Arts & Leisure

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By Nickky Faustine P. de Guzman, Reporter

Cosio’s curiosity

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Posted on July 13, 2016

PAINTERS are psychics. Fifteen years ago, visual artist Allan Cosio made woven straw his canvas and painted it with blue, green, and touches of red and yellow. He called it Bengued. Last month, a hillside of La Trinidad, Benguet made headlines when the sprawling neighborhood was turned into a mural. The homes were painted blue, green, red, and yellow as part of a Department of Tourism (DoT) Cordillera project.

  

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BENGUED, oil paint on straw weave, 60x72 inches -- NICKKY FAUSTINE P. DE GUZMAN

Although the DoT project drew inspiration from the favelas (slums) of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, it does resemble Cosio’s painting.

“Look how advanced an artist’s eyes are,” he said, pointing to his work.

He added: “That’s why they say artists are ahead of their time.” Bengued is part of the retrospective exhibit Three Periods of Art Making which is on view at the Alliance Française in Makati City until Aug. 19.

“It’s just presenting the periods of the ’80s, ’90s, and 2000s. How did it evolve? That’s it,” he said.

The painter and sculptor has been actively making art since 1975. And it turns out he’s not only a clairvoyant, but a curious creator, too. He has changed how materials are manipulated.

His works require the audience to peer closely, and at the same time, to look at them from a distance. From afar, most of the items on exhibit, including his latest trilogy called 3 Seasons, are mostly paint splatters and explosion of colors, but with coherence and charm. A closer look reveals that his canvases are not ordinary: he uses cotton straw weaves, linen, rubber mats, velour, and rattan. He once used pellon, a synthetic material inserted in collars and cuffs to make them stiff.

“I just keep working and I find myself doing things,” said the artist, who was the 2002 Chevalier recipient of l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Order of Arts and Letters), France’s highest award given to both the French and foreigners for their achievements in arts. Other Filipino artists who have been similarly honored are National Artist Arturo Luz (who received his in 1987), filmmaker Amable “Tikoy” Aguiluz (2003), and painter Juvenal Sanso (2008), among others.

Asked which was his favorite piece in the exhibit, without hesitation he said it was his most recent work -- a triptych of winter, spring, and fall.

“The artist’s favorite is always his latest, because it’s the newest discovery,” he said.

“I’m going more abstract. It’s a natural progression,” he added.

Called 3 Seasons, the paintings -- done in 2000s -- feature thick brush strokes in upward and slanted motions which somehow suggest peacocks or Chinese calligraphy.

The 75-year-old artist began his career with geometric abstraction. These days, his works are experiments with unusual canvases and happy colors. In the 1990s, he did portraits, including those of Carmen Guerrero-Nakpil and Gemma Cruz Araneta, which greet the visitors at the Alliance Française gallery entrance.

“I am very fond of them,” he said of the portraits. “In the ’90s, I did series of women in Manila, one of them was Chitang Nakpil (Carmen Guerrero-Nakpil). They are women who have achieved something, that’s why I call them the ‘Big Girls.’”

Ms. Nakpil, a journalist and essayist, is the mother of Lisa Guerrero-Nakpil, a curator, and Gemma Cruz Araneta, a historian.

One side of the gallery features three other portraits done in the 1990s -- of a random guitarist, three nude women, and a group portrait of his friends. They are all done in bloody red.

Asked why he used the color he shrugged and said he did not know. “Sometimes artists just work without thinking of the colors.”

Vagina Dialogues: Your thoughts on re-virginization

OCUS

Vagina Dialogues: Thoughts on ‘revirginization’

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By Nickky Faustine P. de Guzman

She said: “He’s so small I could hardly feel him.”

He said: “Even a 747 will feel small inside the Grand Canyon.”

This was part of divorced Hollywood couple Roseanne Barr and Tom Arnold scathing word war when asked to comment on their divorce.

More recently, a photo of actress Chloe Moretz and politician Hillary Clinton each holding up a doughnut during the National Donut Day celebration (held every first Friday of June) became an instant meme when netizens photoshopped the hole sizes of their respective doughnuts to suggest something other than pastry.

A loose vagina, unfortunately, has become a matter for ridicule and seemingly a deciding factor on why some couples end their relationships or why one party cheats.

Into this conversation enter discussions on “floral arrangement” or “landscaping.” But this has nothing to do with gardening.

“It’s like a face-lift for your… vagina face,” the Kardashian’s dermatologist Harold Lancer was quoted as saying by Cosmopolitan and Elle magazines. He was referring to a medical craze in Hollywood: vagina rejuvenation, which is supposed to make the vagina feel and look smoother and tighter. Women undergo the treatment for many reasons including better self-esteem and more satisfying sexual pleasure for both their partner and themselves.

SURGERY, LASERS, AND RADIOFREQUENCY
The procedure is available in the Philippines, most notably at the Belo Medical Group. The cosmetic surgery center best known for its celebrity clients, introduced FemiLift in 2014, with comedienne AiAi delas Alas as its ambassador. The procedure uses an Alma CO2 laser which is inserted into the vaginal canal to stimulate the increase of collagen in vaginal wall and tighten the floor of the pelvic area.

Belo now has another treatment with the same aim in mind, ThermiVa, which uses “radiofrequency energy to gently heat tissue to rejuvenate collagen,” says the Web site of Thermi, the company that created the system.

“It improves and makes the appearance of the feminine area beautiful: smoother, tighter, more youthful looking,” Belo Medical Group desk officer Darling de Vera told BusinessWorld in an e-mail correspondence.

Before the advent of laser and radiofrequency treatments, there was “anterior and posterior repair” or simply “vagina repair,” popular as early as the 1980s, said Dr. Bernabe Marinduque, Ob-Gyn at St. Luke’s Medical Center BGC and UP Philippine General Hospital, in a phone interview. The surgical procedure trims the vagina wall to tighten it and it can take weeks to heal from the procedure.

By the early 2000s, technological advancements led to “laser surgery,” which is “less bloody and messy” than the surgery, said Dr. Marinduque.

“While all women begin life firm and tight down under, events in our life like childbirth, aging, and being overweight can cause the stretching and looseness of the muscles of the vagina,” said Belo’s Ms. De Vera.

The procedures cater to women who have had babies, are obese, and are older. Dr. Marinduqe advises obese patients to lose weight first before undergoing a vaginal rejuvenation, “because the sag will always come back if you are overweight.”

The laser surgery was marketed primarily to fulfill and heighten a man’s orgasm, he said.

“Almost all of them (the women) have it done for the same reason: a decrease in sexual pleasure secondary to lack of traction. The truth is, many more women want to make their ‘womanhood’ as good as new but are hesitant because they are scared to undergo surgery,” said Ms. De Vera.

Surgery, said Dr. Marinduque, sometimes causes complications such as infection and dyspareunia, or painful sexual intercourse. Lasers, on the other hand, have no complications, he said. Their results, however, do not last a lifetime. “[A] non-invasive laser procedure lasts for two to three years, and then you have to do it again.”

Besides cosmetic purposes, vagina repair also helps those with urinary incontinence, or the inability to hold urine in the bladder.

At Belo, FemiLift treatments cost at least P35,000 per session (a three-session package is P85,000), while ThermiVa costs P50,000 per session (a three-sessions package: P120,000). The cost of vagina repair surgery depends on the hospital, but Dr. Marinduque estimates it is at least P90,000.

BODY IMAGE AND WOMEN COMMODIFICATION
While vagina rejuvenation targets wives and older women around 30 and above, Dr. Marinduque said that he has had a patient who was only 25 years old.

He added: “The laser treatment is controversial in the US because the teens are doing it, too.”

According to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery, 400 girls aged 18 and below had vagina rejuvenation done last year to make their genitals look prettier and perfect.

“I am against it among the youth,” said Dr. Marinduque, “But I foresee in the coming years that the Filipino teens will do it,” he predicted.

Experts blame the influence of the media and the pornography industry which pressure young women to look their best and prettiest, including down there.

Regardless of a woman’s age, the Gabriela Women’s Party thinks that vagina repair presents a messed up view of sexuality and is part of the objectification of women.

“It’s a commodification of women. It’s the desire to ‘maintain the image of virginity’ for sexual pleasure — but mostly that of the men. One of the possible reasons is to keep the family. The women do it to maintain their family intact as well as their youthfulness, which, if you come to think of it, is in relation with the economic and political system that treat women as an object and thus, the weaker sex,” said Joms Salvador, Gabriela secretary general, in a phone interview.

Personally, she said she understands why some women do things to “keep their self-image,” but she thinks it is unnecessary because “if your husband or partner loves you, he’ll accept you no matter what” — including having a loosened vagina (vagina literally translates as “sword-holder” in Latin).

But there are women who do it chiefly for their own sexual pleasure.

“I have a friend who did it for her own pleasure because she finds it more satisfying,” said comedienne Mae Paner, more popularly known as “Juana Change,” a social activist and cultural worker who is also a psychology graduate.

“I see no wrong if you want to satisfy your partner, too. Ang saya din na iniisip mo ang magpapaligaya sa partner mo ’di ba? Pero iba ’yun kungimposed sa iyo ng partner mo. Sana, ultimately, desisyon ng babae, kung gusto niya itong gawin o hindi. Dahil katawan niya ’yun,” she said in an e-mail interview. (“It is also good to think about what will make your partner happy, right? But it’s a different thing if it was imposed on you by your partner. Hopefully, ultimately, it should be the woman’s decision on whether to do it or not. It is her body.”)

“Isip-isip lang muna kung bakit ito gagawin,” she said. (Think carefully on why you are doing it.)

In the end, Juana Change blames no person, but leaves us with this remark: “Medical practitioners like to create a need so that people have reason to spend and consume more. Matagal na ang raket na ’yan. (It is an old racket.)

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TRAVEL & TOURISM

Manila Hotel enters the 21st century

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Text and photos by
Nickky Faustine P. de Guzman

There are two kinds of history: one is written and preserved on books and the other is more tangible; right before our eyes. The Manila Hotel is the latter.

At 104 years old, the hotel is also a museum. It is a repository of mementos, from the American occupation until today. If its walls could talk, it would share the stories and secrets of the people who have stayed in it, including General Douglas MacArthur, singer Michael Jackson, the Rockefeller brothers, disgraced UP President Richard Nixon, and writer Ernest Hemingway, among many familiar names. It is also a gallery that exhibits Manila’s former grandeur and opulence.

“It is one of the great hotels of the Far East. It ranks together with Raffles Hotel in Singapore, a similar hotel in Yangon. They were all built in the early 1900s and have witnessed great events in history. It was the center of social life in Manila. General MacArthur has lived here. Official visitors of the Philippines, the presidents, kings and queens, have stayed here,” Dr. Jaime C. Laya, former Central Bank Governor and Secretary of the Department of Budget and Management during the Marcos administration, told BusinessWorld at the sidelines of the ribbon-cutting marking the hotel’s 104th anniversary on July 4.

His memories of the hotel revolve around its imposing affluence. “It was so exclusive when I was growing up. I remember Coca Cola was only 10 centavos. I was astounded that it was being sold at one peso at the hotel,” he said, adding that he used to marvel at its hotel rooms, including the Winter Garden, “which I think was the only large air conditioned room in Manila at that time.”

THE MANILA HOTEL opened a pop-up museum focusing the hotel’s history — including photographs of Presidents Manuel L. Quezon, Ferdinand Marcos, and Cory Aquino.

In 1898, the American architect and urban designer Daniel Hudson Burnham created the first urban plan for the city of Manila. His vision was of a city with a tree-line boulevard along the Rizal Park from which one could view Manila Bay and its iconic sunset. At the end of the avenue would be a hotel that would welcome and house society’s who’s who and their guests. That time, there was a demand for first-class accommodations. Architecct William Parsons was appointed to continue Burnham’s ideas. Then, in 1912, the hotel was built.

One of the hotel’s mementos, preserved and displayed at its museum, is a letter from a visitor named William Menton, who stayed at Room 820 from June 12 to 15, 1983. He vividly described what Burnham and Parsons had imagined. He said: “Manila, for me, begins at 5 a.m. When the old Spanish Walls of Intramuros, brown with centuries, faintly reflect once more the blue-rose glimmer of dawn.” He said he witnessed the unfolding and awakening of Manila and its landmarks before the day officially started. He continued, “And everything forgotten in the darkness is remembered again. Then, the delicate sky opens itself suddenly to the sun. A curious robin visits my window. Good morning, Nobel and Ever Loyal City.”

VIRTUAL TOUR
In celebration of its anniversary on July 4, the hotel opened a pop-up museum focusing the hotel’s history. It includes photographs of Presidents Manuel L. Quezon, Ferdinand Marcos, and Cory Aquino; a chair and books used by Gen. MacArthur; and black and white photos of old Manila streets like Escolta, Binondo, and Dasmariñas.

The items on display were chosen “because we thought they were of utmost relevance to the public. The ones we thought they could relate to,” said Nian Liwanag-Rigor, Manila Hotel’s corporate communication assistant vice-president.

A chair and books used by Gen. MacArthur

Some items in the hotel’s collection were not shown though — like a mirror with a Michael Jackson signature which “was not nice enough to be displayed because it was in a bad condition,” she added, but she quickly said that no heritage souvenirs were insignificant because every item tells a story.

The hotel has also set up QR (quick response) codes for some of the museum displays and around the hotel itself, through which smartphone users can access videos and articles online. The codes feature photos and videos from the hotel’s archives. Users can comment and “like” them.

As part of its anniversary celebration, anyone who has tapped four of the QR codes is eligible to a stay at the hotel’s superior deluxe rooms for a special price of $104++ per room per night. This includes a complimentary buffet breakfast at the Café Ilang-Ilang for two. Meanwhile, there’s a free buffet banquet for two for anyone who taps 20 QR codes.

The Manila Hotel phone app for accessing the QR codes is available for free on iOS or Android.

The goal is to be more relevant, most especially to millennials who often brush off history and regard it as boring.

“We want history to come alive,” said Ms. Rigor.

The pop-up museum runs until August, but Ms. Rigor said the management is open to the idea of making it a permanent feature.

“In this museum, we see photographs and architecture, the important people. These give us the idea of how life was in the Philippines in the old days. The beauty of the place gives us inspiration, to the extent that it gives the millennials the opportunity to be more proud of our heritage and history,” said Mr. Laya.

“Anyone who knows only hamburger, blue jeans, and television don’t have any roots, and roots, you develop by knowing what your ancestors did, your history. What can you be proud of if you do not know the past?,” he said.

MARKETING

MoneyGram renews endorsement contract with action star

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MONEYGRAM, a global money transfer company, has renewed its contract with actor Robin Padilla as its global ambassador in line with the brand’s continuous efforts to be far-reaching.

“We continue to be bullish. It is all about the services, so people would come back,” Country Manager Alex Chan Lim told BusinessWorld at a press launch on July 7.

The company boasts of its 10-minute money transfers and options on claiming money directly from bank accounts linked with the country’s major bank networks. “People want real-time and convenient transactions,” he said.

Money Gram International, Inc., based in the United States, is one of the leading money transfer companies in the Philippines. It has a global network of 350,000 locations in 200 countries. In the Philippines, it has 12,000 locations. Next month, it will have 1,000 more, said Mr. Lim.

He added that the Philippines is one of the most important key players in remittances thanks to the over 11 million overseas Filipino workers (OFWs).

ROBIN PADILLA

“The Philippines is top three in the market as receivers next to India and China. As senders, hindi tayo malakas (we are not strong) because people hardly come here to work and send money abroad. The Philippines is receiving money, we hardly send,” he added.

The top money senders come from the United States and Saudi Arabia. For instance, he said OFWs in Hawaii send their money mostly to the Ilocos region while OFWs in Japan send money to Davao, but he said “it is across the country.”

He said the profiles of the OFWs depend on where they are. “It depends per region. In the Middle East, they are contract workers, mostly middle-aged men. In the UK, they are nurses, in Hong Kong, meanwhile, they are caregivers,” he said.

The company remains positive despite the “Brexit” and recent terrorist attacks around the world, which are expected to affect those countries’ economies, and, as a result, our remittances.

“This happened to other countries before. Filipinos have two to three other jobs. So the money is ’yun pa din (still the same) becausenapangako na nila na magbibigay sila (they’ve promised their loved ones that they will send money). I do not think there is an OFW who has no intention of sending money here. We are hard working. They would rather not have a lot so they can send back [money]. They would just go to other places [to look for a job]. Walang problema dun (there’s no problem),” said Mr. Lim.

Mr. Padilla, who has been the brand’s ambassador for four years, added that MoneyGram is perhaps the only remittance company in the country that visits war-torn countries like Lebanon, in its efforts to visit OFWs. — Nickky Faustine P. de Guzman

PPO meets its new maestro

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Posted on July 13, 2016

Nickky Faustine P. de Guzman

A black belter and a disciplinarian, Yoshikazu Fukumura, the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra’s (PP0) newest maestro, promises to make the PPO “one of the best orchestra groups in Asia.” His strategies: Go back to basics, and no late comers, please.

 

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THE PHILIPPINE Philharmonic Orchestra’s new musical director Yoshikazu Fukumura.

“I demand discipline,” he said in Nihonggo before an intimate press launch on July 6. An interpreter was there.

The maestro sees no problems arising from the language barrier. Music, after all, is a universal language. “Of course, it is really difficult to explain things with words. Orchestra members are music persons, so there is that common language of music. I have dealt with many orchestras in different countries and if it is simple words related to music and to the work I am doing, I speak different languages on a practical level... If you are a musician, you understand music,” he said.

While language is not an issue, he said coming late to rehearsals without a compelling reason “is unacceptable.” He even joked about using his black-belt moves on late comers.

“He is very energetic,” Cultural Center of the Philippines president Raul Sunico added while moving his hands in the air as a demonstration. “He moves a lot.”

The 70-year-old conductor said he had no problems at all when he was the PPO’s guest conductor during select concerts in 2012, 2013, and 2015. He said he was even drawn to work with the group because the “PPO has a unique sound; something that is warm, something which is bright, meaning light.”

He added: “This is something that you cannot feel or hear in any other Asian orchestras, including Japan. I believe that the orchestra has its potentials. There were efforts of the musicians on their own, as well as with the help of the foreigners who have brought it to this level, but I believe that Filipinos have a sense of musicality and so this dream that I have for the orchestra is a possibility. It is attainable.”

Mr. Fukumura is the former music director of Tokyo Ballet, the Kyoto Municipal Symphony, and the Nagoya Philharmonic.

“His selection as the new music director of the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra is an exciting development and promises to add a dynamic and innovative chapter to the constant evolution of the PPO,” added Mr. Sunico.

BACK TO BASICS
The PPO recently returned from its very first performance at the famed Carnegie Hall in New York City under the baton of Mr. Fukumura’s predecessor, Olivier Ochanine.

“I do not desire to criticize my predecessors,” said Mr. Fukumura, but he thought PPO “is lacking in basics.”

He noticed this after looking back to the last three or four PPO performances. “Basics,” as in more conservative programs and a repertoire of classic pieces, he said.

He added that the group should “focus on the need to redevelop the audience.”

A concert is sustained by the concert-goers -- “in order for the audience to come, the performance should be interesting,” he said.

Mr. Sunico agreed and said that going back to basics is having “good foundation,” but also said that the basics, or the classics like Beethoven and Mozart, “are difficult.”

But PPO is ready to embrace the coming changes once Mr. Fukumura starts conducting in September. -- Nickky Faustine P. de Guzman

Arts & Leisure

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By Nickky Faustine P. de Guzman, Reporter

A glimpse of the Gilded Age

Posted on June 29, 2016

THERE’S an ongoing exhibit at the Leon Gallery in Makati for millennials. There’s nothing exactly millennial about it, but the display called Filipinos in the Gilded Age is a look back -- even forward -- to what is “us.”

 

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PAINTINGS by Juan Luna are set up gallery spaces made to look like the 19^th century rooms they would originally have been seen in.

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“It’s the idea of nationhood,” one of the curators, Liliane “Tats” Manahan, told BusinessWorld during a private visit days before the exhibit opening. She shared curating duries with Ramon Villegas and Lizza Guerrero Nakpil.

“A lot of the young kids have forgotten who we are. There has been a lot of information overload for everyone. We want to showcase the distinguishing thing of 19^th century; the whole idea of nationhood.”

On view until July 30, the exhibit shows paintings -- many previously unseen in the Philippines -- by the late 19^th century Illustrados including Juan Luna, Felix Resurreccion Hidalgo, Damian Domingo, Rafael Martinez, Miguel Zaragoza, Felix Martinez, and Manuel Espiritu.

“The Illustrados (enlightened ones) brought back all these things for us to chew on. All the guys who did the most significant acts were in their ‘millennial days.’ Jose Rizal must have been in his 20s when he wrote Noli Me Tangere. The millennials today have to be informed about this. The information is not only what you find on Google,” said Ms. Manahan.

A separate room highlights furniture and ivory sculptures “of our great Filipino master crafters during the Galleon Trade, all made and exported for the Spanish market,” said gallery owner, Jaime Ponce de Leon.

“It’s showcasing who we were in 19^th century, all these were produced by the enlightened ones who traveled for education and [were] at par with the best. Here they are, it shows magnificence,” said Mr. Ponce de Leon.

WHO IS THE FILIPINO?
The gallery was purposely made to look the 19^th century rooms where the painting were first seen, painted with “all shades of goose shit” like green, light green, and cream, which were the colors of the era, said Ms. Manahan, who painted the details in the wall. She said foie gras was becoming popular then, hence the color.

On one side is a simulation of Juan Luna’s studio in Paris.

“It is exposure. It is experimental. The room is total immersion. This is what Pinoys looked like before,” Ms. Manahan said, smiling.

There has always been an endless debate on who are the Filipinos, she said.

“The thing is, a lot of Pinoys still think that our ancestors are itas (Aetas). Maybe if you are from that region, yes. But if you’re not, I know my ancestors are not Aetas. Somewhere along the line, there’s Chinese... I mean we are all of the above, and that’s what makes us, Filipinos, unique.”

A controversial work encapsulated best the debate Ms. Manahan was trying to explain.

Placed at the gallery entrance is a painting called the Habitantes Indigenos ante de la Reina Regente en la Exposicion General de las Yslas Filipinas de Madrid, 1887 by an unknown painter. It shows indigenous Filipinos presented to the Queen Regent, Maria Cristina, at the Exposition of the Philippine Islands held in Madrid’s Zoological Gardens.

“Probably [it is made by] a court painter who happened to be allowed inside when the Filipinos were presented as natives to the Queen of Spain. The queen is Maria Cristina, a widow at the time [hence she was in black.] If you noticed the natives, they were asked to wear pants, except the two who even did not want to bow,” she said.

The painting shows a group of Ifugao men bowing to the Queen. Some wear salakot (a native hat), and all are wearing G-strings over a piece of cloth that covered their privates. But two Ifugao men, with G-strings only, remain standing at the back.

The exposition was controversial. A part of the exhibition was dedicated to Philippine fine arts, where the paintings by Illustrados like Luna and Hidalgo were highly regarded by the Europeans. But on the other hand, some say the fair was meant to humiliate. According to the book The Embarrassment of Slavery: Controversies over Bondage and Nationalism in the American Colonial Philippines by Michael Salman, Jose Rizal and Antonio Luna condemned the exposition.

It said: “The Madrid Exposition, however, put live Igorots on display. Illustrados objected that this was an assault on human dignity and a misrepresentation of the Philippines.”

Asked how he obtained got the controversial painting, Mr. Ponce de Leon said: “[I’m always interested in] anything about the Philippines or Filipino artists. Someone alerted me about this. I was brought to a home in Barrio Salamanca in Madrid. I saw it there, and, wow, just wow.”

Always on the lookout for Filipino arts whenever he travels, he acquired the items on exhibit over the past seven years.

“Everything or anything Filipino, I really try to get even if they are not attractive. But it’s a bonus if it’s a recognized subject, like Telesforo Chuidian. But, yeah, it’s just repatriating what belongs to us. They should be [brought] back.

“With hope, there are other treasures that may be found,” he added, saying that all the items were from travels, private markets, and auctions, that, “to me, are all authentic.”

“The burden of truth is on their side to prove that they are fake,” Mr. Ponce de Leon said.

AND OTHER THINGS
Among the items on exhibit are Luna’s paintings on gypsies and his travels in Paris. Some paintings were commissioned by European royalty and the upper-crust. But as far as Mr. Ponce de Leon is concerned, one of the most interesting pieces is a portrait of Telesforo Chuidian painted by Felix Martinez. Chuidian, a Chinese businessman, was one of the biggest financiers of the Philippine Revolution.

“I got to find out from Tats [Manahan] and Liza [Nakpil, her co-curator] that he fathered a lot of children. He’s the ancestors of a lot of people we know, some are our friends. He’s the model of Kapitan Tiago in Noli Me Tangere. Isn’t it interesting? Even their descendants are happy to know about this and they’re sharing it on Facebook,” said Mr. Ponce de Leon.

Besides the paintings themselves, the frames surrounding them are also noteworthy.

“Some of the frames are original; we did not purposely match it to show that it’s restored. Some are 24-karat gold,” said Ms. Manahan.

The decorative motifs of the 19^th century were “Turkish tulips, peacocks, and peahens,” she added. While the majority of the frames were gilded, Hidalgo opted for framing his paintings in simple brown wood.

Also on view are a number of ivory objet d’art which were sourced from Spanish and French collectors. The items, made from ivory sourced in Thailand, then carved here in the Philippines, showcase the makers’ careful and intricate artisanship.

“The ivories were from Thailand and were carved here. They were for import, in Spain. Jaime [Ponce de Leon] is repatriating them. Don’t they make you proud to be Pinoy?,” said Ms. Manahan.