Found: A cache of ang Kiukoks at the pen & the tale of a football-playing boy who grew up to become hotel GM

Ah, the intricate stirrings of coincidence.

The Peninsula Manila general manager Masahisa Oba walks toward a mid to late-’70s tempera painting of fish and nets by Ang Kiukok, National Artist for Visual Arts. “Here is an image of fish,” says the Japanese hotel executive, “and I am a man from a fish country.”

Oba tours us inside the 90-seat The Gallery Club, the newly opened lounge of the Pen, where suite guests can have buffet breakfasts, afternoon teas as well as cocktails featuring a curated selection of spirits and sommelier-selected wines. From a certain vantage point, you could see an infinity of Kiukoks — a phalanx of inspired Expressionist markings on the posts of the 72-square-meter space, all 20 of them depicting something colorful, celebratory and iconic about places in the Philippines: Negros with its Sugarlandia, Leyte with its San Juanico Bridge, Zamboanga with the vintas, Masbate with its cattle, Davao with its durian, Marinduque with its Moriones, Aklan with its Ati-Atihan, and Pampanga with its parol, among others. The story, the spirit of each town or province told by the power of Ang’s deft, jagged brushwork.

“The works are done on illustration board — very unstable, we had to do a lot of work to restore them,” points out Mariano “Garch” Garchitorena, director of public relations at Manila Pen.

What was the price for the Ang Kiukok tempera paintings on illustration board that were commissioned by the hotel in 1976? The answer: a princely sum of P1,600 each — including the frame. It costs a fortune now, says Garch, “a lot more zeroes.” They had the works restored by art conservator Missy Reyes (who takes on restoration projects for the National Museum and the Met) and reframed. The new museum-type glass frames alone cost more than 40 times the original amount of each piece. Applying a protective coat of UV-filter to each frame is the next step.   

The paintings were originally installed in the suites (which were named after Philippine provinces back then). They relocated to the lobbies beside the lifts in ’94. They were put in storage when the hotel had renovations done in 2006. Now, the Ang Kiukoks stun in their new space — along with works by Romulo Olazo, Rosario “Charito” Bitanga, Soler Santos, Ephraim Samson, and Manuel Rodriguez. With the seven-meter floor-to-ceiling glass windows running the length of the gallery, and a view of Napoleon Abueva’s iconic “Sunburst” sculpture in the ceiling of the Lobby, The Gallery Club can be described as “an art lounge in the sky.”

“I think we’re the only hotel in the Philippines with this big of a collection of Kiukoks,” says Garch, adding that auction houses have come a-calling, but the Pen is intent on keeping the masterworks.

Ang Kiukok has been characterized as quiet, a man of few words — the exact opposite of his figures which are fiery, angry, lamenting loudly their existential dread. He was — as Garch puts it — “a very gentle man.” Wearing a plain white shirt and khaki, the man worked laboriously in his studio.

Speaking of hard work and humble roots, Masahisa Oba — the 15th general manager in the 44-year history of The Peninsula Manila — shares how he grew up in a Japanese countryside town in the Kanagawa Prefecture of Japan.

“I am going to be very honest,” says Oba. “Many people think I come from a super-rich family. My hometown is Sagamihara, in the mountainside. When I was growing up, I never saw any foreigners. I saw them only in the movies.” His parents were not international businessmen from Tokyo or Osaka who travel all the time and speak English fluently. They were simple folk: the father worked as a salesman of greenhouse heaters and the housewife mother worked part-time in the town supermarket. Oba’s first trip outside of Japan was when he was already 18.

As a boy, Masahisa dreamed of only one thing: football. He wanted to be the next Hidetoshi Nakata, the legendary football player who participated in three FIFA World Cup tournaments. “I didn’t study hard in school, because all I wanted to do was play football,” says the hotel executive.

But becoming a legend on the pitch was not in the works for Oba, who was also a midfielder like Nakata. He had to admit that there was no future for him as a footballer.

It was not because of an injury or the breaks. It was because — as Oba puts it — he was not good enough. Suddenly, the boy found himself rudderless and lacking direction. One day, his football coach took him aside and told him, “You are very good with people, Oba-san, why don’t you apply to a hotel school. You can make use of your character (in a hotel).”

It would be simplistic to say that that became Masahisa Oba’s goal right then and there. But a series of fortunate incidents led him on a path of varying successes — from studies at Japan Hotel School, to further studies at Ecole Hôtelière de Lausanne’s hotel management program, to a management trainee stint at the Beverly Hilton in LA, to working in the food & beverage division of the Park Hyatt Tokyo, to working in the world’s leading international luxury hotels in Japan, Oman, and the Philippines.

In 2007, Oba joined The Peninsula Hotels as manager of F&B at The Peninsula Tokyo, and was promoted to director of F&B the following year. He was then moved on to serve as executive assistant manager of F&B at The Peninsula Shanghai, before returning to The Peninsula Tokyo as resident manager in 2011. In June 2014, he moved to Hong Kong after securing the post of hotel manager at The Peninsula Hong Kong.

What could be a direr scenario for a hotel executive than being ensconced in the top floor watching a sea of black shirts, riot police, Molotov cocktails, human chains, tear gas smoke, and screaming swell around the hotel? Bad for business, no doubt. Well, bad for everything.

When Masahisa Oba was sent to the Philippines, new challenges arose for the man, as the threat of Covid-19 cast its shadow upon the land, upon the world. It is business as usual for Oba and the rest of Manila Pen.

“Our hotel is doing extremely well, considering the current situation. Our staff-members are smiling, we have lots of guests who believe in our brand, our culture, our people. We are prepared.”

 “Manila has seen everything,” adds Garch. “Presidents come and go. There have been peaceful revolutions, coup d’états, typhoons, floods, etc. We always come out a little bit tarnished but shiny still. The Manila Pen is the Grand Old Lady, a mature broad, so to speak.”  

Oba concludes, “We always believe in surviving with the community. We believe in continuity.”

As a side note: Masahisa Oba will lead his staff in repainting the gutter around the perimeter of the hotel. He noticed the peeling paint during his morning walks. Oba-san will be holding a paintbrush — just like the masters in The Gallery Club did ages ago. Not at the level of a Kiukok or a Malang, of course, but with the same heart.

The same colors of a charmed life.

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The Peninsula Manila is at the corner of Ayala and Makati Avenues, Makati City, Metro Manila, Philippines, for information visit www.peninsula.com or peninsula.com/en/newsroom/manila.