Bohol artist turns sea trash into art

EYE-OPENER Pedro Angco Jr. recreates a brain coral by using discarded rubber slippers and plastic water bottles that he collected from the shores of Baclayon, Bohol. PHOTOS BY LEO UDTOHAN

TAGBILARAN CITY, BOHOL, Philippines — Somebody’s trash can be another’s work of art.

Meet Pedro Angco Jr., a 61-year-old visual artist from Baclayon, Bohol, who collects marine debris and turns them into works of art.

On typical days, people may encounter him carrying a sack full of about 10 to 20 kilos of assorted garbage, which he brings to his makeshift house that is about 100 meters from the seashore.

His shelter serves not just his gallery but also a depository of trash he found along the coastline—plastic and bleach bottles, mismatched pairs of slippers and sachets of shampoo, among others.

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Angco then transforms these into sculptures that call attention to threatened marine life.

Over the years, concerns for the environment have become central to his work. His goal, he says, is not to convert the public into art connoisseurs but to turn them into environmentalists.

“The garbage in the sea is a sad reality of what human beings have done to the environment,” says Angco. “This is a real talk. The waste or garbage we create, they are coming back to haunt us.”

His art pieces made from trash, featuring marine creatures and undersea landscape, have been given space at Bohol Bee Farm so tourists can learn about how garbage impacts on the environment.

Passion

For as long as Angco can remember, art has been a part of his life.

He and a sister were born and raised in Oroquieta City, Misamis Occidental, to Boholano parents—Pedro Sr., a clerk at schools division office in Oroquieta City, and Aureliana Leopoldo, a retired elementary school teacher.

He finished grade school and high school in Oroquieta and went on to Iligan City to study civil engineering at the Mindanao State University. He later transferred to the University of Bohol where he continued his engineering course.

While he was able to finish the five-year course, Angco did not graduate because he chose not to file an application for graduation. His reason: “I didn’t feel (like doing) it.”

But the sea has always inspired him to create art. The different sea creatures he had seen made him appreciate marine life, which became central to his art.

Angco recalled how he annoyed his parents when he started picking garbage washed ashore and brought these to their house in Oroquieta so he could use these in his paintings.

READ: One person’s trash, another one’s treasure

This went on for nine years but his parents eventually learned to support his passion.

In 2009, Angco got a break of sort when James Doran-Webb, a well-known driftwood sculptor of animal art, visited him in Oroquieta and bought from him a driftwood he found at sea.

New life

When his parents died in 2012, Angdo decided to return to Bohol to start a “new life.”

He was tapped as the in-house artist of Bohol Python and Wildlife Park at Barangay Laya in Baclayon town the following year.

In this role, Angco used his creative brilliance to communicate a message of taking care of wildlife. His masterpiece included a replica of Prony, once considered the longest reticulated python in captivity.

In 2017, Angco won second prize in the sculpture category in the art competition sponsored by the Government Service Insurance System. This feat eventually led him to become an ambassador for the National Coast Clean up Coalition Philippines in 2020.

He was also commissioned to create a trophy for the national convention of the Association of Certified Public Accountants in Public Practice held in Panglao.

From painting, Angco shifted to sculpting in 2004 to explore and master the craft. But he started turning marine debris into art only in 2018 as he remembered what he used to do when he was younger and saw the potential art pieces he could create from garbage.

Some of his works have been displayed in Crescencia Food and Cafe in Baclayon and in Bohol Bee Farm, a tourist drawer on Panglao Island.

He created a mini-galleon made from hundreds of plastic bottles collected from local beaches. He also turned discarded rubber slippers into whales, clown fish and jellyfish with straps still visible, calling them as “Seanelas” (pun on tsinelas, the Filipino term for slippers or flip-flops).

Discrimination

Angco lives alone in his small house put up on vacant lot owned by Laya village Councilor Albert Baluta.

His shelter has no water and electricity supplies.

He has to fetch water from a deep well at least 100 m from his home.

His mobile phone doubles as his night light. When his phone battery is drained, he will go to a neighbor’s house to charge.

Angco also experienced discrimination.

He has been mistaken as a crazy man since he sports a mustache and beard and dresses so scruffily while collecting garbage by the sea.

He brushed this aside, saying he didn’t mind what others think of him. What matters to him, he says, is what he keeps in his house and from which his masterpieces are born.

For three weeks now, Angco is often seen at Bohol Bee Farm where the management gives him a space where he can produce his art and crafts and sell them to tourists.

He said this gives him an opportunity to share his advocacy on environmental protection with visitors as they appreciate his artworks.

Panglao, known as Bohol’s tourism jewel, is suffering from environmental problems due to unregulated development, lax enforcement of laws and continued surge in tourist arrivals.

‘Brainstorming hub’

Angco’s ultimate goal is to create what he calls “brainstorming hub” for children, an environment-friendly e-learning center that will educate people about environment protection through art and showcase the rich marine biodiversity in Bohol.

“At the brainstorming hub, children will learn at a very young age on how to take care the environment,” he says. “Education and love for environment can make a difference.”

He envisions this project as a housing design concept with table and chairs made from wood and recycled pieces. The hub, he said, needs not to be big but it should be livable and comfortable. It will be powered by solar energy.

“There is no timeline [when the brainstorming hub will be established]. But like seeds, it needs water, oxygen and proper temperature in order to germinate,” Angco says.

In the meantime, he has no plans to stop collecting garbage and transforming these into works of art.

“I’d love to do it as long as my health permits,” he adds.