Oblation to a Nation

On June 15, 2002, alumni of the University of the Philippines will gather once more under the bells of the Carillon tower in Diliman. They will come to relive their days beneath the green canopies of Diliman’s raintrees, as well as share fond memories of walking the hallowed halls of the pavilions that make up the seven campuses of the University of the Philippines system.

We visited the UP Carillon in last week’s article "Homecoming Landmarks." The tower marks the tallest structure in the Diliman campus. Despite this vertiginous virtue, the status of icon of the nation’s premier institution of learning belongs not to the Carillon but to a structure only three and a half meters tall, the Oblation.

The Naked Truth

This fig-leafed personification of Filipino youth offering itself to the nation’s further glory has been a symbol of the State University for the last 67 years. The Oblation has been, in turns, a revered work of art, an object of fraternity pranks, a billboard for Marxists/Maoists/anti-Marcos manifestos as well as the embodiment of academic excellence that had made UP the top university in the region. (Sadly UP is now ranked in the 30s, down in the rankings for the top 100.)

The statue is the creation of the great National Artist for Sculpture Guillermo Tolentino. Tolentino worked on this piece at about the same time he did the Andres Bonifacio Monument at Balintawak. The Philippines then was caught in a wave of nationalist fervor. This came in the 1930s with the advent of the Commonwealth and the promise of independence in 1946 – the culmination of aspirations that burned in the hearts of Filipinos since the revolution.

Tolentino originally meant the Oblation as a monument to the heroes of 1898. It was to have been inaugurated on National Heroes Day in 1930 but for some reason this did not come to pass. It may have been a problem of funding. Nevertheless, it was the UP students and faculty who managed to raise the P2,000 needed to erect the monument (the peso was two to a dollar then, not the two kilos of peso bills to a dollar it is now).

The statue was cast in faux stone (concrete) and was initially to have been clad with a g-string. Tolentino changed his mind and wanted to leave the statue completely naked. He was eventually dissuaded from letting the Oblation go the full monty by UP president Rafael Palma (after consulting former UP president Jorge Bocobo). The fig leaf got stuck on in the name of modesty, but it did not detract from the statue’s aesthetic strength and impact.

The source of this strength comes in no small part from the models Tolentino used as a basis for his oeuvre. He did not have to search too far. He made the Oblation an amalgam of the solid physique of Anastacio Caedo, his sculptor/assistant, and the height and proportion of Virgilio Raymundo, his brother-in-law. Tolentino may have used some of himself, as well as others, as inspiration. This is gleaned from a cheesecake snapshot showing him between the two Caedo brothers. This, of course, is speculation…along with the persistent story told – of actor Fernando Poe Sr. posing for the sculptor. (I’m sure I’ll get feedback from readers about this.)

Tolentino made the statue three and a half meters tall to symbolize the number of centuries we were under the yoke of the Spanish. At the feet of the figure he sculpted katakataka, one of our hardiest endemic plants, to represent the Filipinos tenacity and heroism. Finally, Tolentino provided the statue with a plinth of numerous large stones – the 7,000 islands of the archipelago. (Well, the country always seems to be between a rock and a hard place, doesn’t it?)

Standing Glad At The Quad

The monument was inaugurated at its original site in 1935. It was unveiled by Gregoria de Jesus, the widow of Andres Bonifacio. The statue was placed in the middle of the Padre Faura Quadrangle, center of the then elegant 10-hectare Manila campus.

In a few years’ time, the campus was starting to get crowded, so a decision was made to transfer the whole university. Diliman was chosen as the site and a 493-hectare campus was planned. By 1940 the first two buildings were completed. The rest of the university was to have transferred soon after, except that the war caught up with UP and a nation was shocked by the terror of war.

The Oblation survived the carnage that was the "Liberation of Manila." The old Manila campus buildings suffered damage but a quick patch-up ensured resumption of classes within a few months of the war’s end. With the US Army moving out of the Diliman campus a few years later the university was ready to make its main move to its vast estate in the young City of Quezon.

Bronzed In The Diliman Sun

To mark the move in 1949, the university authori-ties, faculty and students organized a motorcade from Padre Faura to Diliman. They uprooted the Oblation, mounted it on a truck and started it on its journey. It was a long slow cavalcade that made its way through dirt roads surrounded by fields that were still being planted to rice. Carabaos were still aplenty in Diliman. Finally, the Oblation came to rest in front of what was to be the Administration building of the new UP.

It was to be the gatekeeper and entry landmark of the campus for a while. The Carillon tower took another three years to be built. Most of the other buildings came up in the next decade while the entire Diliman district took another 20 years to fill up.

The Oblation weathered well through all of this but its cement skin was starting to suffer. In 1950 the Board of Regents granted it an appropriation of P15,000 to be cast into bronze. It took another seven years for this to be realized and on November 8, 1958, the university’s golden anniversary, the bronze Oblation was unveiled.

The Oblation swung through the swinging Sixties. It might as well have stepped down and joined the marches in the early Seventies. It went silent as a spokes-statue for the studentry in the forced lull of the rest of the decade, getting itself spruced up with a new reflecting pool for the diamond anniversary of the University in 1978. Finally it awakened again in the ‘80s, stirred as it was by the rising crescendo of people power.

A New Hope

The Oblation now stands for a university that has extended its reach to all Filipinos. It has spread the force of tertiary education, cloning even its icon, which stands at the entrances of all campuses (there’s even an underwater one). But the "dark side" now threatens to disrupt the mission of those who wear the cloaks of maroon and green. Diminishing budgets, increasing costs and sinister senators conspire to turn the university into a diploma mill churning out droids meant for outposts far, far away from home.

It need not take the budget of an episode of Star Wars to boost the UP back to its old place in the academic heavens. The knights that are needed to save the system can come from the ranks of those who owe their training and education as Iskolars ng Bayan, to the system itself.

The Oblation at Diliman has these lines from Rizal, lines that were the inspiration for Tolentino’s creation:

Donde esta la juventud que ha de consagrar sus rosadas horas, sus ilusiones y entusiasmo al bien de su patria?

Donde esta la que ha de verter generosa su sangre para lavar tantas verguenzas, tantos crimenes, tanta abominacion?

Pura y sin mancha ha de ser la victima para que el holocausto sea acceptable!

The Oblation calls to the youth of today to sacrifice and achieve. Its arms spread wide also to reach those who had come before and benefited from embracing the light of education. This offering the statue symbolizes, you see, is a never-ending one of service to the people. The university and the Filipino people its serves, now more than ever, need the help of all those who take pride in calling themselves alumni of the University of the Philippines.

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The University of the Philippines will have its grand alumni homecoming on June 15 at the Bahay ng Alumni in Diliman. Calling honorees – Diamond, Batch ‘42; Golden, ‘52; Ruby, ‘62; and Silver, ‘77. All alumni are welcome to attend.

For information on the homecoming, contact the UPAA Secretariat at 929-83-27, 920-68-71, 920-68-68 or e-mail up.alu m.assn@ pacific.net.ph.

For alumni news you can visit the Carillon Online at http://www.up.edu.ph/oar/conline/conline-index.html or the new Alumni Association website at http://upalum ni.ph/upaa 01.html

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Feedback is welcome. E-mail the writer at citysensephilstar@hotmail.com.