Titas de Bacolod: Art

Showing posts with label Art. Show all posts

Wednesday, September 9, 2020

Wednesday, September 09, 2020

Titas de Bacolod is Back!

Art, Blog

Behind the Scenes with Ivy Visitacion

Titas de Bacolod is back! All the writings of Tita Ivy Visitacion will also be republished here.

Meet The Man Who Helped Marcos Bring Negros Island To Its Knees
Negros Island was in a woeful state at the eve of the snap elections in 1986. Negros as a word was synonymous to "Crisis" in those days. For the longest time, the sugar industry, romanticized by the well-heeled landowners of Negros and Iloilo, was the prima donna of Philippine ......Read More

Wednesday, August 31, 2016

The Photo Which Launched Ten Thousand Feeding Programs

Art, Issues

There are three events which led to my writing of this piece. Two are in the future, and one just happened over the weekend.

Just a few days ago, we celebrated National Heroes' Day. Often, we think of heroes as someone who valiantly fought a war or stood up against tyranny. For us Titas, Joan of Arc is the default icon that comes to mind as we grew up in schools who took pride in their order stemming from Europe. Inasmuch as there are the Filipina heroines such as Gabriela Silang, nothing comes quite close to the romanticism of being burnt at the stake.

With Joan of Arc as a mental peg, I am drawn to think of our modern day Joans. These were the many women of Negros Island during the Marcos years who took their valiant stand not just against tyranny but against the onslaught of widespread hunger in the political volcano that was Negros.

Flashback to 1985. Negros Island was a boiling cauldron of political unrest. The sugar planters were stuck in the doldrums and reeling from the systematic pillage of the sugar industry by Ferdinand Marcos and his college buddy, Roberto S. Benedicto - RSB as he was unfondly known. Insurgency as brought forth by the communist rebels was alive and well in the countryside and in the hinterlands of Negros. A massacre had just been perpetrated in the northern town of Escalante.

All over, the collateral damage were the children who hardly had anything to eat. Malnutrition was widespread. Many children, numbering over a hundred thousand Negros-wide were in critical or third-degree malnourished state. A third degree state is when a child weighs only 40% of the weight for their normal age.

It was an emergency situation which summoned the attention of various relief and aid organizations the world over. And meanwhile, the party went on in Malacanang. The first family must have been gleefully counting their gold bars. Yes, the same gold bars they brought to Hawaii, borne of the sweat of the sugar workers and more.

If social media were alive back then, people would be putting forth hashtags such as #prayfornegros and #savethenegroschildren. But there was no social media to bring this to the public. The government-controlled media back then could only publish what was beautiful and acceptable in praise of the Marcos regime.

Amidst that grim landscape, a photo leaked out. It was one photo among many by 1987 Pulitzer Prize Winner Kim Komenich. It was the iconic photo of Joel Abong, the son of a fisherman. His malnourished state and dire facial expression triggered the mobilization of a thousand feeding programs and sacrificial lunches. No, not a thousand, make that ten thousand. Leading the charge were the international agencies such as UNICEF and Oxfam. They were our heroes. They were the ones who literally stood on the top of the Ford Fieras and rented jeepneys with megaphone in hand putting order into the feeding sessions conducted.

Parallel to the international agencies' efforts were the numerous feeding programs put together by the housewives of the planters. They did not need any media to alert them of what was happening. They knew there was hunger. It was not just reported, it was felt first hand. Thirty one years on from those days which led up to the snap elections and EDSA revolution of 1986, I wish to take this moment to honor all the women of Negros who silently went out of their way and organized themselves to feed the poorest of the poor.

Beyond the feeding, these women of Negros took it one step further. Cottage industries were set up to somehow provide a means of livelihood for the women in the farms who no longer had any work in the canefields. Out of the hunger in the countryside, a chain reaction was set in motion. Feeding programs, cottage industries, and eventually, the showcase of the industries born out of adversity - what we know today as the Negros Trade Fair - the longest running provincial trade fair in the Philippines.

This happens in a few days time. The second of the three events I mentioned above will take place in the Glorietta Activity Center in Makati. It is a time of jubilation for the triumph over adversity - adversity which was epitomized by the photo of Joel Abong.

The last event I need to mention is that of the imminent burial of dictator Ferdinand Marcos' remains at the Libingan ng mga Bayani. Unlike the upcoming Negros Trade Fair, this is no time for jubilation. Words cannot describe how in one quick moment, the burial of FM at the Libingan ng mga Bayani immediately implies that we are all traitors for having ousted him.

There are those who say let us move on and allow him that burial for he is a president after all. I will not waste time and words to argue. Just look at the face of Joel Abong above. And then perhaps you could close your eyes and simultaneously imagine Imelda rocking the night away in her rooftop disco in Malacañang.

(Note : Joel Abong died six days after this photo was taken)

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Follow me on Twitter @TitasdeBacolod

Related Posts:

A Bankrupt Memory Bank

It has been 29 years since they were chased from the palace. Amid a stream of discoveries regarding the unexplained wealth, more than 70,000 imprisoned, poverty level at 42% and thousands tortured and “salvaged”. ......Read More

Negros : An Island of People With Super Short Memories

To see Imelda at the food court without the pomp and splendor normally attached to her wherever she goes brought up a myriad of emotions. I felt a bit sad seeing this. It reminded me of my Mama's last days. But I quickly snapped out of that sadness because I was reminded of the incident two years ago ......Read More

Meet The Man Who Helped Marcos Bring Negros Island To Its Knees

Negros Island was in a woeful state at the eve of the snap elections in 1986. Negros as a word was synonymous to "Crisis" in those days. For the longest time, the sugar industry, romanticized by the well-heeled landowners of Negros and Iloilo, was the prima donna of Philippine ......Read More

Monday, February 15, 2016

Trading on Nostalgia: the February Visual Arts Scene

#art, Art

By Ma. Cecilia Locsin-Nava,Ph.D.

      Nostalgia or "the desire to return in thought or in fact to a former time in one’s life, to one’s home, or to one’s family and friends" binds the three visual arts exhibit currently showing in Bacolod. These are Wayne Lacson Forte’s “Ano May ReklamoKa?” which opened February 2 at the Negros Museum; DioknoPasilan’s “Locale” which opened February 6 at Orange Gallery and EdbonSevilleno’s “Glimpses of Negros” which softly opens on February 10 at MuseoNegrense de La Salle to accommodate special requests from friends who would like to gift their loved ones with an art work for Valentine where are works will be pegged down for as low as 10,000 a piece. Over cocktails on February 12 guests will likewise be treated to an interaction with Sevilleno who will demonstrate what makes him a watercolorist of the first order.

      Considering the millions of Filipinos abroad it seems inevitable that nostalgia would inform the works of these three visual artists despite their differences in personalities, backgrounds, and mediums and styles.

       US-based Forte uses oil in scenes of a bygone era color dealing with , among others, our history of colonization; Riyadh –based Sevilleno employs watercolors in capturing idyllic scenes of country-life in Negros before urbanization sets in and celebrates the eternal sameness of the ordinary in portraits of street people and sacadas, one aptly entitled, Ti, amo man Gihapon, as well as genre paintings that capture Norman Rockwell-like street scenes of Bacolod epitomized by one painting of chess playing in downtown plaza and the furious betting that accompanies it.

        Most poignant is Palawan and Australia-based Pasilan’s homecoming exhibitthat brings together past projects from Australia, Palawan and Bicol which captures, among others, a way of life that is long gone, namely boat-building in his native Santo Nino, which has since become a casualty of over-logging. This is symbolized by a new work done in collaboration with carpenters and craftsmen in the community where he grew up. Called “ The Santo Nino Project” this consists of a hardwood remnant of a long-vanished fishing boat which the resident craftsmen have turned into a sculpture ever since their wooden-hulled boats have given way to second hand vessels from other Asian countries.   This travel metaphor is repeated on the walls of the gallery with little boats carrying eyes of the artist’s subjects sailing into the horizon.

    Not unlike Sevilleno, Pasilan likewise shows like Rembrandt (who did self portraits in his old age many times over) a fascinationfor faces of old people illustrated in his “KinalawangnaLarawan” –iron dust portraits on archival paper as well as his ID photos of senior citizens in Bicol and Palawan.

     The Filipino as wandering Jew is a recurrent theme that runs not only in our literature but in visual arts as well. One reason is our world famous resiliency. As Pasilan puts it in his artist statement for” Locale”: “Some people find significance in a place. Others make a place significant. As an artist, both hold true for me. I am a wanderer who puts down roots wherever my journeys take me. Thus, in external exile I am always home.”

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Follow me on Twitter @TitasdeBacolod