Felix Pardo de Tavera

AVERY interesting book was given to me as a gift by Mara Pardo de Tavera. It is authored by Jose Maria Cariño, an art and culture writer, former diplomat and museum founder. It has to do with the missing link of the renowned and recognizable Pardo de Tavera family of the Philippines, that of Felix Pardo de Tavera. He was the son and namesake of Felix Pardo de Tavera, brother of Joaquin Pardo de Tavera, who was sentenced to exile in Guam, together with other Filipino patriots, in the middle of the 19th century. I went through it in a matter of hours, acquiring knowledge about a Philippine past and its figures with satisfaction and fulfillment.

A quick reprise: The Pardo de Tavera family originated in Spain, of noble lineage, and one member, Julian Pardo de Tavera, migrated to the Philippines around 1825-1826 as a lieutenant of the Spanish Infantry. He married and died here. He had two sons born here, who became lawyers after studying at the University of Santo Tomas: Felix and Joaquin. They called Cavite their original home. Felix died at 33 in the 1863 Manila earthquake. Joaquin then inherited his law practice to add to his own. He was a liberal, with democratic tendencies who taught law at the University of Santo Tomas. He had famous students like Cayetano Arellano, Florentino Torres, Antonio Regidor, etc. who became luminaries of the law. As an honest, democratic and very Filipino lawyer, Joaquin became the lawyer of the Gomburza triumvirate who ended up executed on grounds of subversion after the Cavite Mutiny of 1873, when the Spanish colonial government went into paroxysms of paranoia, wildly accusing and punishing those they imagined to be involved. This condemnation included Joaquin, who was forced into exile in Guam and after he was pardoned, migrated to France. Since Felix and Joaquin married two Gorricho sisters (from another Cavite family of Spanish descent), he became the surrogate father of his deceased brother Felix’s children, the youngest of whom is a boy named after his father, Felix.

This book, Triumph and Tragedy, is about Felix who is brought to Paris with his mother, brother and sister, goes to medical school at the University of Paris, but has an artistic streak that had already presented itself in the Philippines. He attended the Academia de Dibujo y Pintura in Intramuros run by Felipe Roxas, a distinguished teacher. At 18, as an art student, Felix contributed drawings to Fr. Blanco’s Flora de Filipinas. He signed F. Pardo, probably because the condemnation and exile of his uncle Joaquin was still fresh in the memory and he felt ostracized (the author’s conclusion).

What Cariño brings to us in this book is that Felix, a medical doctor, evolved into a sculptor during his years in Paris. He had his own studio, participated in international expositions by contributing pieces of sculpture, won medals in the process, and was seen and acclaimed as a Filipino sculptor. He trained under the likes of Mariano Benlliures, a member of a famed family of sculptors, and with Auguste Rodin himself.

Felix was well into a distinguished twin career as a medical doctor and a sculptor when the tragedy of his sister’s death at the hands of her husband, Juan Luna, one of the Philippines’ greatest and most famous painters, struck. The book goes into detail about the whys and hows of this incident which also took the life of Felix’s mother and wounded him as he tried to protect both his sister and mother.

But the real point is that after the tragedy, Felix was able to pick up the pieces of his life, continue his medical practice and keep up his art by going far away from the scene of tragedy. Whereupon Philippine art lost him to Argentina, where he migrated with his wife (who suffered the miscarriage of their first child because of the aforesaid incident).

In Argentina he rebuilt his life on the same two foundations — medicine and art. He became a well-known sculptor who received commissions for monuments, art exhibits, busts of important people, including one of Gen. Jose San Martin, the revolutionary hero of Argentina, until now prominently displayed in the Casa Rosada, their presidential mansion. His medical career also flourished with his concentration on pediatrics and eventual appointment as director of the French Hospital in Argentina.

For the first time, the work of Felix Pardo de Tavera is shown to the world outside Argentina and Paris in this book about him. It exhibits his art, his biographical journey which inevitably and rightfully includes the country of his birth and his compatriots.

It is to be noted that while he became an Argentinian citizen, his Filipino roots remained intact from the Filipino cuisine that he inherited from his mother, who was a renowned cook to the Filipino community of ilustrados in Paris. We are shown some of his sculptures like “Cabeza de Indigena” (Head of a Native), and drawings of Cavite, particularly Imus, where the Filipino Pardo de Taveras originated. He did a bust of Rizal, which he kept but it unfortunately fell and shattered, so it is not shown. Rizal was a good friend and boon companion from their youth at the Ateneo de Manila.

They continued their friendship in Madrid and Paris as residents. There are many photographs of them mugging or posturing, portraying scenes from history or art as entertainment. Rizal alludes to Felix’s art many times, praising it and announcing his Filipino provenance.

Unknown to many, years after Rizal died, Felix joined the competition for the Rizal Monument during the early American Occupation, with an elaborate design that was judged too expensive to do compared to the Swiss sculptor’s (Richard Kissling) who was actually second to someone else but for reasons of budget limitations received the commission. But a carver from Paete has rendered a facsimile of Felix’s design in wood, which is shown in the book. It is interesting.

Felix’s distinguished older brother, Trinidad Hermenegildo Pardo de Tavera, who was also a medical doctor, a scientist and linguistics scholar, is said to have watched from his Intramuros window as Rizal walked to his execution with Rizal looking up at him and acknowledging him with a nod to which Trinidad returned his own.

Cariño’s book with the invaluable cooperation of the Pardo de Tavera family opens us to a new or rather, hidden and unacknowledged Filipino sculptor’s life and work, whose poignant destination and fulfillment came by way of tragedy. But as the book says, he triumphed in the end, left the tragic past and forged a new and productive life.

This is a coffee table book that has history, photographs and other illustrations not only of Felix Pardo de Tavera and his times but of other Filipinos artists, particularly sculptors or carvers, who were participants and contemporaries of that era, a past and its characters, that we must know more about to understand our country, our history and ourselves.

the size of the funds versus domestic investment opportunities. Some whose windfall revenues were so big that they could not utilize the funds domestically went international from the start, but those were mostly Norway and the Middle East funds. Most started local and did not start with going outside while there were largely unmet funding opportunities and development needs at home. These funds investing outside of the country are different from strategic economic and political initiatives of major countries like the Belt and Road Initiative of China and grants and aid from the US and European Union.

Initially, when going outside local opportunities, most of these sovereign wealth funds did not start with investing directly. They knew it would be too hard to compete with established private equity firms and asset managers (for public equities and bonds) for the more sought-after investments, the best fund managers and sometimes the check size the global private equity (PE) firms and asset managers could write. They mostly became limited partners in the funds where the major PE firms were general partners and took big positions in mutual funds of leading asset managers. They observed and learned. After a decade or so, some of them, while continuing to invest in the major private equity funds as limited partners and taking big positions in various funds of asset managers, selectively built their own direct investment arms in private and public equities and bonds. Especially in areas where they had some natural advantage like for the Singaporeans other Asian opportunities before going global which they have since done, albeit selectively.

There were successes and failures, but even the successes made sure their constituents understand there is no silver bullet and there would be ups and down and mistakes. The key was to prevent fraud and make sure management and governance were qualified and competent, respectively.

Bluest of blue chip

Before I continue, let me clarify the alarmist stories about what is considered the bluest of the blue chip sovereign wealth fund — the $1.3-trillion Government Pension Fund Global of Norway. They “lost” $164 billion as the fund was down 14.1 percent, but that was 0.88 percent better than the benchmark index for its holdings. It therefore outperformed. First, this was not an actual loss. The same if the fund goes up 20 percent this year and they make over $200 billion, it is not an actual gain. It is merely what is called a “mark to market.” In the asset management industry, it is required that the fund calculate its value at yearend adding up cash, the last traded price of its public holdings in stocks and bonds and hiring a qualified expert to do a valuation of its private assets. That is whether it is selling them or not. Then you compare that to last year. This is equivalent to, say, I bought 1,000 shares of stock at P100 per share two years ago and don’t sell and just collect dividends if it gives any and so on. If last year it went up to P150, then I have a 50 percent and P50,000 mark to market gain. But it is not an actual gain, as I did not sell it. If then this year it went to P120 and I did not sell it I have a 20 percent and P30,000 mark to market loss. As I did not sell it, not an actual loss but a mark to market loss. That is what happened to the $1.3-trillion Norway sovereign wealth fund. We better get used to explaining that if we are to do any kind of sovereign wealth fund so the chattering class does not go into overdrive of euphoria or despair over mere mark to market results.

For all of these funds, there are three areas of simultaneous concentration to get the funds to launch and be sustained. They are structure and purpose, fund-raising or sourcing, and management and governance. All three go together for the fund and initiative to be successful and in a sustained manner. This is a nuanced enough discussion so let me save that for next week.