AT 50, the Lopez Memorial Museum and Library has become an institution in the truest and best sense of the word—dignified and authoritative. Yet, like a cool aunt or uncle, it is also unselfconscious enough to throw off the trappings and take on a newer, hipper era, as was evident in the exhibit cum book launch that formally kicked off its golden year at the Rockwell Tent on Feb. 18.

Lopez Group chairman and clan patriarch Oscar M. Lopez (OML) welcomed an estimated 400 artists, journalists, culturati, Group executives and family members in marking the jubilee of what he described as “one of the legacies [of Eugenio H. Lopez Sr.] that is closest to the Lopezes’ hearts.” He recalled the inauguration of the Lopez Museum, then housed in a modern, triangular building in Pasay City, on Feb. 13, 1960. He also acknowledged his siblings Geny, Manuel (MML), Robby and Presy and his daughter Cedie Lopez-Vargas for taking on the responsibility of being the custodians of Don Eñing’s legacy. As the museum looks forward to the next 50 years, OML stressed, its “relevance will continue unabated, and it will continue to serve” the Filipino.

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