An offering

THEME DAY: STATUES • In 1935, the fourth President of University of the Philippines, Rafael Palma, commissioned sculptor and professor Guillermo Tolentino to create a monument based on the second stanza of Philippine National Hero Jose Rizal's "Mi Ultimo Adios" (My Last Farewell) which would be the identifying landmark of the university. The result was the Oblation (noun, something offered in worship or devotion), a naked figure of a young man with face tilted heavenward, eyes closed, arms outstretched, hands open and chest forward—a grand pose of self-offering. The original statue, made of concrete painted to look like bronze, is now kept in the university's main library. The statue in front of Quezon Hall, the administration building, is a bronze replica recast from the original and unveiled in the Diliman campus in 1958.



See more statues in the virtual global museum that is City Daily Photo on this first day of May. Click here to view thumbnails for all participants.