National Museum of the Philippines
February 4, 2016 (Thursday) was the day me and my friends decided to visit the National Museum of the Philippines. It was a lovely morning and we were as excited to engulf ourselves with what our country had to offer. The Museum is institutionalized by the government of the Philippines as an educational, scientific, historical, and cultural institution as well as to preserve its national properties for the public to see. It is divided into four: National Museum of Fine Arts, National Museum of Anthropology, National Museum of History, and the National Planetarium.
Of course, the first collection that we visited was the famous Berlin Wall or the so called, “Iron Wall” that divided Berlin, Germany into Eastern and Western parts from 1961 to 1989. This historical piece that was given to the Philippines was so breathtaking that it was an honor to have gone near it. It’s whole presence was so strong that it felt like I was being taken back in time where thousands of German people tried to escape by going over the wall and where hundreds died because of it (I was actually hoping to find at least traces of blood to have an even heavier feel of it). I could not help but go around and around the wall looking at it in every detail, from front to back, and side to side trying to imprint every bit of it into my memory. Even the graffiti art was so historical. Since it was so open, the Germans from the Western side expressed their emotions through their art. However, since the Eastern side of the wall was stricter, the Germans were prohibited to go near it as well as putting paint on it.
Next were some ancient Chinese artifacts. These jars called, “Dragon Jars” were manufactured in Southern China expressing the 16th century Chinese pottery art and depicting China’s oldest myths showing prominence of the ears.
Other ancient Chinese artifacts were some porcelain dishes and plates of the finest quality. The picture below is the arrangement of these Chinese porcelains of what they called “The Admiral’s Table” as it depicted the extravagant lifestyle reserved for the Spanish Aristocrats. The bottles were made for wine while accompanied by silver tableware, as the fork being a new fashion trend.
Now, allow me to introduce this fascinating burial jar of the early Filipinos. This depicted the Filipino’s spiritual belief of having life after death. The practice of secondary burial was common among the Filipinos. This involved the re-burial and treatment of the bones of the dead after the body has been allowed to decompose for some time. The process included the washing of bones. The jar shown to the left is were it holds the ribs and long bones. The fascinating part is the form of the jar. It was said that the jar was designed/molded in accordance to the face of the person who died. This practice was done because of the belief of having an afterlife and where such goods would be useful during the journey to the afterworld.
Another collection of the museum contributed to the current form of the one very important national icon of today, the Philippines flag. The Flag of the Magdiwang Faction of Katipunan was used when revolution was on the rise. The Magdiwang group adopted this red flag with the symbol “Ka” of the Filipino alibata which stands for “Katipunan”. The flag of the Magdalo Faction of the Katipunan was used in Cavite by Emilio Aguinaldo. It’s design was adopted by the Magdiwang Faction of Katipunan Flag, however, minimizing the rays to eight (8) representing the provinces in Luzon that pledged its support to fight under Aguinaldo’s banner. These two flags were part of the historical evolution of the current Philippine flag.
This ancient artifact is what they call the “Batong Monreal” or the “Monreal Stones”. These are limestone tablets where the ancient Filipino scripts or the Baybayin, an ancient native script that was used by Spanish friars to popularize religious teachings among early Filipinos, was engraved. The preservation of these tablets/stones was for the purpose of raising awareness on the importance of our native culture and heritage as well as the need to protect the knowledge of the past.
The following artifact is a wood carving of a person that was meant to be placed on the entrance of the granary to guard the harvest by the people in Ifugao.
And last, but definitely not the least, is national artist Carlos “Botong” Fransisco’s painting entitled, “The Progress of Medicine in the Philippines”. It depicts the historical timeline of the Philippine medicine from the Precolonial, Spanish, American up to the modern era. It was brought to the National Museum as the paintings was observed to be slowly deteriorating due to the harsh environment of the Philippine General Hospital’s lobby that was exposed to pollution.
