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A Conversation with Ed Cabagnot

A Conversation with Ed Cabagnot
While doing my research on digital cinema in the Philippines, it was inevitable that I talk to Ed Cabagnot. Here’s an excerpt of our conversation where Ed shares his experience with the ECP and the early years of Gawad CCP.

I worked with Ed in the early 1990s, he’s at the CCP Film while I was with the CCP Visual Arts and then CCP Outreach. I learned a lot about films and photography from him. One afternoon, passing through Ed’s office I saw him watching a film, I stopped and joined him. I was enthralled, completely awed and fell in love. The film was Raise the Red Lantern by Zhang Yimou. Unfortunately, I had a meeting to go to and I was not able to finish the film. But the images stayed with me. I was fortunate to finally finish the film a few years back. I am still in love with it. Thank you, Ed.
EH: I’m very interested in your first-hand experience in the GAWAD CCP, Freefest and Cinemalaya. Please take us back in time.

ED: My first statement is that Cinemalaya is one of the most successful projects of the Cultural Center of the Philippines to date in the sense that audience-wise even if we did not have press release, people came and the screenings get filled up. So audience-wise, every year people flock to watch Cinemalaya films. Number two, revenue-wise it is also one of the most lucrative CCP projects. In the past year Cinemalaya earned 27.5 million pesos in ticket sales, compared to the first year which was barely 5 million — so you can see the trajectory. And I’m not saying “kasi ang galing- galing ng CCP,” I’m just saying that the time is right. We have a lot of people making new films. We have a lot of audiences who are looking for films and then we have a venue like CCP which is giving these people the space.

My statement there is that the success of Cinemalaya wasn’t overnight. The road to Cinemalaya was a long, long road and I think if you will allow me, I think it even goes beyond CCP. For me, from my experience, I think the first stirring of this movement was called Philippine Independent filmmaking which started as early, even before the 80’s. My first hand experience with the indies was working under the Experimental Cinema of the Philippines. So I can bring you back — this was created by the Marcos administration in February 1982 to be the managing organization of Imelda’s Manila Film Center. So the ECP was created to create film-related events that can push Philippine cinema forward. So on one side of the ECP was Imelda’s MIFF – Manila International Film Festival – whose main goal was to make Manila the Cannes of Asia, the Cannes Film Festival of Asia. On the other side of CCP was Imee. Imee was tasked by Marcos to create the other incentives. And what were the other incentives? Other incentives included a film fund which means if you have a film in production but cannot finish it due to financial difficulties, you can show your rushes and then the ECP would give you the balance. And then there were film production which was responsible for four of the best films I know – Oro, Plata, Mata, Himala, Soltero, Misterio sa Tuwa. And then you have the archives headed ni Ernie De Pedro. It was a beautiful archives below. And then you have Film Education of Ward Loarca but that did not really take off.

And then where I was, was the Alternative Cinema. Alternative Cinema’s job was just to fill up all the theatres of the Manila Film Center and we had more than 13 theatres with regular screenings. The main theatre of the Manila Film Festival Center could seat approximately 1,800 people. The 2 smaller theaters were big; they were as big as the Little Theater – 450-seater and a 350-seater. And then you have the mini preview rooms which could sit 100 people to 300 people. So that was our job.

My boss before was Boy Noriega. So doon sa Alternative Cinema, I was handling the classic films – the Renoirs, Truffauts, Kurosawas, the Fellinis, etc. And then somebody else was handling the Filipino titles. And then somebody else was handling the independent films. For me, it all started with the ECP Independent Film and Video Competition. It started, if I’m not mistaken, in 1982. Bienvenido “Boy” Noriega Jr., the playwright, inspired it. He was also a bank vice president for PNB, but at the same time he was an officer of ECP, and he was an author. He loved short films, he loved classic movies, so he was the one with Imee, who thought of coming up with a competition. So the ECP Experimental Cinema and Independent Film & Video competition became the first ever regular competition sponsored by the government that gave young Filipino filmmakers awards for the best documentary, best short feature or narrative film, best experimental and best animation – so the 4 categories were there. The likes of Nick Deocampo, Raymond Red, Joey Agbayani, Rox Lee and a host of other people who many consider as the pillars of Philippine Independent Cinema became known here. And I remember we were all young then, they were programming the festival, we were all joining the festival, and it was fun.

EDSA People Power happened in 1986 and one of the first things that the new administration did was shut down most of the Marcos’s machineries. Unfortunately, I felt it was very relentless. They should have kept the ones that worked and I felt that the ECP was one of the best efforts of the government, but unfortunately they shut it down. Manila Film Center was closed. CCP changed its thrust. You know that Eloi, you were from here – decentralization, etc. They opened CCP to include the non-performing arts so the VLMA (Visual Literary Media Arts) was formed and Hammy Sotto became the head for Film. They wanted the CCP not just a venue but also a Coordinating Center.

So when Hammy came in, he asked me to join him. To be honest, I did not want to work with government anymore but Hammy is a nice guy and said. “Don’t worry Ed, we’ll have as much fun as you did in ECP.” When I joined CCP, most of the projects/programs that we did at the ECP were adopted by the CCP. But of course, CCP’s budget is much smaller than ECP’s – you know all of a sudden arts and culture fell into nothingness. You were here, you know how our budgets were, but we did very good projects. One of the projects that had a reincarnation was the ECP Independent Film and Video Competition that was renamed GAWAD CCP para sa Alternatibong Pelikula at Video.

Hammy was so wise. He didn’t want to reinvent the wheel, so the Coordinating Center for Film in 1987 was patterned after the ECP but on a very, very small scale. I managed World Cinema. Lyn Pareja managed Filipino Greats. And then you had Jon Red who was managing the Indie film. So Jon Red was in-charged of GAWAD CCP para sa Alternatibong Pelikula at Video. And what was nice even though there was one or two years gap between the end of ECP and the start of Coordinating Center for Film, when we started the GAWAD there was a smooth transition. A lot of people joined like Mark Leily, they all joined. To be honest with you, even the exact rules and regulations of the GAWAD was based on the ECP.

EH: So this was about ‘88?

ED: ‘87. The good then thing is we felt that the ECP pattern was good, so why re-invent it? That’s the problem with Filipino, when there’s a change in management, everything changes. That’s why I like Hammy because he is not like that, for him it was “let’s just do this because it was good in the first place.” So the categories survived up to now.

The GAWAD CCP para sa Alternatibong Pelikula at Video is one of the longest running GAWAD of the Cultural Center of the Philippines. But Eloi, please help me with this research, it’s my claim that “it is the longest running Independent Film Festival in Asia.” There’s no other independent competition, especially for shorts, that I know existed in countries including Japan or even India. So if you could help me with that claim. But at least for Southeast Asia I know we were first and we’re still there.

So yung Independent Cinema scene I think, if you just look at all the winners of the GAWAD, you would see the trending, you would see the themes and technologies that were the trend for certain periods.

EH: Were you able to keep the films?

Ed: No. We only started archiving the films between 20 years, during the 10th or 11th year. But the nice thing is most of the entries of the GAWAD CCP came from Mowelfund, UP, Ateneo, La Salle and most of these schools would have their archives. Unfortunately, I just found out from Ricky Orellana that even Mowelfund is having a hard time archiving their shorts. They still have but they need the funding and the people to maintain it, digitize it – so that’s the problem.

EH: What about your catalogs?

ED: The catalogs are almost complete in the CCP library. And for the 20th anniversary (of CCP), Ricky and I had been talking about having some of the Mowelfund shorts digitized using CCP equipment. Because we feel that we own it partly because they’re GAWAD winners. And as I’ve said, young people nowadays especially they’re going into independent filmmaking, it’s nice for them to realize that they are not alone – a lot of people started before them.

EH: That they’re not “putok sa buho?”

ED: Exactly. For me, that’s one of the ways we can help them. There are a lot of independent filmmakers who are big-headed; they think they are always the first to do things, which I don’t mind, it’s nice to have a big ego but if you feel like you’re a part of a tradition, then that’s better.

Part 2 to follow.

Cultural Center of the Philippines May 14, 2009

First posted here

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Call for papers for EUROSEAS 2015: Theorizing Translation: Southeast Asia as a Vantage Point

Translation has been traditionally conceived of as involving two languages and two cultures in which what is considered the source language in one culture is translated into a target language in another culture, resulting in a copy that is accessible to the new culture but retains the meaning of the original. In recent years, this definition has been challenged to account for more contemporary forms of translation that are both transmedial and cultural, acknowledging that translation is not only linguistic but crosses media as well (e.g., from text to film to dance to art installations) and that a translation of form necessarily involves a translation of culture. In effect, this move challenges notions of ‘source’ and ‘target’ and the target’s supposed ‘fidelity’ to the source, advancing a view of translation that is always already there, at the very moment of exchange between, or expression in, all semiotic forms. This move also challenges the notion that translation takes place only between discrete spaces and clear borders, proposing instead the idea that translation already includes a multiplicity of cultures and identities in spaces that are both physical and conceptual, and bordered and borderless.

This panel locates itself in this more contemporary theorizing on translation, and explores the possibilities of such movements in contemporary Southeast Asia. It asserts that given the multilingual, multicultural, and multimodal nature of Southeast Asia, it is a rich and productive site for studying these new directions in translation studies. This panel therefore seeks papers that would demonstrate the transmedial and cultural elements of translation in different facets of Southeast Asia.

If you are interested to join our panel, email proposals to emphernandez@gmail.com and aosalonga@yahoo.com before December 15, 2014. The text should not exceed 1.500 characters (including spaces). Title of the paper, name of the author(s) and affiliation must be included.

Panel convenors:

Eloisa May P. Hernandez, PhD

Associate Professor

Department of Art Studies, College of Arts and Letters

University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City, Philippines

emphernandez@gmail.com

Aileen Salonga, PhD

Assistant Professor

Department of English and Comparative Literature, College of Arts and Letters

University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City, Philippines

aosalonga@yahoo.com

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Paz Paterno

PATERNO, PAZ SANTA

b. Santa Cruz, Manila 1 Nov 1867, d. 25 Aug 1914

Paz was the ninth of Don Maximo Molo Agustin Polo Paterno’s children, the eight with his second wife Carmina Devera Ignacio. Paz’s siblings were also inclined towards the arts. Paz’s youngest half sister, Adelaida Paterno, was known for her work using embroidered hair. Dolores Paterno composed La Flor de Manila (Sampaguita). Pedro Alejandro Paterno’s novel, Ninay, written in 1885, was the first novel written by a Filipino published in Spanish. He also wrote the libretto Sandugong Panaginip (literally A Dream of Blood). He arranged the historic Pact of Biak-na-Bato in 1897 and was elected into the National Assembly in 1907. Another sister, Trinidad, also made embroidery using human hair entitled Rural Scene with Water Carrier made circa 1890s. Concepcion (Concha) Paterno was one of the women who joined the 1895 Exposicion Regional de Filipinas en Manila, in which she exhibited a paisaje done in embroidery.

Paz studied painting with a private tutor, Lorenzo Guerrero. According to Emmanuel Torres, “Paz developed her skill for painting and drawing from no less than three leading painters of the time: Lorenzo Guerrero, Felix Martinez, and Teodoro Buenaventura. From Guerrero she learned how to paint bodegones or still-lifes of Philippine fruits” (Kayamanan 60). She did not undergo formal training at the Academia de Dibujo y Pintura, because at that time, the Academia was still not open to women.

pazpaterno still life

Paz Paterno’s Still Life, 1884, Private Collection*

In 1884, when she was seventeen, Paz painted the Still Life and Fruits and Basket. These two are the earliest known existing artwork of a woman visual artist in the Philippines. In 1885, she painted Fruits and Flowers, River Scene with Banca, and River Scene with Steamboat. Another work, Still Life with Bird, is undated, but it is probable that it was also painted around the same period. Like her first work, Still Life, her effort to combine two subject matters – landscape and still life – in one painting. Paz’s works were not limited to landscapes and still life. She also painted a Portrait of a Woman, which is now in a private collection. Paz appears to be the most prolific of the women visual artists in the nineteenth century. In the span of two years, she produced seven works, and possibly more. All her works are in oil and canvas.

 

Still Life002

Paz Paterno, Still Life with Bird

Based on the exposition catalogue, Paz exhibited works in the 1895 Exposicion Regional de Filipinas en Manila, including a paisaje, four bodegones, and another paisaje entitled Orillas del Pasig.

Paz had tuberculosis and it is not known exactly when she contracted the illness. She lived in their house at Sta. Ana, Herran to recuperate. According to other relatives, she probably painted her paisajes from this house. She must have been forced to stop painting because of her illness, which according to her descendants, was partly caused by her painting. She died unmarried at the age of 47 on August 25, 1914.

*Photograph from 60 Philippine Art Masterpieces

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YCC Statement on the 2014 Order of National Artists

YCC Film Desk's avatarYoung Critics Circle Film Desk

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The Film Desk of the Young Critics Circle (YCC) condemns the exclusion of Nora Aunor (Nora Cabaltera Villamayor) by President Benigno S. “Noynoy” Aquino III from the roster of NationalArtists proclaimed this year.

Aunor was nominated as National Artist for Film and duly passed all levels of screening in the legally constituted process presided over by the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) and the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA), acting jointly as the Order of National Artists (ONA) Secretariat. Her nomination, and her subsequent inclusion in the final list drawn up by the CCP and the NCCA, was made in recognition of her outstanding contributions to the Philippine film industry and to Philippine culture and arts in general. Her powerful portrayals of various roles over the past several decades of her career have received wide acclaim both at home and abroad, including from our own organization…

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Pelagia Mendoza, the first woman student at the Escuela de Dibujo y Pintura.

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Pelagia Mendoza y Gotianquin (1867 – 1939)

by Eloisa May P. Hernandez, Ph.D.

Pelagia Mendoza y Gotianquin was born on June 9, 1867 in Pateros, Rizal. Her parents were Venancio Mendoza and Evarista Gotianquin. She was the second child in a family of five children. Pelagia displayed an interest in art since she was a child. According to Gregorio Zaide in Great Filipinos in History: An Epic of Filipino Greatness in War and Peace, “Since early childhood, she manifested a remarkable talent for art. When she was yet a little girl she loved to sketch beautiful landscapes, to embroider exquisite designs on handkerchiefs, and model clay figurines people, animals, birds, and flowers” (340).

Pelagia is the first known woman sculptor in the Philippines. She studied modeling under D. Manuel Flores (Zaragoza 374). She was the first female student to be accepted at the Escuela de Dibujo y Pintura. Mendoza was twenty-two years old when Lorenzo Rocha, director of the Escuela, accepted her. According to Santiago, “Far from being a male chauvinist, he (Rocha) admitted and personally supervised the first female student at the academy, Pelagia Mendoza in 1889. (This made the academy the only coeducational institution in the Philippines during the Spanish regime.)” (“Philippine Academic Art” 75). According to Alejandro Capitulo in his biography of Pelagia titled “Women in History: Dona Pelagia Mendoza,” she completed her course in painting in 1892 and in sculpture in 1898.

According to Torres, Pelagia won first prize in sculpture for a wax bust of Christopher Columbus at the Columbus Quadricentennial Art Contest[1], a competition organized by the colonial government, held on October 12, 1892. Pelagia had not yet completed her course on sculpture when she won the contest. According to Capitulo, there was even a side issue on who was going to do the honor of crowning Pelagia’s bust of Columbus: whether Pelagia or the Governor General should do it. A local paper, El Comercio, stated that the honor belonged to Mendoza and not the Governor General. Mendoza did crown the bust, after which she was given the medal for the prize by Governor General Eulogio Despujol y Dusoy himself.

Upon winning the competition, she landed on the front page of La Ilustracion Filipina, a well-known periodical of that period, on October 21, 1892. Jose Zaragoza (under the pseudonym Z) wrote an accompanying essay in the same issue. Here is an excerpt:  “If her hands still model, not with indecision, but with a certain fear; if her work still lacks a greatness and energy in its modeling; it is not exactly because the artistic sentiments that her spirit are feminine; it is because she still has not conquered the deeper secrets of her art; it is because her hands, at modeling, still do not obey well the impulses of her spirit. There is still some doubt in our artists, and that doubt produces fear, fear that tries to conceal itself with more than enough care, and this care gives naturally little spontaneity and with certain trifleness to the execution.”

What Jose Zaragoza wrote about Pelagia Mendoza may well be the very first biography about a woman artist in the Philippines. It is safe to say that Pelagia’s winning the competition marks the very first time a woman artist broke into and entered this public domain of art. I would like to briefly comment on Jose Zaragoza’s article by asking a few questions: Just what did Jose Zaragoza mean by “greatness,” and what are his criteria for judging a work “great”? What is “feminine” about Pelagia’s work? Perhaps it is “feminine” because it was done by a woman?

Whitney Chadwick offers an insight into such a description of works done by women: Art history has never separated the question of artistic style from the inscription of sexual difference in representation. Discussions of style are consistently cast in terms of masculinity and femininity. Analyses of paintings are replete with references to ”virile” handling of form or ”feminine” touch. (25)

It is telling that in the very first essay on a woman artist, her work is immediately relegated as “feminine.” And just what could Zaragoza mean by “impulses of her spirit”? Do we take it to mean that art is just an impulse of the spirit transferred into hand and later into canvas and stone? It seems that the “impulses” of Pelagia’s spirit are also anchored into her being a woman in that women are also associated to impulsiveness in many cases.

Pelagia’s bust of Columbus also reaped honors internationally. According to Santiago Pilar, Pelagia also won the second prize at the 1892 Chicago Universal Exposition for her bust of Columbus at the Quadricentennial celebrations of the explorer (PAMANA 67). This honor makes Pelagia Mendoza the very first woman artist in the Philippines who was bestowed international recognition. In the same year, Pelagia also won a Diploma of Honor for her work done in connection to the art contest held for the celebration of the Tercentenary of Saint John of the Cross. According to Capitulo, because of her achievements as a sculptor, Pelagia was given the Cruz de Merito Civil by Governor General Despujol. This recognition suggests that, as early as 1892, Pelagia was already making her mark in the field of sculpture.

Pelagia was also recognized for her skill in painting. Capitulo notes that “Even in the dainty art of the brush and the easel, she had won distinctions as prize winner in school contests. Her forte was in landscape painting. Her interest was not confined to sculpture and painting alone but also expressed itself in embroidery stitching, on exquisite handkerchiefs and furniture covers.”

According to E. Arsenio Manuel, Pelagia Mendoza married Crispulo Zamora (b. June 10, 1871 – d. October 11, 1922) on June 10, 1892 (Dictionary 1: 488). They had seven children and sixteen grandchildren. Zamora was a silversmith and a classmate of Pelagia at the Escuela de Dibujo y Pintura. According to Alejandro Capitulo, Doña Mendoza’s marriage to Zamora got in the way of developing her “artistic abilities.” And most probably, because of her many chores as wife and mother, Pelagia was unable to devote time to her art.

In a column written by Amante Paredes and Rod Dayao titled Interesting Filipino Women in the Manila Chronicle on May 19, 1958, it is stated that “the couple started a business making religious medal and other ornaments.” For Capitulo, the Crispulo Zamora and Sons, Inc., located at 423 Sales St., Quiapo, Manila, was “the foremost engraving house in the country.”

Pelagia did not submit a work for the 1895 Exposion Regional de Filipinas en Manila. According to Regalado Trota Jose, this was probably because she was already busy attending to her many duties as a newly wed bride (1030 R. Hidalgo 61). But according to E.A. Manuel, Crispulo, her husband, joined and won a prize for his galvanoplated bust of Fr. Anaya, a chanter at the Manila Cathedral (Dictionary 1: 488).

When Crispulo Zamora died on October 11, 1922, it was Pelagia who took over their business. Pelagia traveled to China, Japan, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Indo-china to study the processes and designs for carving in the said places (Zaide 343). Presumably, the business took her more and more away from her art. However, Capitulo notes that she found time for her art, while she was tending to their store. Pelagia Mendoza died on March 12, 1939, after two months of illness at the age of 72. She was buried at the North Cemetery.

Unfortunately, not one of Pelagia’s works survives today. According to Raissa Rivera in Women Artists and Gender Issues in Nineteenth Century Philippines, Pelagia’s “works and personal records, mostly retained at the family home at Sta. Cruz were destroyed by bombings….”brought about by the Second World War” (36). Despite the loss of her works, Pelagia Mendoza y Gotianquin’s contribution to the visual arts, particularly for women in the visual arts of the nineteenth century, is significant. She demonstrated that, given time and space, women could excel in the male-dominated fields of painting, sculpture, and even the running of a business. However, according to Capitulo, “Doña Pelagia, although a business woman herself, believed that a woman’s best profession is housekeeping. The woman, she said, will finally settle down for good with brass tacks pinned to the home.

 

Excerpt from my book HOMEBOUND: 19th century Women Visual Artists in the Philippines, U.P. Press and NCCA. 2004

 

 

[1] Another woman artist, Carmen Zaragoza, won in the same competition. She will be discussed later.

Capitulo, Alejandro P. “Women in History: Dona Pelagia Mendoza.” Women’s Weekly Magazine. Manila. 1951.

Dayao, Rod F. & Amante Paredes. “Interesting Filipino Women: Pelagia Mendoza.” The Manila Chronicle. Manila: The Manila Chronicle, 1958.

Manuel, E. Arsenio. Dictionary of Philippine Biographies. Quezon City: Filipiniana Publications.

Pilar, Santiago Albano.  PAMANA: The Jorge B. Vargas Art Collection. Quezon City: U.P. Vargas Museum and Committee on Arts and Culture, 1992.Rivera, Raissa Claire U. “Women Artists and Gender Issues in Nineteenth Century Philippines.” Woman, Take back History and…Review of Women’s Studies. 8:2. Quezon City: U.P. Center for Women’s Studies, July-December 1998.

Santiago, Luciano P.R.  “Philippine Academic Art: The Second Phase (1845-98).” Philippine Quarterly of Culture and Society. 17. Cebu: University of San Carlos, March 1989.

Torres, Emmanuel.  Kayamanan: 77 Paintings from the Central Bank Collection. Manila: Central Bank of the Philippines, 1981.

Zaide, Gregorio. Great Filipinos in History: An Epic of Filipino Greatness in War and Peace. Manila: Verde Bookstore, 1970.

Zaragoza, Jose. “La Srta. Pelagia Mendoza.”La Ilustracion Filipina. October 1892.

 

 

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Digital Cinema in the Philippines 1999-2009

Digital Cinema in the Philippines 1999-2009

About the Author

Eloisa May P. Hernandez is a Professor at the Department of Art Studies, College of Arts and Letters, University of the Philippines in Diliman where she teaches art history, photography, popular art and culture, and Philippine cinema. She finished her B.A. Art Studies, M.A. in Art History, and Ph.D. in Philippine Studies with a dissertation on The Political Economy of Digital Cinema in the Philippines, 1999-2009 in U.P. Diliman.

She is the author of Digital Cinema in the Philippines, 1999-2009 (2014) and Women Visual Artists in 19th century Philippines (2004). She has also co-authored several books such as Philippine Art and Culture (2012) published by Anvil and YCC Film Desk’s Sining ng Sineng Filipino (2009) published by U.P. Sentro ng Wikang Filipino.

She served as panel convenor and delivered papers in several international conferences such as European Association for South East Asian Studies (EUROSEAS) Conferences, Annual Southeast Asian Cinemas Conference (ASEACC), and Asian Film Archive Forum on Asian Cinema. Her works are published in several refereed journals and anthologies.

A recipient of the Southeast Asian Studies Regional Exchange Program grant, she researched on digital cinema in Southeast Asia the results of which are published as a chapter entitled “The Beginnings of Digital Cinema in Southeast Asia” in the book Glimpses of Freedom: Independent Cinema in Contemporary Southeast Asia by Cornell University.

In 1999, she was awarded the Gawad Chanselor para sa Pinakamahusay na Guro. Dr. Hernandez has been elected as an Executive Committee Member of the National Committee on Cultural Education of the NCCA for 2004-2007. She also served as an elected executive committee member of the NCCA National Committee on Visual Arts, 1998-2001. She is a former member of the Young Critics Circle Film Desk and served as its President in 2012.

She recently had a solo online exhibit of UP Diliman photographs during the lockdown on VMeme Contemporary Art Gallery https://www.vmemecontemporary.com/uneasy-peace

Widely known to her former students as “MamE,” she serves as the faculty adviser of the UP Pep Squad, together with her partner, Dr. Grace Gregorio. They have five baby dogs.

Photograph by Miguel V. Mondragon