and naming to Randy David and the anthropological analysis to Mike Tan, but someone should really look into all this someday because it may reveal something about us as a people.
Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is definitely a mouthful, so this has been shortened to “GMA.” Unfortunately, those initials can also stand for “Greater Manila Area,” long before Marcos-era technocrats coined the word Metropolitan or Metro Manila. GMA, depending on the context, can either mean the President or it can be mistaken as the television network GMA7. To avoid this confusion and instill some respect in government, employees (who should not address the President in the first person) have transformed “GMA” into the formal “PGMA” (for President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo). The added “P” is for the dullards who don’t know or don’t recognize her as president.
With regard to signatures, those familiar with documents emanating from Malacañang know that the President usually signs important papers with her full name. There are some documents signed only with her married name—“Gloria Arroyo”—and, if in a hurry, with the simple initial “Gma.” (Note the distinct capital “G” and the lower case for the surnames.) In rare moments, the President make a letter more personal with the familiar “Gloria.” Naturally, no document signed by the President is official and binding unless it is attested to and countersigned by Executive Secretary Eduardo Ermita, with his now familiar scrawl under the words “By the President.” This may partly explain why executive secretaries—from Jorge Vargas under Manuel Quezon to Ermita under Arroyo—are referred to as the “Little President.” All these are small details, trivial to most, but they must be significant in some way.
Going back to the University of the Philippines’ list of pseudonyms — Jesus Balmori, a writer and poet in Spanish, used the pseudonym “Baticuling,” a type of wood; Jose Corazon de Jesus was either “Bato,” “Batute,” or “Huseng Batute”; Antonio Luna, who was of Ilocano ancestry but was born in Binondo, Manila, close to the Pasig River, used “Taga-ilog,” which, when further contracted, becomes “Tagalog.”
Others played on their initials, like the bibliographer Gabriel A. Bernardo who was simply “B.A.G,” “Gab” or “Bargeli Barderon.” Claro M. Recto was a poet before he became a senator, nationalist icon, and street name, so he signed himself “Clovis Ronsard.” Kapampangan playright Juan Crisostomo Soto was simply “Crissot,” and his plays became a genre known in literature as “Crissotan.”
Some writers actually make the trouble to make allusions to earlier and greater literature hence the poet Cecilio Apostol used “Catulo,” “Calipso” and “Calypso.” Felipe Calderon took names from Rizal’s novels and signed as “Simoun” or “Elias.” Marcelo H. del Pilar had a number of names: “Carmelo,” “O. Crame,” “D.M. Calero,” “Hilario,” “Kupang,” and “M. Dati.” Jose Ma. Sison is now known as “Amado Guerrero,” the byline appearing in the book “Philippine Society and Revolution.” I asked him to autograph my little red book, and he signed it “Jose Ma. Sison” — with a star as a flourish at the end. I asked why he chose the pseudonym Amado Guerrero, and he chuckled: “It means ‘Beloved Warrior.’” He then added that he was not as conceited as someone else in the movement who used the name “Salvador del Mundo” (Savior of the World).
Come to think of it, the hard-hitting prewar newspaper columnist Amando Dayrit used the pseudonym “Cyclops,” which could mean the monster in Greek mythology or that he was the one-eyed man in the kingdom of the blind.
Virgilio S. Almario is the name used by the dean of the University of the Philippines College of Arts and Letters when he signs official papers, but when the muse takes hold of his pen he becomes “Rio Alma” (River Soul).
What possessed Diosdado Macapagal, the Philippine president who was a poet earlier in life, to take the name “Dandelion”?
What is in a pen name or pseudonym? A lot.
* * *
Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu.
Monday, October 20, 2008
Aliases
By Ambeth Ocampo
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 02:53:00 10/17/2008
MANILA, Philippines—“Jurassic” is a word I never imagined would apply to me, until my students brought home the point. Three years ago I came to class, as I had been doing for many years, to give what has since been known on campus as “The Great Ambeth Ocampo Slideshow.” This was my introduction to the course on Jose Rizal, made lively by my collection of photographs showing the development of the National Hero from age 12 to the time he was shot at 35 years, six months, 10 days, seven hours and five minutes. I had been using positives and a slide projector. I think for many of the students this was part of the experience. As I was setting up the equipment, one of the students, pointing at the projector asked, “What is that?” Then it hit me: This equipment was “cutting edge” two decades earlier. But in the age of PowerPoint and Keynote for the Mac, the “Great Ambeth Ocampo Slideshow” was quaint.
To compare pictures, I would sometimes run two machines on two screens, and that used to be impressive. In the computer age, however, it was definitely antiquarian.
So I stepped into the 21st century like everyone else, and the experience of the clicking sound and the ventilator of the slide machine is no more.
Another thing my students find strange are research assignments that require a trip to the library. You can actually hear a collective groan when this is announced, and voices from the back of the room ask, “Aren’t those materials available on the Net?” When I explain that not all things are available online and that a trip to the library is part of university life, someone stands up and asks, “You mean to say, you want us to handle a physical book?”
This sharp remark made me feel 200 years old. Looking back on my days in college, we did have to visit the library and go through those 3 x 5 cards in narra drawers called a “card catalogue.” Today students can open the catalogue of almost any major library in the universe online. To borrow a book, I had to write down call numbers and accession numbers on a library card, sign my name on yet another card found in a sleeve on the back cover of the book. The end of the process was when the librarian stamped the due date on the book and the library card.
Today you can check out a book without a librarian. All you need to do is scan your university ID and barcodes on the books, just as a “tindera” [vendor] checks out groceries in a supermarket. I wonder what became of all those narra card catalogues. What I regret though was not collecting the cards with signatures in the backs of books. Fellow teacher Danton Remoto once told me to gather these from the Ateneo de Manila University’s Rizal Library because I would actually find autographs of famous borrowers: Horacio de la Costa, Fernando Zobel, Doreen G. Fernandez, Rolando Tinio, Alfredo Navarro Salanga, Bienvenido Lumbera, etc. The University of the Philippines (UP) Main Library in Diliman, Quezon City, would have been another source of famous autographs.
The Internet is really a wonderful research tool, and I cannot imagine scholarly life without it. But there is still a thrill to handling physical books, there is still excitement going through the stacks and finding a book that one did not expect to find. Just recently I was in the UP Main Library and I saw that they still maintained a card catalogue in some forgotten corner of the reference section. Out of pure nostalgia, I hurried there to handle old and grimy cards and was surprised that it contained a list of periodical materials indexed by author and subject. Then there was one drawer that had an alphabetical listing of pseudonyms. This was not on the Online Public Access Catalogue, or OPAC. The pen names were not even written on cards but on slips of scratch paper. I spent an hour going through these, and here are some of my findings:
I always knew Rizal used the pseudonyms Dimasalang (that’s Tagalog for Touch me not), Laong Laan (Ever-prepared) and even Calambeño. But this list said Rizal also used AGNO. Faustino Aguilar was SINAG-INA. Novelist Valeriano Hernandez Peña had many names: Ahas na Tulog, Anong, Damulag, Dating Alba, Isang Dukha, Kalampag and Kintin Kulirat. Antonio K. Abad was Akasia. Pedro de Govantes de Azcarraga was Conde de Albay. Luis Taruc used Alipato, which means “spark that spreads a fire.” One of Rizal’s pet dogs was also called Alipato.
Aurelio Alvero was better known as Magtanggul Asa. Macario Adriatico (1869-1919) for whom Adriatico Street in Malate was named used the names Amaori, C. Amabri and Felipe Malayo. Hugo Salazar was Ambut. Jose Palma (1876-1903), the poet who wrote the lyrics of our National Anthem, was also known as Ana-haw, Esteban Estebanes, Gan Hantik. Both Lope K. Santos and Pascual H. Poblete used Anak-Bayan. The former also used Doctor Lukas. Rizal’s grand niece Asuncion Lopez Bantug used “Apo ni Dimas.”
Revolutionaries had many aliases. Jesus Lava was B. Ambrosio Rianzares Bautista was Ba Basiong. Pascual Alvarez was Bagongbuhay. Moises Salvador was Araw. Andres Bonifacio played on his initials and used Agapito Bagumbayan, while his inspiring Katipunan name was Maypagasa.
Sixto Lopez was Batulaw. Apolinario Mabini was Bini. Gen. Vito Belarmino was Blind Veteran. Severino de las Alas was Di-kilala. Juan Luna was J.B. or simply Buan, a translation of his surname Luna which means moon. For writing, Emilio Jacinto used Dimas-ilaw. His Katipunan name was Pingkian.
* * *
Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu.
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 02:53:00 10/17/2008
MANILA, Philippines—“Jurassic” is a word I never imagined would apply to me, until my students brought home the point. Three years ago I came to class, as I had been doing for many years, to give what has since been known on campus as “The Great Ambeth Ocampo Slideshow.” This was my introduction to the course on Jose Rizal, made lively by my collection of photographs showing the development of the National Hero from age 12 to the time he was shot at 35 years, six months, 10 days, seven hours and five minutes. I had been using positives and a slide projector. I think for many of the students this was part of the experience. As I was setting up the equipment, one of the students, pointing at the projector asked, “What is that?” Then it hit me: This equipment was “cutting edge” two decades earlier. But in the age of PowerPoint and Keynote for the Mac, the “Great Ambeth Ocampo Slideshow” was quaint.
To compare pictures, I would sometimes run two machines on two screens, and that used to be impressive. In the computer age, however, it was definitely antiquarian.
So I stepped into the 21st century like everyone else, and the experience of the clicking sound and the ventilator of the slide machine is no more.
Another thing my students find strange are research assignments that require a trip to the library. You can actually hear a collective groan when this is announced, and voices from the back of the room ask, “Aren’t those materials available on the Net?” When I explain that not all things are available online and that a trip to the library is part of university life, someone stands up and asks, “You mean to say, you want us to handle a physical book?”
This sharp remark made me feel 200 years old. Looking back on my days in college, we did have to visit the library and go through those 3 x 5 cards in narra drawers called a “card catalogue.” Today students can open the catalogue of almost any major library in the universe online. To borrow a book, I had to write down call numbers and accession numbers on a library card, sign my name on yet another card found in a sleeve on the back cover of the book. The end of the process was when the librarian stamped the due date on the book and the library card.
Today you can check out a book without a librarian. All you need to do is scan your university ID and barcodes on the books, just as a “tindera” [vendor] checks out groceries in a supermarket. I wonder what became of all those narra card catalogues. What I regret though was not collecting the cards with signatures in the backs of books. Fellow teacher Danton Remoto once told me to gather these from the Ateneo de Manila University’s Rizal Library because I would actually find autographs of famous borrowers: Horacio de la Costa, Fernando Zobel, Doreen G. Fernandez, Rolando Tinio, Alfredo Navarro Salanga, Bienvenido Lumbera, etc. The University of the Philippines (UP) Main Library in Diliman, Quezon City, would have been another source of famous autographs.
The Internet is really a wonderful research tool, and I cannot imagine scholarly life without it. But there is still a thrill to handling physical books, there is still excitement going through the stacks and finding a book that one did not expect to find. Just recently I was in the UP Main Library and I saw that they still maintained a card catalogue in some forgotten corner of the reference section. Out of pure nostalgia, I hurried there to handle old and grimy cards and was surprised that it contained a list of periodical materials indexed by author and subject. Then there was one drawer that had an alphabetical listing of pseudonyms. This was not on the Online Public Access Catalogue, or OPAC. The pen names were not even written on cards but on slips of scratch paper. I spent an hour going through these, and here are some of my findings:
I always knew Rizal used the pseudonyms Dimasalang (that’s Tagalog for Touch me not), Laong Laan (Ever-prepared) and even Calambeño. But this list said Rizal also used AGNO. Faustino Aguilar was SINAG-INA. Novelist Valeriano Hernandez Peña had many names: Ahas na Tulog, Anong, Damulag, Dating Alba, Isang Dukha, Kalampag and Kintin Kulirat. Antonio K. Abad was Akasia. Pedro de Govantes de Azcarraga was Conde de Albay. Luis Taruc used Alipato, which means “spark that spreads a fire.” One of Rizal’s pet dogs was also called Alipato.
Aurelio Alvero was better known as Magtanggul Asa. Macario Adriatico (1869-1919) for whom Adriatico Street in Malate was named used the names Amaori, C. Amabri and Felipe Malayo. Hugo Salazar was Ambut. Jose Palma (1876-1903), the poet who wrote the lyrics of our National Anthem, was also known as Ana-haw, Esteban Estebanes, Gan Hantik. Both Lope K. Santos and Pascual H. Poblete used Anak-Bayan. The former also used Doctor Lukas. Rizal’s grand niece Asuncion Lopez Bantug used “Apo ni Dimas.”
Revolutionaries had many aliases. Jesus Lava was B. Ambrosio Rianzares Bautista was Ba Basiong. Pascual Alvarez was Bagongbuhay. Moises Salvador was Araw. Andres Bonifacio played on his initials and used Agapito Bagumbayan, while his inspiring Katipunan name was Maypagasa.
Sixto Lopez was Batulaw. Apolinario Mabini was Bini. Gen. Vito Belarmino was Blind Veteran. Severino de las Alas was Di-kilala. Juan Luna was J.B. or simply Buan, a translation of his surname Luna which means moon. For writing, Emilio Jacinto used Dimas-ilaw. His Katipunan name was Pingkian.
* * *
Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
Seeing places with a hero’s eyes
By Ambeth Ocampo
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 02:09:00 10/15/2008
Ten years ago, I visited the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) Medico Legal Office on Taft Avenue in Manila to seek expert opinion on an autopsy undertaken on bones excavated in Cavite province that were being passed on as the remains of Andres Bonifacio, who was executed with his brother somewhere in the Maragondon mountain range in 1897. My research was done long before forensics grew into something that attracts public interest because of the popular “C.S.I.” TV series.
Nothing came of that research because the bones disappeared before the war and have not surfaced since. I think those bones were not Bonifacio’s and they would not have withstood closer scrutiny. All we have left are photographs and an autopsy report by Dr. Sixto de los Angeles and a certain Dr. Cuajunco as leads.
I didn’t realize, until I sat beside Dr. Romel Papa on a flight to Singapore, that the NBI actually has a neuropsychiatric service that undertakes psychiatric forensics. It seems the NBI is worth a future visit because we can probably use forensic psychiatry on our heroes and history. While Papa is more engaged in drug abuse rehabilitation, he listened with interest to my research and I told him that perhaps they could help me in some historical research.
When Jose Rizal made his first trip abroad in 1882, he spent three days in Singapore on a stopover. In his diary, he wrote on his second day in Singapore: “I left the Philippines exactly one week ago today, and I’m already in a foreign country.” Today you take a plane ride for two hours and you can be in a foreign land.
Reading Rizal’s travel diaries in the context of modern air travel can be very engaging as we can compare and contrast travel in his time and ours. What is significant is that Rizal recorded this nightmare in his diary:
“I’ve had a sad and frightful dream with all the appearance of reality. I dreamed that while in Singapore, my brother had died suddenly, and I told my old mother, who was traveling with me in the same boat, about it. The dream was confirmed by Sor Catalina and then I had to return, leaving everything in this country. Why did I have that dream? I’m thinking of cabling my hometown to find out the truth, but I’m not superstitious. I left my brother strong and robust. May God will that it might not happen thus!”?
What is even more interesting is that this was not the first time Rizal had precognitive or prophetic dreams. He continued: “It is true that I had a dream once that was fulfilled. Before the examination for the first year in medicine, I dreamed that I was asked certain questions but I didn’t mind them. When the examinations came, I was asked the questions in my dream.”
When we are told in school that Rizal had very high grades and that he maintained an academic average at the top of his class, you should remember that he could foresee exam questions before he took tests. Was he lucky or cheating? Maybe he should have spent more time dreaming about lotto numbers so that the outcome would have been more useful. We know that he won second prize in lotto while he was in exile in Dapitan, which was why he was able to buy over 30 hectares of prime beach-front property there.
Perhaps we should not only look at dreams. Even in the mundane diary entries that a historian takes at face value, a forensic psychiatrist might see something else of value. When Rizal described what he saw on the second day in Singapore, was he just giving us a narrative of what he saw and experienced, or can we find deeper meanings there?
For example, he wrote: “The first that I saw were two beautiful houses of Chinese in European style, surrounded by walls and trees. I made the carriage stop in front of a Chinese building decorated with dragons and paintings. I entered. I was equipped by Goinda with some English words. With these, I entered a kind of small garden among columns and pedestals. Numerous beautiful plants and a variety of flowers, planted with symmetry and order; cages at the two extremes; in one of them were pheasants, a kind of turkey, and other birds beside; in the other, spotted deer and peacocks. I came out and got into the carriage to continue my tour.” What Rizal saw and what he ignored might mean something. What did he record in his diaries, and what did he leave out? What do this reveal? Could we find a psychological clue in Chulalalngkorn’s elephant?
Rizal wrote: “I visited also a large school for Chinese, Malays, Indians and Englishmen. It is a magnificent building and there are many students. The palace of the Rajah of Siam is also notable and has a small iron elephant and whatnot on the pedestal placed in front of the building.”
The bronze elephant was given to Singapore by Thai King Chulalangkorn in gratitude for the hospitality extended to him during his 1871 visit. The statue was moved from the place where Rizal saw it and is now in front of the Old Parliament, now known as Arts House. On my last trip to Singapore, I looked for Chulalangkorn’s elephant and finding it, I stood in front of it with the knowledge that Rizal had gazed upon it too over a century earlier.
We are lucky to have a world traveling National Hero, because when you visit a foreign country he visited, you see it with his eyes as well as your own.
* * *
Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu.
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 02:09:00 10/15/2008
Ten years ago, I visited the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) Medico Legal Office on Taft Avenue in Manila to seek expert opinion on an autopsy undertaken on bones excavated in Cavite province that were being passed on as the remains of Andres Bonifacio, who was executed with his brother somewhere in the Maragondon mountain range in 1897. My research was done long before forensics grew into something that attracts public interest because of the popular “C.S.I.” TV series.
Nothing came of that research because the bones disappeared before the war and have not surfaced since. I think those bones were not Bonifacio’s and they would not have withstood closer scrutiny. All we have left are photographs and an autopsy report by Dr. Sixto de los Angeles and a certain Dr. Cuajunco as leads.
I didn’t realize, until I sat beside Dr. Romel Papa on a flight to Singapore, that the NBI actually has a neuropsychiatric service that undertakes psychiatric forensics. It seems the NBI is worth a future visit because we can probably use forensic psychiatry on our heroes and history. While Papa is more engaged in drug abuse rehabilitation, he listened with interest to my research and I told him that perhaps they could help me in some historical research.
When Jose Rizal made his first trip abroad in 1882, he spent three days in Singapore on a stopover. In his diary, he wrote on his second day in Singapore: “I left the Philippines exactly one week ago today, and I’m already in a foreign country.” Today you take a plane ride for two hours and you can be in a foreign land.
Reading Rizal’s travel diaries in the context of modern air travel can be very engaging as we can compare and contrast travel in his time and ours. What is significant is that Rizal recorded this nightmare in his diary:
“I’ve had a sad and frightful dream with all the appearance of reality. I dreamed that while in Singapore, my brother had died suddenly, and I told my old mother, who was traveling with me in the same boat, about it. The dream was confirmed by Sor Catalina and then I had to return, leaving everything in this country. Why did I have that dream? I’m thinking of cabling my hometown to find out the truth, but I’m not superstitious. I left my brother strong and robust. May God will that it might not happen thus!”?
What is even more interesting is that this was not the first time Rizal had precognitive or prophetic dreams. He continued: “It is true that I had a dream once that was fulfilled. Before the examination for the first year in medicine, I dreamed that I was asked certain questions but I didn’t mind them. When the examinations came, I was asked the questions in my dream.”
When we are told in school that Rizal had very high grades and that he maintained an academic average at the top of his class, you should remember that he could foresee exam questions before he took tests. Was he lucky or cheating? Maybe he should have spent more time dreaming about lotto numbers so that the outcome would have been more useful. We know that he won second prize in lotto while he was in exile in Dapitan, which was why he was able to buy over 30 hectares of prime beach-front property there.
Perhaps we should not only look at dreams. Even in the mundane diary entries that a historian takes at face value, a forensic psychiatrist might see something else of value. When Rizal described what he saw on the second day in Singapore, was he just giving us a narrative of what he saw and experienced, or can we find deeper meanings there?
For example, he wrote: “The first that I saw were two beautiful houses of Chinese in European style, surrounded by walls and trees. I made the carriage stop in front of a Chinese building decorated with dragons and paintings. I entered. I was equipped by Goinda with some English words. With these, I entered a kind of small garden among columns and pedestals. Numerous beautiful plants and a variety of flowers, planted with symmetry and order; cages at the two extremes; in one of them were pheasants, a kind of turkey, and other birds beside; in the other, spotted deer and peacocks. I came out and got into the carriage to continue my tour.” What Rizal saw and what he ignored might mean something. What did he record in his diaries, and what did he leave out? What do this reveal? Could we find a psychological clue in Chulalalngkorn’s elephant?
Rizal wrote: “I visited also a large school for Chinese, Malays, Indians and Englishmen. It is a magnificent building and there are many students. The palace of the Rajah of Siam is also notable and has a small iron elephant and whatnot on the pedestal placed in front of the building.”
The bronze elephant was given to Singapore by Thai King Chulalangkorn in gratitude for the hospitality extended to him during his 1871 visit. The statue was moved from the place where Rizal saw it and is now in front of the Old Parliament, now known as Arts House. On my last trip to Singapore, I looked for Chulalangkorn’s elephant and finding it, I stood in front of it with the knowledge that Rizal had gazed upon it too over a century earlier.
We are lucky to have a world traveling National Hero, because when you visit a foreign country he visited, you see it with his eyes as well as your own.
* * *
Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
The mob of 1719
By Ambeth Ocampo
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 03:14:00 10/10/2008
MANILA, Philippines—Before I began my lecture on Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo at the National Museum last Saturday, I went into the Hall of the Masters of the National Gallery (the old Legislative Building) to see both Juan Luna’s “Spoliarium” and Hidalgo’s “Assassination of Governor Bustamante.” I was disappointed, because the Hidalgo painting was covered with scaffolding, as it was undergoing restoration and cleaning. Nevertheless, one could peek through the heavy equipment and see the angry faces of Dominican and Augustinian friars. It is a terrifying sight to see murder and mayhem in their eyes, and then, as you look up past the paint cans, you feel as if you were actually there.
At the top of the stairs, the ill-fated governor is losing his balance. There is a rope around his body, and at the other end friars are dragging him down. A Dominican stands before him brandishing a crucifix in a violent gesture reserved for the exorcism of demons in a possessed person. Behind the governor brandishing a sharp object is an Augustinian. This was the death blow. It was a tragic end for a man who attempted to run the country well. Then as now, trying to collect the right taxes, trying to stop graft and corruption, going against the Church can be dangerous.
The painter is said to have given his work the title “Iglesia contra el Estado” (“Church against the State”). But its theme was so controversial, its execution so powerful that the huge canvas was rolled up and never exhibited in Hidalgo’s lifetime. It was publicly exhibited only twice in the last century: in 1974 at the National Museum and in 1989 at the Metropolitan Museum of Manila. We must thank the family of the late National Artist Leandro V. Locsin, especially Mrs. Cecilia Y. Locsin, for making this long-hidden national treasure available to the public.
The account by a contemporary witness is in Volume 44 of the so-called “Blair and Robertson.” The governor and the Church did not see eye to eye, and Bustamante had Francisco de la Cuesta, archbishop of Manila, thrown in jail. So at the prodding of the religious, a crowd was mobilized into what could probably be seen as one of the first exercises of People Power before 1986. The difference was that the 1986 revolt was peaceful and little or no blood was shed, whereas in 1719 the church bells rang and the crowd turned into a mob that stormed the palace. From Blair and Robertson we read about that bloody evening of Oct. 11, 1719:
“The Franciscans, Dominicans and Augustinians came out from their convents, each as a body, carrying in their hands crucifixes and shouting, ‘Long Live the Church! Long Live King Felipe V!’ They were joined by people of all classes and proceeded to the church of San Agustin. The governor who was roused from his sleep and informed of the arrival of the mob sprang up and ordered the guards to keep back the crowd. He dispatched an order to the fort to discharge artillery at the crowd, but he was so little obeyed that, although they applied a match to two cannons, these where aimed so low that the balls were buried in the middle of the esplanade of the fort.
“Without opposition, this multitude arrived at the doors of the palace. As for the soldiers of the guard, some retreated in fear, and others in terror laid down their arms. The mob climbed up by ladders and entered the first hall, the halberdiers not firing the swivel-guns that had been provided, although the governor had commanded them to do so. [The governor] attempted to discharge his gun at a citizen standing near and it missed fore. Then the governor drew his saber and wounded the citizen. The latter and with him all the rest at once attacked the governor. They broke his right arm, and a blow on his head from a saber caused him to fall like one dead.”
The governor’s son who tried to intervene was likewise killed that night.
That is the story as narrated by an eyewitness in a primary source account. But when Antonio Ma. Regidor asked Hidalgo to paint this scene from history, his imagination wandered and “the crowd” was depicted as a pack of furious religious identifiable by their distinctive habits, most prominent being Dominicans whom Felix knew in the University of Santo Tomas.
The Bustamante story spawned “La Loba Negra,” a work once attributed to Fr. Jose Burgos, which was available in manuscript and translated from the original Spanish into English by the ex-Jesuit Hilario Lim. However, scholars had their doubts: the writing was bad, the Spanish far from elegant, there were historical inconsistencies in the narrative. Yet the story is intriguing. The black she-wolf murdered friars at night. She was the avenging widow of Bustamante.
This story inspired a play by Virginia R. Moreno, titled “Onyx Wolf,” which won third prize in the Cultural Center of the Philippines’ literary contest of 1969-1970. Before the play was published in 1980 and even before it was staged in 1971, “Onyx Wolf” became a landmark ballet by Alice Reyes, “Itim Asu.” It has also been made into an opera by Francisco Feliciano.
“La Loba Negra” was not by Burgos but by Jose E. Marco of Negros Island, whose forgeries were so successful that aside from “La Loba Negra” he created Kalantiaw, who in 1433 gave Philippine history an ancient set of laws predating the Spanish conquest.
Was Marco an evil genius? Or maybe it was all misplaced nationalism?
* * *
Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu.
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 03:14:00 10/10/2008
MANILA, Philippines—Before I began my lecture on Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo at the National Museum last Saturday, I went into the Hall of the Masters of the National Gallery (the old Legislative Building) to see both Juan Luna’s “Spoliarium” and Hidalgo’s “Assassination of Governor Bustamante.” I was disappointed, because the Hidalgo painting was covered with scaffolding, as it was undergoing restoration and cleaning. Nevertheless, one could peek through the heavy equipment and see the angry faces of Dominican and Augustinian friars. It is a terrifying sight to see murder and mayhem in their eyes, and then, as you look up past the paint cans, you feel as if you were actually there.
At the top of the stairs, the ill-fated governor is losing his balance. There is a rope around his body, and at the other end friars are dragging him down. A Dominican stands before him brandishing a crucifix in a violent gesture reserved for the exorcism of demons in a possessed person. Behind the governor brandishing a sharp object is an Augustinian. This was the death blow. It was a tragic end for a man who attempted to run the country well. Then as now, trying to collect the right taxes, trying to stop graft and corruption, going against the Church can be dangerous.
The painter is said to have given his work the title “Iglesia contra el Estado” (“Church against the State”). But its theme was so controversial, its execution so powerful that the huge canvas was rolled up and never exhibited in Hidalgo’s lifetime. It was publicly exhibited only twice in the last century: in 1974 at the National Museum and in 1989 at the Metropolitan Museum of Manila. We must thank the family of the late National Artist Leandro V. Locsin, especially Mrs. Cecilia Y. Locsin, for making this long-hidden national treasure available to the public.
The account by a contemporary witness is in Volume 44 of the so-called “Blair and Robertson.” The governor and the Church did not see eye to eye, and Bustamante had Francisco de la Cuesta, archbishop of Manila, thrown in jail. So at the prodding of the religious, a crowd was mobilized into what could probably be seen as one of the first exercises of People Power before 1986. The difference was that the 1986 revolt was peaceful and little or no blood was shed, whereas in 1719 the church bells rang and the crowd turned into a mob that stormed the palace. From Blair and Robertson we read about that bloody evening of Oct. 11, 1719:
“The Franciscans, Dominicans and Augustinians came out from their convents, each as a body, carrying in their hands crucifixes and shouting, ‘Long Live the Church! Long Live King Felipe V!’ They were joined by people of all classes and proceeded to the church of San Agustin. The governor who was roused from his sleep and informed of the arrival of the mob sprang up and ordered the guards to keep back the crowd. He dispatched an order to the fort to discharge artillery at the crowd, but he was so little obeyed that, although they applied a match to two cannons, these where aimed so low that the balls were buried in the middle of the esplanade of the fort.
“Without opposition, this multitude arrived at the doors of the palace. As for the soldiers of the guard, some retreated in fear, and others in terror laid down their arms. The mob climbed up by ladders and entered the first hall, the halberdiers not firing the swivel-guns that had been provided, although the governor had commanded them to do so. [The governor] attempted to discharge his gun at a citizen standing near and it missed fore. Then the governor drew his saber and wounded the citizen. The latter and with him all the rest at once attacked the governor. They broke his right arm, and a blow on his head from a saber caused him to fall like one dead.”
The governor’s son who tried to intervene was likewise killed that night.
That is the story as narrated by an eyewitness in a primary source account. But when Antonio Ma. Regidor asked Hidalgo to paint this scene from history, his imagination wandered and “the crowd” was depicted as a pack of furious religious identifiable by their distinctive habits, most prominent being Dominicans whom Felix knew in the University of Santo Tomas.
The Bustamante story spawned “La Loba Negra,” a work once attributed to Fr. Jose Burgos, which was available in manuscript and translated from the original Spanish into English by the ex-Jesuit Hilario Lim. However, scholars had their doubts: the writing was bad, the Spanish far from elegant, there were historical inconsistencies in the narrative. Yet the story is intriguing. The black she-wolf murdered friars at night. She was the avenging widow of Bustamante.
This story inspired a play by Virginia R. Moreno, titled “Onyx Wolf,” which won third prize in the Cultural Center of the Philippines’ literary contest of 1969-1970. Before the play was published in 1980 and even before it was staged in 1971, “Onyx Wolf” became a landmark ballet by Alice Reyes, “Itim Asu.” It has also been made into an opera by Francisco Feliciano.
“La Loba Negra” was not by Burgos but by Jose E. Marco of Negros Island, whose forgeries were so successful that aside from “La Loba Negra” he created Kalantiaw, who in 1433 gave Philippine history an ancient set of laws predating the Spanish conquest.
Was Marco an evil genius? Or maybe it was all misplaced nationalism?
* * *
Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
The education of Hidalgo
By Ambeth Ocampo
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 02:01:00 10/08/2008
Most Read Other Most Read Stories x
Opinion
Under siege
Trust and prudence
Where corruption is leading the nation
Panlilio foes betraying all Filipinos
Records prove Estrada’s achievements
Missing the goals
Telcos, not text senders, will be taxed
Days of ‘hoodlums in robes’
Envy
Great and small
Obama in Omaha; 2010 in 2010
The education of Hidalgo
Opinion Most Read RSS
Close this Two decades ago, I visited the archives of the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid in the hope of finding the academic records of Juan Luna and Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo. Their grades were secondary; what I wanted to know was what subjects they took and who their teachers were. I wanted to know what kind of education coupled with talent produced these two painters, the shining stars of Philippine art.
Unfortunately, historical research is hit or miss. Sometimes you hit the jackpot (lots of documents nobody else has seen or used before) or, if you are truly unlucky, as I was that day, you find nothing. I went through 10 big boxes of documents and found no reference to Luna and Resurreccion. I did not find the other Filipinos, like Esteban Villanueva, Miguel Zaragoza, not even Melecio Figueroa. But then as the late Salvador Laurel used to say, “Patience is bitter but its fruit is sweet.” In the last box was the biggest surprise of all: Jose Rizal’s application letter to the Academy of Fine Arts. It was not what I was looking for, but it made all my efforts worthwhile.
What could not be found in the archives was provided by Hidalgo in a letter written from Madrid on Oct. 15, 1879 to his friends Rizal and Glicerio Anson in Manila. Here he described a typical day in the Academy of San Fernando:
“Our professor in the class of ancient painting and drapery from 8 to 10 in the morning is Mr. Espalter; in that of coloring and composition from 10 to 12, Mr. Federico Madrazo; in that of pictorial anatomy from 1 to 2 in the afternoon, Mr. Ignacio Llanos; and in that of the [still life] or natural from 6.30 to 8.30 in the evening, Mr. Carlos Ribera.”
Hidalgo worked eight hours a day, broken only by a long siesta after lunch. From the names of his professors, someone should do research in 19th century Spanish painting to see what influences these teachers left on Hidalgo’s art.
He wrote further:
“They are all very good professors, but you can be very sure that what you can study [in Manila] under Mr. Agustin Saez is exactly the same as what is taught here, neither more nor less, with the difference that there you paint and draw much more comfortably than we do here, because there you have the entire hall at your disposal, while we here can hardly pick up a bad corner, often enveloped in darkness, and we have to stretch our necks to see the model who, parenthetically speaking, is almost always quite poor, though very suitable for the study of the deviations of the human form.”
Resurreccion advised Rizal and Anson: “Do not lose your courage and follow the advice of our dear professor, Agustin Saez, and in that way you will advance greatly in such a difficult study as that of painting.”
If further proof is needed that Hidalgo was trained very well in Manila, he was disappointed with school and his classmates. Coming from the colony he felt inferior at first, a “probinsyano” [provincial] in a great capital, but “upon seeing here the work of the students of the Academy, we lost our fear. On the other hand, we were greatly disenchanted because we would have liked to have as classmates people who have more mettle than the ones now attending the school for they would have served as stimulus to us.”
Whatever disappointment he had with his formal schooling was made up for by living in the capital and being exposed to the Museo del Prado: “I do not want to tell you about the Museum because I have no more time. I will only tell you that it contains the most valuable collection of paintings, more than 3,000, that is found in Europe. One leaves that building with a headache and despair in the soul, because one is convinced of the little he knows, that one is not even an atom compared with the colossi of art.”
Like Luna, who left Madrid for Rome to work with his teacher Alejo Vera, Hidalgo joined the company of Spanish painters in the Eternal City. It was in Rome that he was immersed in the history and stories of ancient Rome, thus producing “Virgenes Cristianas Expuestas al Populacho” [“Christian Virgins Exposed to the Mob”], which won a silver medal in the 1884 Madrid Exposition of Fine Arts. In the same Exposition, Luna was awarded the gold medal for “Spoliarium.” From then on Hidalgo would always be a quiet shadow to Luna.
From then on, according to our textbooks, Luna and Hidalgo became the first international Filipino painters. Then, as now, they made us feel good as a people, like Manny Pacquiao winning in the boxing ring.
However, we have to rein in our enthusiasm and remember that these gold and silver medals should not be seen as Olympic gold, silver and bronze medals. Luna did not win “first place” and Hidalgo, “second place.” Luna garnered one gold medal out of the three that were given out that year. He was not awarded the much-coveted Medal of Honor, which was withheld in 1884. Hidalgo won one silver medal out of at least 15 given out that year.
Still, for these two colonials from Manila to beat their classmates, and their professors, in Madrid means a lot, and their life and work should not remain as footnotes in our history. Luna and Hidalgo should continue to inspire even in the 21st century.
* * *
Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu.
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 02:01:00 10/08/2008
Most Read Other Most Read Stories x
Opinion
Under siege
Trust and prudence
Where corruption is leading the nation
Panlilio foes betraying all Filipinos
Records prove Estrada’s achievements
Missing the goals
Telcos, not text senders, will be taxed
Days of ‘hoodlums in robes’
Envy
Great and small
Obama in Omaha; 2010 in 2010
The education of Hidalgo
Opinion Most Read RSS
Close this Two decades ago, I visited the archives of the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid in the hope of finding the academic records of Juan Luna and Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo. Their grades were secondary; what I wanted to know was what subjects they took and who their teachers were. I wanted to know what kind of education coupled with talent produced these two painters, the shining stars of Philippine art.
Unfortunately, historical research is hit or miss. Sometimes you hit the jackpot (lots of documents nobody else has seen or used before) or, if you are truly unlucky, as I was that day, you find nothing. I went through 10 big boxes of documents and found no reference to Luna and Resurreccion. I did not find the other Filipinos, like Esteban Villanueva, Miguel Zaragoza, not even Melecio Figueroa. But then as the late Salvador Laurel used to say, “Patience is bitter but its fruit is sweet.” In the last box was the biggest surprise of all: Jose Rizal’s application letter to the Academy of Fine Arts. It was not what I was looking for, but it made all my efforts worthwhile.
What could not be found in the archives was provided by Hidalgo in a letter written from Madrid on Oct. 15, 1879 to his friends Rizal and Glicerio Anson in Manila. Here he described a typical day in the Academy of San Fernando:
“Our professor in the class of ancient painting and drapery from 8 to 10 in the morning is Mr. Espalter; in that of coloring and composition from 10 to 12, Mr. Federico Madrazo; in that of pictorial anatomy from 1 to 2 in the afternoon, Mr. Ignacio Llanos; and in that of the [still life] or natural from 6.30 to 8.30 in the evening, Mr. Carlos Ribera.”
Hidalgo worked eight hours a day, broken only by a long siesta after lunch. From the names of his professors, someone should do research in 19th century Spanish painting to see what influences these teachers left on Hidalgo’s art.
He wrote further:
“They are all very good professors, but you can be very sure that what you can study [in Manila] under Mr. Agustin Saez is exactly the same as what is taught here, neither more nor less, with the difference that there you paint and draw much more comfortably than we do here, because there you have the entire hall at your disposal, while we here can hardly pick up a bad corner, often enveloped in darkness, and we have to stretch our necks to see the model who, parenthetically speaking, is almost always quite poor, though very suitable for the study of the deviations of the human form.”
Resurreccion advised Rizal and Anson: “Do not lose your courage and follow the advice of our dear professor, Agustin Saez, and in that way you will advance greatly in such a difficult study as that of painting.”
If further proof is needed that Hidalgo was trained very well in Manila, he was disappointed with school and his classmates. Coming from the colony he felt inferior at first, a “probinsyano” [provincial] in a great capital, but “upon seeing here the work of the students of the Academy, we lost our fear. On the other hand, we were greatly disenchanted because we would have liked to have as classmates people who have more mettle than the ones now attending the school for they would have served as stimulus to us.”
Whatever disappointment he had with his formal schooling was made up for by living in the capital and being exposed to the Museo del Prado: “I do not want to tell you about the Museum because I have no more time. I will only tell you that it contains the most valuable collection of paintings, more than 3,000, that is found in Europe. One leaves that building with a headache and despair in the soul, because one is convinced of the little he knows, that one is not even an atom compared with the colossi of art.”
Like Luna, who left Madrid for Rome to work with his teacher Alejo Vera, Hidalgo joined the company of Spanish painters in the Eternal City. It was in Rome that he was immersed in the history and stories of ancient Rome, thus producing “Virgenes Cristianas Expuestas al Populacho” [“Christian Virgins Exposed to the Mob”], which won a silver medal in the 1884 Madrid Exposition of Fine Arts. In the same Exposition, Luna was awarded the gold medal for “Spoliarium.” From then on Hidalgo would always be a quiet shadow to Luna.
From then on, according to our textbooks, Luna and Hidalgo became the first international Filipino painters. Then, as now, they made us feel good as a people, like Manny Pacquiao winning in the boxing ring.
However, we have to rein in our enthusiasm and remember that these gold and silver medals should not be seen as Olympic gold, silver and bronze medals. Luna did not win “first place” and Hidalgo, “second place.” Luna garnered one gold medal out of the three that were given out that year. He was not awarded the much-coveted Medal of Honor, which was withheld in 1884. Hidalgo won one silver medal out of at least 15 given out that year.
Still, for these two colonials from Manila to beat their classmates, and their professors, in Madrid means a lot, and their life and work should not remain as footnotes in our history. Luna and Hidalgo should continue to inspire even in the 21st century.
* * *
Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu.
Monday, October 6, 2008
A gifted painter now almost forgotten
By Ambeth Ocampo
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 01:59:00 10/03/2008
MANILA, Philippines—Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo (1855-1913) is acknowledged as one of the great Filipino painters of the late 19th century. If one of his paintings is available on the art market, it usually comes with a seven-figure price tag. But to say that his friend and contemporary, Juan Luna, overshadowed him is an understatement. Both won medals in the 1884 Madrid Exposition of Fine Arts, but Hidalgo and his silver medal do not quite top Luna’s gold.
Both were gifted artists, and some people are of the opinion that Hidalgo was technically a better painter than Luna, so why is he almost forgotten? The difference lies in their lives. Luna’s tragic life, highlighted by his murder of his wife and mother-in-law, is packed with enough action to feed a novel or fuel a period film. Hidalgo lived a quiet life, painting in his Paris studio and spending three decades abroad, longer than the period he lived in the Philippines.
Hidalgo was not involved in the reform movement, although he counted the major players, like Jose Rizal, Marcelo del Pilar, Mariano Ponce and Graciano Lopez Jaena, among his friends or at least nodding acquaintances. He returned briefly to the Philippines in 1912, long after the turbulence of the Philippine Revolution and the Philippine-American War. Unlike Luna, he did not associate himself with the First Philippine Republic under Emilio Aguinaldo. One could say that if he had stepped into the river of Philippine history, he would have been more than a footnote in our textbooks.
For the last 25 years that I have been a frequent visitor to the Lopez Memorial Museum, I would relax from library research by stretching my legs and walking in the Hidalgo gallery to admire and study the paintings, oil studies, or “bocetos,” and drawings collected by Eugenio Lopez Sr. Looking at all these makes me see how meticulous he was in preparing for a painting and this give me an insight into his personality. Lopez collected more Hidalgo works than Lunas, yet visitors pay more attention to Luna.
Hidalgo was born in Manila on Feb. 21, 1855. He was the third in a brood of seven, fruits of the union of Eduardo Resurreccion Hidalgo and Maria Barbara Padilla who has been immortalized in midlife and old age by her son. In an age before photography, upper-class Filipinos recorded their likenesses in commissioned portraits. Some had grand ones made for their well-appointed living rooms; others had portable miniatures painted on sheets of tin or ivory.
One of the most famous portrait painters in the Philippines was Antonio Malantic, who made a portrait of Narciso Hidalgo and his grandson in 1859. It is a wonderful work showing two generations of one family. It is also a significant painting that explains how history changes even the titles of works of art. In 1859, this Malantic work was known as “Narciso Hidalgo and his grandson,” but today it is better known as “Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo and his grandfather.” The grandson has eclipsed the patriarch.
We have no record of Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo’s early schooling, although we can presume he had a private tutor or was taught by his mother, a businesswoman who had attended the Escuela Municipal [Municipal School]. He completed his Bachiller en Filosofia [Bachelor in Philosophy] in 1871 at the University of Santo Tomas. What is not well known is that he was implicated in a student demonstration that gained significance in the persecution that followed the execution of Fathers Gomez, Burgos and Zamora in 1872. Historian O.D. Corpuz describes the period best as the “Terror of 1872.” It wiped out a whole generation of prominent Filipinos.
Perhaps as a result of this terror, Hidalgo retired to his studio and devoted his life to painting. He enrolled in the Manila Escuela de Dibujo y Pintura, the school of drawing and painting run by a man named Agustin Saez. Luna also studied here briefly and, depending on the book you are reading, either left or was expelled from school. Saez was a good teacher but didn’t seem to be a nice man.
In 1877, Domingo Vidal y Soler held a contest for the frontispiece of a grand edition of Manuel Blanco’s “Flora de Filipinas.” Hidalgo won second place and would probably have won the top prize if the more experienced school director, Saez, did not compete with his students. The frontispiece by Hidalgo is not extant, but if you go through the colored plates of this wonderful botanical work, you will find some plates done by him.
Hidalgo must have shown his talents early in Manila because some of his paintings were sent to the Philadelphia Exposition of 1879. With not much more to learn in Manila or perhaps to escape the “Terror of 1872,” he went to Spain and enrolled in the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid, the same school where other Filipino artists also enrolled, among them, Esteban Villanueva, Miguel Zaragoza, Juan Luna, and Jose Rizal. (To be continued)
* * *
My slide-lecture “Hidalgo, Bustamante, and the Big Bad Wolf,” sponsored by the Museum Foundation of the Philippines, will be held at the Ablaza Hall of the National Gallery of the National Museum this Saturday at 10 a.m. The public is invited.
* * *
Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu.
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 01:59:00 10/03/2008
MANILA, Philippines—Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo (1855-1913) is acknowledged as one of the great Filipino painters of the late 19th century. If one of his paintings is available on the art market, it usually comes with a seven-figure price tag. But to say that his friend and contemporary, Juan Luna, overshadowed him is an understatement. Both won medals in the 1884 Madrid Exposition of Fine Arts, but Hidalgo and his silver medal do not quite top Luna’s gold.
Both were gifted artists, and some people are of the opinion that Hidalgo was technically a better painter than Luna, so why is he almost forgotten? The difference lies in their lives. Luna’s tragic life, highlighted by his murder of his wife and mother-in-law, is packed with enough action to feed a novel or fuel a period film. Hidalgo lived a quiet life, painting in his Paris studio and spending three decades abroad, longer than the period he lived in the Philippines.
Hidalgo was not involved in the reform movement, although he counted the major players, like Jose Rizal, Marcelo del Pilar, Mariano Ponce and Graciano Lopez Jaena, among his friends or at least nodding acquaintances. He returned briefly to the Philippines in 1912, long after the turbulence of the Philippine Revolution and the Philippine-American War. Unlike Luna, he did not associate himself with the First Philippine Republic under Emilio Aguinaldo. One could say that if he had stepped into the river of Philippine history, he would have been more than a footnote in our textbooks.
For the last 25 years that I have been a frequent visitor to the Lopez Memorial Museum, I would relax from library research by stretching my legs and walking in the Hidalgo gallery to admire and study the paintings, oil studies, or “bocetos,” and drawings collected by Eugenio Lopez Sr. Looking at all these makes me see how meticulous he was in preparing for a painting and this give me an insight into his personality. Lopez collected more Hidalgo works than Lunas, yet visitors pay more attention to Luna.
Hidalgo was born in Manila on Feb. 21, 1855. He was the third in a brood of seven, fruits of the union of Eduardo Resurreccion Hidalgo and Maria Barbara Padilla who has been immortalized in midlife and old age by her son. In an age before photography, upper-class Filipinos recorded their likenesses in commissioned portraits. Some had grand ones made for their well-appointed living rooms; others had portable miniatures painted on sheets of tin or ivory.
One of the most famous portrait painters in the Philippines was Antonio Malantic, who made a portrait of Narciso Hidalgo and his grandson in 1859. It is a wonderful work showing two generations of one family. It is also a significant painting that explains how history changes even the titles of works of art. In 1859, this Malantic work was known as “Narciso Hidalgo and his grandson,” but today it is better known as “Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo and his grandfather.” The grandson has eclipsed the patriarch.
We have no record of Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo’s early schooling, although we can presume he had a private tutor or was taught by his mother, a businesswoman who had attended the Escuela Municipal [Municipal School]. He completed his Bachiller en Filosofia [Bachelor in Philosophy] in 1871 at the University of Santo Tomas. What is not well known is that he was implicated in a student demonstration that gained significance in the persecution that followed the execution of Fathers Gomez, Burgos and Zamora in 1872. Historian O.D. Corpuz describes the period best as the “Terror of 1872.” It wiped out a whole generation of prominent Filipinos.
Perhaps as a result of this terror, Hidalgo retired to his studio and devoted his life to painting. He enrolled in the Manila Escuela de Dibujo y Pintura, the school of drawing and painting run by a man named Agustin Saez. Luna also studied here briefly and, depending on the book you are reading, either left or was expelled from school. Saez was a good teacher but didn’t seem to be a nice man.
In 1877, Domingo Vidal y Soler held a contest for the frontispiece of a grand edition of Manuel Blanco’s “Flora de Filipinas.” Hidalgo won second place and would probably have won the top prize if the more experienced school director, Saez, did not compete with his students. The frontispiece by Hidalgo is not extant, but if you go through the colored plates of this wonderful botanical work, you will find some plates done by him.
Hidalgo must have shown his talents early in Manila because some of his paintings were sent to the Philadelphia Exposition of 1879. With not much more to learn in Manila or perhaps to escape the “Terror of 1872,” he went to Spain and enrolled in the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid, the same school where other Filipino artists also enrolled, among them, Esteban Villanueva, Miguel Zaragoza, Juan Luna, and Jose Rizal. (To be continued)
* * *
My slide-lecture “Hidalgo, Bustamante, and the Big Bad Wolf,” sponsored by the Museum Foundation of the Philippines, will be held at the Ablaza Hall of the National Gallery of the National Museum this Saturday at 10 a.m. The public is invited.
* * *
Comments are welcome at aocampo@ateneo.edu.
France in our heroes’ eyes
By Ambeth Ocampo
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 00:55:00 10/01/2008
“If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man,” Ernest Hemingway wrote, “then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for all of Paris is a moveable feast.” If Hemingway was right, then the Filipinos who lived or visited Paris in the late 19th century took the City of Light back with them to the Philippines.
All roads led to the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1889. As a commemoration of the glories of the French Revolution of 1789, the Expo was not just a look into the past but, more importantly, it was a look into the future. While the Expo is no more than a faded memory today, one of the engineering marvels of that time, the Eiffel Tower, much reviled in its day, has since become the iconic symbol of Paris. Filipinos who gaze upon this landmark seldom remember that Jose Rizal was one of the first Filipinos to see the Eiffel Tower. Unfortunately, he did not mention it in any of his diaries or letters because he was so busy planning an academic meeting during the Expo.
Rizal envisioned an “International Congress of Philippinologists,” a gathering of European scholars studying, interested in, or merely in love with the Philippines and Filipinos. The best representative of this group was Ferdinand Blumentritt from a tiny town called Litomerice, then part of Austria but now part of the Czech Republic. Blumentritt never set foot in the Philippines yet was an authority on the country because of the numerous articles he wrote on its history and ethnology. Unfortunately, the planned congress did not materialize, but Rizal’s program outlined a thematic historico-cultural study of the Philippines from past to present and is still current today; it is known in academic circles as “Philippine Studies.”
Simply because he left a lot of papers, Rizal is the most studied of our heroes. But if we care to take a closer look at his correspondence with expatriate Filipinos dedicated to reforms in Spanish Philippines, we will find the names and addresses of other less-known Filipinos who lived or visited France.
Almost all the places associated with Rizal have been identified and located; in some, bronze historical markers have been installed.
But what about the other Filipinos? In my visits to Paris, I travel with a city and Metro map in search of the following places:
• 45 rue de Maubeuge, where Valentin Ventura, who financed the publication of “El Filibusterismo,” lived; it’s an address that Rizal also used;
• 65 Boulevard Arago, painter Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo’s address, which Juan Luna also used when he moved to Paris after winning the gold medal in the Madrid Exposition of 1884 for the “Spoliarium”;
• 78 Faubourg Poissoniere, where Justo Trinidad lived;
• 5 rue de Debarcadere, where Isabel Tuason resided; and
• 14 Avenue Wagram, where Felix Pardo de Tavera lived.
Luna and Hidalgo established ateliers in 65 Boulevard Arago in a building called the Cite Fleury, which still stands and is rented out exclusively to artists, painters and sculptors. We can locate the building but we do not know which apartments they occupied.
Trinidad and Pardo de Tavera studied medicine in the Sorbonne, with Trinidad taking other courses, in philology and Oriental languages.
Antonio Luna, before he became the greatest general of the Filipino-American War, was a pharmacist who took postgraduate courses at the Institut Pasteur. When he returned to the Philippines, he undertook pioneering research on the cleanness of Pasig River water and the purity of carabao milk.
A piano sheet music by Julio Nakpil, composer of the “Katipunan” and the “Philippine Revolution,” was printed in Paris. Marcelo H. del Pilar, editor of La Solidaridad, partook of a Filipino meal in the Paris home of Juliana Gorricho, who served her homesick guests “lechon” [roasted pig] and “sinigang” stew. They even ate “kamayan” [with their fingers] in Paris a century before the famous restaurant of the same name opened in Manila.
Gorricho’s recipe book is preserved in the Pardo de Tavera Collection of the Rizal Library in Ateneo de Manila University. It may seem like a trivial historical document but aside from recipes, it also lists the dates when certain food was served and who the guests at her table were.
It is odd that nowhere in the writings of our heroes do we find a detailed description of the Eiffel Tower, but the historical connection remains because, in the listing of Gustave Eiffel’s work, there is mention of a steel church, the only one in Asia, in Manila. The Eiffel company exported pre-fabricated bridges and churches worldwide. A few of these bridges and one such church were exported to the Philippines in the 19th century. The only one that remains is the all-steel San Sebastian Church in Manila. To date, people refuse to believe this connection but have not proven otherwise. If we look hard enough we will see France through the eyes of our heroes and traces of France in our history.
* * *
This Saturday, Oct. 4, at 10 a.m., I will deliver, in the National Museum, a lecture titled “Hidalgo, Bustamante, and the Big Black Wolf.” The lecture will begin with the important anti-clerical painting that now hangs in the National Gallery. It will branch off into the other stories the painting has inspired, including “La Loba Negra,” a work once attributed to Fr. Jose Burgos but later exposed as a forgery.
* * *
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 00:55:00 10/01/2008
“If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man,” Ernest Hemingway wrote, “then wherever you go for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for all of Paris is a moveable feast.” If Hemingway was right, then the Filipinos who lived or visited Paris in the late 19th century took the City of Light back with them to the Philippines.
All roads led to the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1889. As a commemoration of the glories of the French Revolution of 1789, the Expo was not just a look into the past but, more importantly, it was a look into the future. While the Expo is no more than a faded memory today, one of the engineering marvels of that time, the Eiffel Tower, much reviled in its day, has since become the iconic symbol of Paris. Filipinos who gaze upon this landmark seldom remember that Jose Rizal was one of the first Filipinos to see the Eiffel Tower. Unfortunately, he did not mention it in any of his diaries or letters because he was so busy planning an academic meeting during the Expo.
Rizal envisioned an “International Congress of Philippinologists,” a gathering of European scholars studying, interested in, or merely in love with the Philippines and Filipinos. The best representative of this group was Ferdinand Blumentritt from a tiny town called Litomerice, then part of Austria but now part of the Czech Republic. Blumentritt never set foot in the Philippines yet was an authority on the country because of the numerous articles he wrote on its history and ethnology. Unfortunately, the planned congress did not materialize, but Rizal’s program outlined a thematic historico-cultural study of the Philippines from past to present and is still current today; it is known in academic circles as “Philippine Studies.”
Simply because he left a lot of papers, Rizal is the most studied of our heroes. But if we care to take a closer look at his correspondence with expatriate Filipinos dedicated to reforms in Spanish Philippines, we will find the names and addresses of other less-known Filipinos who lived or visited France.
Almost all the places associated with Rizal have been identified and located; in some, bronze historical markers have been installed.
But what about the other Filipinos? In my visits to Paris, I travel with a city and Metro map in search of the following places:
• 45 rue de Maubeuge, where Valentin Ventura, who financed the publication of “El Filibusterismo,” lived; it’s an address that Rizal also used;
• 65 Boulevard Arago, painter Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo’s address, which Juan Luna also used when he moved to Paris after winning the gold medal in the Madrid Exposition of 1884 for the “Spoliarium”;
• 78 Faubourg Poissoniere, where Justo Trinidad lived;
• 5 rue de Debarcadere, where Isabel Tuason resided; and
• 14 Avenue Wagram, where Felix Pardo de Tavera lived.
Luna and Hidalgo established ateliers in 65 Boulevard Arago in a building called the Cite Fleury, which still stands and is rented out exclusively to artists, painters and sculptors. We can locate the building but we do not know which apartments they occupied.
Trinidad and Pardo de Tavera studied medicine in the Sorbonne, with Trinidad taking other courses, in philology and Oriental languages.
Antonio Luna, before he became the greatest general of the Filipino-American War, was a pharmacist who took postgraduate courses at the Institut Pasteur. When he returned to the Philippines, he undertook pioneering research on the cleanness of Pasig River water and the purity of carabao milk.
A piano sheet music by Julio Nakpil, composer of the “Katipunan” and the “Philippine Revolution,” was printed in Paris. Marcelo H. del Pilar, editor of La Solidaridad, partook of a Filipino meal in the Paris home of Juliana Gorricho, who served her homesick guests “lechon” [roasted pig] and “sinigang” stew. They even ate “kamayan” [with their fingers] in Paris a century before the famous restaurant of the same name opened in Manila.
Gorricho’s recipe book is preserved in the Pardo de Tavera Collection of the Rizal Library in Ateneo de Manila University. It may seem like a trivial historical document but aside from recipes, it also lists the dates when certain food was served and who the guests at her table were.
It is odd that nowhere in the writings of our heroes do we find a detailed description of the Eiffel Tower, but the historical connection remains because, in the listing of Gustave Eiffel’s work, there is mention of a steel church, the only one in Asia, in Manila. The Eiffel company exported pre-fabricated bridges and churches worldwide. A few of these bridges and one such church were exported to the Philippines in the 19th century. The only one that remains is the all-steel San Sebastian Church in Manila. To date, people refuse to believe this connection but have not proven otherwise. If we look hard enough we will see France through the eyes of our heroes and traces of France in our history.
* * *
This Saturday, Oct. 4, at 10 a.m., I will deliver, in the National Museum, a lecture titled “Hidalgo, Bustamante, and the Big Black Wolf.” The lecture will begin with the important anti-clerical painting that now hangs in the National Gallery. It will branch off into the other stories the painting has inspired, including “La Loba Negra,” a work once attributed to Fr. Jose Burgos but later exposed as a forgery.
* * *
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