MY FIRST impression when I read the group’s press release was that this could be an inversion of the saying, “If you can’t lick them, join them.”: If you can’t join them, lick them. On second thought, I now say this could just be the offshoot of an earlier conflict, an offshoot that could in the end be good for Visayan music.
The Sacred Heart School for Boys Batch 1985 Foundation Inc. recently announced the launching of its Visayan Music Awards after a failed foray into the recently popular Visayan pop (Vispop) genre, or specifically, when its attempt to co-sponsor the Vispop music competition got derailed by the fractious nature of the original Vispop competition organizing group.
This, in a way, is Sacred Heart School for Boys Batch 1985 Foundation’s way of moving on, which is to create a third songwriting competition after the Cebu Popular Music Festival, or Cebu Pop, and the Vispop songwriting competition. I say that is the better option instead of the group suffering a dent on its image by forcing its way into the fractious Vispop scene.
Why do I say that? There’s actually a line written by a late Chinese leader that I could not just shake off my memory: “Let a hundred flowers blossom and a hundred schools of thought contend.”
It’s meaning: “Different forms and styles in art should develop freely and different schools in science should contend freely. We think that it is harmful to the growth of art and science if administrative measures are used to impose one particular style of art or school of thought and to ban another. Questions of right and wrong in the arts and sciences should be settled through free discussion in artistic and scientific circles and through practical work in these fields. They should not be settled in summary fashion.”
I think it would not have been good for Sacred Heart School for Boys Batch 1985 Foundation to insist on holding a songwriting competition under the Vispop brand and in the end invite a suit from one faction of the Vispop mess. The annual Vispop songwriting competition has been missing for a few years now and it would be unfortunate for Cebu musicians for the hiatus to be extended indefinitely via court litigation.
Besides, there are benefits in organizing a new competition. For one, the new organizers would have more leeway in conceptualizing it because they would not be limited to the concept already laid down by the organizers of the old competition. And they could also learn some lessons from the mistakes or failings committed by the previous songwriting tilts.
Vispop learned its lessons from Cebu Pop. And it looks to me like the Visayan Music Awards is learning its lessons from Vispop. An example is the attempt to broaden the songwriting scope from being purely Cebuano to songs written in English by Cebuano composers. That is timely considering the advent of the worldwide web that allows Cebuano musicians to reach out to non-Cebuano speakers in the Philippines and abroad. Then there are other issues given attention like post-competition promotion and royalties.