IA#4
Lost In A Museum…Or How I Got Seperated From My Family While Roaming the Philippine National Museum
A selfie with the great Luna masterpiece…before losing my way around the galleries of paintings
Having a nice douie (is there even a word for two people taking a selfie?) with the great Dolphy!
It was my (along with my Mom and Dad) first time to the National Mesuem.
Execpt for my sister, no one in the family has ever visited this museum at all. It was actually fun to see the paintings, scupltures, and all things it made by artist themselves — and that was just the first building!
Upon entering, we paid the entrance fee (40 pesos for students and 120 for adults) before entering the first hall that contained the museum’s greatest collection: Spolarium.
Fun fact: Originally a library, the National Museum’s structural design was so beautiful that the government decided to just use it as the Philippines Legistlative Building instead. Above is the author’s selfie in the reconstructed Senate Hall.
So there we were, rooming the great hall that showed Luna’s greatest work before I told my mom that I’ll go about and explore more to finish the whole ASTHET thing.
And suddenly, I became (drum roll please) DORA THE EXPLORER!!!!!!
There I was, roaming around the first floor as I took pictures of portraits (especially the one about the two Pasig Boys and Jose Rizal and WWII Era paintings) before entering a room full of American-era portraits.
Jose Rizal — The Dude with the Writer’s Sword
Bombing of Manila…
Ramon Magsaysay, my hero…
After my romp in the first level, I decided to head the second floor (after thinking the second floor was actually the office era) and continue looking around their paintings.
The first selfie of the Philippines with my selfie— Jose Joya artwork
Justice under Martial Law — such a perfect description regarding such things…
Another Luna artwork whose name I totally forgot…
Fidel Ramos and I chilling out together…after my fourth round looking for my Family
By the time I finished taking pictures for the ASTHET home work, I was totally sure my family was looking for me.
There and then, I started looking for them (even going as far as taking to some guards and taking a quick yet very scary search at the Museum’s second building), and I was totally sure that it took my around five roamings IN THE SECOND FLOOR ALONE (six, I think, for the first floor) before I found them.
In my time searching for them, I finally realized how there is only a small minority wanting to look and even care for these paintings (and a small portion of them were foreigners). Most of society only cares for things that would help them — and not the things that remind us of what truly make our past. And sad to say, I truly believe that I am in latter group.
As my family and I waited for the GrabCar we booked, I thought about how little our focus is on our arts and history — hell, I’ve heard rumors that my generation doesn’t believe in all the stuff that has happened during the Martial Law — and how we are starting not to care about them.
As I finish this blog, I finally think that little project of mine should now be a next focus after my top priorities right now. [Come to think of it, a novel about a secret society of Filipinos (born during the Martial Law Era) finally taking over the Philippines and change it for the better needs to published right away by now…]
To end this report, let’s end this report by saying:
"Ang hindi marunong lumingon sa pinangalingan ay hindi makakarating sa paroroonan."
These paintings in the Philippine National Museum are and will be our past and will — no matter what they say — define our future…if we can figure it out, that is.