SELECTED MONUMENTS DURING THE COLONIAL PERIOD

Th e shifting tides caused a major transformation in the images that dominated the country; from the anitos to the santos, and then to monuments. Yet one thing remains clear: we Filipinos were never short of anyone to emulate and to idealize. Working in the same principle, this includes Chris- tianity and the state glorifi ed martyrs who gave up their lives for the ideals that the institution supported.

Th e people could call on the saints by invok- ing their names; Catholic Filipinos believed they

could intercede for them. Heroes, on the other hand, such as the colonial masters and their roy- alty, were to be emulated. From having someone to worship and pray to, and even to try to imitate, Filipinos then had people who were perhaps a bit more real; people whom the early Filipinos could fi nd more similarities with and think of emulating. Th e terms themselves—“martyr” and “saint” con- note an otherworldly nature; whereas a “hero” has more physical and human attributes.

Monuments have a certain “physicality” in them in the sense that they carry certain ideals into the public sphere (where they are situated) and make these ideals and qualities tangible and obvious to the people. By making transparent the ideals which the idealized person or event represents, monuments are then able to communicate their message clearly to the people.

Or do they? While they convey the message straight, the question of representations and mo- tives remain. Who chooses what to represent and what to exclude? Which part of the person’s ideal should be made evident? Is it the stance, the act, or even the objects carried by the person being monumentalized? Which event should be com- memorated and monumentalized?

With a monument acting as a bridge between the message and the viewers through stating or showing the supposed “reality” of the event or person, it manages to bridge as well the realities of the past, present and even the future. As such, it becomes a useful tool for people who wish to communicate their ideals to the nation as a whole. Using the hero (someone to be emulated), one can easily make a group of people believe that the ideals carried in a monument are also the ideals one should follow. Th is monument gives power to its creator in that they can dictate whatever they wish the people to do or become, through that ideal cast in stone.

One of the best examples would be the Legazpi- Urdaneta monument made during the Spanish colonial period (1896), yet was ironically erected only during the American period (1901). Recall- ing the “El Conquistador” Santo Niño statue at the San Agustin Church Museum, one notices certain similarities between the two (see Fig. 2)

Th e saint and the monument, though both hold- ing diff erent objects, symbolize the cross or reli- gion. Th ey also share the stance of a conquistador or an explorer; holding a sword meant to colonize and change (“civilize”) the people. Th e cross and the sword are known as the two pillars of Spanish misión civilizatrice. Th is “colonizer posture” is evi- dent among Spanish period statues/monuments.

hero’s: Jose Rizal in Rizal Park, Manila. Apart from the theme of (children) reading together, there is also the mother and child theme, prevalent in American period monuments.

During the American period, women seemed to have entered and penetrated into the monu- ments’ exclusively male sphere. Th e role of wom- en—especially that of the mother—is highlighted in several monuments. Th is was carried on to the postcolonial period. Th is monument seems to ide- alize what Rizal’s notion of a (his) mother is: ilaw ng tahanan (signifi ed by the torch), and the fi rst teacher of a child (as signifi ed by the book she is reading). To note, the woman in this monument is actually in the act of reading the book she is hold- ing, and not just carrying it, as some of the monu- ments, Rizal’s included, portray.

With the lack of plazas here in Metro Manila, it would perhaps be understandable if monument- making also ceased. However, the opposite seems to have happened. More and more monuments are being created today, and they are being propped up in places unfi t for monuments. Th e stretch of Roxas is one example. In front of the buildings are all the diff erent newly-created monuments which people hardly pay any attention to. Th is diff er- ent kind of monumental craze—focusing on the quantity rather than the quality (such as size and importance of event or personage remembered), makes us turn to a new question: what do we commemorate in the contemporary period? What constitutes our memory and what types of monu- ments do we create nowadays? With places like Th e Fort in Taguig (a shopping and dining complex Known for introducing the smallpox vaccine, he

bears a stance that conveys self-importance simi- lar to a number of monuments during the Span- ish period in general. Proudly standing in front of the Manila Cathedral, King Carlos IV is seen to have once more given the Philippines an all-too- wonderful gift from the Spaniards. To show how the early Filipinos have benefi ted from his gift, he is portrayed as standing magnifi cently with arm raised, rejoicing at having saved the Filipinos. One detail that distinguishes Spanish monu- ments in the Philippines with that of the Ameri- cans’ is their positioning: Spanish monuments carry crosses and swords along with their victori- ous stance; while American monuments, on the other hand, usually carry a book, and are seen reading/studying, or even reading to someone else. What else would American period monu- ments fl esh out than the intentions of the colo- nizers for Filipinos to become or to emulate their assimilators? As Lico posits, these monuments were ordered by the Americans to casually create and portray “...benevolent virtues and democratic pledge of American colonialism in the colonial- ism in the Philippines.” (2008, 283) Th ese civic virtues evidently portrayed in their monuments show the signifi cant shift from the Spanish style of compelling the early Filipinos to revere them, to the Americans’ desire to mould the Filipinos to be the way they are. Casting ideals in stone, after all, meant casting the early Filipinos into what they sought them to be.

Th e exemplary monument during the American period is none other than that of the national

that calls to mind Walter Benjamin’s treatise on the Arcades in Paris) which are propped up with diff erent kinds of monuments and sculptures, are these now the places that our memory inhabit? A closer look at the diff erent monuments during the post-colonial period will show how we now defi ne monuments, and how our notions of a ‘hero’ or a ‘heroic’ event have changed.

SELECTED MONUMENTS DURING THE