Two cultural events
BACK in Manila last Sunday, I plunged into two cultural events on Monday and Tuesday. Both were refreshing initiatives by government agencies, a local government unit, Makati City and a national agency, the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA).
Makati City celebrates its 354th founding anniversary this year. One of the events in commemoration of its founding anniversary is an exhibit at the Museo ng Makati on J.P. Rizal Street, Pamanang Makatizen Digital Art Collection, celebrating its cultural heritage sites and past history. The exhibit was created in partnership with University of Makati students in visual arts like photography, animation and film.
The heritage sites depicted are both man-made and geographical in digital form as photographs or drawings. They also identify as town establishments like a traditional bakery, a horse plaque reminder of the past Makati racecourse (now Circuit City), ancestral houses, the St. Peter and Paul Church (opened to the public in 1620, though initial construction was in 1608 as a visita linked to Sta. Ana Parish). It has a nearby plaza called Cristo Rey. The geographical parts are the Pasig River, from whom it is conjectured its low tide termed “kati” was happening when Manila’s founder, Miguel Lopez de Legazpi, passed by and inquired what the site was called. This may be legendary but the Pasig River low tide was called “kati.”
Among other geographical sites in Makati is the Maricaban Creek bordering Pasay. It was interesting, too, to see early 20th-century photographs of prominent streets in Makati from the Poblacion area, the earliest site of the small town, shown as dirt roads, with no sidewalks. Also, the original road to Fort McKinley, now Bonifacio Global City, a dirt road. The Nielson Tower was the first airport in Manila, started by a New Zealander, Laurie Reuben Nielson, in the 1930s. What is now Ayala Avenue and Paseo de Roxas were its runways. The Philippine Airlines inaugural flight from Manila to Baguio took place from there in early 1941, just before World War II broke out.
Then there are the Guadalupe Ruins on a promontory overlooking the Pasig River and a park near the river that formerly had the Casa Hacienda, the administration center, if it may be called that, when Makati was a hacienda. Originally owned by the Jesuit order as the Hacienda de San Pedro Macati, they lost it when they were expelled from Spanish territory in the middle of the 18th century. It then changed hands various times among Spanish owners until it was bought in 1851 by Jose Bonifacio Roxas, considered a Filipino.
The Museo ng Makati is located at a building constructed in 1918 as the town hall, then known as the Presidencia. It reflects its time with capiz shell windows. It served as the Makati City Hall until 1961. It has been kept in its original form.
The new modern Makati is also shown through its various iconic buildings, many of them by National Artist Leandro Locsin, as well as other architects like Gabriel Formoso, Carlos Arguelles and Jose Maria Zaragoza.
The felicitous detail is that the exhibit is the work of students from the University of Makati which shows not only their talent and industry but their exposure and therefore identification with Makati where they live and study.
The next day, the Department of Foreign Affairs Cultural Diplomacy desk, headed by Ambassador Celia Anna (“Cookie”) Feria, inaugurated its Heritage Lecture Series at the DFA Auditorium. With cultural representatives from the diplomatic corps, students, DFA personnel and other invited guests, it was a well-attended event, with Ma
dame Pamela Manalo leading the attendees and a Zoom audience following the proceedings.
The lecturer was Earl Pasilan of the Ateneo de Zamboanga, an established cultural worker and teacher, who spoke in depth and with a marvelous slide presentation about the colorful Yakan fabrics of Basilan island in Mindanao, where the Yakans live.
Like most Indigenous fabrics, Yakan fabrics have meaningful symbols, colors, designs that allude to their lives as Yakans, who are mostly farmers, calling themselves People of the Earth. Rice grains are prominent symbols included in their textiles, and when wearing their woven finery on celebratory occasions, they use white Dot face make-up that alludes to rice grains. They originally had abaca weaving but now use cotton, and mostly use natural dyes.
The upper and lower garments are differentiated by the various designs and colors as well as symbols. Gender differences in clothing are marked. For example, horsehair tufts are only for male Yakans while there are special fabrics for women. Women who weave use a backstrap loom that is considered a creation symbol alluding to the womb of the weaver. It serves as a parallel to the birth process. Yakan textiles also use a lot of embroidery. You can imagine how bright and colorful their costumes are, including elaborate headdresses for both males and females.
Mr. Pasilan himself was colorfully attired in red and yellow striped trousers, a multicolored elaborate headdress and a distinctive purple jacket that I thought I would like to have. When Gemma Cruz Araneta told him my wish, he said it could be used by me if the horsehair tufts were removed. I left it at that, just a wish.
Seriously speaking, Mr. Pasilan’s presentation is worth a book for its encyclopedic detail, accompanying photographs in color and clear text born of years of research.
We look forward to the next lecture of the DFA Heritage Series on July 26.