Rosita Arcenas’ Handumanan

Rosita, you should start collecting Cebu’s cultural artifacts. You should do it before the Manila collectors come in droves and haul all of what should be a Cebuano patrimony back to Manila.” With this admonition from her friend Maria Teresa “Bing” Escoda-Roxas, she began collecting at a time when no one cared.

In the 1950s, when collecting was not yet the passion that it later became, Rosita Arcenas began buying whatever came her way, some of them wrapped in newspapers like one ivory head of a santo that had accumulated decades of dust so that she found it almost too ugly to keep. After cleaning it, though, the head shone brightly. This is but one story she shared to me while the plan for this exhibition was being hatched with his sons Danny and Loy.

Mrs. Arcenas was aided largely by her husband, the late Dr. Ramon Arcenas, who would spend time in Bantayan doing medical missions when such was not yet in vogue. Because he never charged a single centavo for his services, people generously gave to his wife whatever old things they wanted to discard or they felt she should have. Thus did she accumulate what has now become a magnificent collection of Chinese porcelain and other ceramic wares as well as Catholic religious images or “santos.”

Tomorrow, a large part of what Mrs. Arcenas has collected in over five decades will be unveiled at Museo Sugbo, the Cebu Provincial Museum. Gov. Gwendolyn F. Garcia. And Mrs. Arcenas will cut the ribbon at exactly 6 o’clock in the evening to open a year-long exhibit titled “Handumanan: The Rosita Arcenas Collection of Bisayan Santos.”

Near-life-size statues in hardwood wrought by Filipino hands some two centuries back and applied with colors using the long-lost estofado technique are arrayed, so are small household images in naïf or folk art technique. These are but a tip of the large collection that includes images in ivory and wood and a large painting on canvas of Our Lady of Refuge. The one that tops my list, which I’m sure antique lovers would agree, are two kneeling images, one dressed in “Barong Pilipino,” the other a female in “baro’t saya” attire, part of what the santo expert Louie Nacorda calls santons, carved images of living persons often included in a Christmas belen or nativity scene, a practice that began in Provence, France.

The centerpiece of the collection is the family-owned passo, called the Desmayo, one of the century-old life-size processional images of Bantayan that are paraded during Holy Thursdays.  This is an image of Jesus fainting after the scourging at the pillar, a work of art believed to be by the famous Bantyanon sculptor Ma. Piyano Carrabio dating to the late Spanish period yet.

There is also a fine collection of crucifixes as well as relieves, bas reliefs of decorative panels found in altars. Mrs. Arcenas also managed to save the heads of 12 statues depicting the disciples as they were about to be buried on the ground by a parish priest since they were no longer of use to the local church. They, too, are part of the exhibit.

The saintly images handed down through the decades by members of the family are also highlighted, including the family “urna” where ivory images inherited from their forebears are contained.

The exhibit will run for a year after which it will move to its permanent repository, the University of San Carlo Museum, where the Rosita Arcenas collection of tradeware ceramics will also be housed, also on loan from the family.

Let me invite everyone to find time to view the exhibit. Security is tight at the gallery and only a small number of people are allowed in due to the huge number of items on display. It is therefore advisable to inform the curators of Museo Sugbo ahead of you visit. Please call tel. 239 5626 for reservations.