President Rodrigo Duterte conferred the Order of National Artists on seven outstanding Filipinos at the Rizal Hall of Malacañang Palace on October 24.
He was assisted by Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) president Margarita Moran-Floirendo,
Also in attendance were concurrent National Commission on Culture and the Arts (NCCA) and Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino (KWF) chairman Virgilio Almario, himself a National Artist for Literature, and execcutive secretary Salvador Medialdia.
Conferred every three years upon the recommendation by the NCCA and CCP, the Order of National Artists or Orden ng Pambansang Alagad ng Sining is the highest recognition bestowed by the nation to Filipino artists who have made significant contributions to the development of Philippine arts and culture.
This year’s awardees are Francisco Mañosa for Architecture and Allied Arts; Eric de Guia, also known as “Kidlat Tahimik” for Film and Broadcast Arts; Ramon Muzones (posthumous) and Resil Mojares for Literature; Raymundo “Ryan” Cayabyab for Music; Amelia Lapeña Bonifacio for Theater; and Lauro “Larry” Alcala (posthumous) for Visual Arts.
Process of selection
A member of the Order of National Artist is chosen from among living or dead artists who have contributed in building a Filipino sense of nationhood, pioneered in a mode of creative expresssion or style that made an impact on succeeding generations of artists, created a sunstantial and significant body of work and/or consistently displayed excellence in the practice of their art form, received critical acclaim and/or reviews of their works, gained respect and esteem from their peers, and enjoy broad acceptance through prestigious national and/or international recognition such as the CCP Gawad Sining, CCP Thirteen Artists Award and NCCA Alab ng Haraya.
Besides the rank and title of National Artist, the awardee also receives the insignia of a National Artist and a citation; a lifetime emolument and material and physical benefits comparable in value to those received by the highest officers of the land such as cash award of P100,000 net of taxes for the living, and P75,000 for the dead, payable to the legal heir/s; monthly life pension, medical and hospitalization benefits; life insurance for the insurable; state funeral and burial at the Libingan ng mga Bayani; and a place of honor, in line with protocular precedence, at national state functions, and recognition at cultural events.
This year’s selection started in June 2017 when the NCCA and the CCP called for nominations, with the council of experts made up of artist peers making the shortlist after initial deliberation. A jury of experts vetted the list during the second deliberation then submitted their recommendation to the NCCA and CCP boards, joined by current National Artists who submitted the final nominees recommended to the President. Upon the review of the Office of the President’s Honors Committee, the President chose the awardees, based on the rules that the chief executive cannot add to what has been submitted by the NCCA and the CCP.
The NCCA chairman said that the diversity and excellence of this year’s awardees reflect the Filipino imagination.
The new National Artists are icons in their respective fields and disciplines, which have grown richer with their bodies of works and the grounds they broke, and have inspired and influenced generations of artists as well as the Filipino people.
Larry Alcala (August 18, 1926 to June 24, 2002).
Famous for his cartoons, Alcala’s comic strips spiced up the slices of Filipino lives with witty illustrations executed throughout his 56 years of cartooning. He created over 500 characters and 20 comic strips in widely circulated publications. Alcala’s most iconic work, “Slice Of Life,” not only made for decades long of widely circulated images of Filipino everyday life but also symbolically became an experiential way for his followers to find a sense of self in the midst of an often cacophonic, raucous and at odds environment that Filipinos found themselves amidst.
Ryan Cayabyab
No doubt, the Maestro, as he is called in the music industry, is the country’s most accomplished composer, arranger and musical director. Since the early ’70s, his learned, skillful and versatile musical style spans a wide range of genres: from conservatory or art compositions such as concert religious music, symphonic work, art song, opera, and concerto to mainstream popular idioms in the music industry and in live contemporary multimedia shows (musical theater, dance, and film). Being very visible in the national media (once a TV host of a long-running arts and culture series and recently a judge in reality TV singing competitions), Cayabyab is a household name. His compositions reflect a perspective of music that extols the exuberance of life and human happiness, thus capturing the very essence of our Filipino soul.
Amelia Lapeña-Bonifacio
Known as the Grand Dame of Southeast Asian children’s theatre, Lapeña-Bonifacio is the founder and playwright-director of the Teatrong Mulat ng Pilipinas, which has placed the Philippines on the artistic map of world theater. She has written most of the plays performed by the group based on materials culled from painstaking researches. She has also been involved in the production and design of puppets. All in all, what she has achieved is an indigenous fusion of puppetry, children’s literature, folklore and theater.
Kidlat Tahimik
Eric de Guia in real life, he has continually invented himself through his cinema, and so his cinema is as singular as the man. His debut film, “Mababangong Bangungot” (1977), was praised by critics and filmmakers from Europe, North America, Asia, and Africa and is still considered by many as a pioneering postcolonial essay film. Tahimik’s intense independence as an artist and, at the same time, the film itself, called for Filipinos to actively live out their independence and not allow their culture to be imperialized by the west. Kidlat’s “imperfect” film is an exemplar of what is worldwide known as Third Cinema — a cinema that is critical of neocolonial exploitation and state oppression. But, unlike other Third Cinema films, Kidlat’s work does not glory in ugliness. His films, even those that lament injustice and violence, are premised on the hope of possible, though yet unrealized, triumph. His constant claim is that whatever “progress” has relegated to the realm of sadness and poverty should never remain self-referentially sad or poor.
Francisco Mañosa
For all of his more than 60 years of architecture life, Mañosa designed Filipino. From the 1960s in his landmark design of the Sulo Hotel until his retirement in 2015, he courageously and passionately created original Filipino forms, spaces with intricate and refined details. But what is most valuable is that Mañosa was in the heart and soul of a Philippine architectural movement. He has developed a legacy of Philippine architecture, which is essential to our Filipino identity and at the same time, deeply appreciated and shared in our world today.
Ramon Muzones (March 20, 1913 to August 17, 1992)
A Hiligaynon poet, essayist, short story writer, critic, grammarian, editor, lexicographer and novelist, Ramon Muzones authored an unprecedented 61 completed novels. A number of these represent groundbreaking “firsts” in Hiligaynon literature such as the feminist “Ang Bag-ong Maria Clara,” the roman a clef “Maambong Nga Sapat” (Magnificent Brute,1940), the comic “Si Tamblot” (1946), the politically satirical “Si Tamblot Kandidato Man” (Tamblot is Also a Candidate, 1949), the 125-installment longest serialized novel “Dama de Noche” (1982-84), etc. Hailed by his peers as the longest reigning (1938 to 1972) among “the three kings of the Hiligaynon novel,” Muzones brought about its most radical changes while ushering in modernism. With a literary career that spanned 53 years (1938 to1990), his evolution covers the whole history of the Hiligaynon novel from its rise in the 1940s to its decline in the 1970s. Muzones tried his hand at a variety of types and proved adept in all as literary fashions. In the process, he not only extended with remarkable versatility and inventiveness the scope and style of the Hiligaynon novel, he enriched Hiligaynon literature’s dramatis personae.
Resil Mojares
A teacher and scholar, essayist and fictionist, and cultural and literary historian — that’s Resil Mojares. He is acknowledged as a leading figure in the promotion of regional literature and history. As founding director of the Cebuano Studies Center — an important research institution which placed Cebu in the research and documentation map — he pioneered Cebuano and national identity formation. As a leading figure in cultural and literary history, he networked actively in many organizations. For over 50 years, Mojares has published in diversed forms (fiction, essay, journalism, scholarly articles, and books) across a wide range of discipline (literature, history, biography, cultural studies, and others). To date, he has 17 published books (3 more in the press) and edited, co-edited, or co-authored 11 books, and written numerous articles for popular and scholarly publications.
Other honorees
President Duterte also conferred the Presidential Medal of Merit to Filipina painter Araceli Limcaco Dans.
The 2018 Philippine Heritage Awards and Gawad sa Manlilikha ng Bayan (Gamaba) were administered as well to Rizal Park Hotel Chair Simon Paz, San Nicolas Vice Mayor Edistio Valdez of Ilocos Norte, Magalang Vice Mayor Bryan Nepomuceno of Pampanga, Angeles City Vice Mayor Norman Lacson of Pampanga, Ambalang Ausalin from Lamitan City in Basilan, Estelita Bantilan from Malapatan in Sarangani, and Yabing Masalon Dulo from Polomolok in South Cotabato.
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