Eghai Roxas

Eghai Roxas’ collection presents a powerful visual meditation on the Masungi karst ecosystem. Through three finely detailed realist paintings—capturing the landscape in morning light, at sunset, and in quiet repose—Roxas reveals the georeserve’s enduring beauty and ecological significance. The limestone formations rise like ancient guardians, reminding viewers of the delicate balance that sustains this natural sanctuary.

In sharp contrast, a fourth work rendered in Roxas’ signature black-and-white abstraction disrupts the serenity of the series. Its fractured forms and stark tonal shifts evoke a future where Masungi’s vitality is dimmed by unchecked commercial intrusion. The monochrome palette becomes a warning: a vision of loss should the georeserve fall to opportunistic exploitation.

As a collection, the works form a compelling narrative. The realist pieces celebrate what must be protected; the abstract piece confronts us with what may be lost. Roxas' Masungi Collection  stands as both homage and urgent reminder that Masungi’s fate rests in our collective care.

James Carlo Mendoza

In his two compelling works, James Carlo Mendoza turns his gaze toward two of Masungi’s most enigmatic flora: the ethereal Jade Vine and the formidable Pongapong. Through Mendoza’s meticulous rendering, these rare species—each extraordinary in its own right—are elevated from botanical curiosities to powerful symbols of what is at stake in the battle to protect Masungi.

The Jade Vine, with its otherworldly green-turquoise blossoms, becomes in Mendoza’s hands a visual hymn to beauty that borders on the unreal—an organism so delicate and specific in its habitat that it embodies the fragile equilibrium of the forest. In contrast, the Pongapong, with its imposing size and notorious scent of decay, is captured not as a grotesque anomaly but as a vital, awe-inspiring presence within the intricate web of Masungi’s ecology. Its bold form and primal force assert the wilderness’ right to exist on its own terms.

By immortalizing these two plants Mendoza invites viewers to contemplate the astonishing diversity sheltered within Masungi. Mendoza’s paired portraits thus function as both homage and warning. They remind us that saving Masungi is not merely about protecting land—it is about safeguarding irreplaceable life forms whose stories, presence, and ecological roles cannot be replicated once erased. Through his art, he compels us to act before this living heritage fades into silence.

Troy Silvestre

Troy Silvestre’s paired assemblages, Blued and Muddy Waters, are meditations on material memory and environmental fragility. Built from found objects, cloth, seashells, and rope, the works evoke the tactile remnants of landscapes altered, discarded, or forgotten. Though composed from nearly identical elements, the two pieces diverge in mood and meaning through their distinct chromatic worlds.

Blued is submerged in a single, unifying hue—its objects washed in a calm yet melancholic saturation. Muddy Waters, rendered in earthy browns, shifts the narrative to terrestrial struggle.

Together, the two artworks probe the interplay of repetition and transformation. Silvestre invites viewers to see how environment shapes meaning, and how the same fragments of the world can speak differently when touched by water or earth, clarity or sediment, hope or erosion. Through his found-object practice, he reframes what is often overlooked, offering a poetic reflection on nature’s enduring yet endangered traces.

Eric David and Cheryl Caedo

“Flower Fairies” embodies the spiritual guardians of the Masungi Georeserve—feminine yet fierce protectors who defend the forest’s ancient landscapes with care, playfulness, and resolve. Clad in floral armor and wings, they symbolize the real forest rangers and communities who safeguard Masungi’s fragile ecosystem.

The installation is a collaborative fusion of design, illustration, and sustainable creativity. Cheryl Caedo crafted the dress and its peripherals, reviving an unfinished garment, while Eric David painted and illustrated the mannequin using ballpoint ink, acrylic, markers, and decoupaged floral elements from the thrifted dress.

Built from repurposed materials—a discarded planter base, soda bottles shaped into structural parts, and a rescued curtain rod as the mannequin post—the work reflects the resilience and resourcefulness of the guardians it represents. “Flower Fairies” stands as a tribute to nature’s defenders and to the enduring beauty they protect.

Raul Jorolan

Masungi: A Verdant Echo by Raul Jorolan is vibrant and unrestrained. This artwork radiates with the colors and rhythms of a landscape alive. Bursting with fluid lines and chromatic layers, it captures the pulse of Masungi’s biodiversity—its blooms, its breath, its quiet abundance. The piece becomes a vivid hymn to the georeserve’s enduring vitality, echoing the flourishing life it shelters and the harmonious energy that binds its ecosystems together.

Jonet Carpio

In Last Embrace for Little Forest, Jonet Carpio distills the fraught tension between sanctuary and threat, beauty and grief. The work emerges as both homage and warning—an intimate portrait of Masungi, one of the Philippines’ most vital yet imperiled green refuges. Carpio approaches the Masungi Georeserve not merely as landscape but as a living being on the brink, a forest whose quiet resilience is continually tested by encroaching commercial interests and, painfully, by the very institutions tasked with its protection.

Carpio’s visual language delivers a moment of profound tenderness: a final, protective gesture toward a small, breathing fragment of nature. The “last embrace” becomes a metaphor for the collective desire to shield what remains of our natural heritage before it is lost to opportunistic development. His composition captures both the fragility of this ecosystem and the immense emotional weight borne by its defenders—environmental stewards, advocates, and communities who stand guard against the looming erasure of a sanctuary millions of years in the making. 

Carpio’s tribute stands as both a lament and a vow: a promise that the struggle for Masungi persists, and that art can be a vessel for its voice when institutions fail to listen. 

Beck Dollisen

In her choice of subject, Beck Dollisen focuses to the endemic Bulbul—one of Masungi’s quiet guardians—to illuminate both the sanctuary’s ecological significance and its place in the nation’s soul. The ballpoint pen rendering, set against the stars and sun of the Philippine flag, frames the Bulbul not only as a forest dweller but as a symbol of identity, reminding viewers that protecting Masungi is inseparable from honoring our heritage.

In contrast, the acrylic impasto counterpart bursts with lively, uplifting color, envisioning a future where the sanctuary thrives. Together, the works celebrate resilience, hope, and the vital interplay between nature and nationhood.

Kat Casapao

Kaleydoskopo” refers to a group of butterflies, where a variety of them find sanctuary in the Masungi Georeserve.

In many interpretations, butterflies serve as powerful symbols of transformation and hope. Despite this, their lifespans render them ephemeral in contrast to our ever-evolving way of life. This mirrors the juxtaposition that exists between us and nature, where lives are ruled by our own interests and means of survival, which consequently leaves our environment neglected as we continue to take from finite resources to satiate our infinite demands. “Kaleydoskopo” is a cry for help from Earth signalled by the butterflies around us, for if we fail to safeguard our planet, we will fail to safeguard our future too.

Copy edit by Kate Inton

Learn more about the butterflies of Masungi at this link:

Melvin Culaba

Melvin Culaba’s graphic-on-canvas piece for Masungi transforms a familiar object—the campaign shirt—into a rallying emblem of environmental urgency. By foregrounding the illustrated shirt and setting it against a muted, shadowy silhouette of the Masungi landscape, Culaba creates a stark visual tension between action and inaction, visibility and erasure.

In this juxtaposition, the shirt becomes more than apparel; it becomes a call to arms. Its crisp graphic language stands in active contrast to the fading outline of Masungi, suggesting that without decisive public engagement, this vital sanctuary risks slipping into obscurity. The composition urges the viewer to recognize their own role in this struggle: the shirt is a symbol anyone can wear, but the forest behind it is a responsibility everyone must bear.

Culaba’s work resonates with the aesthetics of advocacy campaigns while retaining the depth of fine art. It captures the fragility of Masungi’s karst ecosystem and the pressures of encroaching interests, distilling these threats into a direct, accessible visual metaphor. Ultimately, the piece insists on immediacy—inviting viewers not just to look, but to stand, speak, and act now for the protection of one of the Philippines’ most threatened natural sanctuaries.

Roderick Macutay

Roderick Macutay’s Masungi 1 and Masungi 2 capture the quiet majesty of the Masungi forest—its undulating limestone formations, lush canopies, and sacred tranquility. Rendered with Macutay’s signature clarity and depth, the works present Masungi as a living sanctuary, where light filters through dense foliage and the land breathes with ancient memory. These pieces celebrate the untouched beauty of the reserve, inviting viewers to witness the harmony between stone, forest, and sky that defines Masungi’s unique landscape.

Mike Jacosalem

In Symbiosis I and Symbiosis II, Mike Jacosalem— the youngest member of the collective—offers a visceral meditation on the fragile, often paradoxical relationship between humanity and the natural world. His works confront the viewer with bodies that are at once vulnerable, transcendent, and inseparable from the environments they inhabit.

Symbiosis I presents a headless male anatomy suspended in tension alongside a hangman’s noose. The stark absence of a head, paired with the symbol of mortality, frames the human figure as a site of conflict: a body caught between destruction and the possibility of renewal. Jacosalem suggests that humanity’s disconnection from nature is not only psychological but existential, revealing the cost of severing oneself from the living systems that sustain us.

In contrast, Symbiosis II introduces a female anatomy crowned with a flourishing tree, its branches rising where a head might have been. A bird in flight and a butterfly hovering at either side animate the composition, transforming the figure into a vessel of growth, rebirth, and ecological harmony. Here, Jacosalem envisions a return to interconnectedness—an affirmation that life persists when humans embrace their role within nature rather than above it.

Together, the works form a compelling diptych of rupture and restoration. Through haunting contrasts and organic symbolism, Jacosalem invites us to reflect on the profound truth that human existence is not separate from nature but deeply, inescapably intertwined.

Benedicto Modesto

Art often celebrates beauty—but in the case of the Masungi Georeserve, beauty alone isn’t the whole story. This artwork dives deeper, showing what happens when we ignore the very ecosystems that keep us alive.

Negligence doesn’t just damage the land. It reshapes us—and not for the better.

At the center of the piece, human figures appear mutated: bodies fused with the wings and talons of birds, the head of a hornbill. They sit on a half-natural, half-cemented karst—echoing the iconic stones of Masungi now scarred by human intervention. Rising between them is a massive red tree, stripped of leaves, a haunting symbol of what remains when nature is pushed beyond repair.

When we fail to recognize the true value of places like Masungi, we risk passing on a twisted sense of what really matters. This negligence doesn’t just endanger the environment—it threatens our identity, our future, and the delicate balance that all living beings depend on.

Henri Cainglet

In Destiny, Henri Cainglet weaves an evocative dialogue between innocence and possibility, placing the gaze of a young child at the center of an energetic, almost primordial swirl of color and motion. The grayscale rendering of the child—quiet, grounded, and contemplative—stands in striking contrast to the vivid, chaotic environment that surrounds him. This interplay suggests a world shaped by the actions, mistakes, and memories of previous generations, yet still brimming with the potential for transformation.

The artwork was rendered in 2024 yet its meaning still resonates to the desires and hopes of the collective in awakening the desires of the younger generation to lead the stewardship of green sanctuaries like Masungi instead of adapting a passive stance on its current woes. A fitting artwork to end the exhibit's collection.

Destiny becomes a visual manifesto for intergenerational hope—affirming that amid the complexities and fractures of the world, possibility still flourishes. Cainglet invites viewers to consider their responsibility in shaping a future worthy of the child’s gaze, while honoring the quiet strength of those who will ultimately inherit and reimagine it.