Pasig River runs through them

This week’s column features issues on two sides (actually two ends) of an important metropolitan landmark, the Pasig River. The two stories highlight celebration at the inland end of the river and rising concerns over illegal construction that threatens another landmark, Intramuros at the mouth of the Pasig.

The Celebration

Pasig, the town at the end of the river, is known for its rich heritage and its loyal residents known for their pursuit of art, love of culture and deep-rooted tradition. Artists in the 19 th and 20 th centuries like Fernando Amorsolo and Botong Francisco regularly traveled to this picturesque town to paint riverscapes, portraits of its inhabitants, and to maintain convivial relations with the town’s artistic community.

This relationship with renowned Manila artists helped Pasig engender its own stock of creative talents, who eventually organized themselves into a society known as the Pasig Art Club. This year, the club celebrates its golden anniversary and has established itself as the prime steward of Pasigueño art, culture and tradition.

Though I was born in Cebu and grew up as a child in Quezon City, I did spend my high school and college years as a suburbanite in Baryo Kapitolyo, Pasig. I regularly visited the town to see relatives or go to the large new market (which in the 60s boasted an innovative concrete hyperbolic paraboloid roof). After college, I frequented the town because one of my partners in a design consultancy lived there, Horacio Ace Dimanlig. It was Ace who introduced me to the Pasig Art Club and the delights of the Pasig with its surrounding waterside towns.

The club regularly organizes weekend sketching, painting and photography forays to what remains of our pastoral countryside (amazingly still a lot), heritage structures in the town and its banks like the old American-era provincial capitol near C-5 and in the Pasig Art Museum. The museum is the PACs headquarters and venue for its frequent art shows and exhibits. A revivalist-style mansion fronting the town plaza, it was adaptively reused from the old Concepcion family mansion. A fascinating and welcoming venue, it is here that the club will open its 50th Anniversary art exhibit on Saturday, July 28.

The club will also celebrate with a series of lectures at the Pamantasan ng Lungsod ng Pasig. Speakers include Dr. Ramon Santos, former dean of the UP College of Music who will give a talk on the development of ethnic music in the Philippines from pre-historic to contemporary times, and Dr. Gerard Rey A. Lico from the faculty of the UP College of Architecture, who will give a concise appraisal of Philippine Design in the 20th century highlighting the genius of the Filipino in adapting and indigenizing his designs.

Finally, the club will launch its commemorative book Pasig Art Club: A Golden Legacy, containing the club’s story from its inception in the 1950s, biographical sketches of the club’s members past and present, and reproductions of their work in 20 full-color pages. Also in the coffee table book is a collection of essays on the Pasig and Pasigueño art and culture.

Things are looking up for Pasig. I now call it home again though I’m still at its fringes (Valle Verde). Access to C-5 and the Ortigas Central Business District makes it a good place to live. I spoke to the newly-elected Mayor Bobby Eusebio and he’s lining up a slew of projects that seek to improve the town’s urban design and parks along with all open spaces.

Concerns At The Other End Of Pasig

The Intramuros, or the walled city of Manila, is a national (and Asian) heritage site that was almost lost to the ravages of war and the post-war invasion of informal settlers. It has been slowly recovering its fabric in the ‘70s to today, hanging on desperately despite recurring threats from commercialization.

Today, another threat is emerging, actually already rising in concrete and steel — a sports complex by the storied walls of Old Manila! The monstrous encroachment is reportedly the project of Dean Barbers, Philippine Tourism Authority general manager. Costing P85 million, the complex is being built in the Club Intramuros driving range area (itself already a blight on the landscape) and very close to the walls. The project, say sources, was rammed through despite the disapproval of the PTA board. How GM Barbers was able to do this seems incomprehensible to everyone but the contractor and workers at the construction site. Even the Intramuros Administration has issued an order for the work to stop but to no avail.

Tourism Secretary Ace Durano apparently also seems powerless to prevent the disaster from happening. He had reportedly sent a memo to Barbers to stop construction, reminding Barbers that the project has no approval from the PTA board.

I wish the P85 million had been spent on improving the parks and plazas of the Intramuros. The money could also go a long way to make the destination friendlier to local and foreign tourists by providing better street lighting, more security, an ikot type hop-on, hop-off shuttle inside the walls, or simply contribute to the whole areas upkeep, garbage collection and general maintenance.

The DOT, to which the PTA is supposedly attached, has to act now or take command responsibility for this madness. The metropolis is replete with sports complexes and, correct me if I’m wrong, building these facilities is not a core function of a tourism body. Otherwise, it should be renamed the DOST, the Department of Sports and Tourism and its adjunct office, the PSTA, the Philippine Sports and Tourism Authority.

Wow, only in da Pilipins!

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Feedback is welcome. Please e-mail the writer at paulo.alcazaren@gmail.com. For more information on the Pasig Art Club e-mail its president Horacio C. Dimanlig at pasigartclub@yahoo.com or call the Pasig Art Museum at 641-0211.