NEGROS OCCIDENTAL, Philippines – The stunning mural art along the national highway in Barangay Zone 15, Talisay City, Negros Occidental serves as a potent reminder of the city’s glorious past and icons of history.
Unveiled on Wednesday, February 26, the mural painting depicts the city’s rich heritage, culture, and history.
Such is a product of a creative movement that gathered teachers, students, school heads, department heads, and local artists — all united in celebrating art while showcasing the best of Talisay, the “bedrock of subdivision” in the province.
Talisay’s mural art, now the latest “talk of the town” in the province, is simply telling everyone, especially the millennials and Gen Z, that while Talisay is transitioning into a techno hub of Negros Occidental, it will never divorce from its past even amid an era of digitalization.
Also dubbed a “derby of hues,” the mural art vividly illustrates and highlights the origin of Talisay.
From its discovery by the Spaniards to the pivotal contributions of the late Don Julio Diaz, Anecito Lacson, Tana Dicang, and the famous Lizares clan, the no ordinary mural artwork — commissioned by Mayor Neil Lizares with the support of his wife, Atty. Rowena’s Angels’ Wings Foundation — is now a great storyteller on the road, how the people shaped the city’s growth up to its transformation as a thriving community where modernity and technological innovations are nicely collaborating with each other.
Clik here to view.
But who are these prominent Talisaynons when you scan the pages of Negros’ history?
Don Julio Diaz was a leader of a prominent clan in Talisay, who led the signatories for the Negros revolutionary forces against the Spanish invaders. With him were Anecito Lacson, Juan Araneta, Leandro Locsin, Simeón Lizares, and José Montilla.
Lacson was one of the two great heroes behind the historic Al Cinco de Noviembre, a bloodless revolution in Negros that caused Spaniards to surrender on November 5, 1898.
The Al Cinco de Noviembre, “beautified” by the so-called “greatest bluff,” was when Negros revolutionaries simply used rolled amakan (bamboo) mats to serve as cannons, and palm tree fondling as rifles that all scared the foreign invaders.
Tana Dicang was Enrica Alunan Lizares, one of the province’s prominent personalities who built a grand home in Talisay called “Balay Bato” in 1872. Her well-maintained historic house is now a city museum.
Also in this wall art are Talisay’s famous annual festivals, Pasidungog (every February) and Minulu-an (every September), wowing passersby to and from the Negros Occidental capital, Bacolod.
Clik here to view.
There’s also the bright illustrations of Talisay’s top tourist attractions — The Ruins and the world-class Campuestohan High Resorts, highlighted by the newest rooster hotel named Manok ni Gwapo Cano Tan, the biggest chicken structure in the world.
The icon of faith among Talisaynons, the statue of St. Nicholas de Tolentino, the city’s patron saint, also earned a prominent space, reminding Talisaynons that faith in God remains an important virtue.
A beautiful contribution of Talisay for February’s National Arts Month, the mural in essence, as Lizares puts it, tells stories of the city’s past and present that’s “visually entertaining and so engaging.* – Rappler.com