A Book Documents Artifacts of Plunder
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Book Review: Fear of Freedom Makes Us See Ghosts by Pio Abad
(Hato Press 2024 and Ateneo Art Gallery)
But other commemorations and publications also marked this signal event, proving that despite official attempts to ignore it, People Power cannot just be erased from popular memory.
Among these events was the launching of a book by artist Pio Abad at the Ateneo Art Gallery, with the ponderous and mysterious title Fear of Freedom Makes Us See Ghosts. It is a quote from the Brazilian social activist Paulo Freire who was imprisoned in 1964 when martial law was declared in his homeland.
Paulo Freire wrote an influential book called The Pedagogy of the Oppressed in 1968, which had a great effect on the leftist Catholic movement and liberation theology in Latin America.
In layman’s terms, fear of freedom and responsibility makes individuals take refuge in a false feeling of security, that life is normal, nothing is really wrong, and one can go on living.
Hence, one sees and believes in ghosts and untruth. One becomes complacent and accepting of lies and injustice.
Abad is the son of activists Butch and Dina Abad who had also been imprisoned and then released on academic parole under the Jesuits in 1986, when their children Julia and Pio were mere tots.
Like her father who became Budget Minister under President Benigno Aquino III, Julia joined the government. Pio, on the other hand, pursued an artistic career, finishing a degree at the Ateneo de Manila University and masteral studies in the University of Glasgow.
Among artistic pursuits that Pio and his wife Frances Wadsworth Jones undertook was the documentation and transformation into interpretative art pieces of the precious objects that the fictitious Jane Ryan and William Saunders made the core of their world-class collection.
Pio Abad (Source: Wikipedia/Mediasilverlens)
Most people are aware of the 3,000-pair collection of shoes that Imelda Marcos left in Malacañang Palace during her family’s abrupt departure due to the People Power Revolution. However, few know of the vast art collection owned by one Jane Ryan and William Saunders, who were eventually identified as Imelda and President Ferdinand E. Marcos. These were eventually tracked down by the Philippine Commission on Good Government under the former Senator Jovito Salonga.
Ironically, the then Attorney General of New York Rudolph Giuliani (now embroiled in deep legal troubles) was instrumental in indicting Imelda and Ferdinand Marcos for fraud and racketeering.
The collection included paintings and objets d’art from the Renaissance, Old Masters, and Impressionist eras; and Georgian silver, tiaras, and valuable jewelry, and even buildings (one eventually became a Trump Tower).
Though their prices were sometimes astronomical, some of the items were not necessarily of the highest quality. Some dealers were quoted as saying they were selling items they wished to get rid of in the first place.
Others were of extremely high value, such as the Samuels Collection of Georgian silver and an early Raphael painting that was bought by the Italian government at more than $1 million.
Accountable to no one and aided by personalities such as Adnan Khashoggi and Gliceria Tantoco, the Marcoses bought seemingly without limits from such prestigious sources as the Hammer Gallery and the Leslie R. Samuels Collection.
One source of their funds was money from the US government as part of aid to the Philippines during the Vietnam War. In turn, the Marcoses contributed as much as $1 million to the Nixon campaign for the presidency. The period also saw the cementing of close relations between the Marcoses and the Reagans.
Ironically, the embodiment of all this corruption and chicanery is a handsome canary yellow book, Fear of Freedom Makes Us See Ghosts, which documents an exhibit on the Marcos plunder, in the Ateneo Art Gallery (in Arete) from April 19 to August 6 in 2022.
The exhibit opened shortly before the election that saw Ferdinand Marcos, Jr. installed as President. The 2022 exhibit is just a link in a chain of exhibits that began in 2014, when Abad staged The Collection of Jane Ryan and William Saunders at the Jorge B. Vargas Museum at the University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City. This exhibition has metamorphosed through the years as an augmented reality project, through drawings, reproductions, installations of 3D printed replica objects, and archival artefacts. It has been described as “a form of digital democracy.”
Viewers of the exhibit were encouraged to take home postcard reproductions of plundered art pieces that formed part of the “Ryan-Saunders” collection. The Tate Museum in London has been the repository of 24 reconstructions of jewelry pieces from the Hawaii Collection of Imelda Marcos.
In the meantime, what has happened to the $10 billion that the Marcos kleptocracy hoarded from the Philippine public during its 20-year reign?
Glimpses of this are shown in the book, which shows the exhibit beginning with Caedo’s depiction of Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos as Malakas at Maganda in Malacañang, later painted black in the exhibit as a form of protest. It was said that Marcos had intended these statues to be enlarged and placed at the entrance of Manila Bay like the Statue of Liberty or the Colossus of Rhodes.
Few know of the vast art collection owned by one Jane Ryan and William Saunders, who were eventually identified as Imelda and President Ferdinand E. Marcos.
The Hawaii Collection of jewelry seized from Mrs. Marcos had been slated for auction by Christie’s in 2016 but it was canceled by President Rodrigo Duterte. It sits in the Central Bank vaults together with huge sums of money that foreign courts ruled should be awarded to victims of the Marcos government’s human rights abuses. The Philippine Commission on Good Government has in the meantime been dissolved.
Many a magnificent museum, such as the Hermitage in St. Petersburg and even the Louvre in Paris and the British Museum in London carry pieces of high art, which were the result of war, plunder, tyranny, or imperialism.
Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos astutely whitewashed their ill-gotten wealth by laundering it through high art. The consequences of their actions are still evident to this day, as Fear of Freedom Makes Us See Ghosts contends.
Where to Buy: https://hatopress.net/products/fear-of-freedom-makes-us-see-ghosts-by-pio-abad
A career diplomat of 35 years, Ambassador Virgilio A. Reyes, Jr. served as Philippine Ambassador to South Africa (2003-2009) and Italy (2011-2014), his last posting before he retired. He is now engaged in writing, traveling and is dedicated to cultural heritage projects.
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