Bayani

In the early years of the American Colonial Period, a portrait of a group of Filipinos became popular in houses throughout the Philippines, akin to the portrait of the Last Supper in every Filipino dining room. Entitled Grupo de Filipinos Ilustres or “The Group of Illustrious Filipinos,” the art piece features a composite portrait of known Filipino heroes at the time. Of course, the entire setup was just a figment of the artist’s imagination, each one separated by time and space in our history.

They are: (from left, standing) Clemente Jose Zulueta, Jose Ma. Basa, Pedro Paterno, Juan Luna, Graciano Lopez Jaena, Miguel Malvar, Antonio Ma. Regidor; (from left, seated) Jose Burgos, Antonio Luna, Jose Rizal, Andres Bonifacio, Marcelo H. del Pilar, and Apolinario Mabini.

It was the first known attempt by a Filipino artist to craft a pantheon of heroes for the country by means of art, given that the Americans were firmly establishing their rule on the islands while nationalistic sentiments fan aflamed previously by the Philippine Revolution against Spain and the Philippine-American War was forced underground and branded as subversives.

The artist who sketched the art in 1911 was none other than Guillermo Tolentino (1890-1976), future National Artist, then a fine arts student in the University of the Philippines. It was his uncle who submitted the portrait to Severino Reyes, the great Filipino playwright of his time and who would be later known as the “Father of Filipino Zarzuela”, then editor of Liwayway. It was Reyes’ idea that it would be better to have it printed as a poster.

Historian Resil Mojares explains:

The painter Jorge Pineda, who worked for the printing house, transferred the drawing to lithographic stone and, pulled in sepia, Grupo de Filipinos Ilustres was printed in a first edition of 1,500 copies and sold at P0.80 a copy. The first work of Tolentino to be circulated (he would become one of the country’s leading artists), it became the best-known gallery of Filipino heroes. Tolentino later said: “I never made a centavo out of the drawing but I was pleased to see my work in people’s homes everywhere.”

It is interesting to note how malleable our definition of heroes are when they are first laid out. It is also interesting how art pieces, monuments, heraldic symbols and national anthems reinforces, immortalize and perpetuate their memory (or the official version of that memory), solidifying their position in our minds as “heroes” in their own right. It is ultimately one generation’s collective memory and consensus that made these Filipinos heroes, cemented and proven by historians who pour on documents day and night to discover who these people are. It is precisely this idea of a national pantheon of heroes that Republic Act No. 289 of 1948 was enacted. This law, laying the precedent for Libingan ng mga Bayani, defines “hero” as worthy of “the inspiration and emulation of this generation and of generations still unborn.” What a tall order.

When National Artist for Literature Nick Joaquin wrote, A Question of Heroes, he ingeniously questioned the legitimacy of calling our Filipino heroes, “heroes.” He pointed judgmentally at every unheroic act committed by these historical figures.  And if one meticulously check their lives as through a magnifying glass indeed we would be sorely disappointed. These are human beings. Perfect? They’re far from perfect. But ironically their imperfections only make us wonder how they rose above. These imperfections ultimately remove from our minds the distant pedestal that we have put them, and makes them all the more real, all the more relatable, all the more… like us–imperfect in every way, and yet at that defining moment, proved to us all what it means to live selflessly, and showed the best of what a Filipino can be. A pioneer. A Path-maker. A “hero.”

What then is a hero? A hero is someone whose family doesn’t force down our throats that he is one. He has nothing to prove because his life is supposed to speak for itself. We accord “hero” to a person willingly because as a grateful people, we know beyond the shadow of a doubt that even if that person is not accorded a hero’s burial, the person would still do what he did, and unscathed would he be if his life record goes through the fiery furnace of impartial historical inquiry and judgment. Harsh, I know, and Historical Inquiry is a cruel yardstick. But that is only because it is in proportion to the high regard that the State and millions of Filipinos would give for a person considered to be a national “inspiration” worthy of “emulation.”

Source of photo above: Presidential Museum and Library Tumblr.