|
By Sherma E. Benosa
When I saw Eli Avellanoza’s painting and digital renditions of
traditional Filipino games on his website several months back, I
recognized myself in them at once. Between the playful colors and
over and beneath his fluid strokes, I could see fragments of my
childhood and hear the laughter of my youth.
I did not even have to look at the paintings’
titles. I knew them by heart. Sungka, luksong tinik, luksong baka,
patintero, siatong, sipa—I played them all as a young child.
Filipino symbols
Avellanoza, a painter cum digital artist whose
works are mainly on Filipino symbols like kudkuran (coconut grater)
and banga (pot), started drawing as a young child, but it was only
when he joined the Samahang Makasining when he was still a second
year agriculture student at Central Luzon State University (CLSU)
that he turned to painting. Samahang Makasining is a school-based
organization of visual artists in CLSU in Muñoz, Nueva Ecija. “I
want my artworks to be very Filipino,” he shares.
When Ileto Circa, then chairman of the
association, invited him to join an exhibit about traditional games,
he was sort of “forced to paint those kinds of subjects.” But
then, while on the exhibit, he started having a change of heart.
“I realized that I should continue doing those kinds of paintings
because [painting about our traditional games] is a form of
preserving them. I also want to promote and create awareness on our
traditional games. Many kids no longer know about them, especially
those born in the digital age,” he shares.
Eli has been inactive for two years, but he now
plans to have a comeback. This time, he plans not only to work on
traditional games but also traditional toys like the tirador
(slingshot) and the sumpak. He has done a digital rendition of a toy
he played as a child, trak-trakan (car toy made of tin cans), and is
now working on sketches related to the subjects he plans to work on
in preparation for his planned comeback in the arts scene.
“I realized that traditional games are a
reflection of my childhood so I’ve made it my personal commitment
as an artist to continue working about them. It makes me feel young
because my paintings send me back to my childhood.”
The games we played
Our traditional games form part of our national
heritage. They give a glimpse of who we are as a people. They mirror
the lives of our ancestors and, for those of us who were lucky to
have played some of those games in our childhood, they give us a
connection to traditions of old.
But besides being a form of entertainment,
traditional games had a socializing role in the Filipino community.
According to Armando Malay, one of the first Filipinos to document
traditional games in the country through his book Games of the
Philippines, “Filipinos like to play games, one index to their
sociability. Games bring members of the family together after their
respective chores have been done in the neighborhood; they
strengthen the ties that bind families.”
Traditional games also allowed parents of very
young children to attend to their chores because they did not have
to spend lots of time tending to their children. Maximo Ramos, in
his book The Games Children Used to Play has this to say: “What
kept our parents’ nursery budget at bottom level was that we were
our own babysitters, expertly amusing ourselves with pastimes of our
own devising.”
But more than just their practical benefits,
traditional games also serve as a national identity. This was best
articulated by Circa: “Traditional games are a symbol of the race
that plays it. They are our national identity. They mold artistic
minds and hearts.”
Preserving the games
of our childhood
But our traditional games are slowly getting
lost. As today’s kids are becoming more and more adept with
technology, spending more time with their electronic gadgets and
even getting their own accounts in social networking sites, the less
they are able to play outdoors. And as there are now more fancy toys
in the market, the less they are able to enjoy the games that their
elders played in their youth. Many of today’s children don’t
even get to make their own toys anymore.
But the loss did not just come as a result of
modern technology. The popularity of many of the country’s
traditional games has been diminishing even decades ago. In her book
A Study of Philippine Games, Mellie Leandicho Lopez has quoted E.
Arsenio Manuel as repeatedly lamenting in his series on traditional
games published in Sunday Mirror Magazine from 1960 to 1961 that
“Philippine games are disappearing.”
Bent on preserving our traditional games,
Samahang Makasining which used to be headed by Circa thought of
reviving the country’s traditional games through visual arts. True
to its main advocacy of cultural redemption through the arts, the
association proposed to the National Commission for Culture and the
Arts in 2001 a project that was envisioned to help revive the
country’s traditional games. The project was named ‘Laro ng Lahi.’
Since the approval of the project and its successful implementation,
the catch phrase ‘Laro ng Lahi’ has been adapted by many
organizations with youth-oriented projects to refer to the
country’s traditional games.
Thus, using traditional games as painting
subjects has proliferated. These paintings serve as promotional
messages as well as a documentation of the country’s traditional
games. While they are effective, Circa suggests that more should be
done. “We must also introduce traditional Filipino games for the
whole world to appreciate . . . games that will be played alongside
popular foreign games.”
|
