For the observance of World Water Day, March 22 auspiciously occurring within Holy Week on the International Year of Sanitation 2008 declared by the United Nations, Secretary Heherson T. Alvarez, a staunch environmentalist appealed to the public to “Fast for Mother Earth” to minimize the use of energy, vehicle fuel, water, food, forest and other resources that must be conserved to mitigate Climate change. The discipline of garbage recycling and composting as well as reduction in the use of air conditioning, motor vehicles and electricity could be an act of penitence. A meaningful World Water Day is essential considering the pattern of water contamination that has been causing death through the spread of typhoid, dengue and diarrhea. The focus of Water is Life begins the UNESCO-International Theatre Institute’s World Theatre Week Observance in the Philippines in line with the proclamation of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.
A Summit on Cultural Care-giving focused on the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDG’s) on March 24-27 is organized by an inter-agency committee led by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) headed by DepEd Usec. Vilma Labrador and the Philippine Center of the ITI headed by Cecile Guidote Alvarez who serves as NCCA Executive Director.
Good governance needs the application of culture as an essential ingredient for development. The Summit’s goal is to harvest best practices and forge a creative communication arts program in addressing the problem of poverty and hunger, environmental degradation advancing the welfare of children, women, the indigenous peoples through education and health for all with partnerships for development. President Arroyo said her development policy is centered on education, economy and the environment. This summit will demonstrate how culture is a force for values education, an engine for the dynamic growth of our creative industries and a conscienticizing tool to rehabilitate our ailing environment particularly our polluted water bodies.
The Earthsavers DREAMS Methodology which has been utilized to mine the gold of talents of our citizens who are physically and economically handicapped has been recognized by UNESCO Director General Koichiro Matsuura with a UNESCO Artists for Peace Award. Mr. Matsuura in presiding at the Global launch of the Cultural Diversity Movement for the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in the Philippines during the 31st UNESCO-ITI Congress acknowledged the value of the Philippine Care-giving approach. “UNESCO appreciates and supports the important role of the International Theatre Institute in promoting theatre as a means of fostering social cohesion. In this context, I wish to express my congratulations to Mrs. Alvarez for the extraordinary work that she has undertaken here in the Philippines with her DREAMS Ensemble to alleviate suffering and reduce poverty among young disabled people in rural areas. I first had the opportunity to admire her team’s artistic talent four years ago in Manila, and the following year I designated the DREAMS Ensemble collectively as UNESCO Artists for Peace. Last March in Lisbon during the UNESCO World Conference on Arts Education, I was again privileged to witness the marvelous talents of this unique ensemble. UNESCO will continue to collaborate closely with ITI and other partners on arts-based initiatives to combat isolation, poverty, exclusion and ignorance.”
The Conference will be held at the Intramuros Clamshell 2 in the mornings through the courtesy of DOT-PTA General Manager Dean Barbers. The workshop at NCCA with a creative team of dedicated artist-teachers will be demonstrating models of cultural care-giving and the festival of diverse presentations from 7:30 nightly in Fort Santiago hosted by the Intramuros Administration with its new Director Ms. Bambi Harper. Three hundred selected artists from Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao and NCR art rehabilitation programs dedicated to out-of-school youth, street kids, prisoners, trauma victims and cancer patients and other vulnerable groups will participate. Government agencies will likewise send their representatives from the regions.
We commend all the other partners of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA), particularly DepEd, CHED, DSWD, NAPC, DENR, DILG, CFO, DFA and in particular TESDA Director General Augusto Syjuco for his initiative to join hands with ITI-Earthsavers DREAMS Academy and NCCA to include performance and media arts modules into TESDA’s vocational-technical curriculum with the endorsement of the United Nations Resident Coordinator’s Office. The business sector as well like Unilever and McDonald’s Philippines, Julie’s Bakeshop and government corporations like PAGCOR and PCSO deserve applause for their cooperation. Philippine Normal University is opening its dormitory to the delegates.
This year’s World Theatre Message is given by renowned Canadian artist Robert Lepage translated into Filipino by Gawad Huwarang Pilipino and Corazon de Jesus Makata Awardee Prof. Tomas Ongoco and broadcast on NBN TV Sining Gising and DZRH Radyo Balintataw.
Lepage underscored the value of fusion and integration in representing the world in all its complexity. He stressed that “The survival of the art of the theatre depends on its capacity to reinvent itself by embracing new tools and new languages offering solutions to problems of tolerance, exclusion and racism to amaze and enlighten.” The NCCA Cultural Care-giving Summit is an outstanding model of democratizing the right to culture serving as an integrated, inter-disciplinary encounter for moral reform and social change. Amidst the political noise, we applaud our artists in the vanguard of a peaceful cultural revolution, eliciting a change of mindset and a heart, beating with compassion for others. BRAVO!