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Monday, June 6, 2011

Bureau of Copyright to be formed under new act

Take a look at this news article on copyrights which were granted to the paintings of President Cory Aquino.

The Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (Ipophl) expects a Bureau of Copyright to be established soon, following the approval on third reading of a bill amending the Intellectual Property Code at the House of Representatives.
Ipophl Director General Ricardo Blancaflor said the creation of the new bureau, which would be under Ipophl, would be a significant first step toward protecting IP owners in copyright-based industries such as books, film, media and music.
The creation of the bureau was one of the provisions of House Bill No. 3841, which sought to amend the country’s Intellectual Property Code.
Once in place, Blancaflor related that the Bureau of Copyright would be tasked with registering artistic and literary works, as well as resolving issues of imitation and plagiarism. It would also regulate entities that would collect royalties on behalf of artists.
While waiting for the establishment of the Bureau of Copyright, Ipophl forged an agreement with the National Library of the Philippines for the operation of the Copyright Registration and Deposit System (Cords), which would go live next month.
The Cords system aims to give artists, scholars, inventors and other IP holders another way to protect their IP assets. Under the agreement, Ipophl will accept copyright registration applications on behalf of the NLP and issue copyright certificates.
“Although registration is not the source of copyright, the process is legally required in order to complete the records of the National Library,” Blancaflor explained. “In addition, Ipophl magnifies the value of the copyright certificate by requiring the applicant to execute an affidavit of ownership, which will be reproduced at the back of each certificate. This serves as prima facie evidence of ownership and may be used in any proceeding.”
The first ever copyright registration certificate under the Cords system was issued to the Ninoy and Cory Aquino Foundation for paintings created by the late President Corazon Aquino.
An amended law will also extend the scope of copyright infringement to contributory infringement, circumvention of technological measures and rights management information as aggravating circumstance



More from here: http://business.inquirer.net/2834/bureau-of-copyright-to-be-formed-under-new-act

Friday, April 8, 2011

The monuments to Edsa

Take a look at this article on people power. Read on:

It’s called “People Power”, not “Cory Power”, not “Sin Power”, not even “Mother Mary Power” but you wouldn’t know it from the Philippine monuments that have been erected to commemorate the Edsa People Power Revolution that occurred 25 years ago.

On the silver anniversary of that historic event last February 25, Manila Mayor Alfredo Lim unveiled a life-sized statue of the late Jaime Cardinal Sin which he erected in Luneta Park right beside similar life-sized statues of Cory and Ninoy Aquino.

He did so, Mayor Lim explained, because “it was Cardinal Sin who called on the public for a people power so we are building his statue near the monuments of President Cory and Senator Aquino.”

The building of statues to honor particular individuals is a natural by-product of a hero culture that heavily emphasizes the role of individuals in the making of history. This narrative of history often does not include an appreciation of the dynamics of change and the role played by ordinary people in making history.

The alternative view holds that the changes in the world and in Philippine society propelled the Filipino people to revolt against 300 years of Spanish rule in 1896 and this revolutionary situation would have occurred even if the leader of the revolution, Andres Bonifacio, had not been born.

If it was not Bonifacio at the helm at that historical juncture, it would have been another Filipino leader who would have emerged to form a revolutionary organization similar to Bonifacio’s Katipunan to lead the people’s revolution.

This dynamic view of history does not deny the key role that individuals like Dr. Jose Rizal and Ninoy Aquino played in inspiring the people powered revolutions of 1896 and 1986 that overthrew oppressive regimes. But it accords due credit to the people as the agents of change.

A stark difference between the 1896 and 1986 revolutions is that there were no religious overtones to the 1896 revolution as it was as much anti-clerical as it was anti-colonial. In contrast, the very first monument built at Edsa to commemorate the 1986 revolution was a statue of the Virgin Mother Mary - “Our Lady of Edsa” – built in 1989 along with a small Catholic chapel for devotees to visit and worship. Critics charged that this made Edsa a religious shrine.

The most recent criticism of this sanctification of Edsa was leveled by Roger Merhan in his March 6, 2011 blog (definitelyFilipino.com) where he reminded readers that “every­one from all beliefs and walks of life” participated in the Edsa revolution.

“Then our religious started marketing the Edsa People Power event as a religious phenomenon. They wasted no time in putting up an Edsa Shrine at the center of the avenue. They commissioned a known sculptor to create an image of a Virgin Mary they would later call Our Lady of Edsa. Priests and nuns with locked arms, rosaries in hand, became poster figures of an otherwise unsectarian occurrence.”

“This move alien¬ated the great num¬ber of Fil¬ipinos, Catholic and non-Catholic, who came there out of sheer pa¬tri¬o¬tism–out of a burn¬ing de¬sire to make a dif¬fer¬ence and to be counted, if only to see their coun¬try free again in their life¬time, even if it would mean putting their very lives in the line of peril…The ac¬com¬plish¬ments of Edsa should have been an eter¬nal source of pride for all cit¬i¬zens of the Philip¬pines. But the pre¬dom¬i¬nant Catholic Church at¬trib¬uted it to a saint and turned it into a fi¬esta that is only worth a day’s cel¬e¬bra¬tion every year.”

Fortunately, not all the monuments to Edsa glorify individuals. Three years after “Our Lady of Edsa” was erected, the People Power Monument was built right across the Edsa shrine. A mammoth bronze monument created by Eduardo Castrillo, the structure presents Mother Filipinas, her hands with broken chains raised to the sky. Below her are representatives of the various segments of society who participated in the People Power Revolution.

Also, not all the monuments to Edsa were cast in stone. In San Francisco, a mural dedicated to People Power, Lakas Sambayanan, was commissioned by the San Francisco Mural Resource Center in 1986 and painted in the same year on the side of a building beside the city’s famed Farmers Market, visible daily to thousands on Highway 280.

The centerpiece of the mural is the stone head Ferdinand Marcos built on the side of a mountain in La Union to honor his Mt. Rushmore-like ego. The Marcos head is blown up into three parts by a torch of freedom with a bird, in the form of an image created by Marcos’ political prisoners, emerging from it. Beside it is the figure of Cory Aquino holding her assassinated husband in her arms, in front of people marching at Edsa and standing defiantly in front of Marcos tanks.

The mural also shows sacada workers toiling in sugarcane fields and a young girl scavenging in a "Smokey Mountain" garbage dump. The culture and history of the Philippines are represented in the Muslim kulintang and the Christmas lantern while beside them on horseback is the revolutionary hero, Gabriela Silang.

The huge 35 feet by 80 feet mural was painted by Johanna Poethig, Vicente Clemente and Presco Tabios. According to an online description (Johannapoethig.com), the mural is a “collaboration of artists who combined technical skill and conscientious sensitivity to the historical events depicted.”

As the years passed, the mural’s bright colors faded without any work done to retouch them until 2006 when scaffoldings were erected in front of it leading people to believe that the mural would finally be touched up in time for the 20th anniversary celebration of People Power.

To the shock and horror of the community, the painters did not touch up the mural but completely painted it over, replacing it with an advertisement for the kitchen and bathroom tile products of Uni Stone, the China-based company that bought the building.
Perhaps the fate of the People Power mural in San Francisco reflects the indifference of the people to the once bright shining promise of People Power. As Maria Ressa reflected in a recent CNN piece on the triumph of People Power in Egypt, its forerunner in the Philippines is now “more form than substance, (giving) little back to the people who risked their lives in the streets 25 years ago.”

And now that form is represented only by statues.

More from here: http://globalnation.inquirer.net/columns/columns/view/20110322-326966/The-monuments-to-Edsa

Monday, February 21, 2011

Handog ng sining: Parangal kay Cory

Since it's the 25th anniversary of People Power, take a look at this news article about an art exhibit to celebrate this special event:

TO celebrate the 25th Anniversary of the 1986 People Power Revolution, the memory, and legacy of the late President Cory Aquino, an exhibition of artworks from top artists is slated to open on Thursday, February 24, 2011, 11 a.m. The exhibit, titled "Handog ng Sining: Parangal kay Cory" is being presented by La Salle Green Hills in cooperation with the Ninoy and Cory Aquino Foundation, the One La Salle Scholarship Fund and Galerie Joaquin. It runs until March 10, 2011.

Among the artworks assembled for the project are those from National Artist Arturo Luz, Presidential Medal of Merit awardees Federico Aguilar Alcuaz and Juvenal Sanso, Mario Parial, Dominic Rubio, Lydia Velasco, Daniel de la Cruz, Aldrino Abes, Jomar Delluba, Armenius Aralar, Karina Baluyut, Gil Corcuera, Aileen Lanuza, Vincent De Pio, PJ Jalandoni, Henry Ordona, Jaspher Penuliar, Jerry Morada, Juanito Torres and Amador Barquilla.


Invited as Guest of Honor is Ballsy Aquino-Cruz, Chair of the Ninoy and Cory Aquino Foundation, and other top leaders of the business community. Guests to grace the occasion are movers of business and government, important personalities that have been supportive of Cory Aquino and Edsa I and distinguished alumni of the One La Salle system covering the different La Salle schools throughout the country. The exhibit also hopes to commemorate the 100 years of La Sallian presence in the Philippines. La Salle Green Hills itself, being the venue of NAMFREL as well as the venue where the family of the late Cory Aquino chose to hold her wake has consistently played a prominent role in the democratic movement in the country. For more information, please contact La Salle Green Hills at (02) 721.3327, Galerie Joaquin at (02) 723.9418, or visit www.galeriejoaquin.com.

The exhibit is a fund raising project for the benefit of the One La Salle Scholarship Fund and the Ninoy and Cory Aquino Foundation. It gathers works that have been inspired by people power, nationalism, the values and legacy of Cory Aquino or simply the color yellow. The exhibit comes at a historic time slated for February, the eventful month in the country’s history where exactly twenty-five years ago, a dictatorship was dismantled and a new democratic government installed through people power.


The 1986 EDSA Revolution is universally celebrated as the turning point for Philippine history, transforming the nation into a people filled with hope via their determined non-violent resistance against the dictatorship, even inspiring other peaceful revolutions in Poland, Eastern Europe and many other parts of the world.

Among the artworks included in the exhibit are the touching 60"x 48" oil on canvas work done by Amador Barquilla showing the funeral cortege of President Cory complete with thousands of her beloved countrymen, the Philippine flag and her four honor guards, a unique yellow painting by internationally renowned artist Juvenal Sanso titled "With Undaunted Courage", a Rubio painting inspired by the courageous Aquino daughters titled "Four Sisters", Mario Parial’s iconic "Homage to Peace", Jovan Benito’s 48" x 54" painting titled "Yellow Peace", Jomar Delluba’s "Sikat ng Araw", and a special sculpture done by La Salle Alumnus Daniel de la Cruz, titled "Inang Bayan".


more from here: http://www.malaya.com.ph/feb18/liv1.html