Honorata "Atang" Dela Rama: First Pinay Film Actress

The very first Filipina film actress and all around artist was Honorata Dela Rama-Hernandez, more popularly known as Atang Dela Rama. She was born on the 11th of January in 1902. She was also a famous singer and bodabil or vaudeville performer as well as a renowned stage and theater artist. Atang was an active theater producer, writer and talent manager too. She was an icon and a paragon of Philippine art and culture and was also a staunch proponent of Philippine musical plays focusing on current issues known as zarzuela and also traditional folk songs known as kundiman.

Atang grew up in Tondo, Manila and by the age of 7 began appearing in Spanish zarzuelas such as Marina, Mascota and Sueño de un Vals. She became widely known after singing the song Nabasag na Banga while starring in the zarzuela Dalagang Bukid when she was 15 years old. Dalagang Bukid later became the first locally produced Tagalog film in the country where Atang portrayed the same role that she played in the zarzuela. She later wrote and produced the plays Bulaklak ng Kabundukan and Anak ni Eba as well as also appeared in the drama Veronidia. It was her performance though in Pangarap ni Rosa which Atang recounts as her most satisfying and rewarding role. She played it with such realism that the teary-eyed audience threw silver coins into the stage at the end of the play to show their support and admiration.

Aside from the zarzuela, Atang also vigorously supported kundiman. Among the kundiman and the other songs that she popularized or premiered were Pakiusap, Ay, Ay Kalisud, Mutya ng Pasig by Deogracias Rosario and Nicanor Abelardo, and Kung Iibig Ka and Madaling Araw by Jose Corazon de Jesus. She also wrote these other classic and well-loved zarzuelas: Aking Ina and Puri at Buhay. Atang firmly believed that the zarzuela and the kundiman best expresses the Filipino soul, and so she has even made an effort to perform zarzuelas, kundiman and other traditional Filipino folk songs for the indigenous peoples of the Philippines like the Aetas or Negritos of Zambales and the Sierra Madre, the Bagobos of Davao and other Lumad of Mindanao, the Igorots up north and the reclusive Mangyans. At the height of her career, she also sang and performed in concerts in such cities as Hong Kong, Shanghai, Tokyo, Honolulu, San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York City.

Formally honored as the Queen of Kundiman in 1979, Atang was also proclaimed as a National Artist of the Philippines for Theater and Music on the 8th of May in 1987 by then President Corazon Aquino. She was married to National Artist for Literature, Amado Hernandez, and lived a quiet life before she died on the 11th of July in 1991.

Leandro "Lindy" Valencia Locsin : Finest Filipino Architect

Leandro V. Locsin: Finest Filipino Architect 

Leandro V. Locsin was a Filipino interior designer, artist and architect who was known for his use of floating volume, simplistic design and concrete in his various works and projects. An avid art collector, he also favored Chinese ceramics and modern painting. He was proclaimed a National Artist of the Philippines for Architecture in 1990 by Former President Corazon C. Aquino.

Locsin was born on the 15th of August in 1928 in Silay City, Negros Occidental and he was the grandson of the first governor of that province. He later studied at the De La Salle Brothers in 1935 before returning to Negros due to World War II. He returned to Manila to study at the University of Santo Tomas, taking up Pre-Law before shifting to pursue a Bachelor's Degree in Music. He later shifted again to Architecture just a year before graduating, although he was becoming a budding pianist at the time. He married Cecilia Yulo and they had two children, one of whom is also an architect and is also his namesake.

As an art lover, he frequented the Philippine Art Gallery, where he met and befriended the curator, Fernando Zobel de Ayala, who recommended Locsin as a designer to various entities. In 1955, the Chaplain of the University of the Philippines, Fr. John Delaney, commissioned Locsin to design a chapel that is open and can easily accommodate a thousand people. The Church of the Holy Sacrifice is the first structure in the Philippines to have a thin shell concrete dome and the first round chapel in the country with the altar in the middle. The church is recognized today by the National Museum and National Historical Institute respectively as a Cultural Treasure and a National Historical Landmark.

He realized the artistic use of concrete for his buildings after a visit to the United States where he met some of his biggest influences. Concrete was relatively cheap in the Philippines and easy to form. In 1969, he completed what is to become his most recognizable work, the Theater of Performing Arts now known as the Tanghalang Pambansa of the Cultural Center of the Philippines. Huge arching columns at the sides of the building cantilever the marble façade by 12 meters from the terrace, giving it the impression of floating. A large lagoon in front of the theatre mirrors the building during daylight, while fountains are illuminated by underwater lights by nighttime. The building houses four theaters, a museum of ethnographic and other temporary exhibits, galleries, and a library on Philippine art and culture. After the renown of this structure, he designed many other buildings for both the public and private sector, the list of which can be easily and readily found mostly online.

Ironically, Locsin's last work was also a church in Malaybalay, Bukidnon. He died on the 15th of November in 1994 in Makati City. In 2003, his family donated land to the campus of De La Salle-Canlubang which was named after him.