In celebration of the sesquicentennial (150th) birth anniversary of Dr. Jose Rizal, the Philippine's national hero, I asked my graduate students to visit museums that exhibit memorabilia for our dear renaissance Filipino man Jose Rizal, attend local and international academic symposium on The First World-Class Filipino Jose Rizal, travel to his ancestral house in Laguna, or pay respect to one of Asia's great intellectuals enshrined at Luneta Park, and so on...
I am posting in my blog with the writer's consent selected ethnography penned creatively by my students to contribute to the emerging sub-discipline of anthropology called 'Virtual Ethnography'.
Basically, virtually ethnography is also referred to as Webnography. We cannot deny the fact that with increasing use of technology and the Internet, there is now a demand for online spaces on various ethnographic accounts.
Ethnography by Josefina Vicencio
There were many rectangular boards in light shade of green on building facades and lamp posts along Roxas Boulevard. The boards bore the familiar face of someone I see often in books, coins and almost every town plaza in the country. The face is so ubiquitous that it brings about nonchalance, but not that first Saturday afternoon of July. I went to Luneta for an assignment that roused me from indifference to the face. I decided to do ethnography of the Rizal Monument in Rizal Park. I was seeing Rizal in Luneta with a fresh eye, smelling the surrounding air with my flat nose, hearing the cacophony of sounds with an eager ear and feeling the iron, marble, granite and some flora with my hands. Idiomatically, one could say that I was being green --someone who has no experience or any impressions at all of the Rizal monument until that day.
Participant-observation is the hallmark of ethnography. It is also a practice which can sometimes be ambiguous. Does one participate first and then observe later? Can one really do both? The concept of reflexivity can close the gap between participation and observation. An ethnographer must realize that she is part of the unfolding story. Her being in the site affects the dynamics. She is both the object and the subject. Kirsten Hastrup (1995) says that participant-observation implies an observation of participation itself. Thus, this ethnography is not only about the Rizal monument but also about me as a tourist and researcher and the people I met.
The Rizal monument was designed by Swiss sculptor Richard Kissling. He was the second place winner for the design competition sponsored by the US governor-general from 1905-1907. The contract was awarded to him in 1908 instead of the first place winner Carlos Nicoli [1]. There are supposed reasons to this incident but one that struck me was about the cost of Kissling’s quotation being lower than that of Nicoli’s [2]. The monument as designed by Kissling features a Rizal bronze statue standing in front an obelisk that bears three stars. There were also other statues in the base such as a mother and child and two boys reading. Rizal’s statue stands gallantly looking eastward. I was surprised to find out later during my research that Rizal’s remains are interred there. Two honor guards act as sentry all the time. According to the security guard on duty, the honor guards are from the marines. They switch position every 15 minutes and are replaced with another set of honor guards every two hours. The monument was unveiled to the public in 1913.
Presently, stanchions and thick alloy chains bar the public from going near the front and rear sides of the monument. A spiral topiary is placed on both sides of the steps. There are five flag poles and five planter basins on each side. Each planter basin sits atop a square pedestal marked by statements of Rizal. The right side bears Spanish statements while the left bears Filipino. As of this writing, I am unsure if they are translations of the other. The monument and its surrounding areas are like new. They seemed polish and well maintained. This is probably due to the fact that Rizal’s 150th birth anniversary was celebrated just three weeks prior. It was refreshing to see many shrubs, flowers and trees with hardly any litter around. Aside from the exhaust coming from the vehicles, I was surprised not to get a waft of the Manila Bay which from experience always overpowers. There was a light drizzle that afternoon. There was also a constant cool breeze which was punctuated by a combination of smell of horse dung, newly cut grass and wet soil.
Colorful calesas ply the park vicinity. In order to experience a calesa ride, one would have to pay P150 for a 10-minute ride around the park. I did and found out from my kutsero, Michael, that he earns P400 daily minus the bribe he gives to the police and the rent for the horse and carriage. He lives in nearby Tondo and has been a kutsero for eight years. Weekends are busier days he said. Asked what Luneta means to him, he looked at me and smiled. He shook his head and did not respond. He was probably amused to have a passenger ask silly questions. He said that he did dish out information for foreigner tourists. I asked him again and still got no reply. We arrived at the stop and I had to disembark.
Going towards the monument, I walked with a group of Chinese and Korean tourists who just alighted from a bus. They posed in front the monument for pictures. I have observed from my two-hour stay just by the monument that there were three busloads of Chinese and Korean tourists who arrived in 30-45 minute intervals. They were led by a tour guide who spoke their language and probably gave historical facts about who was the statue. I was looking for a marker or something to read about the imposing monument but I found none nearby. It would have helped. There were local tourists too – groups of friends, couples with their kids in tow and individuals with digital cameras hanging on their necks. I approached one group of friends who were composed of four girls and a boy. I thought they were students but were actually officemates who came for some snapshots. I asked if it was their first time to see the monument and they answered no. They said they just thought of going there together for fun. Another bigger group of friends I observed was having fun at the silent and stiff honor guards. One even shouted, “Kuya, si Angel Locsin ito. Tingin ka dito.” The guards did not budge and even if they admire Angel Locsin, why would they when the one who shouted it was clearly a boy, a bakla who was just amusing them.
There were no food vendors near the monument but there were many ambulant vendors selling pearls, leather key chains, umbrellas and photographers in blue vests showing samples of their works. One photographer I talked to, Mr. Bautista, belongs to the Flower Clock Photographers, Inc. Their name was from the flower clock situated in the park. Mr. Bautista said that his father and grandfather were photographers too. He has been doing photography for 15 years but times now are hard. He relayed that his earnings were affected because of the cell phones. Many would just take pictures of themselves through their cell phone camera instead of paying a hundred bucks for their service.
I walked to the spot where Rizal was shot by firing squad by the light and sound complex. There was a pool of stagnant water that has turned green. A granite wall is etched with three versions of Rizal’s Mi Ultimo Adios or My Last Farewell. There was the original Spanish version, English version and the Filipino version translated by Andres Bonifacio. It was good to see some foreign tourists reading the wall and the marker for Rizal’s execution site. Most of the foreign tourists I observed rarely read the markers perhaps because they were in English and they were Chinese or Koreans who are not keen in English. In an obscure place, I saw a large vicinity map of the park under a shady tree. It was a public service of Isuzu Motors in partnership with the Department of Tourism, National Parks Development Committee and the city government of Manila. It is a big aluminum board and indicates location of many other sites in the park. The colors are fading but still very useful.
This ethnography was first meant to be a museum visit and it is still so. The Rizal monument in Rizal Park Museum is not a museum as commonly perceived that has objects in glass encasements and galleries. The monument and the park are objects that tell stories of those not just cast in bronze but also of those who are living in (even if they are just passing by) and earning a living from it. The word museum may have come from the word mausoleum where dead things or people are kept but a museum does not have to be just about dead stuff. I am seeing green because the park is teeming with life, a life waiting to be studied and questioned for researchers like me.
Endnotes
[1] See Rizal Monument entry at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rizal_Monument; see more information and photos at http://myrizal150.com/2011/06/the-story-of-the-rizal-monument.
[2] Ibid.
References:
Hastrup, K., 1995. A Passage to Anthropology, Between Experience and Theory. London
and New York: Routledge.
Villegas, Dennis. “The Story of Rizal Monument.” Accessed 8 July 2011. Available from http://myrizal150.com/2011/06/the-story-of-the-rizal-monument/
Wikipedia. “Rizal Monument”. Last modified 25 June 2011. Available from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rizal_Monument
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