Author: National Museum of the Philippines

Courtship and expressions of love among the Hanunoo Mangyan of Southern Mindoro

Posted on:  |  National Museum of the Philippines Posted in Uncategorized.

This Valentine’s Day, the #NationalMuseumPH brings you to the world of magkaibog (courtship) among the Hanunoo Mangyan living in Oriental Mindoro, with their expressions of love through writing and serenading.

Pamtang or exchanging gifts during the courting stage is an important practice among the Hanunoo. Traditionally, the women weave buri baskets while men prepare apugan (bamboo lime containers) and luka (tobacco tube containers) as gifts. What makes these containers special is that men, aside from incising them with geometric designs, would also inscribe a song or personal message before giving it to the women they adore. In response, a woman may answer her suitor/s by writing on the same tube to be given in the next betel exchange. 

A young man may also serenade (maglayes) his beloved by playing a traditional ceremonial guitar or violin along with the recitation of the ambahan, the 7-syllable line poetry that is often inscribed on bamboo and other wooden objects. Hanunoo children learn the scripts from their parents and during social gatherings through observation, imitation, and constant practice of inscription of chants and verses in bamboo, wood and even leaves, such as the backbone of a banana leaf. 

In the old days, a suitor would cross mountain ranges to visit the woman he adores and verses of the ambahan would also refer to such journeys. Being torn between two lovers is also a dilemma among Hanunoo teenagers, as reflected in these verses: 

Kang di magsawilihan I love both of them, they say,

Sa uway sa inwagan the vines inwag and uway.

Ga di ud sa masungnan But you should not say I’m bad,

Ga di ud sa malut-an and no reason to be mad!

Ya pangurog tunya wan You should call it: real, true love.

Ya panadya kumon wan Or this: over and above!

(Postma, 2005: 43)

The Hanunoo script, along with those of the Buhid, Tagbanua and Pala’wan was declared by the National Museum of the Philippines as National Cultural Treasures and inscribed in the Memory of the World Registry of UNESCO in 1999. Projects and programs geared towards the preservation and propagation of these traditional scripts have been launched by the National Museum of the Philippines, the National Commission for Culture and the Arts, the Mangyan Heritage Center, and other government agencies and private institutions. 

Ginaw Bilog, a Hanunoo Mangyan from Oriental Mindoro, was the first recipient of the Gawad sa Manlilikha ng Bayan (GAMABA) award conferred by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) for his preservation of the surat Mangyan, or the Mangyan script, and the ambahan. His works are displayed at the Manlilikha ng Bayan Hall in the National Museum of Anthropology in Manila. 

The book, Baybayin: Ancient and Traditional Scripts in the Philippines, was also published by the National Museum in 2014 should you wish to know more about the ancient script of the Philippines. 

#HanunooMangyan
#Courtship
#Ambahan
#PhilippineTraditionalScript

Text and photos by the NMP Ethnology Division

Special thanks to the Mangyan Heritage Center for their assistance in some local terminologies.

© 2022 National Museum of the Philippines 

Serenata by Ramon Estella

Posted on:  |  National Museum of the Philippines Posted in Uncategorized.

As we continue with our celebration of the #NationalArtsMonth2022,  this week’s  #ArtStrollSunday features “Serenata,” a 1949 oil on canvas by Neo-Realist painter and filmmaker Ramón Estella (1911-1991) from the National Fine Arts Collection (NFAC). 

Ramón Estella was born in Hong Kong in 1911 and grew up in Cebu City.  He finished his Bachelor of Arts degree at San Beda College in 1933 and completed his Masters in Mass Media Communications at the University of Santo Tomas. The artist was most identified with the Neo-Realist group (post-war modernists), whose original members were Victor Oteyza, Romeo Tabuena, Hernando Ocampo, and Cesar Legaspi, the latter two declared National Artists for Visual Arts. Neo-realism is an art movement that came to rise in the 1950s. The subject matter is being distorted, fragmented, or deconstructed to a “new reality” — based on the inner visions of the artist and not on how they are naturally seen. 

Found in the southeastern part of the Pillars of Philippine Modernism Gallery is one of his significant works, “Serenata” or Serenade. Serenata in Italian or “harana” in Filipino is an old Philippine tradition of courtship wherein a man (or a woman) conveys their feelings through a song or a serenade. This painting, replete with lines and intersecting geometric shapes colored in tones of blue, black, brown, yellow, and green, shows two figures, one standing, mouth opened, and seemed to be singing a song. Another figure on the bottom right part of the canvas, with eyes closed, may be interpreted as listening to the serenade.

In 1959, Estella held his first solo exhibition at the Philippine Art Gallery at Arquiza Street, Ermita, Manila. Aside from painting, he also directed and produced films here in the country and abroad and was recognized as one of the luminaries in Philippine cinema.  

Ramón Estella died on May 4, 1991, in Florida, USA.

‘Serenata” may be viewed at the Pillars of Philippine Modernism Gallery, Gallery XVIII, Third Floor, of the National Museum of Fine Arts. Visit us by booking through this website.

Text by NMP-FAD

Photo by Bengy Toda

#ArtStrollSunday
#Serenata
#NAM2022

© 2022 National Museum of the Philippines

Part 2 of “The Basi Revolt by Esteban Villanueva”, National Cultural Treasures, in Know Your North

Posted on:  |  National Museum of the Philippines Posted in NATIONAL MUSEUM OF THE PHILIPPINES, News and Events, Uncategorized.

The beauty of art is that it can be interpreted in diverse ways.

Your #NationalMuseumPH continues to celebrate the National Arts Month with the rest of the country by now sharing with you the second short feature film on the 200-year-old “The Basi Revolt” paintings that were declared collectively as National Cultural Treasure in 2009.

A part of the video documentary project on the historic artworks, this short film focuses on the wealth of images found in all of the 14 oil on canvas comprising “The Basi Revolt” series that, as National Museum Director-General Jeremy Barns points out in this feature, have “elements that are really appealing, or arouse curiosity, or focus your attention”.

The film thus draws us into some of the panels, and up close, we get a sample of the images and how they are perceived, inviting us to also look deeper as well as challenging us to delve back into history and have our own take at the illustrations.

At the filming in September 2021, Deputy Director-General for Museums Dr. Ana Labrador talked about the NMP’s aim to open up the narratives on the paintings, for people to “develop their visual eye, and look at them from their own histories, their own ideas, their own kind of responses”. Without a very prescriptive approach into interpretation, the agency rather engages viewers of “The Basi Revolt” into deciphering the details and contributing to the making of narratives on the artworks.

The video documentary on the “The Basi Revolt” paintings that are attributed to Vigan landowner and mestizo Esteban Pichay Villanueva was part of the commemoration of the paintings’ 200th year in 2021. Conceptualized during the pandemic together with a new publication featuring contemporary Ilokanos’ views of them, the video was seen to contribute to the NMP’s campaign as well as continue its online presence while museums were closed last year or open on a restricted basis due to the continued threat of COVID-19.

The video documentary project is a product of the collaboration between the NMP and the transportation company Victory Liner, Inc. (VLI), with award-winning documentary filmmaker Gabriel Malvar at the helm. Under the parties’ Memorandum of Agreement signed in July 2021, the film on the “The Basi Revolt” is part of the VLI’s “Know Your North” series of documentary films that took off in 2017. Malvar, who produces the “Know Your North” with his outfit The Extra Miles Productions, envisions developing several short features on “The Basi Revolt” as a way to continue celebrating the paintings’ bicentennial.

We hope you again enjoy this one while we await the release of the main documentary! So, don’t forget to regularly check this page for more on “The Basi Revolt”!

#TheBasiRevoltPaintingsAt200  
#TheBasiRevoltPaintingsBicentennial
#KnowYourNorth
#TheExtraMileProductions           

© 2022 National Museum of the Philippines with the Victory Liner, Inc.

Women in Science at the NMP

Posted on:  |  National Museum of the Philippines Posted in Uncategorized.

Women in Science at the NMP

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Today is International Day of Women and Girls in Science.

This day recognizes the need to address gender inequality in various science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines across different levels worldwide. For decades, STEM education and career opportunities for women have been very restricted leading to a wide and uneven gender gap. The United Nations established this annual celebration in 2015 to promote the critical and monumental role of #WomenInScience.

At the #NationalMuseumPH, women continue to be at the forefront of STEM research and curatorial work. Their contributions and discoveries in different disciplines (Archaeology, Ethnology, Botany, Zoology, Geology, Architecture, Fine Arts) throughout the NMP’s history remain crucial in upholding the institute’s mandate. Today, the NMP’s STEM research is kept strong and alive by women in various roles ranging from laboratory aide to museum curators. The NMP has also taken pride in having women as the head of its research cluster for many years now, proving that #WomenInScience are #WomenLeaders as well. 

To know more about STEM research and career at the NMP, please visit our website (https://www.nationalmuseum.gov.ph)

Text and poster by the NMP Geology and Paleontology Division

© 2022 National Museum of the Philippines

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Parish Church of San Agustin Bacong, Negros Oriental

Posted on:  |  National Museum of the Philippines Posted in Uncategorized.

Parish Church of San Agustin Bacong, Negros Oriental

Photo 1_Illustration

For today’s #BuiltTraditionThursday of our #MuseumFromHome series, we feature an immovable cultural treasure on the Visayas’ island province of Negros Oriental. An architectural heritage built near the seaboard of Bohol Sea, the Parish Church of San Agustin, also known as Bacong Church is a Spanish colonial church architecture introduced by the Augustinian Recollects.

The parish was founded in 1849, under the patronage of Saint Augustine of Hippo. The cornerstone of the church structure was laid in 1866 by Fr. Leandro Arrue Agudo, OAR (later Bishop of Jaro in Iloilo from 1885 – 1897). He also celebrated the first mass on August 28, 1883, the feast day of the parish patron. The church-convent complex was built mainly of bricks, a deviation from the normal construction material in Negros Oriental which is coral stone. The church is in a Latin cross form with the nave oriented in east-west axis. Its main entrance and altar face the sea. A four-level bell tower rises on the southeast and was built with coral stone in L- shape masonry work. Situated at the northern yard of the complex is the two-storey convent which was completed in September 1859. The exterior walls were built with bricks and wooden walls on the lower and upper levels, respectively.

The architectural interior of the church features a vaulted ceiling, plastered walls, hardwood doors, and excellent acoustics that allows clear sound to resonate within the church’s massive nave. The church houses an original pulpito and the oldest altarpieces or retablos in the province. The main altarpiece or retablo mayor is made of molave and yakal wood decorated with wood embellishments, gold leafing and painted friezes. It has two levels standing on a base and topped with a crown element. Corinthian pilasters frame the three niches with Corinthian columns separating them in between. Its entablature is ornamented with dentils. Crowning the altarpiece is a semi-circular pediment that features a dove radiating sun rays. Located on the northern part of the sanctuary is the sacristy where extant baldosas or floor tiles, masonry wall mural, and ceiling made of sawali can be found. The church also maintains a 19th-century pipe organ, one of the few remaining century-old Spanish made pipe-organs in the country. It is an instrument completely made in Zaragoza, Spain.

Because of the exceptional location and architectural elements of the church, it became one of the important landmarks in the locality and is considered the best-preserved church-convent complex in the province. Bacong Church was declared as a National Cultural Treasure on July 31, 2001, by the National Museum of the Philippines.

Text by Ar. K. Sepidoza-Daysa

Illustrations and Photos by AABHD Museum Researchers (ABK)

© 2022 National Museum of the Philippines

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Chuhangin Sites of Ivuhos Island, Batanes

Posted on:  |  National Museum of the Philippines Posted in Uncategorized.

Chuhangin Sites of Ivuhos Island, Batanes

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It’s February already, and the cold breeze of hanging amihan continues to bring chilly weather across the country, especially in the highlands and coastal areas. 

But did you know that aside from the beautiful scenery, some coastal areas in the Philippines have rich archaeology as well? For this week’s #TrowelTuesday, we are featuring the sites of Chuhangin in Ivuhos Island, Batanes.

Coastal sites, or areas near the sea, have long been utilized for habitation, livelihood, or burial. These sites are typically identified through the excavated material remains and features left behind by former inhabitants. The Chuhangin coastal site in Ivuhos Island, Batanes, is one such area of archaeological importance in the northern Philippines with its discovered precolonial habitation and burial sites. In 1995, the #NationalMuseumPH Batanes Archaeological Project team, led by Dr. Eusebio Dizon, began excavations to study settlement patterns and other features discovered on the island.

Archaeological excavations in Chuhangin revealed burial sites that feature boat-shaped stone markers, burial jars, and a combination of these two. At least 10 boat-shaped burial stone markers (read more: https://tinyurl.com/BatanesBoatShapedBurials), made of limestone and andesite, were also found inland, concealing human skeletal remains. Radiocarbon-14 test of one of these remains placed the estimated age of the burials at around the late 16th century. Isotope analysis on the human remains revealed a diet composed of both marine and land resources, similar to findings in other Batanes sites. At the Chuhangin ijang, a fortress settlement on hilltops (read more: https://tinyurl.com/IjangsOfBatanes), the finds discovered include stone tools and earthenware sherds, supporting the hypothesis that the ijang is a strategic location in defending the inhabitants against aggressors and enemies.

Archaeological discoveries such as these, however, are at risk of being lost or destroyed, thus requiring additional efforts in their preservation. Due to their open location, coastal sites like Chuhangin are vulnerable to climate change, natural calamities such as typhoons, and man-made interventions like looting and treasure hunting. We need to protect these archaeological sites, features, and artifacts to further understand our past and for the benefit of succeeding generations.

The #NationalMuseumPH is now open to the public. Click on this link to book your visit to the museum: https://reservation.nationalmuseum.gov.ph/. Please remember to #KeepSafe and always #WearYourMask.

#ChuhanginCoastalSite
#ArchaeologyOfBatanesIslands
#MuseumFromHome

Text by Sherina Aggarao and Gregg Alfonso Abbang and posters by Timothy James Vitales

© 2022 National Museum of the Philippines 

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