It's Not Faux Foreign, It's True Pinoy
by Arch. Augusto Villalon
LUGAR, Bookmark © 2001

Probably since pre-Hispanic days, we Filipinos have been fascinated and intrigued by what lies beyond our shores. Maybe we look up to those who live in those “abroad” places as pacesetters. Another sad but completely possible thought is that we have never learned to appreciate what we have.

We are curious people who have always enjoyed looking outwards. We like seeing how other people live, knowing what they are eating, saying, doing, and wearing. During the course of history, many influences have caught our selective fancy. We adapt whatever the chosen idea might be and absorb it into our lives. After a while, its origin is forgotten as it becomes an indisputable fact of Filipino, “Pinoy” existence.

What begins as a flirtation of a foreign idea and endures for a period eventually is distilled into our consciousness. It is translated into terms that the Pinoy is most comfortable with. In time, its foreign origins are forgotten. It is assimilated as part of our culture. Take the English that is now Taglish. Food is an even better example of this phenomenon. We made won ton soup into pancit molo. Paella became bringhe. There are many other examples. The facility for adapting foreign influences is a Pinoy phenomenon. It is a special gift. It sets us apart from many other peoples of this world.

With this gift, we have taken space design into new dimensions. Designers are used to clients arriving at meetings carrying pictures and pages torn out of the latest foreign publications. These designs are then replicated using Pinoy materials in Pinoy spaces. The process is a repeat of what paella went through to resurface as bringhe.

As far as materials go, we can locally source only the most basic ones. We lack the technology to duplicate many of the foreign materials used. So we substitute. The substitution stage is the adaptation process, where we are at our most creative.

The magazine page becomes the guidebook. The design is adapted to fit the budget, space and materials available. Colors, textures and finishes are adjusted and fine-tuned to Pinoy taste. Lighting is upped to the bright levels we find more comfortable.

After the adaptation process, the sleek western magazine is tempered by our old favorites. Strategically located in high-visibility locations, highly polished slabs of narra gleam. Stones must be antique granite (piedra china). Excessively detailed, hyper-realistic wood carving makes its mandatory appearance somewhere, possibly in the ceiling moldings or door panels. The mix of textures and and colors are super rich overload, a confection in the tradition of sans rival pastry. Our innate mastery of adaptation always surfaces, always carries the day. When the work is completed, designs retain very little retain very little relation to the magazine page that inspired it. It has become a Pinoy original.

We have produced so many unappreciated originals. The bahay na bato generally called Vigan or “Spanish” houses does not appear anywhere in Spain. Nor does the low-roofed 1950s house with arched windows and precast concrete rosettes that we also call “Spanish” appear in Spain. Both are mislabeled as foreign but are true Pinoy styles.

For the Filipino to appreciate what he has, the records should be set straight once and for all. Perhaps this is the right time. The time has come to credit foreign influences correctly and to untangle the misconceptions exaggerated by time. On the other hand, removing the fantasy of foreign-ness may just make the Pinoy drop whatever little appreciation he may have of these things because they have been proven to be “local” and no longer “imported.”

(This essay was culled, with permission by the author, from Lugar: Essays on Philippine Heritage and Architecture published by The Bookmark Inc. The author is an YTRiP adviser, one of the few conservation architects in the country and is responsible for the inscription of five Philippine sites in the UNESCO World Heritage list. He is a founder of the Heritage Conservation Society. He has a column in the Philippine Daily Inquirer).