"Mambobola," pen and ink on paper, 21"x29", 2009

Green is the new Adamson Blue

Adamson News/NOV 09 issue/Editorial

In environmental advocacy, there are myriad ways to express one’s statements and convictions. Some bare their flesh to get their eye-popping message across while others invade the streets armed with screaming placards and vocal chords. Still others prefer the quiet but potent tentacles of the www to engage a cyber audience, or lobby in congress hoping that its so-called Honorables will forego their own narrow interests and support what is good for the majority.
Like the poet Carl Sandburg’s fog that “comes on little cat feet,” the formal launch of Adamson University’s latest environment-friendly endeavor resorted to no hype save for a solemn blessing. On a rainy November 5 afternoon, the university’s top and mid-level administrators witnessed the inauguration of the Sewage Treatment Plant (STP), said to be the second of only two existing among the schools in the country today.
This Php10 million watershed initiative adds a new badge of honor to the University but for now, the movers and shakers behind this project are content to relish the completion of one that challenged the university’s resources and demanded their resourcefulness and determination to see it finished. Sharing its technological, environmental, economic and even educational benefits with other schools is a future move.
Simply put, the STP collects 250 cubic meters of dirty liquid per day from various septic tanks in the first few chambers of the plant which is located in the narrow strip between the estero and the back of OZ building. As the collected water flows from one chamber to another, it becomes cleaner and clearer until it reaches the final stage wherein it is ready to be sent back to the toilets for reuse in flush tanks or for watering plants. The plant in effect returns 200 cubic meters per day of reusable water - which is the same amount of clean water that will be saved by the university once the STP operates in full. Engr. Merlinda Palencia, chair of the Chemical Engineering department and coordinator of the project, said that the structure is good for some 20 years while the equipment in the adjacent control room will last five years.
There are several messages that this new facility conveys.
First, it shows how resolute the university is in its attempts to come up with a clean campus environment. Late last year, it introduced and encouraged the practice of the 5S program, the Japanese-inspired systematic cleaning up of the workplace and surroundings. To that basic effort, Adamson has now added a higher level of environmentally sound practice that comes close to the kind that some big industries have. It is therefore in solidarity with the bigger national and global push to clean up and preserve the environment.
Second, by virtue of its being built with an all-Adamsonian cast of engineers, consultants and administrators, the project attests to the competency of Adamson alumni engineers and the excellent quality of the school’s engineering education that these alumni went through in their college days. Homegrown technical professionals doing a big project for their Alma Mater, nothing could be more inspiring.
Lastly, although the University is the primary beneficiary of the STP, the outside community will also be able to share in a cognate effect: the minimization of the pollution of the Estero de Balete and of the Pasig River that the former is a tributary of. Wastewater disposal to the estero will be considerably lessened.
As Adamson steps up its green cause, not because it is the hip thing to do these days but because the dangers that can come from a damaged environment are real, imminent and as fearsome as the “2012” flick, it is important that every member of the Adamson community throw in his share. No matter how minimal, the contribution of each will count and gather weight when put together.
As a school, our official colors are blue and white to symbolize our search for excellence but these do not prevent us from going green.

SV Building
Adamson University
Typhoon "Ondoy," 26-27 September 2009









Mired

On September 26, 2009, Typhoon Ondoy poured its fury on Metro Manila in the form of the heaviest rainfall ever recorded in Philippine weather history. In a matter of hours, large areas of the metropolis and outlying provinces were inundated with murky water rising up as high as 20 feet in some places. Damage to property was extensive and not a few lost their lives as the floodwaters raged on.
It was a different sight altogether when the waters receded. Anywhere TV news cameras panned, it was the same thick brown mud that viewers could see deposited on streets and inside houses mixed up with debris that were previously tossed about by strong currents.
Ondoy brought untold suffering to many and it will surely take some time before the survivors can fully rebuild their lives. In true Pinoy fashion, though, many responded immediately by extending assistance in whatever form and by whatever means to those who were affected. In spite of being badly hit itself, Adamson University quickly mobilized its community so that help could be given to its adopted marginalized communities that were just as unlucky. As of this moment, the relief efforts are still ongoing.
By way of salvaging some positive residue, lessons from this tragedy abound for the taking: preparedness when disaster strikes, treating nature and the environment with more respect, throwing trash where they should properly be, valuing relationships and spiritual treasures more than material things - which can be wiped out in a flash, faith in God in spite of the seeming hopelessness of the moment, rising up again by overcoming adversity instead of wallowing in despair, and so on.
If applied, a future difficult situation similar to what Ondoy brought about might be more manageable.
But even in perfect weather there is perfect mud, the kind that has mired the nation for some time now, effectively hindering progress and advancement: it is the culture of corruption, dishonesty and rabid self-interest that thrives in our government institutions. The problem may be enormous but not entirely irremediable. Again, Adamson University, as an educational institution, can contribute a lot to the clearing up of this bane. By raising and molding students with the right values, outlook and critical vision, the University can produce socially responsible, God-fearing, and productive citizens who will eventually pluck this country out of the quagmire we all wish to be freed from.

Shades of Summer

The News Next Door

The News Next Door

Raul Agner

Pen and ink on acid-free paper

2001

An inconsiderate neighbor can be a pain in the a__. His whole household can disturb your simple luxuries like reading the morning paper. You, an unlucky guy, have no choice but grit your teeth and bear the cacophonic repertoire of conjugal fights, videoke singing, the sizzle of mah-jong tiles at midnight and other “ear-ritants.” That’s the subject of this drawing.

An Old Work

Geronima

Raul Agner
Acrylic on canvas
2001

The “Balangiga Massacre” or “Balangiga Encounter,” as some prefer to call it, happened in the small town of Balangiga in the southern part of Samar Island in September 1901. A company of American soldiers sent there to help clear the island of Filipino insurgents was nearly wiped out by sundang (long knife)-wielding townsfolk who became fed up with the restrictions and abuses of the soldiers. The townspeople, far inferior in arms than the occupying forces, hatched up a plan for a dawn attack on the soldiers. Dressed as women, and pretending to carry coffins of child cholera victims – which in truth contained bladed weapons, the men assembled in the church at midnight purportedly to say prayers for the dead. A brave woman risked her life by carrying several sundang hidden beneath her skirt to the church for the men to use as additional weapons. The attack on the American camp near the church was successfully carried out at dawn, signalled by the frenzied tolling of church bells, while the soldiers were having breakfast - the only time of day when they don’t carry guns. A few Americans survived the attack which the Filipinos considered justified given the superior weapons of the enemy and the unbearable extent of their abuses.
This painting was one of the artworks exhibited in the show "Echoes of Balangiga" in Hiroshima, Japan in 2002.

Chronicles of an Accidental Friendship

by Raul Agner
(photo of Bobi borrowed from philvisualarts blog)

My accidental visit to an art gallery in Manila twenty-five years ago exemplifies the old saw that everything happens for a reason. It started off a friendship with a person that would be enriching especially for me, resulting in art-related pursuits that would be advantageous to others as well. After our first meeting, I gradually learned that he was playing an important, self-defined curatorial role in the incipient stages of post-Imeldific Philippine art.

Accidental Friendship
While attending a Museology symposium at the National Library on October 3, 1984, I spent the lunch break looking around Mabini St. for cheap frames for my small drawings. At U.N. Ave., I chanced upon a shop with a glass storefront whose attraction was hard to resist because the paintings inside looked freshly familiar. I had no clue then that I was at the doorstep of Hiraya Gallery. Before leaving Tacloban the previous day, I had been reading an article in Focus magazine about an upcoming artist named Renato Habulan. Noticing that the paintings visible through the glass were the same as the photos in the article, I got excited and decided to go in. My eyes feasted on everything they could set their sights on, even as I sensed that somebody was watching my visual exploration through a gap between a suspended display panel and the wall.
That guy later introduced himself as Bobi Valenzuela who, as I was about to leave, asked me to sign the guestbook. He also offered me coffee. I didn’t know what to say but any probinsyano would certainly feel important and welcome if extended this friendly gesture especially in a very impersonal place like Manila. With a hesitant yes, I found myself sipping coffee at the mezzanine. Moreover, I met the artist himself who was responsible for the moving works downstairs. Still clear in my memory is the sight of Habulan, a social realist artist, shedding a tear as he lamented the prevailing social conditions. These people, I thought, must be serious about art and life.

Letters
Back in Leyte, I wrote Bobi to thank him for his hospitality. In two days, he wrote back to say he was glad to have met me, reiterating an invitation that I drop by Hiraya every time I happened to be in Manila. That initial exchange of letters became a groundbreaking step for our regular, almost weekly, communication until the advent of e-mail and cellphones made it obsolete.
In his letters, Bobi shared his ideas about art, his work as art curator, updates on the Manila art scene, the artists who mattered, and even some characters he found hard to deal with. In return, I wrote about my museum job, my attempts at artmaking, the local art scene and artists, and culture in general. He always emphasized that art should go beyond a show of artistic skill; he disliked the done-to-death Madonna and Child. More importantly, it should have something important to say, a sensitivity to realities that affect country or community.

Projects, Events
Our friendship, our letter writing, led to many things that would not have happened had I not decided to step inside Hiraya Gallery that fateful day in October.
In 1991, Bobi and Manny Chaves accepted my invitation to redesign the Divine Word university Museum in Tacloban which I curated then. From a drab repository of artifacts, they transformed it into a more visitor-friendly place that employed the local colourful banig as design motif. We agreed to name the whole permanent exhibit “Sungdu-an: A Confluence of Leyte-Samar Culture,” the Waray word meaning ‘meeting point of two rivers or confluence.’ I believe it was through Bobi’s suggestion that the word was used as title for the group show of visual artists from all over the country initiated by the NCCA-Committee on Visual Arts in the late ‘90s. Incidentally, Archie Zabala, a member of my hometown’s art group, qualified as Eastern Visayas’ representative to the “Sungdu-an 3: Making the Local” exhibit at the Cultural Center of the Philippines in 2004.

More Activities
Through Bobi, upcoming artist Alwin Reamillo came to Palo, Leyte in 1994 to conduct an installation art workshop for the Atitipalo Art Group. It was an important learning experience for the members as it exposed them to the alternative possibilities and purposes of creating art. Ironically, Bobi, a non-Visayan, connected us to the other Visayan artists in Bacolod so that in 1994, the Atitipalo was able to join the 3rd Visayas Islands Visual Arts Exhibition and Conference in Dumaguete. From that first attendance, the other artists from Eastern Visayas were able to network with the VIVA EXCON and regularly attend the succeeding gatherings. The high point of this inter-island networking was when the Leyte artists played host to the 6th VIVA EXCON in 2000 in Tacloban, with Bobi serving as exhibition curator.
Another workshop was made available to young artists in our area again through Bobi’s efforts. Noel Cuizon and Emong Borlongan conducted a Basic Drawing and Paper Sculpture Workshop in 1995 accompanied by Bobi and Ditas Samson of the CCP.
The first local group show of the Atitipalo was in 1996 in our hometown, largely through the encouragement of Bobi. In the same year, Bobi invited me to contribute to Ang De Latang Pinoy, a collaborative exhibit at the Hiraya Gallery. In 2002, I held my first show of drawings at the Drawing Room in Makati, a humble achievement and a somewhat late-blooming output of my long letter-writing-based “art education” with Bobi.

Contribution
Bobi chose to work behind the scenes. In one letter, he wrote that his favourite line was “the tragedy of being public like a frog,” from Susan Sontag. What really mattered was that the work was carried out as envisioned. Bobi’s contributions to art in my part of the archipelago may not be known to many but then he was never after quantity. The few who understood his message continue to make art along the path that he delineated.
Bobi became my kumpare, godfather to my second daughter, in 1996. The last time I saw him was on March 20, 2008 when together with my wife and two daughters, I visited him in his BF Paranaque home. In a few months, he would finally leave for the great beyond.
A stack of his letters sits quietly at home in Tacloban, a testament to our friendship that started as a chance meeting but, because it bore so many fruits, makes me believe that it had to happen for that reason.