Tibaldo: Promoting culture and arts in a 5th Class Municipality

I JOINED the National Commission on Culture and the Arts Sub-Commission on the Arts (NCCA-SCA) in their Sining Amping reach-out program as a resource person on SmartPhone Filmmaking in Sta. Monica, a 5th class municipality of the island of Siargao.

It was also a break and most welcome opportunity for me to travel to the coastal towns of Surigao Del Norte utilizing my mandatory leave as a public servant.

The island of Siargao is found in Northern Mindanao once called Sapao and believed to be of Visayan origin.

Our group was composed of SCA officers; Teddy Co. Commissioner for the Arts and head of the National Committee on Cinema; Shirley Halili-Cruz, head, Committee on Dance; Hope Yu, head, Committee on Literary Arts; Rosanna Palm, head, Committee on Dramatic Arts; Rogelio Caringal, head, Committee on Architecture and Allied Arts; Mauricia Borromeo, head, Committee on Music and Egai Talusan Fernandez, head, Committee on Visual Arts and Arts Section Head Ferdinand Isleta.

Together with other artists of the varied art disciplines namely; December Valenciano on music, Salvador Ching of visual arts, Evangeline Kuizon for upcycling and Merdeka Morales for poetry, we were able to train over a hundred students and teachers in Sta. Monica which is seemingly the farthest municipality from Siargao's Sayak airport.

One good environmental practice that I learned from the local facilitators is the reusing of mineral water plastic bottles by the participants as they will only be provided with water supply throughout the workshop duration on a dispenser.

Also invited to inspire the participants and set the tone for the three-day arts workshop is former NCCA chair Felipe de Leon who spoke candidly why we often focus negatively about ourselves and want to look like westerners. We have world class artists and performers and all the more that we must nurture our folk arts which are among our pride of place De Leon stressed.

On some notes about the unique cultures of tribal Philippines, De Leon mentioned Filipino culture as "napakalawak at kaakit akit" referring to local fabrics such as the sash of Tausog, mat or banig of Maguindanao and headgears of tawi-tawi.

De Leon also mentioned the crafts and farming activities of the Ifugaos which are examples of refined representation of day to day activities.

For my topic, I find SmartPhone Filmmaking as a challenging task to participants who are not so engrossed with gadgets for economic reasons.

In fact, only one among the four teachers who attended my lectures uses a 2016 model that has a video editing capability. I also grabbed the offer so that I can also field-test my module on SmartPhone Filmmaking that seeks to enable participants to produce a short feature or documentary film that adheres to the standards of film production from conceptualization to final screening.

For this workshop, we only used smartphones for shooting, editing and nothing else except the unlimited creativity of the user. I used paper, white board marker and marker and the only time we used a laptop was when we uploaded the finished materials for screening.

I also documented some of the workshop proceedings and came up with a short video not only to promote the activity but also of the Sta. Monica as a municipality that has great potentials as a show-window of culture and arts.

I had lengthy talks with visual artists Egai Fernandez and Buddy Ching about visual arts and the whos who in the art scenes of yesteryears. Fernandez is a past President of the Arts Association of the Philippines and Ching is a former schoolmate who also finished Fine Arts majoring in Painting from the University of Santo Tomas. Another Tomasino, Arch. Ogie Caringal is with our Amping Sining team handling the workshop on upcycling and I chanced upon him explaining "yung bato lagyan mo ng shell paperweight na yun".

The Amping Sining culminated with Mayor Fernando Dolar, NCCA Plan/Policy Formulation and Programming Division Chief Bernan Joseph Corpuz, and Commissioner Teddy Co expressing words of gratitude and challenging the constituents of Sta. Monica to further enhance their skills in the varied arts. The three-day multi-art workshop is a collaborative project of the NCCA Subcommission on the Arts (SCA) in partnership with the Municipality of Santa Monica and the Province of Surigao del Norte and aims to promote cultural identity through the arts for the benefit of the communities of local government units.

As a volunteer member of the NCCA particularly on the committee on cinema, I'd like to also impart to everyone that the commission encourages the continuing and balanced development of a pluralistic culture by the people themselves.

The NCCA encourages and ensures the exercise of the freedom of expression by eliminating all forms of censorship inimical to cultural and artistic growth and development without prejudice to the rights of other people to develop their own culture, or to the enhancement of a genuinely Filipino culture.

It also extends financial and economic assistance such as subsidies, artist funds and social security to promote cultural development and protect artists and cultural workers and ensure the decentralization of opportunities for creative expression through the establishment of local culture and art centers in various regions, with resources needed for artistic cultural activities.

The commission likewise gives recognition of artistic achievement through awards, grants and services to artists and cultural groups, which contribute significantly in the Filipino’s cultural legacy and promote the interests and welfare of artists and cultural workers by protecting their rights to intellectual and artistic properties as well as those of associations that shall promote and protect the economic and moral rights of artists over the country.

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