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Unique Pinoy Roots in a “Neticized” World

By Paul Blanco Zafaralla

GEOGRAPHIC distance can a�ect the operations of the head, heart and hands either way. Alienation from one’s old environment can lead to another kind of alienation in a new environment. Identity loss impends. A new persona bids entry into one’s old self. Inner con�ict results. Resolute must the person be: to cling on to the past, or shake o� the previous identity and put on a mask of a person reborn.

Romeo C. MananQuil met an unpaintable culture shock when he decided to relocate his family to Canada in 1985. Everything was alien to him. And he was an alien to everybody. He landed a job as a visual artist - his passport to that subcontinent covering 9,922.33 sq. km. However, he had to grapple with nostalgia. All that he could do to connect with the old country was to reminisce his happy and successful life and career in the third world country of his birth.

Cultural dichotomy identi�ed the old and the new, the third and �rst worlds. He had to �nd a connection somewhere. Somehow. And he found it.

MananQuil’s present works delineate unique Pinoy roots that continue

to transcend the dictates of a “neticized” world gone berserk with the

internet and other insensate products of technology.

Cover:Gigil (2008)Oil on canvas24” x 20”

MAJOR, no doubt, is MananQuil’s 1-man show at The Corredor Gallery, UP College of Fine Arts, UP Diliman, on these counts: 1) it is his �rst 1-man show after leaving the country for Canada 23 years ago; 2) it is o�cially sponsored by the UP College of Fine Arts and the UP Alumni Association of Toronto, Canada; 3) it forms part, unique at that, of the Centen-nial Celebrations of UP; 4) it is the �rst such exhibition by any expatriate Sapphire (45 years) jubilarian; and 5) the Guests of Honor include National Artist Bencab; Canadian Ambassador Robert Desjardins; Former Central Bank Governor Jaime Laya; UP President Emerlinda R. Roman; UPAA Toronto President Noel Cruz; UP Diliman Chancellor Sergio Cao; Professor Emeritus Virginia Flor Agabayani; and CFA Dean Tina Colayco.The exhibit runs on 15-30 April 2008.

Pls. visit: Websites: www.mananquil.com / www.philippineartists.com / http://www.bridges�neart.com/about.html.Emails: roane@rogers.com / armananquil@gmail.com / armananquil@yahoo.ca

ROOTS.Roots embedded on Philippine soil. Roots implanted in the Filipino head. Heart. Soul. Roots that identify the Filipino anywhere, anytime. Such a thematic source naturally sprouted as his connection with the old country.

In Tanghalian is the Filipino enjoying God’s blessings and provisions under a quonset that intimates verve and vitality by reason of the simple dwell-ing receiving a most selective sunlight in a pollution-free environment. Rugged be the barangay road, yet ubiquitous is the peoples’ testament of their ingenuity for mobility - the tricycle. Personal identities are not for the people to showcase, for they represent the Filipinos in the large.

The culture of temporariness, depicted in Talipapa, has its positive virtue: a social leveler regardless of claims to the contrary. Plain folks and household helps - some carrying cellphones for quick contact with their amo, or for whom they serve as maids - negotiate distances either on foot or aboard the Filipino contraption. The two women at the left typify Filipino women who take life as a shared responsibility.

Inhibition is lost in Morning Bath where at least two things are in prog-ress: a washerwoman feeding a child, while another child is taking a bath au naturel. This sight on speci�c sites may be alien to citi�ed folks and today’s netizens, but not to the consciousness of MananQuil. He clearly argues in paint that some streams, devoid of domestic clutter and refuse, are a haven for hygiene and washing.

Simple may a repast be - from the viewpoint of the so-called metropo-lites and cosmopolites - but a breakfast to simple folks comes as a manna from heaven, and therefore must be enjoyed as God’s blessing. The couple in Break-fast by the Beach did not pose for MananQuil, for theirs is unity depicted �ve times: the plastic basket and the aluminum pot are diagonally arranged to repeat the diagonality of the couple eating, the ubiquitous tricycle partly shown on the right side and the counter-diagonal direction of the blue plastic basket, the woman and the tricycle. The couple unite the shoreline and the sea by reason of their heads reaching the saline water alive with breaking waves. Food is the focus shared by the couple who form a scalene triangle.

Riches the sea keeps, partly gathered by the people for cash and an occasion for �lial bonding, shown in Gathering Seashells. The inverted triangu-lar arrangement of the �gures establishes gradual distance and calculated tension. Typical in seaside localities, this artwork raises a pressing question that demands an immediate answer: What must the State do to actualize a better, not bitter, life for all?

The sea as a refuge of a tired body serves as an invitation open to all, as in Nay…Hanggang Saan ang Dagat? No modern, high-tech invention is shown calculated to pollute the water and air. All �ve subjects, no doubt a family, obviously come from the low stratum of society, but are nonetheless endowed with dignity and contentment enjoyed in a life well-lived despite shortfalls.

The boy on the left side is detached from his family and communes with the breaking waves, as in fact with the open sea with unreachable horizon. He must be thinking, like a Western philosopher did, that if he were to �ll up a hole on the seashore with saline water, will the water break into waves, complete with a hissing sound and a roar? In MananQuil’s words, “I want the scene to be more deep. Perhaps deeper than the sea. The family is watching…what goes on in a child’s mind as he looks at the vast blue sea. Maybe this child will try to answer his question himself when he grows up…either as an immigrant or an OFW.” Reminiscent of the young Rizal observ-ing the then placid and pristine water of Laguna de Bay.

The sea as leisure site (Pag-iisa) and as life source (Memories of Mala-bon) cannot be obliterated by today’s parameters of the good life. Structural frameworks are all that stand to tell the story of Philippine life unique in the old country: making do with what obtains and preserving both sea and structures that refuse to relinquish a Filipino identity.

Bonding and love, Filipino version, are clearly delineated in Gigil (Irrepressible thrill) and Munting Ate (Little elder sister). The mother/grandmother in Gigil wraps the baby girl with her arms, like she, the girl, were a live trophy, as she truly is. The child, for her part, returns the compli-

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ments, for a reciprocal sharing of a common bloodline. The red dress of the mother/grandmother is darker than the child’s red dress to emphasize the verdict of maturity. Fleeting is the child’s facial expression. This asserts MananQuil’s mastery of human expression, which remains as his identifying “signature” among portraitists in the Philippines, Canada and now US.

And in Munting Ate, Filipino indeed is the blood that runs in the veins of the two girls as the chubby girl feeds her little brother with noodles and rice with a spoon- not with a fork.

The tricycle is as Filipino as the jeepney. Like the latter, the tricycle - pedalized or motorized - is a virtual king of the road. And pray that the drivers of airconditioned and window-tinted vehicles from Japan and South Korea decelerate to avoid hitting the tricycle drivers without crash helmets. The tri-wheeled contraption may be speeding at 70 kph alongside a cargo truck or an 18-wheeler behemoth (Hi-way David); used as a status symbol to impress a damsel (Ligaw-tingin) with the front wheel also turned toward the long-tressed lady. It could be an icon to humor the tricycle driver with the feeling of being a Prince Charming (Pa-charming). And always, the “almighty” tricycle can be parked anywhere, at least in many localities and cities (Park King). Of late, tricycles have doubled as ambulant, open stores for knick-knacks like banan-acue, barbecue, camotecue, �shball, bibingka, puto, chicklets, cigarettes, and cellphone chargers (Pedal Peddlers).

CASTING his eyes, head and heart primarily on unique Pinoy roots, MananQuil approached his subjects from the Filipino vantage point, e�using as they are with positive traits, some of which witty. Concept and technique, the latter being at times a la Amorsolo, or quasi-impressionistic, are locked in a synergistic relationship. And where a major period in Philippine history is the demanding theme - brutality, carnage, weapons of mass destruction, a city all but reduced to ashes by enemy �re, and the �nal waving of the Philippine �ag atop the allegorical Philippines highlighted by the sun shining brightly on the right side - are scenes that tell the story of the Filipinos’ �ghts for freedom (Sa Ating Paglaya).

This minimural is an expansive pictorial discourse on the horrors of the Katipunan uprising, Fil-Am War and WW II when demonic forces reduced

men and women into pathetic carcasses, but are real heroes vested with the virtue of valor. The crisscrossing diagonals at the edge of the quasi-concentric �gural formation underscore the brutality and bestiality of war. But righteous is the position of the metaphorical Philippines, for the �gure rises on the right side, her forehead (seat of wisdom) illumined by the sun as light source. MananQuil explains: “I decided to include this to remind us of the values of our hard-fought freedom and how we have now messed it up.” The fallen soldiers are strewn on the foreground, their arms spread out, and challenge the viewer to read their gripping visual-ideational impact: the extreme sacri�ce they gave to their country and people.

Cyclic is the grinding poverty that grips the lives of the marginal people including the middle middle class in the social pyramid. Instead of stating the obvious, MananQuil used metaphors with intimations for action, as depicted in Sampung Kahig, Isang Tuka and Askal Asleep.The old euphemism was “Isang Kahig, Isang Tuka,” meaning a scratch on the ground was all it took to �nd food. Now 10 scratches must be done to �nd food – no doubt a scathing statement on poverty that has spread exponentially 10 times.

Only the mother hen has her beak shown - for determination. But central she is among he chicks forming an open circle around her on their rocky environment. With the mother hen’s rightward direction, determination and the search for food continue- a parallel of the way we read and write: from left to right. A mongrel may be emaciated (Askal Asleep), but the rightward turn of its head paralleled by the crushed plastic bottle of mineral water (yes, Inyang or Virginia, gone are the days when a glass of water could be had for the asking), points toward the continuous struggle to survive penury. The three parallel diagonal brushworks at the right bottom corner allude to the Triune God: the source of strength and hope in the Filipinos’ belief system.

Not to him is the lure of a technologized world calculated to bring him down to identity loss. On the contrary, his are incisive readings on the thinking and feeling of Filipinos living under the spell of diaspora.

MananQuil’s present works delineate unique Pinoy roots that continue to transcend the dictates of a “neticized” world gone berserk with the internet and other insensate products of technology.

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Breakfast in Beach (2008) Oil on canvas 24” x 30”

Pa-Charming (2008) Oil on canvas 24” x 30”

98

Pag-iisa (2008) Oil on canvas 20” x 24”

Morning Bath (2008) Oil on canvas 24” x 30”

1110

Tanghalian (2008) Oil on canvas 20” x 24”

Gathering Shells (2008) Oil on canvas 20” x 24”

1312

Pedal Peddlers (2008) Oil on canvas 18” x 24”

Talipapa (2008) Oil on canvas 18” x 24”

1514

Park King (2008) Oil on canvas 18” x 24”

Hi-way David (2008) Oil on canvas 18” x 24”

1716

Askal Asleep (2008) Oil on canvas 11” x 14”

Munting Ate (2008) Oil on canvas 16” x 20”

1918

Sampung Kahig, Isang Tuka (2008) Oil on canvas 11” x 14”

Memories of Malabon (1995) Oil on canvas 18” x 24”

2120

Ligaw-tingin (2006)Oil on canvas24” x 30”

Wave Watch (2004) Oil on canvas 24” x 36”

2322

Kalayaan (1998)Oil on canvas48” x 36”

(PTG. NOTES)

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Paul Blanco Zafaralla

(BFA ’63; MA ’73; Ph.D. ’90) won the 2004 National Book Award (Art Studies, a new category), given by the prestigious Manila Critics Circle for the book Rice in the Seven Arts which he edited; and the 2005 UP Alumni Association Profes-sional Achievement Award in Arts and Letters (Art Criticism). He is a retired Professor 10 of Humanities in the Department of Humanities, College of Arts and Sciences, UP Los Banos where he is presently a Professorial Lecturer 1. He has written 2 books as sole author; 1 book as sole editor; 1 book as coeditor and chapter writer; 2 books as coauthor (together with National Artist Nick Joaquin and National Artist Cesar Legaspi); and 8 books as chapter writer. He is presently doing 2 books. His brochures total 22; his critiques on the visual arts, dance, music, architecture, literature, and play total 596.

He is a former Grand Knight of the Knights of Columbus, Council 5377, College Laguna; Formation Steward (with his wife Charity) of the Bukas-Loob sa Diyos Covenant Community, San Pablo District; and present president of the Parish Pastoral Council, St. Therese of the Child Jesus Parish, College, Laguna.

ROMEO CASTILLO MANANQUIL (Abridged Bio)

Romeo Castillo MananQuil was a consistent scholar before graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts, University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City, where he graduated with a degree of Bachelor of Fine Arts, cum laude, in 1963. While still a student, he counted among the illustrators of Liwayway, the country’s top weekly magazine in Filipino.

After graduation, he went into advertising, but distinguished himself as an illustrator. His artworks were used as magazine covers, for a book on Gen. Carlos P. Romulo by National Artist Nick Joaquin, including the 10-volume Filipino Heritage edited by Alfredo Roces.

In 1983, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas hired him to design the following bank notes and coins: 1) 1985 series of bank notes and coins; 2) Php 1000 denomination; 3) Php5 vignette which was later used for the Php 100,000 Centennial note, a Guinness Book of World Records holder.

In 1967, MananQuil was absorbed in the faculty of the College of Fine Arts, University of the East. He later returned to advertising. This signalled his entry into serious painting and participation in about 100 art shows in the Philippines, Australia and North America. In 1977, the UP College of Fine Arts took him in as faculty where he rose from Instructor II to Assistant Professor, then Department Chair, and �nally Artist-in-Residence. His �rst mural was commissioned bv the SEARCA in College, Laguna, in 1978.

Romi’s �ourishing career as an art professor and practitioner took a snag when he moved to Toronto, Canada, with his family in 1985. Three years later, he founded the Philippine Artists Group of Canada, was elected as its �rst president. He headed the PAGC for 14 uninterrupted years.

He remains as one of the most collected Filipino artists in Canada today. As a sought after portraitist, MananQuil is now a member of the presti-gious Portrait Society of America.

Lately, he went back to teaching by conducting workshops in Oil Painting & Portraiture. He now represents the Philippines & Canada in the highly competitive American art scene thru the new Bridges gallery in Illinois.