History of Philippine museums

While this is an unusual topic or subject matter for a book, it is both very interesting to read and, on a topic, very rarely written about by Philippine historians. The title of the book is “Enigmatic Objects” by National Artist Resil B. Mojares published in 2023 by the Ateneo de Manila University Press. The subtitle is a better description of the book – “Notes Towards a History of the Museum in the Philippines.”

As far as I know, this is the only book written about the history of Philippine museums.

According to the book, a Royal Order issued on Jan. 28, 1867 decreed that secondary colleges, in order to qualify as first-class colleges, must have a natural history museum. The other new requirements were physics and chemistry laboratories and a botanical garden. This reform measure ushered in the start of the earliest museums in the Philippines. By the end of the 19th century, there were ten academic “museos:” Universidad de Santo Tomas (Manila), Colegio de San Juan de Letran (Manila), Ateneo Municipal (Manila), Seminario-Colegio de San Carlos (Cebu), Colegio de Bacolor (Pampanga), Seminario-Colegio de Santissimo Rosario (Naga), Seminario-Colegio de San Vicente Ferrer (Jaro, Iloilo), Colegio de San Alberto Magno (Dagupan), Seminario-Colegio de la Purisima Concepcion (Vigan), Colegio de San Buenaventura (Guinobatan, Albay).

The book is essentially divided into two parts. The first part is “Museums” and narrates the founding and description of the first museum.

One interesting chapter is “The First Colonial Museum” inaugurated in 1891. Its director was Pedro Paterno. The author writes that the first museums were not established and curated by Filipinos but by Europeans. These were missionaries and colonial civil authorities. “They were expressive of what Europeans saw to be significant, distinctive and useful about the country and what of the world Filipinos needed to see and learn.”

Another chapter, “A Museum of Our Own,” mentions that the author had a hard time tracing how the National Museum started. It began together with a National Library. Both institutions initially did not have a home of their own and were moved from place to place. It started in some rooms in a building on Calle Rosario in 1904, moved to the Hotel de Oriente, then in 1905 to the Bureau of Education Building in Intramuros, on to other sites until 1927 when it was moved to a government building.

The early work of the National Library was to retrieve and conserve important documents of the country’s history. Among the most significant acquisitions were the 400,000 volume Philippine collection of the Compania General de Tabacos de Filipinas in Barcelona. It also acquired the original manuscripts of Rizal’s “Noli Me Tangere” in 1911 and “El Filibusterismo” in 1925. Also acquired were the 900 titles of what was left in Rizal’s private library.

It took many decades for the Filipinos to have a National Museum. In 1998, the Philippine government established the Philippine National Museum System, composed of three buildings occupied then by the National Legislature, the Department of Finance and the Department of Tourism. These buildings became the National Museum of Fine Arts, the National Museum of Anthropology and the National Museum of Natural History, forming a complex called the National Museum of the Philippines.

I am sure that many people, including myself, were surprised that the National Museum came so late in our history.

The second part of the book includes stories about the different early Spanish expeditions to the Philippines. “The Filipino Collector” is the most interesting chapter in this section.

The first known indio collector was Clemente Ignacio, an old priest in Gasan, Marinduque. He was described as having “a house filled with all sorts of objects – wooden santos, mechanical singing birds, clocks of every shape, 20 watches, 20 music boxes, chandeliers, candelabras and thousands of other miscellaneous objects.”

Very little is known about Fr. Ignacio and why he collected what he did.

A more “Filipino” museum was created by T.H. Pardo de Tavera who may have been “... driven by a need to preserve the traces of a heritage that, despite his own personal circumstances, defined him for what he is.”

In Pardo de Tavera’s late years, his house in Sta. Mesa became a museum of Philippine and Asian artifacts. Among his most valuable items was a collection of antique Philippine maps which he collected and studied for his pioneering work in Philippine cartography, “El Mapa de Filipinas del P. Murillo de Velarde.”

There is in the book also a chapter on books written about travel from Spain to Manila. These could be compared to today’s travel books. One of the first such books was written by Ramon Morera, written as a guide for first-time travelers on this Manila-Barcelona route. It provided practical information for voyagers on this journey.

Another travel book by Ramon Gonzalez Hernandez was based on his three months’ residence in the Philippines. It recreates an entire trip and includes details like cost of passage, travel documents needed and life on board the ship. It then goes further by detailing customs inspection, including the confiscation of prohibited books and the required courtesy call on the governor-general within 24 hours after arrival. He even has tips on hiring servants, the list of recommended inns in Intramuros, places of entertainment.

This book is a cache of little-known information valuable to Philippine heritage and culture, well researched and written by a National Artist.