Schools Superintendent Teresa Daluz-Mababa paints a portion of a mural-in-themaking with her own blood as Nueva Ecija’s blood and hair painter Elito Circa looks on. Photo by Elmo Roque
SAN JOSE CITY — Wanting to show that in teaching, more than practicing a profession, they wholeheartedly share their life for the transformation of the human person to become better persons, some 1,000 public school teachers in here shared their blood and hair in a mural painting which will be completed a few weeks from now.
When completed, it will be posted on the wall at the lobby of their new division office building set to be inaugurated in March. Each of the 998 teachers,both from the elementary and secondary levels, shed about three ml of their blood and with the use of a small brush painted it in specific spots in the mural.
A few stand of their hair were then cut and incorporated in the painting. Both blood and hair serve as base in the depiction on the canvass of the theme of the mural which is “transformation of the child through education until he or she raises a family of his own”.
They started painting the mural last January 28 and is expected to be finished in time for the inauguration of the newbuilding on March 17. Aside from 998 teachers, officials of the San Jose City local school board and officers of the federated parents-teachers association also joined in incorporating their blood and strands of hair in the mural.
Even City Mayor Marivic Belena sent droplets of her blood to be included in the mural. About 50 teachers were seen he other day, with their blood in a vial, awaiting their turn to paint their blood and incorporate their strands of hair in the small quadrants in the mural assigned for them.
“We thought of it as a fitting art work that will adorn our new building,” school super intendent Teresa Daluz-Mababa said. “With our DNA in it, it is an immortalization of the teachers’ lives in the transformation of our pupils through education,” she added.
The mural is titled “1,000 plus lives,” which purports to show it is about the teachers and supporters of education. Central to the mural theme is the education of the person, first with the aid of his or her parents, and then of the teachers from kindergarten to tertiary education.
Mababa said she approved of the idea of painting a mural with their blood and hair in it when she commissioned homegrown artist Elito Circa for an appropriate work of art for their new building. Circa, who is known as the province’s“blood and hair painter” suggested incorporating their blood and hair in the conceptualized theme of the mural.
Circa, when asked, said that the shedding of blood for what one is doing is a very high expression of love. It can at once connote great sacrifice, he said. In the 6-foot-by-8- foot canvass, two-inch quadrants were assigned to the individual teachers of the schools division.
By schedule, each of the teachers pastes their blood on it and incorporate some strands of his or her hair on it with the use of oil paint. Each of the teachers,who had their annual medical checkup, asked the attending nurse to place an extra blood in their respective vials to be used for thepainting.
“I felt that it was our lives is encapsuled in this mural,” Mababa said as she painted the quadrant assigned to her. “It’s actually my DNA that I put in there to express my dedication to teaching” she added.
Secondary school teacher Cecila Daypo said she was “happy in participating in this unique and meaningful activity of their school’s division”.
Circa will complete the painting as soon as all the teachers in the division and others concerned shall have pasted their blood and hair on the quadrants in the canvass. The quadrants numbered a little over a thousand.
