Spirit indestructible

Baha ka lang, Pilipino ako!”

This was our battle cry as a monsoon ravaged Luzon this week, killing many, and causing unthinkable damage to property and infrastructure.

But despite this nightmare, Filipinos have come closer together. Using social media to coordinate rescue missions and braving the rains to help out at relief centers, citizens became living definitions of “bayanihan”. The monsoon may have blocked the sun, but there was something bright happening on the grounds of this country. We weren’t in a state of calamity as much as we were in a state of unity.

As all this was happening, the Ayala Museum’s Pike Acosta posted this short tweet: “The Filipino Spirit is waterproof,” it said. These five words spread like wildfire and would go on to inspire a nation.

The Ayala Museum’s tweet has become a meme — something that is passed on from one Internet user to another, and develops within a culture. Artists, graphic designers, and typographers have transformed the words into uplifting works of art. Today, you’ll find them all over Facebook and Twitter, and now, the Ayala Museum itself is collating the images, with the thought of putting them on display.

The Museum-initiated website, Waterproof PH (http://waterproofph.tumblr.com) is a gallery of artworks roused by the relentless Filipino Spirit. Anyone can submit entries by posting to @ayalamuseum on Twitter with the hashtag #FilipinoSpiritIsWaterproof.

With the Ayala Museum’s kind permission, we’ve dedicated this Supreme page to some of the collection’s most moving pieces. This is exactly the spark we need as we rebuild our houses, clean up our city, and help fellow Filipinos in need.