CONTEMPORARY PHILIPPINE ARTS

ACTIVITY 2. Answer the following briefly and completely. Limit your answers to 3-5 sentences.

1. Suppose I am giving you the chance to choose where we will go for a tour/field trip, what national center
will you recommend the class and why?
- I would recommend the National Museum of Natural History in Manila if we’re to be given a chance.
Museums plays a big role in reminding us our culture, history, and our environment through arts,
installations, artifacts and others that make up our national identity. This is one of those popular museums
that exhibits such. Besides that, it is also free of charge, meaning we can go without even paying. I also like
the Neo Classical style architecture of it. It’s highly educational about the geography, history, and culture of
the Philippines too.

2. What do you think is/are the importance/s of having a coordinating body in culture and arts? What would
have happened to Philippine arts if these cultural art centers did not exist?
- Arts and culture come together. They bring unity to people as it is an effective way of preserving and
strengthening one’s creativity and national identity regardless of differences. It supports the different regions
and communities, and boosts learning. If cultural art centers didn’t exist, Philippine arts wouldn’t have been
promoted that could result to forgetting. Filipino arts would’ve gone extinct too because it is not preserved.
Also, we wouldn’t have gotten any idea to be able to picture what the arts and cultural traditions of the past
looks like. Thus, we wouldn’t have known too the distinct art forms and cultural traditions of our past
ancestors. This is the reason why cultural art centers exist.

3. How is the subject of the painting related to the Philippine history and experience?
- The subject of the painting is related to the Philippine history and experience as Spoliarium is usually
interpreted as representation of the suffering the Filipinos have experienced during the Spanish colonial era.
It is therefore related to Filipinos’ experience that is viewed as a nationalistic symbol that helped Filipinos to
rise up against Spanish colonizers.

4. Why do you think the painting the most valuable artwork in the National Museum?
- I think that painting is the most valuable artwork in the National Museum not only because of it’s size or
international recognition award but also because of its sentimental relation to our history. It also represents
the significance of Filipino life when they faced political oppression, and open struggle in the past. Thus, it
is basically a national treasure.

5. Express your opinion on the controversy of changing the name of the country from “Pilipinas” to
“Filipinas”.
- In my opinion, I would disagree to the stand of the Commission on the Filipino Language or Komisyon sa
Wikang Filipino (KWF) in going back to using “Filipinas”. Their stand is that Filipinas was already been
used in the past and is therefore necessary to put it back. However, isn’t this project too expensive for our
country? Also, this will just cause misunderstanding, especially that the usage of “P” instead of “F” has
already been marked to us. And if we’re to use Filipinas intead of Pilipinas, should “Pinoy” be changed to
“Finoy” too? Should we change also the name of institutions and universities who has the speliing of
Pilipinas? You see, this is the reason why I disagree, it will just cause problems among the people.