Reaction Paper: Ayala and National Museum Essay

When we visited these museums, National Museum and the Ayala Museum, both have shown the prosperity of our history and culture. The museums have shown us why and how Filipinos go beyond during that time. The museums have an abundant role in nourishing us Filipinos the past of our history and culture. Of course, in a sense of reminding us what our heroes have done in order to give us the freedom and how our ancestors lived. In my opinion, the museums have shown the importance of the Philippine history. They want us to be conscious about how our ancestors prospered and how much wealth our ancestors were in culture and at the same time, suffered. At the Ayala museum, we have seen many gold objects, ceramics, and artifacts which were kept for us to see how our ancestors in pre- colonial period lived and their culture and beliefs before. Our ancestors somehow have similarities to the beliefs of the Egyptians wherein, they believed in after life. We saw masks wherein the museum explained that it was used to cover holes of a dead person so that no other souls will enter the body. Filipinos before already have the belief that our body was the temple of the soul. Other gold objects represents the ranks in the society just like what we saw in the said museum that was displayed. The ceramics have shown how our ancestors traded crafts from other countries particularly in China and how our country made good contacts to them. These revealed how beautiful our culture was before as well as the status of the Filipinos. The fabrics displayed at the Ayala museum have shown us how Filipinos before evolved in terms of cultural aspects because of the colonization that occurred. The paintings showed the history in an artistic way. The artworks I remembered were the paintings of Juan Luna and Carlos Botong Francisco. Their paintings were based on what they saw in our history. Especially, in the paintings of Carlos which I think I really appreciated because of the video clip they’ve done to make the paintings become alive. These artworks emphasized the events that happened in the past and portrayed the Philippines. Unfortunately, I wasn’t that lucky to get a chance to contemplate each of the paintings. One thing I noticed that the paintings as what I have said, were truly describes our history and as well as our identity as a Filipinos. Captivating dioramas also helped us to really understand and visualize our past. It was made pieces by pieces and the materials were very detailed. It has a total of 60 dioramas and it was arranged in sequence which helped us to understand what really happened. The dioramas gave me the feeling as the part of the history as if I was there in the actual event. Our visit in these museums, I can actually say that it helped me to reflect my identity as a Filipino citizen. In our present community, it seems that our history was not being perished anymore. Some didn’t really care about our history and culture anymore. Our beliefs, our natives, ancestors and many things related on what we are as a Filipino. It’s the fact that many of us didn’t appreciate what we are as a Filipino. Nowadays, we’re too obsessed in the culture of other countries which leads in forgetting our own. For me, as a Filipino, by the help of these museums strengthen my identity as a Filipino. Why? It is because these museums represents how our ancestors bravely fought which were in the way to our liberty and how wealth our culture was before.