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Friday, June 09, 2006
Poe widow won't accept late actor's award
MALACAÑANG on Thursday said that it is not insulted by the absence of the late actor Fernando Poe Jr.'s family in Friday's awarding of the new national artists.
To be awarded as national artists are Poe for film; Bienvenido Lumbera, literature; Abdulmari Asia Imao, visual arts (sculpture); Ramon Valera, architecture, design and allied arts (fashion design); Ildefonso Santos Jr., architecture; Benedicto Cabrera, visual arts (painting); and Ramon Obusan, dance.
All the awardees, except Imao, passed through the series of screening by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) and the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP). Imao was eliminated during the initial screening but President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo inserted him in the final list.
Presidential chief of staff Michael Defensor said organizers of the awarding ceremonies were told that Poe's relatives will not attend the awarding rites in Malacañang at 10 a.m. Friday and the tribute at the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) at 6 p.m. also Friday.
Defensor said Poe's award will be given to his family "at another time and another occasion." He said organizers can even deliver Poe's medallion and citation to his house.
Susan Roces, Poe's widow, said in her letter to CCP president Nestor Jardin that it would be "a grave dishonor" if she accepts the award from Arroyo, considering that she accused her of stealing the presidency from Poe.
"The Poe family does not wish to diminish the value of this award by accepting it from Mrs. Arroyo. I cannot in all conscience go through the motions of the awarding ceremonies just for public display," she said.
Roces added: "The Gawad Pambansang Alagad ng Sining is too important and prestigious to trivialize and I feel that I would be doing my husband and those who believe in him a grave dishonor."
Defensor said there is no question that Poe deserves the award but the "issue now has become more political" and "not accepting it makes the issue more on the side of the political rather than competence."
He said he will tell the NCCA and CCP that it may be best to imitate the policy of the Nobel Peace Prize and the Ramon Magsaysay awards, where the awardees agree to be a recipient before they are given the award.
"I have already made a public appeal to the Poe family. Even if not Ms. Susan Roces, one of them could get the award of the late actor," he added.
Poe, whose real name was Ronald Allan Kelley Poe, began his career in the movies as a stuntman for Everlasting Pictures and as Lilia Dizon's double in "Sonaron" in 1955. His first acting role was "Anak ni Palaris" in 1950. Director Mario Barri gave him his screen name, after his father who had earlier played the title role in "Palaris" in 1946.
His biggest break was "Lo Waist Gang" in 1956,which marked the local cinema's shift from the fantasy world of costume productions to the trendy realism of action movies. His first solo movie was "Tough Guy" (1956).
He proved his box office appeal in "Kamay ni Cain" (Hand of Cain, 1957) where he received a Filipino Academy of Movie Arts and Science (Famas) nomination. When Hollywood Far East Productions opened, he was offered to do "Markado" (Branded) and was paid a higher talent fee, which he used to invest in his own company, the FPJ Productions and D'tanor productions.
Under the name Ronwaldo Reyes, Poe directed many of the FPJ films that he himself has acted in like "Alupihang Dagat," 1975; "King," 1978; "Tatak ng Tondo," 1978; "Ang Padrino," 1984; and "Panday I, II, III, and IV". Awarded by the Famas was "Panday II" (1984) for best special visual effects.
He threw his hat into the political ring in the 2004 elections but lost to President Arroyo. However, many Filipinos who question Arroyo's legitimacy believe it was Poe who won the elections.
Valera, the first fashion designer to become a national artist, reinvented the "baro't saya" or "terno" into a single piece and did away with the cumbersome "panuelo" and "tapis". The "terno" has since continued to morph into new forms and silhouettes.
He quit college in 1935 to pursue fashion design full time and paved the way for male designers in a field once dominated by women. He designed gowns for famous women including Gloria Romero, Gretchen Cojuangco, Chito Madrigal, Maria Araneta-Fores, the late Chona Kasten and Elvira Manahan, and the wives of politicians.
Cabrera, a painter, is widely hailed as a master of contemporary Philippine art. He has exhibited widely in the Philippines and in Asia, Europe, and the US and won several major art awards in a career spanning four decades.
In 1992, he was awarded the Gawad CCP Para sa Sining. He lives and works in Baguio City. He and his friends have set up a 2.5-hectare artists' village.
Lumbera published his first stories and poems in 1953. He got a Fulbright Fellowship where he earned a PhD in Comparative Literature and wrote a now-classic study of Tagalog poetry. He also established himself as a drama critic and leading scholar of Tagalog literature.
When Martial Law was declared in 1972, he left his teaching post at the Ateneo De Manila University and went underground. Captured in 1974, he spent nearly a year in detention. Two years after his release, he was named professor in the Department of Filipino and Philippine Literature at the University of the Philippines (UP). He received the Ramon Magsaysay Award for Journalism, Literature in 1993.
Santos is acknowledged as the Father of Philippine Landscape Architecture and is instrumental in lifting the profession of landscape architecture in the country.
Obusan earned his degrees in fisheries technology and cultural anthropology at the UP. In 1971, he founded the Ramon Obusan Folkloric Group, and has since choreographed and directed for some 65 dance groups and over 100 productions nationwide.
He was given the Patnubay ng Kalinangan award by the City of Manila in 1992 and the Gawad CCP Para sa Sining in 1993.
Imao is a writer, photographer, cultural researcher, and educator. He has made the traditional "sarimanok" and "okkit/okkir" motif of Tausug and Maranao a part of national consciousness as well as a popular topic of discourses in the academe.
Imao is also an internationally recognized brass caster, the first Asian recipient of the New York Museum of Modern Art grant to Europe and Scandinavia in 1963, a recipient of the Presidential merit award in 2005, and a national artist nominee in 1997.
A national artist is conferred a medallion and citation, P100,000 cash net of taxes, a monthly life pension, medical and hospitalization benefits, life insurance coverage for awardees who are still insurable, a place of honor at state functions, national commemoration ceremonies and other cultural events, and arrangements and expenses for a state funeral. (JMR/Sunnex)
(June 9, 2006 issue)
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