Abby: Good morning Philippines and good morning world!

Today is a very beautiful day to all of

us, because we have a special guest! So stay tuned because we are starting in few moments.

But first, let us welcome our interviewer for today, Miss Kyla Comcom, a scholar of University of
Santo Tomas and Miss Jewel Marquez, from the University of the Philippines.

Jewel: Magandang umaga po!

Kyla: Good morning everyone!
Abby: Napaka espesyal ng immeet natin today.

Kyla: Bakit? Sino ba hindi niyo naman kami ininform e

Jewel: Oo nga! Nasaan naba ang script namin? *laugh*
Abby: Bibigay ako ng facts about him then huhulaan niyo kung sino siya, G?
Kyla: Osige exciting!!!
Jewel: G kami diyan!

Abby: He is a historian and critic of Philippine literature best known as for his books on
Philippine history.
Kyla: Uhm Ramon L. Muzones?

Abby: Hindi. He is acclaimed by various writers and critics as the Visayan Titan of Letters, due to
his immense contribution to Visayan literature.

Jewel: Amado V. Hernandez?

Abby: Hindi riiin

Kyla: *hands the script to Kyla* Aha! Eto nasa akin na yung script, kilala ko na siya.

Kyla: He won the award for National Artist, the highest national recognition given to individuals
who have made significant contributions to the development of Philippine arts.

Jewel and Kyla: Let us all welcome, Mr. Resil Mojares, National Artist in Literature 2018!

(round of applause)
Kyla: Good morning, Sir. Welcome po.
Interviewer: Good morning Mr. Mojares. Thank you for agreeing to be interviewed. We are
honoured to have you here
Inter: First of all can you describe to us the historical context and significance of Guillermo
Tolentino’s grupo de Filipinos ilustres
RM: Tolentino’s work tilted Grupo de Filipinos ilustres, is probably the most popular kind of
collective portrait of the nation’s heroes and I think it kind of it remains popular even until
today I can’t think of any other portrait. This was done in 1911 and originally submitted to a
tagalog periodical but the publisher suggested that it should be put out as a poster.
Inter: What made this specific artwork so popular?
RM: Even though this was a kind of a very early work of his it eventually became the country’s
leading sculptor. Sculpting is really his main form rather than painting but I think I’s more the
kind of interest in kind of national kind of symbols that underlies the popularity of the portrait
because I can’t, no, I don’t think there’s a portrait of this kind of it is more popular than this one
now, so it has to do with the interest of the time in kind of nationalizing moves in the sense
kind of the early 20th century so I think it’s the principal explanation
Inter: What details did you find most interesting, most intriguing, you mentioned earlier some
of the figures in the first sculpture is removed?
RM: Well the first point of interest for me actually was “why this particular group of people?”. I
think that’s the first question you ask and then discovering after what kind of thought about
who’s included in the portrait in a kind of sensitive subject who’s exluded and who’s included
and so I think Tolentino himself said that it is a composite of kind of the way he constructed it
kind of he looked at photographs or which probably mostly which appeared in print of these
individuals and just put them together into a group photo
Inter: What made this work different from his other works?
RM: Well as I said earlier Tolentino is really primarily a sculptor and kind of Tolentino even as a
sculptor he really likes his public art like the Bonifacio monument, he was really into public art.
So this is the production of expression of public art. Although in a form we consider a
characteristic of Tolentino, in fact I feel that was taken as art kind of the portrait is somewhat
amateur given that he was a student when he produced this. So as I said earlier it is probably
superior to other but is not actually the kind of you call excellent piece.
Inter: How did public art develop in the Philippines prior to Tolentino’s work?
RM: This is the first time that you Filipinos, as it were, in control of the public art. That’s why at
the early 20th century is interesting or kind of the rise of self consciousness about Filipino
nationality which of course was not possible during the Spanish period so as I said earlier this
was when kind of monuments, institutions, societies, kind of symbols and is expressive of
Filipino nationality were produced.
Inter: How do art works compare with the other formats that are also linked to the rise of
nationalism such as newspaper?
RM: Yeah, I mean there are many forms like kind of you find for instance the beginning of 20 th
century an interest like in a collective biographies like publications about the lives of the
country’s great men. The impulse expressed in Tolentino’s work you find in biography, in
literature, in dance, like kind of creating some kind of national dances, national theatre,
national monuments. Like the case in Jose Rizal’s monument, his monument spread throughout
the country in the early 20th century. In the case of dance how did tinikling acquired the status
of being the national dance or when did the barong tagalog become popular as the national
costume. All this efforts that kind of defining and demonstrating what it is to be Filipino, this
was most active in the early 20th century, this was something that could have not taken place in
during the Spanish period. I recall like in the case of Pedro Paterno when he was the head of
the first museum and can be considered as the forerunner of the national museum.
Inter: Earlier you mentioned how this artwork represented the idea of pathologization can you
elaborate this concept?
RM: There was in fact, uh, I can’t recall when exactly but I think some time in the 1920’s, the
Philippine assembly passed a law providing for the creation of a national pantheon and by that I
mean a shrine or a place where the remains of all the national heroes will be kept. The law mas
passed but as far as I can tell it was never implemented.
Inter: Now that we’re talking about political context of the American colonial period and going
back to Tolentino’s artwork it seems like there’s this paradox so can you please explain this?
RM: The things that I have talked about kind of nationality the symbols of the Filipino during
the early 20th century under the Americans and kind of we’re talking about the nationalism that
was promoted in the early 20th century was what do we call civic nationalism kind of benign
civic nationalism like Rizal’s portrait in each public classroom so the American were kind of
promoting the very least kind of tolerating such displays of Filipino nationality because after all
they kind of felt upset that the existing political order kind of jives with whole rhetoric
preparation for nation’s rule.
Inter: These people that you’ve mentioned were behind the state institutions that sort of
managed civic nationalism they themselves were ilustrados. So how can we distinguish them
from the first generation of ilustrados of the late 19th century. Are there differences between
them?
RM: The most important differences was that the kind of in the transition to US rule was that
they’re almost kind of like among the high public intellectuals of the country almost kind of
unanimous acceptance of the principles that kind of an American rule as a transition to a full
nationhood so the leading intellectuals is different from the case of Rizal because by the end of
the Spanish period kind of there’s a sense of Spanish rule, there had to be a change.
RM: Heroes exist only when the public imagine them to be such. Without the public imagining,
heroes will not exist. Because people look up to them as heroes that would be in a sense of the
final test that’s why it kind of especially today the expansion of the media because of
technology kind of that can be manipulated.
Inter: Okay. Thank you professor Mojares for sharing with us your research finding, insights, we
are thankful for you granting us this interview.
RM: Thank you for this conversation as well.

Abby: And that ends the first part of this interview. We will be back after some commercial.

*Commercial Bonakid*

*Another interview*

Inter: What do you think about Pedro Paterno and Trinidad Pardo de Tavera? Which are hardly
ingored by other scholars?
RM: In many ways, figures like Paterno kind of neglected in terms of studies done about them
and part of the reason I think political correctness in a sense that we have a tendency to write
books about Bonifacio, about Rizal, but Paterno with his reputation as the person collaborated
with the Americans that like it’s not politically correct to write books about him. Which I think is
a problem with scholarship. Writing a book about him is not necessarily glorifying the person.
We need to appreciate history and all it’s aspect I mean there’s as much to be learned from
knowing people who failed or took the wrong political position. We learned from the stories of
these people.
Inter: You wrote books in various topics like Philippine novel, theatre, and other aspects of
culture. Why not stay on one topic?
RM: I don’t really have the patience to be get stuck on just one subject and part of the reason is
again as I told a friend, I’m basically a learner I enjoy learning as so I take writing and research a
mode of learning that’s why in the recent book “Isabelo’s Archive”, because of the design of the
book itself I have to write on as many different topic as possible. So underlying writing and
doing research work I think it’s the joy of learning that kind of fuels that because I always feel
that if you want to get to know a particular subject the best way of doing it is to write about it.
Inter: Thank you so much for time Mr. Mojares we enjoyed having you here.
RM: Thank you and I enjoyed as well.