19/11/2025
Registered Voter
Oil on canvas
30”x24”
In 2021, at the height of a nation’s struggle against uncertainty, I painted “Registered Voter”, an oil painting on a 30x24 inch canvas, hoping to capture a reminder the Filipino people often need but seldom hear: our vote is not for sale.
The artwork features a young Filipino, worn yet resilient, wearing a straw hat and a face mask made from folded Philippine banknotes. The mask symbolizes how poverty and desperation often silence the truth, how the promise of quick cash can cover mouths that should be speaking out. Yet, even with this weight, the figure stands firm, holding a makeshift cardboard sign:
VOTE
~NOT~
FOR
SALE
Behind him is a background washed with warm tones, earth, fire, and hints of light, to signify both the hardships born of corruption and the hope that refuses to die. The bright yellow plantains on his back represent the ordinary Filipino worker, the farmer, the vendor, the everyday citizen whose voice is too often bought or forgotten.
When the Philippine Postal Corporation, in partnership with the Art Association of the Philippines, launched the 2021 National Art Competition at the Manila Central Post Office in Intramuros, I knew this piece belonged there. It was my voice. My stand. My reminder.
I submitted the painting with pride, imagining it would hang among works that celebrated truth, culture, and the spirit of the nation.
But fate had another ending.
Months passed. I wasn’t able to retrieve the artwork from the Manila Central Post Office. Then came the news, the iconic building was engulfed in flames, reducing decades of history, letters, memories, and artworks to ash. My piece, “Registered Voter,” was among them.
The loss was painful, yet strangely poetic.
The painting that warned against the burning away of integrity, against the corruption that can ignite from a single sold vote, ended in fire itself. But rather than vanish, its message survived. The story of the painting became even louder, carried not by a canvas, but by memory and purpose.
Today, “Registered Voter” lives on not as a physical piece, but as a symbol:
Art can burn, but the truth we paint never truly disappears.
