Grand opening of Legazpi exhibition

Spanish FA Secretary Ramon Gil Casares and Dr. Felipe V. Garin, executive chairman of the Spanish Cultural Action Abroad, headed the entourage that expressly flew to Manila for last Wednesday’s opening at the National Museum of "Philippines, Gateway to the Orient from Legazpi to Malaspina" which exhibition commemorates the fourth birth centenary of Legazpi.

Other members of the visiting group were Gerardo Bugallo; Anton Arubulu, mayor of Zumarraga, San Sebastian, Legazpi’s birthplace; Jorge de Orueta, Luis Francisco Garcia Cerezo and Carlos Morales who was previously assigned in Manila.

Ambassador Ignacio Sagaz welcomed the Spanish dignitaries. Executive Secretary Alberto Romulo made up the Philippine counterpart along with Sen. Edgardo Angara (he authored a bill setting aside a Phil-Spanish Friendship Day), Speaker Jose de Venecia, Mayor Joselito Atienza and Mrs. Conchitina S. Bernardo, wife of our ambassador to Spain.

Personalities in culture and the arts, historians, academicians, clerics, antique collectors and diplomats were already gathered at 10:30 a.m. for the 11 o’clock opening of the exhibit at Tambunting Hall. Speeches were delivered by Sec. Casares who spoke in English, Museum Director Corazon Alvina who spoke partly in Spanish, and Dr. Garin whose speech had to be translated into English.

Speaker De Venecia read a citation – penned by him and Sen. Angara – in praise of Sec. Casares, and Mayor Atienza gave a few remarks stressing that "A knowledge of our past will assure us of our future".

Instituto Cervantes, which played a major role in the arrangements, was represented by Director Javier Galvan, Deputy for Cultural Affairs Jose Ma. Fons, academic head Ana Reguillo and faculty member Clarisse Lukban.

The three sections of the exhibit are first, derroteos (nautical), this relating to navigation, scientific explorations and expeditions of three centuries; the second shows governance, administration and evangelization – in brief, colonialization; the third consists of artifacts of interchange underscoring Occidental-Oriental relations via the Galleon Trade.

We see weaponry, maps, rare documents, books, priestly vestments, sculptured ivory and paintings with colors still fresh and vivid (perhaps having been restored). In 1764, a priest commissioned a Cantonese artist to do the mitre of San Fermin now kept in the San Lorenzo Church in Pamplona (Spain); it was transported from China to Manila, then to Mexico, and from there to Pamplona.

There is the empty baul which IC Director Galvan calls a balikbayan, the painting on its inner cover having been done by a Filipino artist in the 17th century. Probably the oldest pictorial presentation of Manila, the painting depicts buildings in Intramuros and strollers – priests, Chinese sampans, Muslims – a diverse, multi-cultural group.

A Filipino viewer remarked, "What a pity our country doesn’t own the exhibtion items which are a link to our past!" At any rate, the show, which promises to be the year’s biggest and most historical, is not to be missed.