MANILA, Philippines--A GROUP OF ARTISTS is outraged at the “bastardization” of its mural on press freedom at the National Press Club, and is accusing the NPC of “censorship.”
“Isn’t it ironic that an institution such as the NPC would cause the censorship of a work that they themselves commissioned purportedly to promote press freedom?” the Neo-Angono Artists Collective rued in a statement posted on its website.
“Isn’t the freedom of expression of the artist bound up with the very press freedom that they supposedly uphold?” it said.
The 8-foot by 32-foot mural—depicting a man reading a newspaper in the middle of a crowd on a busy street as press freedom icons mill around him—was unveiled by President Macapagal-Arroyo during the NPC’s 55th founding anniversary on Oct. 26.
It was installed two days earlier in the Headline Restaurant on the fourth floor of the NPC building in Manila.
NPC director Joel Sy Egco said members of the Presidential Security Group had inspected the mural and noted certain “leftist marks.” But the PSG chief, Brig. Gen. Romeo Prestoza, denied that his men had anything to do with the “censorship.”
What has angered the artists the most is that the International Federation of Journalists’ statement on the right-hand page of the newspaper being held up by the central figure had been painted over with a “hideous bird-monster in a cage.”
The statement was about the effects on press freedom of the Human Security Act, or the antiterror law.
“That’s the most terrible [alteration] because it involved the central image of the mural,” Richard Gappi, president of the Neo-Angono Artists Collective, told the Inquirer in a phone interview on Friday night.
“We were commissioned to visually express press freedom, and these people bastardized our work. Even if they paid us, it just wasn’t right,” Gappi said.
The group’s chair, Wire Tuazon, yesterday aired a similar statement: “They violated the rights of the group. They did not treat it as a work of art. They went ahead with the alterations without our consent. It was disappointing.”
1st commissioned work
Late in July, the NPC commissioned the Neo-Angono Artists Collective—composed of 60 multimedia artists based in Angono (Rizal), Metro Manila and abroad—to do a mural on the history of press freedom in the Philippines.
For two months, more than 20 members of the collective, including researchers, sketchers and visual artists, worked on the mural in their studio in Angono and completed it in time for the unveiling.
It was the first commissioned work for the four-year-old group, which was paid P900,000 for it.
Gappi pointed out that if the NPC had disagreed with the way the mural was done, it should not have unveiled the work at all, thus retaining its integrity.
NPC president Roy Mabasa proposed that the artists meet with the board officers for a dialogue.
“They could have just sat down with us, and retouched it,” Mabasa told the Inquirer Saturday. “We’re willing to sit down with them.”
Egco denied that the work had been bastardized and said the changes were “temporary” and done in “good faith.” He said the artists were free to make permanent corrections any time.
‘Political’ piece
Mabasa said the NPC had commissioned the artists to project in the mural threats to the press—such as killings and libel suits—but the latter produced a “political” piece.
“We don’t want to be politicized; they went overboard,” he said. “We don’t want to be associated with the Left or Right. The club is apolitical; it can stand on its own.”
Egco said he was initially shocked by the changes and even boycotted the unveiling of the mural in anger. But in the end, he said, he realized that Mabasa had meant no harm to the artists by ordering the “minor changes.”
“We are sorry for the mistake,” he said. “It was not meant to hurt them or us. It was done in good faith, but in the wrong manner.”
He added that the NPC had paid for the mural and was responsible for it.
On Oct. 25, or a day before the unveiling, Gappi said Egco called him to say that the mural had been inspected by PSG personnel.
Egco confirmed this: “They (the guards) went there for a final inspection. They noticed the leftist marks, like the alibata K. And they said, ‘Aren’t those leftist marks?’ So we called the artists to fix it.”
Mabasa denied that the PSG was involved: “We can’t be swayed by anybody. I don’t know where [that story] came from. The PSG will not meddle in these things.”
The alibata is the native Filipino alphabet derived from Arabic.
Security only
Reached by phone Saturday, the PSG’s Prestoza denied that his men had told the NPC to alter anything in the mural.
“My men didn’t report anything relative to that. The PSG has nothing to do with alterations, if any, in the painting,” Prestoza said, explaining that it was “routine” for the elite guards to inspect ahead of time the facilities to be visited by Ms Arroyo. He added: “We’re only concerned with the security aspect, not the event itself. It’s not our job to interfere with things like [depictions in a mural].”
Egco confirmed this in another interview late Saturday. He said it was Mabasa who had ordered that changes be made because the latter wanted the mural to depict the state of the Philippine press.
“There was this initial perception that the painting had [a leftist theme],” Egco said. “Mabasa said we should not leave any impression that the NPC leans toward the Left or Right or Center; it should only reflect the state of the Philippine press when it was commissioned.”
Unnamed artist
Egco said that during his phone conversation with Gappi, he told the latter that some changes had to be done on Mabasa’s instruction.
He said he requested that the collective send three artists to make the alterations. “We gave them due courtesy. When they didn’t show up, Roy was forced to make the changes.”
Egco said he did not know the name of the artist who retouched the mural overnight on Oct. 25. Mabasa also declined to identify the artist, “out of courtesy.”
Gappi said the collective could not send the three artists requested because it was too late. He said the artists who had collaborated on the mural were resting or had previous commitments.
“We worked on this for two months. And we gave them three weeks to look at the production process before the unveiling, as spelled out in the contract. They failed. They can’t just ask us to go there on short notice,” Gappi said.
Besides, he said, any alteration had to be mutually agreed upon.
Gappi pointed out that according to the contract, the artists had “free rein” to paint the mural based on the theme of press freedom, and the NPC was supposed to monitor its progress.
Said Egco: “True, Roy failed to see the work beforehand. But he thought they would be lenient [toward] changes. It was a misunderstanding.”
He said he also informed the group once the alterations were made.
Those “slipshod” alterations, according to the artists, were:
The headline of the newspaper that Jose Rizal is holding, “Press Freedom Fighter’s Son Abducted,” was replaced with “Press Freedom Fight Is On,” and the pictures of Edita Burgos and her missing activist son Jonas were defaced.
The alibata K tattoo on Andres Bonifacio’s left arm was replaced with a red heart pierced by an arrow.
The hair of columnist Randy David was lengthened.
The name of the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines was erased from the banners of the demonstrators.
A beard and a mustache were painted on the face of the man selling quail eggs and balut (depicted as columnist Juan Mercado) and the change of the hair color from white to black.
The artists said they were shocked to hear about the alterations from Egco, and more so when they trooped to the NPC on Oct. 28 to document these.
They later submitted their documentation to the Intellectual Property Office in Makati City. They have yet to lodge a formal complaint with the IPO, or decide whether to file a case against the NPC.
“Aren’t these alterations a clear violation of the rights of authors/artists protected by the Intellectual Property Code of the Philippines?” they said in their statement posted on neo-angono.com on Oct. 31.
No compromise
Egco said the NPC recognized the artists’ right to correct the “temporary alterations.”
“We give the Neo-Angono the freedom to make the necessary correction. They can go there any time of the day or night. No one is prohibiting them from making the necessary corrections,” he said, adding:
“I know how hard it was for the artists because I’ve been with them since Day 1. I respected them and admired them. I really trusted them ... that they could do the work.”
But Wire Tuazon said: “Our position is not to change anything. There will be no compromise. There’s no point in restoring [the mural] to its original state.”
Gappi said he and his colleagues had not sought a dialogue with, nor demanded an explanation from, the NPC because they felt it would be useless.
“We just want to drumbeat the issue so the other artists would know that we were treated like this,” he said.
