‘Liberation: War & Hope’ addresses the need to recall and commemorate our history in these uncertain times
Photos by Noel Pabalate
In the words of the dean of science fiction writers Robert A. Heinlein, “A generation which ignores history has no past and no future.” This excerpt cites one of the biggest issues of today, in our era of misinformation and forgetting, which may not be as urgent as the current health emergency but just as pressing.
History allows us access to the laboratory of human experience, offering a depot of information on how people and societies behave. History helps us comprehend changes and how to cope with them, contributes to our moral senses, as well as provides an understanding of national values and identity.
The final liberation of the Philippines was realized on Sept. 2, 1945, when Japan formally surrendered aboard the USS Missouri on Tokyo Bay, effectively concluding their four-year occupation in the country and the Pacific war that claimed millions of Filipino lives.
One-stop digital research center, Filipinas Heritage Library (FHL), together with the US Embassy in the Philippines, has formally launched “Liberation: War & Hope,” an exhibition and a series of events that mark the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II (WWII), at the Ayala Museum in Makati City.
The inaugural post-rehabilitation showcase reconnects the unit of the Ayala Foundation, Inc. (AFI) with the public. The six-story edifice home to ethnographic and archaeological exhibits on Filipino culture, art, and history, took a two-year hiatus for its renovation. The museum reopened its doors to guests on Dec. 4, 2021.
As the library puts it, the project serves to “retread the Philippines’ path to normalcy, independence, and hope after centuries of struggle. It seeks to portray a clear image of the Filipino nation as a family working tirelessly to preserve its unity, fight for independence, rise above difficulties, and welcome change.”
“There is so much talk already of the military exploits during WWII, but there was very little exploration about what happened to the daily life of the ordinary Filipinos and Filipinas. For example, how did they source food? How did they get medicine when they were sick?” says Suzanne Yupangco, former senior manager of FHL, on the main goal of “Liberation: War & Hope,” which was to urge people to pause and turn inward, remember, and uphold the lives of those who lived prior and during Second World War.
The exposition and its complementary programs, conceptualized as early as 2019 under Project Liberation, were planned and mounted during the health crisis. “The exhibit was delayed because of the pandemic, it should have opened in 2020, which would have been the exact 75th anniversary, but the quarantines and limitations of movement came,” explains the curator Dr. Rico Jose, only the country’s foremost scholar on World War II.
Mounted as such, at the height of the ongoing pandemic, the exhibition is a specimen of adaptability, with a physical component as well as a virtual one. At the core of the hybrid experience is the physical exhibit, inspired by FHL’s Roderick Hall collection, on the second floor of Ayala Museum, which features everyday objects, archival footage, photographs, and documents that should allow the viewer to put themselves in the shoes of the Filipinos emerging from the ruins and wreckage of war-torn Philippines in the mid-1940s with enough optimism and hope not only to keep going but to restore, regain, rebuild, or replace all that was lost.
The exhibition begins with bright and happy colors but gets darker as one goes deeper until one arrives at a black space that announces the war. The floors have markers that not only act as a social distancing reminder but also to contain a timeline that Jose put together.
Hanging on the walls are photographs of the ordinary people and unsung heroes, as well as items of importance to those who lived during that period like ration tickets, Filipino magazines, postcards, and the like.
The destruction of Manila was one of the greatest tragedies of World War II. Of Allied capitals in those war years, only Warsaw suffered more. Seventy percent of the utilities, 75 percent of the factories, 80 percent of the southern residential district, and 100 percent of the business district was razed. —William Manchester
“Within all that structure, within all that forced military and rationing system, the Filipinos managed to survive… It brought out ingenuity and resourcefulness because we suddenly faced a shortage of things like rice, shoes, or even tomato ketchup,” says Jose.
“Everything today is fast-paced and the elements we face may be different from WWII, but the lessons of that era challenge us to have hope, to believe that we can have a better country. War teaches us to take care of each other, value safety, and the littlest of things,” says Trina Flores of Rubbertree Design Studios Inc., who designed the exhibit with her partner Ruben Flores.
At the end of the exhibition is an image of a little girl, intended to embody every person who went through the hard time as well as to represent hope.
The exhibit’s complementary programs online include workshops, webinar lectures, a 360-video animation crafted by I Am Cardboard PH, and a mini-documentary co-created by the FHL team with Frames Per Story. The hybrid nature of the exhibition makes it accessible to Filipinos and foreigners in the Philippines and elsewhere in the world, anyone interested in Philippine history from near and far, but if one can explore it both in person and online, the exhibit does offer a whole new museum and library experience.
“Many people believe that WWII was such a long time ago, but there is much to learn from history, especially when we face new challenges today like the pandemic,” says Elizabeth Gustilo, senior director of the arts and culture division of Ayala Foundation. “In the case of the Liberation exhibit, what it really shows us is the power of the human spirit to overcome.”
“Liberation: War & Hope” is at the 2F gallery of the Ayala Museum Complex. Free to all visitors, the exhibit runs until Sept. 25. The exhibition was organized by Ayala Foundation, Inc. through FHL, in collaboration with the US Embassy in the Philippines and Manila Bulletin as the official media partner.