48. TOLENTINO’S ROXAS, ANG PANUBLI-ON

TOLENTINO’S ROXAS, ANG PANUBLI-ON

Dr. Troy Alexander G. Miano

06 October 2017

On the third day of the 18^th National Convention of the Association of Tourism Officers of the Philippines (ATOP) at Iloilo City, immersion tour packages within the province were made for the delegates to benchmark on Iloilo’s best practices on the tourism industry. I have travelled around the province a number of times, I decided instead to visit the province of Capiz particularly the capital city of Roxas. My main objective is to visit the Ang Punubli-on and have a souvenir selfie at the historical marker of the birthplace of the third and last president of the Philippine Commonwealth and the first president of the Third Republic, Manuel Acuña Roxas, at the corner of Rizal and Zamora Streets. Roxas City poblasyon is infested with numerous landmarks. Aside from taking my selfie at the Provincial Capitol and City Hall Buildings, I also posed for the centuries-old Immaculate Concepcion Metropolitan Cathedral, 1900s Roxas City Fountain, Roxas City Bandstand, monuments of President Manuel Roxas and Dr. Jose P. Rizal, Roxas City Bridge and Panay River and the last stop of my walking tour was the Ang Panubli-on (Roxas City Museum).

Being the Head of the Isabela Museum and Library, I started visiting other museums and libraries for the past three months to benchmark on the style, programs and activities and other best practices of these institutions. The Ang Panublion situated at Hughes Street in downtown Roxas City was established in 1993 and operated by the "One Capiz Foundation". The museum curator, Ms. Cheryl Anne Che Del Rosario, narrated that the term "Panublion" is a Hiligaynon term meaning “guardian of precious things”. The whitewashed museum building, once a circular water tank, is a good example of intelligent architectural reuse. In 1910, third Capiz Municipal President Pastor Alcazar (1908-1912) constructed a water tank near the municipio to provide water to the Kapisnon during the dry months. Water flowed from the roof of the two-story municipal building to the tank. The municipio was destroyed during World War II, but the water tank which is 11.5 meters in diameter and 6.10 meters in height, with walls 27.5 centimeters thick, was spared. After the War, offices were built around the tank completely hiding it from view with only a water spout visible. In 1993, the offices were demolished and for the first time in three decades, the water tank was seen. The old water tank looked quite imposing and to demolish it would be like cutting the umbilical cord to the past. However, the water tank had outlived its usefulness as Roxas City had a new water system. The city government and other citizens came up with the idea of converting it into a museum and the Roxas City Museum, Ang Panublion, became a reality.

Ms. Del Rosario also informed me that the Roxas Monument located outside the museum facing the Panay River is a replica of the original Guillermo Tolentino sculpture at the National Museum in P. Burgos, Manila. After having my second selfie at the Roxas edifice, I surfed the net for a thorough background of the statue and saw a post from the Presidential Museum and Library which reads: The Roxas Statue was part of the original Philippine triumvirate bronze statues sculpted by National Artist for Sculpture Guillermo Tolentino for the Legislative Building (now the National Museum of the Philippines), all of which were cast in a foundry in Italy. The three statues of Presidents Manuel Roxas, Manuel L. Quezon and Sergio Osmeña commemorate their legacy in the Philippine Legislature in securing Philippine independence from the United States, which came to fruition on July 4, 1946. Among the triumvirate, while Quezon was the first President of the Senate (1916-1935) to become Chief Executive, and Osmeña, the first Speaker of the Lower House to become Chief Executive (Philippine Assembly 1907-1916; House of Representatives 1916-1922), Manuel Roxas, was the first Chief Executive (1946-1948) who became both Speaker of the House (1922-1933) and President of the Senate (1945-1946) before his presidency. The roles Roxas played masterfully in the political field laid the foundation for a vibrant Philippine politics. Roxas played a large role in the Legislative Building itself. The building played host to the Constitutional Convention of 1934, creating the 1935 Constitution. Roxas was one of the prominent delegates of the convention and the leading member of the Committee on Style, also known as the “Seven Wise Men.” The committee had a significant impact on the final draft of the Charter.

After the Second World War, the reconstructed Legislative Building, with less embellishments from the original building design, was completed in 1949. But it was only in 1968, in light of these achievements, that the triumvirate statues were sculpted by Tolentino, with the Roxas Statue being commissioned by Senator “Gerry” Roxas. The Quezon and Osmeña statues were then subsequently installed on the left and the right side of the building’s entrance respectively, to commemorate their achievements as the first leaders of both chambers of Congress. However, this left the Roxas statue out of place. There was a move to install it in another spot in the Legislative Building, but upon the declaration of Martial Law in 1972, the move never pushed through. As such, the statue was temporarily kept in storage for safekeeping, until it was installed along Roxas Boulevard, near the GSIS, where the Philippine Senate moved in 1997. In commemoration of the 68th death anniversary of President Manuel Roxas, the President Manuel A. Roxas Foundation donated the Roxas Statue to the National Museum in a solemn turnover ceremony that was held on April 15, 2016 at the Old Legislative Building. The statue was installed in the entrance hall of the edifice, subsequently renamed as the “Roxas Hall”.

The artist behind the magnificent statue, Guillermo Estrella Tolentino (1890-1976), was a professor of the University of the Philippines and was designated as a National Artist for Sculpture in 1973. Aside from the Roxas figure, he was also commissioned for the Bonifacio Monument now standing at Caloocan City, Oblation at the University of the Philippines Diliman Campus in Quezon City, smaller sculptures which are now located in the National Museum of Fine Arts and busts of heroes at the Malacañang Palace. He also designed the medals of the Ramon Magsaysay Award and the seal of the Republic of the Philippines. Other awards given to Tolentino were: UNESCO Cultural Award in Sculpture (1959), Patnubay ng Sining at Kalinangan Award (1963), Republic Cultural Heritage Award (1967), Presidential Medal of Merit (1970) and Diwa ng Lahi Award (1972).

Visiting downtown Roxas City and its superb heritages gave me additional inspiration to restore the glory of the Old Capitol Building now the Isabela Museum and Library. The Governor instructed me to gather old photos, memorabilia and antiques pertaining to the province for the millennials to have a picture of the past and motivate them to contribute for a more glorious Isabela.