Lucrative art trade helps people help themselves

Girl Power at its finest.

Three women, brought together by a supertyphoon, joined hands to help others help themselves.

In 2005, Sue G. Morales discovered she can make art through paper clay. It was during a bonding activity with her daughter, Angela, when she got a handful of papers and mixed them with a processor to make colors come to life, she recalls.

That moment, she discovered a new art medium.

She called her startup company, JNBM Paperclay. JNBM stands for the initials of her husband, Jesus Nelson. The paper clay is a first in the Philippines so Sue had it patented. Nontoxic and proudly Pinoy, Sue expanded her business and opened over 13 branches across the country in a span of nine years.

But she wanted more out of it the experience than just growing the business.

“I wanted [paper clay] to be explored by artists and masters,” Sue says. She envisioned an exhibit that would feature paper clay as an avenue for art expression. She shared her idea with Ruth Ramirez during spa date.

Ruth, who hails from Tacloban and the wife of a pastor, is a survivor of supertyphoon “Yolanda” that ravaged Eastern Visayas last year and left a trail of torn structures and ruined lives.

Ruth got in touch with the Kasi-kasi Art Association, an artists’ group based in Tacloban. Not one of them had been left unscarred by Yolanda’s wrath. Some of them lost everything including loved ones, homes, and artworks.

“Most of them rely only on painting as their source of income,” Ruth says.

Ruth asked Sue if she could send some of her paper clay to Tacloban so that the artists could make use of it to create art and support themselves. Sue, who volunteered in Oplan Salubong at Villamor Airbase, gamely sent kilos and kilos of paper clay to the artists.

Raul Agner, Aaron JP Almadro, Crispin Asensi, Ge-Ann Balintec, Tata de la Cruz, Jazz Diaz, Dante Enage, Antero “Jun” Olimberio Jr., Raphaela “Rap” Palacio, Rico Palacio, Billy Pomida, Archimedes Prisno, Ernie Ybanez and Francisco “Archie” Zabala were the 14 artists who welcomed this new medium with which to express themselves.

Ybanez said it took him two weeks to adjust to working with paper clay. This medium does not require the conventional paintbrush, rather, barbecue sticks are used to apply paper clay. But the artists also experimented with bamboo sticks, chopsticks and palette knife in creating.

In a month’s time, they painted 25 pieces of art using paper clay on canvas.

Asked about his inspiration for the artwork, Ybanez said: “Yolanda is not the inspiration … It is about hope and getting back on your feet.” 

Drawing from the artists’ sentiment of moving forward with their lives, Sue and Ruth mounted an exhibit that showcased “the creativity, imagination and hope to birth the beautiful out of tragedy.”

They aptly called the exhibit “Paglaum,” which translates to hope.

Archie Zabala lost 11 members of his family to the supertyphoon. Their ancestral home was located near a river and, when the storm struck, floodwater from the overflowing river rose faster than expected, he says. It swept their ancestral home and laid waste to life and property. Archie survived because, when the storm hit, he was in another part of town, accompanying his pregnant wife for a checkup.

Cristoph Raphael, Archie’s son, was born days after the supertyphoon hit Tacloban. With the birth of his son, Archie is convinced of God’s will, that the world must carry on despite all that has happened.

“Our ancestral home will be transformed into a playground. So that the gaping hole left will be replaced by children’s laughter instead,” Archie says.

Archie’s painting, “Mga Sul-hug Ha Nagsasarang Nga Kabubuwasyon” is on display at Resorts World Manila.

To further their cause, Ruth and Sue got in touch with Jhoey Fernandez, founder and executive director of #TindogTacloban.

According to Jhoey, the TindogTacloban movement aims to eradicate systematic poverty in Tacloban through transformational programs and projects, with special focus on education, social entrepreneurship and innovation.

Jhoey explains that the relief phase in Tacloban is over. Now, the focus is on rehabilitation and the rebuilding of lives affected by the supertyphoon.

“The exhibit is a creative debriefing for the artists involved,” she says.

For her, Tacloban has brought out the best of the Filipino spirit.

“Haiyan taught us two things: Resilience and innovation,” she says. The movement that started as a community group on facebook now channels more effort to raise funds to help Tacloban get back on its feet.

“We want to erase the culture of mendicancy, so we avoid dole-outs. We want something transformational. Poverty does not only mean you’re penniless, it also means hopelessness. [The exhibit aims] to uplift the artist and tell him or her that yes, life goes on. And yes, you can do it,” she explains.

The proceeds from the sale of the artworks will be split among the artists, TindogTacloban and for the maintenance of the art caravan. Sue and Ruth kick-started the exhibit at Resorts World last Oct. 1, which lasted until today. Sue says that in November the exhibit will move to Ayala Malls. Manila FAME and Manila Art will include the artworks in their exhibits at SMEX and SM Aura.

When the exhibit ends, the artists will return to Tacloban and there, they will teach art to children living in temporary shelters.

“This way, the recipients [artists] will not only be changed, but also transformed,” Jhoey says.

source: business.inquirer.net

Tacloban to get front-seat view of fireworks show on New Year’s eve

SAN RAFAEL, Bulacan—On New Year’s Eve, Tacloban City will have a front-seat view of a dazzling light show, courtesy of one of Bulacan’s top fireworks companies.

Dragon Fireworks Inc., which operates a factory here, is shouldering the cost and production of a light show for typhoon-devastated Tacloban residents on Dec. 31.

Joven Ong, Dragon Fireworks president, said the 15-minute fireworks display would rise above the Tacloban City Hall and would be visible even to residents living two kilometers away.

Ong said the company shipped equipment and pyrotechnic products to the city on Sunday. A team of fireworks technicians has also left for Tacloban, he added.

Dragon Fireworks is the first Asian fireworks company to defeat other pyrotechnic firms in the world in the 2013 Pyronale Fireworks World Championships, an annual competition held in Germany in September.

Tacloban officials had requested Ong to put up the light show, heeding a Dec. 7 offer made by leaders of the Bulacan fireworks industry to provide free fireworks to communities struck hard by Supertyphoon “Yolanda” in November.

The offer had a catch: Bulacan’s businessmen wanted the stricken communities to request for the fireworks because of fears that a fireworks show would be labeled inappropriate.

Leyte Rep. Ferdinand Martin Romualdez sought out former Bulacan Rep. Lorna Silverio, also this town’s former mayor, who helped facilitate the free show.

“Of course, we were considering how the tragedy may have impacted on the Visayas, and many residents there may be grieving. As much as we wanted to initiate the light show ourselves, we did not want to be told that the survivors need food, shelter and clothing more than a fireworks display,” Ong said on Monday.

“But now that they urged us to bring the fireworks to them, we gladly did this. We really want to make their New Year happier,” he said.

Tacloban, however, may not be provided the same light show Dragon Fireworks put together in September in Berlin.

The company’s winning entry was a 15-minute pyro-musical performance that featured famous Filipino folk and popular songs, like “Piliin Mo Ang Pilipinas” by Angeline Quinto, “Tanging Yaman” by Carol Banawa and a tune accompanying the folk dance “tinikling.”

“I spoke to Tacloban officials and they told me the light show would be seen by many residents because [Supertyphoon Yolanda] had flattened trees and structures in the city,” giving them a clear view of the fireworks display, Ong said.

He said the company also promised to build school buildings in the city, after discussing the proposal with local officials as well as with former Sen. Panfilo Lacson, who was appointed by President Aquino as chief coordinator of rehabilitation efforts in typhoon-stricken areas in the Visayas.

Ong said the project would be completed in time for the June opening of classes.

Fireworks manufacturing is a leading trade in Bulacan, which has seen rising sales on the days leading to the New Year revelry.

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

A test of Christmas conscience

‘We don’t do Christmas. We save the money, spend it on ourselves for once. Not a dime on food we won’t eat or clothes we won’t wear or gifts no one needs… It’s a boycott…”

That’s Luther Krank making a prodigious proposition to his wife, Nora, in a favorite Christmas novel of ours.

Plotted so simply it takes only 177 pages to tell—and tell in considerately leaded print yet—the novel is the most uncharacteristic by John Grisham. It is not any of the legal thrillers he has made his name for, but it’s the one Grisham we have chosen to keep, in fact the only Grisham this little condominium nest in which Chit and I have been living our simplified senior lives can take for volumes. And how it has proved worth the keeping—it’s the one title that leaps at us in these morally anxious times!

As light and funny as the times it is related to are grave, indeed tragic, “Skipping Christmas” (Doubleday, 2001) would seem an irreverent point of reference. It’s about a couple who, left alone this one Christmas, decides to, well, skip it, leave the neighborhood to its suddenly senseless and wasteful communal traditions, and fly away on Christmas Day itself, for “10 days of total luxury” on a cruise! It’s certainly no way to do an occasion that precisely calls for selflessness and moderation—if Christmas is indeed that.

As it happens, it is a case where the moral lies in the perversity—in the self-centeredness, in the profligacy, in the whole hypocrisy that surrounds Christmas.

At no time has our own Christmas conscience, as a nation, come under a test so severe as now. The occasion is a tragedy that compares with no other: Whole communities laid waste by a typhoon of unequaled fury, 6,000 dead and counting. And what facile reaction among the untouched: How to do Christmas without appearing insensitive.


Twisted

It’s a reaction in the same sick class as the old wisecrack that passes for native, popular wisdom, here updated:

Before we proceed to gorge ourselves at Christmas, let’s be reminded of our starved brethren in Leyte, so that they may be able, at least in spirit, to partake with us.

Something is definitely morally twisted here. Christmas is no mere red date on the calendar, no blanket excuse for making merry, let alone in the most abysmal sense. Christmas is a noble spirit; it lifts and redeems and moves the inhabited as profoundly as he is seized by it.

Although, by force of tradition, it is activated more at this time of year than at any other, it chooses no season. And one thing it precisely cannot ignore is such cries as those issuing from Leyte.

Leyte, to be sure, is no simple case of fate—unstoppable, unchangeable, therefore excusable. It’s been brought to its desperate pass strictly by human hands, conscienceless, plundering hands acting out of the old self-feeding habit of greed and working schemes that, by the exploitation of the environment for profit, have left the masses of already poor vulnerable yet to the elements; and, by official corruption, have robbed them of their due from the wealth and opportunities their own nation has to offer.

Lest they be mistaken for pleas for charity or philanthropy, the cries from Leyte are only rightful demands for payback for moral debt owed generations that cannot be even remotely assuaged—but in fact mocked—by skipping Christmas.

Memorable, too, though not as resonant as “Skipping Christmas,” probably because its title lacks the ring that suits the times and its Christmas setting feels but incidental, is an even shorter novel (101 pages), actually down-billed as a mere “tale”: “A Different Kind of Christmas” (Random House, 1988). It’s one of two books we’ve kept by Alex Haley; the other being his Pulitzer Prized “Roots.”

It’s a morality tale more direct and timeless with its message than “Skipping Christmas,” and not light or funny at all. It’s about a young man from 19th-century North Carolina who forsakes family and class, and all the power, privilege and wealth that go with it, to lead a mass escape of slaves, some his family’s own, into freedom on Christmas Eve.

Now, that, for all its relative shortcoming in salesmanship, makes for a more felicitous inspiration.

source: lifestyle.inquirer.net

Bieber sings Christmas carols to ‘Yolanda’ survivors in Tacloban

MANILA, Philippines — Pop megastar Justin Bieber sang to young survivors of the Philippines’ deadliest typhoon Tuesday after he flew into the disaster zone to boost an international relief effort.

Bieber flew unannounced to Tacloban City just over a month after it was devastated by Super Typhoon “Yolanda” (international name: Haiyan) and sang Christmas carols to children at a local school amid tight security, witnesses said.

“He sang Holy Night for the children,” said Kate Donovan, a spokeswoman for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), one of three aid agencies expected to benefit from Bieber’s charity work.

Photos posted on social media showed young fans with mobile phones snapping away at the Canadian teen heartthrob, who has more than 46 million followers on Twitter.

Prior to visiting the Philippines, Bieber had posted a message on fund raising website Prizeo.com urging his millions of fans to donate to the victims of the typhoon, the strongest to ever hit land.

Yolanda cut across the central Philippines on November 8, destroying scores of communities along its path.

Tsunami-like storm surges it triggered also swallowed up many coastal areas, and were blamed for majority of the nearly 6,000 deaths.

More than 1,700 others remain missing and about four million have been displaced.

In his message on Prizeo, Bieber said those donating to his cause could win a chance to personally see him record music next year.

“In the wake of Typhoon Haiyan, its victims in the Philippines need our help — and they need it now,” he said in his appeal.

Many other international celebrities have also lent their voices to the massive rehabilitation effort, including Grammy-award winning singer Alicia Keys who visited victims airlifted to Manila two weeks ago.

source: entertainment.inquirer.net

Yolanda survivors rejoice after Pacquiao triumph

TACLOBAN, Philippines — Thousands of Filipino survivors of Typhoon Yolanda (international name Haiyan) erupted into wild cheers Sunday to celebrate their boxing icon Manny Pacquiao’s victory that gave them a brief respite from the enormous destruction and rebuilding that lies ahead.

“It felt like I got my house back,” said street sweeper Ardel Nebasa, who lost him home in tsunami-like storm surges that ravaged Tacloban city on Nov. 8.

Officials hope that watching Pacquiao’s triumph against American Brandon Rios in Macau would help traumatized survivors take their minds off the horrific devastation wrought by the typhoon and inspire them to pick up the pieces from the storm that killed more than 5,200 people.

“I was so happy and I wanted to cry but there were too many people,” said Nebasa, who watched the match with his son and thousands of others on a TV screen set up in a public plaza in Tacloban city.

He added, “It would have felt like another storm has hit if he lost.”

Another survivor waved a cardboard placard that read: “We’re for Pacquiao, God bless, Tacloban will rise again.” Many jumped repeatedly in joy.

Thousands of residents also cheered at Tacloban’s Astrodome stadium and watched the fight on a giant screen, their view partly obscured by the light filtering through holes in the basketball gym’s ceiling. One man carried a Philippine flag.

Pacquiao, who defeated Rios by unanimous decision to take the WBO international welterweight title, has dedicated his comeback fight to storm victims and promised to visit Tacloban and outlying regions that the storm had turned into a corpse-strewn wasteland.

When the bell rang to signal the end of the 12-round match, many spectators in Tacloban threw their baseball caps, shirts and pieces of cardboard into the air, even before the result was officially announced.

Tacloban city folk, Nebasa said, would gladly await the visit of Pacquiao, who rose from poverty to become one of the world’s highest-paid athletes.

“We’ll be thankful if he can help us,” Nebasa said. “He came from the ranks of the poor and we identify with him and are happy for his triumphs.”

In Macau, the 13,000-seat arena at the Venetian casino was packed. Many in the audience were Filipinos who either lived and worked in Macau or nearby Hong Kong, or made the one-hour flight from the Philippines.

Some waved Philippine flags, and frequently chanted, “Manny, Manny.”

Businessman Bong Ferrer flew to Macau with a group of 11 others.

“Of course this is a high morale day to the Filipino people because of what’s happening to us back in the Philippines. It’s redeeming to us. It makes us feel in high spirits,” he said.

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

Smart cell site restored at Tacloban airport

MANILA, Philippines — Smart Communications fired up its cell site at the Tacloban airport Tuesday noon in a bid to support various emergency relief operations for residents affected by monster typhoon “Yolanda.”

“It’s not possible to restore all the facilities at the same time. So the first priority is to support emergency relief agencies,” Ramon Isberto, PLDT and Smart Public Affairs group head said, noting that the airport is located along the downtown area, a portion of the city where signal has been restored.

Other cell sites will be fired up in the next couple of hours, he said, but added that restoration in the whole of Tacloban will have to wait as it depends on the restoration of commercial power in the city.

But in total, Smart Communications- Public Affairs Group said in a statement that Smart, Talk ‘N Text and Sun network services have restored 82 percent of its network services in the Visayas; 100 percent in Bohol, Guimaras, Negros Oriental, and Southern Leyte; while still below 50 percent in Biliran and Eastern Samar.

In Palawan, network service is 100 percent normalized, except for Coron with 50 percent restored to date.

“We’re stepping up the deployment of network equipment to more areas so that we can restore rapidly services at strategic areas such as dense population centers, relief operations centers and vital facilities like airports,” Isberto said in a separate statement.

In the meantime, Isberto said they are hosting free calls and free mobile phone battery charging in the most severely affected cities and towns.

The specific locations of “Libreng Tawag” centers are as follows:

1.       Smart cellsite in Borongan City, Eastern Samar
2.       PNP Headquarters, Tacloban City, Leyte
3.       PLDT Office, Jones St., Tacloban City, Leyte
4.       DSWD booth, Tacloban City Hall
5.       Smart cellsite near VNG Subdivision, Tacloban City, Leyte
6.       Municipal Hall, Palo, Leyte
7.       Smart Store, Ormoc City, Leyte (with free mobile phone charging)
8.       Ormoc City Plaza, Ormoc City, Leyte
9.       Ormoc airport, Ormoc City, Leyte
10.   Municipal Hall, San Francisco, Camotes Island, Cebu
11.   Cebu Cultural Center, Bantayan Island
12.   Smart cellsite in Sta.Fe, Bantayan Island (with free mobile phone charging)
13.   Madridejos Municipal Hall, Bantayan Island (with free mobile phone charging)

In Tacloban City and Palo, Leyte, Libreng Tawag stations will be available to the public from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. as per curfew rules in the area, except in VNG Subdivision which is open only at night.

Free mobile phone battery charging services are also available at the Smart cellsite in Roxas City in Capiz, and Smart cellsite in Old Buswang, Kalibo, Aklan.

Additional teams have been deployed to open more Libreng Tawag stations in Leyte and Samar where the most devastated communities are located.

“We’re using different mobile and satellite technologies to rapidly address the needs of these communities. Aside from mobile network restoration and deployment of Smart Satellite Services, we’ve also partnered with Vodafone Foundation for the set up of an instant mobile network in Leyte,” said Isberto.

He said an ultra-portable network will be installed in Palo, Leyte, also to restore vital communications in the area in support of humanitarian relief and rehabilitation efforts.

source: technology.inquirer.net

‘Yolanda’ death toll nearing 2,000—NDRRMC

MANILA, Philippines — The official death toll from supertyphoon “Yolanda” (international name Haiyan) neared 2,000 Monday evening, the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council said.

NDRRMC spokesman Major Rey Balido said that there were recorded 1,774 persons killed in areas hit by the typhoon.

In Eastern Visayas alone, there were 1,660 dead.


There were 2,487 injured and 82 missing on official records.

Yolanda lashed Philippines with its powerful winds and torrential rainfall, directly hitting central Philippines at its onslaught.

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net

More than 10,000 feared dead in typhoon-ravaged Philippines

TACLOBAN CITY, Philippines — The death toll from a supertyphoon that decimated entire towns in the Philippines could soar well over 10,000, authorities warned Sunday, making it the country’s worst recorded natural disaster.

The horrifying estimates came as rescue workers appeared overwhelmed in their efforts to help countless survivors of Super Typhoon Haiyan, which sent tsunami-like waves and merciless winds rampaging across a huge chunk of the archipelago on Friday.


Police said they had deployed special forces to contain looters in Tacloban, the devastated provincial capital of Leyte, while the United States announced it had responded to a Philippine government appeal and would send military help.

“Tacloban is totally destroyed. Some people are losing their minds from hunger or from losing their families,” high school teacher Andrew Pomeda, 36, told AFP, as he warned of the increasing desperation of survivors.

“People are becoming violent. They are looting business establishments, the malls, just to find food, rice and milk… I am afraid that in one week, people will be dying from hunger.”

Authorities were struggling to even understand the sheer magnitude of the disaster, let alone react to it, with the regional police chief for Leyte saying 10,000 people were believed to have died in that province alone.






“We had a meeting last night with the governor and, based on the government’s estimates, initially there are 10,000 casualties (dead),” Chief Superintendent Elmer Soria told reporters in Tacloban.

“About 70 to 80 percent of the houses and structures along the typhoon’s path were destroyed.”

On the neighboring island of Samar, a local disaster chief said 300 people were killed in the small town of Baser.

He added another 2,000 were missing there and elsewhere on Samar, which was one of the first areas to be hit when Haiyan swept in from the Pacific Ocean with maximum sustained winds of 315 kilometers an hour.

Dozens more people were confirmed killed in other flattened towns and cities across a 600-kilometer (370-mile) stretch of islands through the central Philippines.

Deadliest natural disaster

The Philippines endures a seemingly never-ending pattern of deadly typhoons, earthquakes, volcano eruptions and other natural disasters.

This is because it is located along a typhoon belt and the so-called Ring of Fire, a vast Pacific Ocean region where many of Earth’s earthquakes and volcanic eruptions occur.

However, if the feared death toll of above 10,000 is correct, Haiyan would be the deadliest natural disaster ever recorded in the Philippines.

Until Haiyan, the deadliest disaster in the Philippines was in 1976, when a tsunami triggered by a magnitude 7.9 earthquake devastated the Moro Gulf on the southern Philippine island of Mindanao, killing between 5,000 and 8,000 people.

Haiyan set other apocalyptic-style records with its winds making it the strongest typhoon in the world this year, and one of the most powerful ever recorded.

Witnesses in Tacloban recalled waves up to five meters (17 feet) high surging inland, while aerial photos showed entire neighborhoods destroyed with trees and buildings flattened by storm surges that reached deep inland.

“The effects are very similar to what I have seen in a tsunami rather than a typhoon,” the Philippine country director of the World Food Program, Praveen Agrawal, who visited Tacloban, told AFP.

“All the trees are bent over, the bark has been stripped off, the houses have been damaged. In many cases they have collapsed.”

In Washington, the Pentagon announced that US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel had responded to a request from the Philippines for military aid.

“Secretary Hagel has directed US Pacific Command to support US government humanitarian relief operations in the Philippines in the wake of Typhoon Haiyan,” it said.

“The initial focus includes surface maritime search and rescue, medium-heavy helicopter lift support, airborne maritime search and rescue, fixed wing lift support and logistics enablers.”

United Nations leader Ban Ki-moon also pledged that UN humanitarian agencies would “respond rapidly to help people in need.”

Ban is “deeply saddened by the extensive loss of life” and devastation caused by Haiyan, said UN spokesman Martin Nesirky in a statement.

Haiyan moved out of the Philippines and into the South China Sea on Saturday, from where it tracked towards Vietnam.

Although it weakened out at sea, more than 600,000 people were evacuated in Vietnam ahead of its expected landfall on Monday morning.

source: newsinfo.inquirer.net