Philippine Daily inquirer

After a decades-long search, the family of Vicente Alvarez Dizon has located his painting that won first place at an international competition in 1939 which included the works of Salvador Dali and Maurice Utrillo.

The late Dizon’s masterpiece, “After the Day’s Toil,” which was last seen by the family in 1952 when it was transported to the country for the Philippine International Fair, is in the possession of Dr. Rogelio Pine, a Filipino cardiologist based in New Jersey.

Pine bought it in 1980 from Daniel Grossman of the Grossman Gallery, who in turn bought it from IBM New York when the company unloaded a number of paintings in the late 1970s.

Dizon, of the University of the Philippines’ then School of Fine Arts, painted “After the Day’s Toil” in 1936 as a graduation thesis during postgraduate scholarship studies at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut.

When he returned home, he settled in Malate, Manila, and continued to lecture at UP, the National Teachers’ College, and other schools.

From 79 countries
In 1939, Thomas J. Watson, founder of International Business Machines (IBM), conceived the idea of holding an international art competition at the Golden Gate Exposition in San Francisco, California.

He sent his representative, Kevin Mallen, to 79 countries all over the world to scout for entries.

In Manila, Mallen visited Dizon at his residence on 1111 A. Mabini Street, to take a look at “After the Day’s Toil.”

Mallen purchased the painting for IBM immediately after seeing it, and had it framed and shipped to the United States.

It was included in the International Competition on Contemporary Art of 79 Nations at the Golden Gate Exposition.

In that historic competition, “After the Day’s Toil” won first place by popular vote. The entry of Spain by Dali won second place, and that of the United States won third.

Utrillo’s entry did not win.

Pacific unity
The inscription on the winner’s medal reads: “Unity of the Pacific nations is America’s concern and responsibility. San Francisco stands at the doorway to the sea that roars upon the shores of all these nations; and so to the Golden Gate International Exposition I gladly entrust a solemn duty. May this, America’s world’s fair on the Pacific in 1939, truly serve all nations.–President Franklin D. Roosevelt”

The Golden Gate Exposition was held in celebration of San Francisco’s two new bridges.

San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate Bridge were dedicated on Nov. 12, 1936, and May 27, 1937, respectively.

The exposition ran from Feb. 18 to Oct. 29 in 1939, and from May 25 to Sept. 29 in 1940.

Malate-born
Vicente Alvarez Dizon, son of Jose Sampedro Dizon of Bacolor, Pampanga, and Rosa Carlos Alvarez of Concepcion, Tarlac, was born in Malate on April 5, 1905.

The elder Dizon, an 1897 graduate of the University of Santo Tomas, was a landscape artist and botanist-agronomist at the Bureau of Agriculture.

In the course of his work, he was assigned to such places as Capas in Tarlac, Magalang in Pampanga, and Cabanatuan in Nueva Ecija.

The young Vicente had his early schooling at the Malate Primary School, and continued his intermediate studies in the towns where his father was assigned.

The father wanted his son to study medicine. The latter obeyed, and attended the National University College of Medicine in 1921-23.

Dizon later transferred to the UP School of Fine Arts, where he took a five-year course and graduated with an art diploma in 1928. After graduation, he became the first artist-lecturer of the Philippines.

He is among the first Filipinos to win important scholarships abroad, such as that awarded him by the Federal Schools of Art in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

On his own, he applied for, and was granted, a scholarship at Yale.

Honors
In 1936, during his stay at Yale, Dizon became the first Filipino to be elected one of the 12 members of the “Yale Phi Alpha.” (Only 12 members were elected each year from more than 300 students.)

It was also at Yale that he painted “After the Day’s Toil” as his thesis.

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Philippine Daily Inquirer

MANILA, Philippines — Despite 400 years as a colony of Spain, the Philippines has retained little trace of the language but producers of the country’s only Spanish-language radio program says that’s about to change.

“Filipinas Ahora Mismo” — which loosely translated means “Philippines Right Now” — features book and movie reviews, information on the Spanish influence in different parts of the country and music by modern stars such as Enrique Iglesias and Ricky Martin, all in Spanish.

It is just a small step but its producers hope the show can help lead a revival in a language that has withered away in most of the Southeast Asian archipelago nation.

“It is not a question of making Filipinos speak Spanish again,” says Spanish ambassador Luis Arias Romero. “It is a question of making Filipinos aware of the importance of Spanish in culture and world affairs.”

The radio show, sponsored by the Cadiz Press Association, is part of this effort although the project’s manager Chaco Molina concedes they still have a long way to go.

Molina said when the Cadiz association first proposed the plan, they suggested an eight-hour radio show. “I told them that was too ambitious. This isn’t Guatemala where everyone speaks Spanish,” he said.

The show, hosted by veteran Filipino broadcaster Bon Vivar, airs from 7-8pm (1100-1200 GMT) Monday to Friday on government-owned DZRM radio at 1278 kHz in Manila and in simulcast to several major cities.

“I see a renaissance of the Spanish language in the Philippines,” says Molina, adding the show is aiming at a young audience who will be more receptive to the language.

What surprises Spaniards who come to the Philippines is the fact that their language has virtually disappeared.

The archipelago was first colonized by the Spanish in the early 16th century shortly after Ferdinand Magellan arrived in the islands and later died here in 1521.

Spanish culture permeates the country where 80 percent of the population are followers of a Spanish-styled Roman Catholicism and where 20,000 Spanish words have been absorbed into most of the local dialects.

Even today, Filipinos eat paella, menudo and chorizo, have brazo de Mercedes and turrones for dessert and drink San Miguel Beer and Fundador Brandy.

But when the Philippines passed from Spanish to American control after the Spanish-American war of 1898, English completely supplanted Spanish.

Today, most Filipinos speak and read English.

The most serious blow came in 1987 when the government removed Spanish as one of the official national languages of the country and did away with a requirement that college students take courses in Spanish.

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