KORONADAL CITY – Getting ahead the local government but hoping it will take the lead next year, local artists and organizers in South Cotabato put together a music festival and art exhibit staging home-grown artists who care for the society.
The one-day event, dubbed as “Musika Tulong Para Sa Kapayapaan at Kaunlaran,” was held at the ProTech Center over the weekend with 20 local bands and some visual artists spearheaded by the Samahan ng mga Musikero ng Timog Kutabato.
“We wish to make the world know our burning passion for local talents and all we can do to change our lives for the better,” organizer Neptali Tomaro said.
Tomaro is a known local composer grown in Koronadal’s neighboring town of Banga.
“We wish that the event will be institutionalized , making it happen every year and pave the way to the archiving and recording of originally written music, financial independence to sustain its set programs, and protection and development of members and the music artists of South Cotabato as a whole,” Tomaro said.
Organizers launched the event as an opportunity to gather relief goods from donors intended for the victims of natural calamities and displaced communities in the province for distribution by the provincial government.
Local artists and friends were present to show support to performers and exhibitors. There was also an array of canvasses and mixed art where visual artists displayed their masterpieces.
Among them was Raul Forro Lebanan, who explained how he got his artistry since he was a school boy. “I am for advocacy,” the 49-year old artist declared. “Little ways to send the message that there is more to wastes and litters we do everyday,” he said.
Lebanan explained that one mixed art abstract made of termite dung. He said it would take a few minutes before an eye to see what is inside the one square-foot full- brown board.
“That’s the message. Sometimes we have to take a closer look at things so we can appreciate them,” he said.
Most of Lebanan’s mixed art are made of wastes and litters like brittle bottle of softdrinks, wires, plastics, slugs of wood, cloth strips, pebbles, and even some cocoons.
“I don’t sell them. I just made them whenever I feel doing so and have some waste materials around to complement my thoughts. Some of them I display at the human resource office where my wife works,” he said.
Lebanan’s subjects epitomize life, nature and environment. He said upscaling uses mixed art as a medium to put together waste materials and form one unified whole in visual form with both aesthetic and objective value.
Dodoy Subaldo is a visual artist who excels in acrylic. One of the exhibits is his magnum opus “Idlip ng Kamalayan”. At few feet away, the canvass shows a 3-dimensional acrylic material of a tubaw accentuating a soft cloth blanketing a sleeping infant.
“This portrait suggests both physical and metaphysical innocence of one’s true self,” Subaldo explained.
Tubaw is a traditional handkerchief of the indigenous T’boli and is used as a headdress among male which symbolizes bravery, leadership and cultural affinity.
Subaldo further explained this painting was his entry to the Kalinawa Art Foundation Exhibit in General Santos city in 2010.
“I considered myself already professional when I began displaying my works in art exhibits with recommendations from other professional visual artists,” he said.
The art exhibit was themed “Hinalay” translated as “sinablay” and “ginahasa” in local dialects or hanged, molested and raped in English.
Samahan ng mga Musikero ng Timog Kutabato officers are President: Caloy Bengil; Vice-President: Elmer Tomaro; Treasurer: Paul Mapa; Secretary: Nino Galo; Auditor: Boboy Catubig; and PIO: Jubillee Bautista.
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