By Maria Veronica “Vernie” G. Caparas
When Norberto “Bert” Benolong Monterona received the invitation from the Royal Canadian Mint (RCM) to join the design competition for its coin series celebrating Canada’s diversity, he felt more than pride as a Canadian Filipino – he felt his Philippine roots pull him home. Monterona is the first Canadian Filipino artist to design the fine silver coin and the pure gold coin in the RCM’s “Celebrating Canada’s Diversity” series, joining a roster that has honoured Sinhala, Indian, Scottish, Irish, French-Canadian, Haida, and Iranian heritage.
The coin’s thickness shows its authentic 99.99% silver fineness. (Photo by MVGC.)
The imitation mother-of-pearl sits on the coin’s core with Monterona’s Philippine art-inspired concentric designs. (Photo by MVGC.)
For all the attention the coin has brought him, Bert says the recognition itself matters more than the achievement.
“I don’t feel excited about the news of what I did. I felt more excited about RCM’s narrative of the Filipinos’ contributions to Canada – our arts and culture, our food, our bayanihan. As a migrant, I felt like an outsider. Now, I feel like I’m already in. I want my fellow Filipinos in Canada to feel proud of our heritage and not second-class citizens. Not a backdrop. I felt so proud of our migrants in the healthcare industry. This is my legacy to my kids, Bernie and Monna. I am happy because my apo (grandchild), Benjamin, is proud of me. My daughter Monna’s co-workers kept asking her, ‘Is your Dad Bert? He’s on the internet. He’s in the news!’
Monterona’s Sarimanok and Okir designs became the cover of Moro Kurier magazine. (Photo by BM.)
I am happy that we are recognized. My heart is full. As a cultural worker, I contributed to the recognition of Filipinos. I hope other sectors will do the same.”
Bert’s memories of his Bukidnon hometown in Mindanao became the bricolage of his winning design, Canada’s diversity on the reverse (with King Charles III on the obverse done by another artist).
Monterona draws from the Maranao okir designs for RCM coins of diversity. (Photo by BM.)
Monterona’s plates of inspiration include these designs. (Photo by BM.)
Monterona draws from the Maranao okir designs for RCM coins of diversity. (Photo by BM.)
Mindanao is the only Philippine island that never fell under Spanish rule. For more than three centuries, Spain held Luzon and the Visayas, but never conquered the Muslim sultanates and Lumad communities of Mindanao and Sulu that fought Spanish rule to a standstill and remained unconquered. The Philippines that Canada is choosing to honour includes the Mindanao colonization that was never reached.
That history shapes Bert’s coin, which unfolds outward from a central sun motif inspired by the Philippine flag, set in mother-of-pearl. Concentric bands interlace Canadian sugar maple leaves with Mindanaoan okir patterns; hearts, alternating upright and inverted, which Bert calls a universal symbol of connection; mountain ranges beside a swimming Sarimanok, the mythical bird of Maranao tradition; buntings from Filipino fiestas; and, at the outer edge, a rope motif, chosen because rope binds different strands into one. As Bert puts it, “the whole design [begins] with the image of a wheel in motion” – fitting for an artist whose life has moved in widening circles, from his Mindanao hometown to the world.
Lory Riego, Monterona’s mentee, has expressed the desire to buy a gold coin. (Photo by MVGC.)
A grandmother’s store, a cowboy on the radio
Bert’s roots also trace to his grandmother, Lola Maria Benolong – his spiritual guide from a young age, and keeper of the family store, the hub of the Talaandig Tribe’s goods and, thanks to its radio, his grade-school classmates’ favourite hangout. In grade 3, Bert and his friends were hooked on Diego Salvador, a radio drama that aired daily at 11:30 a.m. Young Bert relied mainly on the sound effects that Diego Salvador and his horse made; when a classmate asked Bert to draw the cowboy hero on his white school shirt in blue ballpen, the boy’s mother was furious – but a long line of other students soon crowded the store for the same. Did Bert charge for it? “No. I was just happy to draw. My Lola would ask me, ‘Berting, why are we running out of ballpens?’”
His father, Silverio Monterona – barangay captain since the late 1960s and undefeated at the polls – still found time to help Bert build a bamboo flower vase for a grade-school project. “I appreciate my Papa’s aesthetics and discipline,” Bert recalls. His mother, Florencia Benolong, comes from the Talaandig Tribe that exposed him to the artistic traditions of the Agta, Bagobo, Ifugao, Mandaya-Mansaka, and Maranao – histories untouched by colonial influence. “I helped my Mama Poring in the farm. Of the nine children, only I and my younger brother Dan, who painted waling-waling for selected friends and clients, went into the arts,” Bert adds.
Finding a nationalist art
For high school, Bert lived with his grandaunt, Lola Constancia, while attending Mindanao State University–Iligan Institute of Technology (MSU-IIT) as a scholar. There, he joined the Young Artists Guild, developing skills in trade drawing and on-the-spot watercolor work. He passed the University of the Philippines College Admissions Test (UPCAT), the Philippine Coconut Producers Federation, Inc. (COCOFED) exam, and the MSU-IIT exam, but chose MSU-IIT – and later formed his own Artists Guild, to train its members. His campus exhibit, Vivant Tableau, showcased cubist work influenced by Pablo Picasso of Spain, and fellow Filipinos Cesar Legaspi and Mauro “Malang” Santos, with traces of abstractionist H.R. Ocampo.
As a student leader and, from 1984 to 1986, a curriculum developer in Industrial Education, Bert also pushed back against English as the medium of instruction and called for a nationalized education. He spent his summers in Manila, collaborated with Philippine Educational Theater Association (PETA) artists at the Rajah Sulayman in Fort Santiago, and joined rallies with the Concerned Artists of the Philippines post the Aquino assassination and before the EDSA People Power, transporting his murals of protest to sites of rallies.
Bert’s artistic reputation was already extending beyond Bukidnon while he was still a university student. In October 1984, he was invited by the Kulturang Atin Foundation, Inc. (KAFI) to participate in the Kasikas sa Kadayawan Festival in Davao City. There, his work attracted the attention of two of Mindanao’s leading arts advocates: Jean Garrot Edades – University of the Philippines English teacher and wife of National Artist Victorio Edades, and Aida Rivera Ford – founder of the Learning Center of the Arts, then the only school of fine arts in Mindanao. Impressed by his talent, Ford offered the young artist a dual appointment as a faculty member and artist-in-residence. Bert accepted, living on campus while teaching and continuing to paint – a rare opportunity for an emerging artist in Mindanao during the 1980s.
But even this promising beginning did not satisfy the questions that had begun to affect him. The techniques he had mastered drew admiration, but he increasingly wondered whether technical proficiency alone was enough to define Philippine art. During one of his summer trips to Manila as president of the School of Industrial Education Student Council, Bert was invited by the Liongoren family to stay with them for two weeks while attending the 1985 International Exhibition for Workers at Mt. Carmel on Broadway in Quezon City. One exhibition was curated by Hiraya Art Gallery’s Bobi Valenzuela. After studying Bert’s paintings, Valenzuela offered a critique that would redirect the course of his artistic life: “You come from Mindanao and the tribe runs in your blood. Your painting is too westernized. I’d advise you to go back and study tribal art. Seek what constitutes a nationalist art.”
The advice became a lifelong challenge rather than a passing comment. “I started searching,” he recalls.
Bert immersed himself in the visual languages of Mindanao. He began studying okir – the flowing decorative tradition of the Maranao, and the Sarimanok. He travelled to Mandaya communities in Davao del Norte and to Ata Manobo settlements, learning directly from indigenous artists rather than simply reproducing museum images.
B’laan Tribe’s triangular designs grace BM’s coin renditions. (Photo by BM.)
Between 1986 and 1987, he closely observed Mandaya weaving traditions. What fascinated him was not merely the finished textiles but the entire process – from soaking plant fibers before weaving to the relationship between materials, environment, and cultural memory. He also noticed how tourism increasingly dictated weaving patterns and production, raising difficult questions about authenticity, commerce, and cultural preservation.
Mandaya-Mansaka Tribe’s heart designs show two heads sharing various stuff. (Photo by BM.)
His search eventually brought him to TREES – he no longer recalls its full name – but remembers it as an important network of researchers, scholars, and cultural workers engaged with indigenous leaders and communities in Mindanao, documenting Philippine tribal knowledge. The experience convinced him that nationalist art could not simply imitate tribal motifs; it had to emerge from understanding the histories, philosophies, and lived experiences that produced them. Along the way, he turned down MSU-IIT’s offer to teach while pursuing his master’s degree, choosing instead to keep searching.
T’boli Tribe’s triangular designs count as BM’s inspiration plate for the coin. (Photo by BM.)
Forty-one years after that conversation with Bobi Valenzuela, how does the numismatic artist now define nationalist art?
“There’s no single definition for Philippine art or nationalist art. Is it based on who the artist is, on Filipino life as the subject, the content, the form, or the style? The place where the artist does the art? Nationalist art projects Philippine issues in terms of content. The form and the content reflect Filipino arts and culture. Filipino arts mirror the life of Filipinos – economic, spiritual, tribal; not surreal, not imaginary, but based on the life of Filipinos. Its visual elements may not be perfect, but it reflects Filipino art. It shows the essence of Filipino culture.”
Monterona came to Vancouver, B.C., in the late 2000s through the Provincial Nominee Program. Now a Canadian Filipino, he has carried Bobi Valenzuela’s advice across an ocean – sustaining, in his adopted country, the tribal-cum-nationalist art that Bobi once asked him to find.
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The writer, a freelance journalist, Vernie Caparas, can be reached via email, caparas@ualberta.ca, for comments.
