A different kind of storybook

This is like no children’s storybook I’ve ever read.

Called Filipinas, this book is not bound but folds out like an accordion. On the front, on heavy cream paper, are black-and-white photographs of 30 women — both famous and not as famous. Side by side with icons like Corazon Aquino, Armida Siguion-Reyna and “Nanay” Socorro Ramos are women like poet Virginia Moreno, lawyer Ameurfina Herrera and pianist Nena del Rosario-Villanueva. At the back are mini-biographies about each of them, and the many inspiring contributions they’ve made to Philippine society.

Set against stark white backgrounds, with all the clothing on view the “model’s own,” these photographs are about as far as you can get from your typical glamour shoot. Yet each portrait captures something beautiful and telling about its subject. Each conveys something essential about the soul of the woman in the picture.

For Filipinas, the insightful eye behind the lens was Isa Lorenzo’s, who epitomizes the term “kina-career” better than any dilettante. A doctor by profession, she went on to get an MA in Media and Photography at Parsons in New York, and her photographs have been shown at NYC’s Museum of Modern Art, the International Center of Photography and the Thomas Werner Gallery.

In the Philippines Lorenzo is creative director of the Silverlens Gallery, and her work has been shown at the Cultural Center of the Philippines and The Drawing Room.

Filipinas began as an exhibit at the CCP, in fact. It premiered at the main gallery on January 26, 2006, and has been traveling around Europe since then, to Sweden, Belgium and Paris. Its current home is Heaven on the 5th in Rustan’s Makati, where copies of the book are also available.

Rustan’s Essenses Foundation, of which Lorenzo is a member of the board of trustees, launched Filipinas, and it’s rare you see so many beautiful, powerful women in one room. But it’s also very appropriate, because a book glorifying Philippine women is right in line with the aims and projects of the foundation.

“For every P500 purchase at Essenses in a Rustan’s Department Store, P1 goes to the Essenses Foundation,” explains board of trustees member Nena Tantoco. “In a way, this encapsulates the philanthropic philosophy set up by our beloved founder, Mrs. Gliceria Tantoco.”

Launched just last year, the Essenses Foundation is the first of its kind in the Philippines — a foundation run and participated in by Rustan’s thousands of clients. “Thus, it is customer-participated, community-driven and woman-focused,” continues Tantoco.

Officers include president Maymay Lior-Liechtenstein, vice president Rhoda Campos-Aldanese, corporate secretary Lorna Patajo-Kapunan, treasurer Crickette Tantoco, and assistant treasurer Bo Ramas-Ros. The board of trustees includes Gemma Cruz-Araneta, Katrina Goulbourn-Feist, Margie Moran-Floirendo, Romina Urra-Gonzalez, Chiqui Roa-Puno, Angel Ramos and Menchu Soriano.

In a little over a year, the Essenses Foundation has published primers on women’s rights and RA 9262, the Anti-Violence Against Women and their Children act (in English, Tagalog and even Hiligaynon, in easy-to-comprehend comic-book format).

Education projects include book donations, a youth chorale program and empowering teachers via a printing of the Magna Carta for Teachers.

Economic projects include microfinance loans for female entrepreneurs and leadership development  programs for marginalized families from the Makati and Payatas areas.

Arts and culture projects include scholarships for female Ballet Philippines dancers, and grants to support the Tiboli community who carry on the tradition of tinalak weaving.

On the health and well being side, the foundation provided women with stage 1 and 2 breast cancer free chemotherapy that literally saved their lives. Another program provides milk to malnourished children, while a project closest to Essenses’ expertise is the “Look Good, Feel Good” workshops, where cancer survivors are given makeovers, skincare and pampering treatments to help them feel beautiful and hopeful again.

About the latest project, Filipinas, Lorenzo says, “If you haven’t seen the photographs, you should. I want Filipinas to be a storybook for children.”

In these times rife with bad news, it’s heartening to read quotes like “If not I, who will do it?” (uttered by affirmative-action activist Maria Isabel Ongpin). It’s inspiring to meet the women depicted in the black-and-white photographs, and hear what they have to say. It’s amazing to have a different kind of children’s storybook — one I can read to my daughter to that she can model herself after a modern, real-life heroine. It’s great to celebrate the strength and beauty of the Filipina.

* * *

Filipinas is available at Fully Booked on the fifth level of Rustan’s Makati. For every purchase of the book and every P500 spent at Rustan’s Essenses, P1 goes to the Essenses Foundation.