Today, the #NationalMuseumPH celebrates the 77th birthday of Manlilikha ng Bayan Uwang Ahadas.

Manlilikha ng Bayan Uwang Ahadas is gifted with a talent for music which he learned by simply observing the performances of the older members of the Yakan community. He is known for his mastery in playing traditional Yakan instruments such as the agung, gabbang, and kwintangan kayu. Agung (bossed gong) is meant to be played by men while the gabbang is a bamboo xylophone with a beater called lisag. The kwintangan kayu, on the other hand, is a set of logs of different sizes that are usually suspended under a tree near the rice fields, with the belief that its music is beneficial for the growth of rice. Despite the kwintangan being traditionally meant to be played by women, Manlilikha ng Bayan Uwang Ahadas mastered it at the age of 20.

He was conferred with the Gawad sa Manlilikha ng Bayan (GAMABA) in 2000 in recognition of his excellent contribution to the preservation of Yakan traditional music. Manlilikha ng Bayan Uwang Ahadas has been teaching his children along with other younger members of the community about Yakan music to ensure its transmission and continuity. A GAMABA Cultural Center dedicated to him is currently being built as part of the GAMABA program aim of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) to conserve Yakan culture and tradition.

#UwangAhadas
#ManlilikhaNgBayan
#GAMABA
#MuseumFromHome

Text and poster by NMP Ethnology Division

© 2022 National Museum of the Philippines

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 

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