The struggle between good and evil has been going silently for occupation of my soul for the last 13 years every time I pass by Padre Burgos Ave. It is a chronic heartfelt intention to visit the National Museum; a prayer that always gets drowned out by the reality that spending 3 hours in traffic just to get to the Philippine senate’s former august halls (when they used to define august, one may say) and view an elitist time capsule may not be worth a day off.
This time I have kids, whom I may have spoiled enough to articulate a strong opinion
, who are sold to the idea of going to the museum. The devil was not going down without a fight, I tried to bribe them into going to the mall in exchange of the said trip. I figured the snobbery salon may not have sufficient air conditioning among other service issues since they couldn’t even keep their website up. My 8 and 5 kids would not budge. My angels won’t let me fail this time.
The admission was free. It’s a strong political statement that most of us should hear. Any time a man in authority offer to give you free education in any form, you take it. Run away with it. Because all tyrants, especially the democratically elected ones, would rather keep you isolated, spoon fed and dumb.
It was awkward to have a picture with the 4×7 meter Spoliarium at the background; Is one supposed to smile? This after all, is a billboard that symbolically bulletin’s Filipinas under Espanya in an art exhibition in Madrid on 1884. But maybe, compounding the feeling of awkwardness is the thought that I had no in-depth answer to provide my curious daughter.
She did have a lot of questions and surprisingly I had some answers. It would’ve been awesome if the museum employed a tour guide, maybe a curator’s corps is available and that I just wasn’t aware of it, but I’d be happy to pay a fee for that.
It is nice to be introduced to Luna, Hidalgo, Francisco, Amorsolo, Kiukok, Ocampo and many others. Works that are centuries old through tools of communications and their immortal messages. Messages that are still relevant today. Messages conveyed to my kids with the hope that one day, they will have access to better answers or find a medium to provide one.
danDAman 