Meeting Bayani Rumbaoa, Philippino coin engraver

[Figleaf]

The Man Behind the RP Coins
By Art Tibaldo, September 18, 2012

GOOD relationships do not just happen. It takes time, patience and people wanting to be together for at least a lifetime. This is the gist that I got from the social network message of my college classmate Bayani Rumbaoa, the country's first coin engraver. Rumbaoa is inviting everyone to celebrate the national Family Week with them on September 29 at Quezon City with the theme; Family First, Ensuring Work-Family Balance.

Yannie as we call him, has been Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas' (BSP) senior engraver since 1986 as all coins produced by the BSP were designed by American and Canadian engravers. Acclaimed as "the man behind the Philippine coins", Yannie said that perseverance is a positive and active characteristic that gives us hope by helping us realize that the righteous suffer no failure except in giving up and no longer trying. The artist engraver likewise said that "perseverance means to continue in a given course until we have reached a goal or objective, regardless of obstacles, opposition, and other counterinfluences.

I have met and encountered Yannie way back during our college days at the University of Santo College of Architecture and Fine Arts where we both majored in Painting. All I recall of him was his long hair, faded jeans that had streaks of paints and clutched paint brushes and over painted canvass. We both finished our BFA degrees in 1982 but yannie took the course much earlier as he had to find petty jobs like painting movie attraction boards, portraitures to include house paint jobs.

Three decades has come to pass and life has tremendously changed for this former working student who finished his four-year course in seven long years. He has not only written history for himself, in fact, he made an imprint in the coins that we now have in our pockets and purse.

As a child, Yannie would sketch his father on a bond paper with a No.2 Mongol drawing pencil and years later, he would engrave his father's image as a Katipunero on the nation's commemorative one-peso coin. Now, as full pledged family man, Yannie has evolved into a civic and religious leader, sharing his God given blessings not only to his own circle of friends and relatives but also to other communities that he has wholeheartedly accepted and belong to. He has rubbed elbows with the rich and famous, the powerful and the influential but this artist friend of mine speaks and acts with his feet deeply rooted to the ground undetached from his lowly yet respectable beginnings which to me is the mark of a responsible leader.

In accordance with Executive Order No. 241 dated June 9, 1995 and penned by then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo with implementing Presidential Proclamation No. 60 dated September 28, 1992, all programs and activities on the family, including among others the proper observance of the forthcoming Anniversary of the International Year of the Family in 2004, was be effectively implemented recognizing the sanctity of family life and shall protect and strengthen the family as a basic autonomous social institutions. Together with Yannie Rumbaoa, I look up to other families that I have personally known such as the men and women behind the Society of Outstanding Citizens of Baguio, the pioneers of Baguio whose names were honored during the centennial anniversary of the city and the unknown parents who took the pains and labored hard enough just to see their children grow into responsible citizens.

Source: Sun.Star (Baguio)

[Globetrotter]

Interesting read....

Ole