Giving peace a chance

For every Paris Hilton or Lindsay Lohan, there’s a Brangelina, a U2 and other stars who make celebrityhood worth its weight in box-office gold. You need not look too far in finding their counterparts elsewhere. They’re right in our midst.

Billy Crawford, Jay-R, Iya Villania, Miguel Escueta and Kris Lawrence — ALV talents all — are not adopting babies or giving a fortune to help various causes. But they’re giving something just as precious — time — to make this world yes, a more bearable place to live in.

For starters, they will perform at the first leg of the Global Peace Festival Philippines 2008, which wraps up today at the Lim Ket Kai parking area in Cagayan de Oro City.

Opening festivities start today at 3 p.m., which also happens to be the celebration of the United Nations International Day of Peace.

The annual event, in Martin Luther King III’s words, aims at “changing the future for all the world’s children, humanity’s most precious resource.” The Universal Peace Federation, the guiding force behind the festival, started the ball rolling years ago, when Dr. Hyun Jin Moon founded the Global Peace Festival.

Since then, the cry for peace, especially for children, has been heard far and near, getting support from the likes of former AFP Chief of Staff Hermogenes Esperon Jr., former Speaker Joe de Venecia and former senator Joey Lina among others.

Billy, Iya, Jay-R, Miguel and Kris have heard the cry, too. And they’re not folding their arms and letting others do the work for them. They want to go right where the action is: War-torn Mindanao. They will bring music and cheer to children living in places of armed conflict and raise funds for them.

Jay-R is willing to write a song for peace to emphasize the cause. Miguel says all he needs is a bullet-proof vest and he’ll go up on stage and strum his guitar even in the middle of the battlefield.

Helping, after all, is nothing new to them. Billy has joined Virlanie Foundation and winced as he stared at depravity among streetchildren in the eye. Iya and Miguel proclaim an all-out battle against drug abuse under foundations they have chosen to serve. Kris plays basketball, not so much for the screaming female fans, but to help build a church under Gawad Kalinga.

For them, role modeling is not just passing fancy. It is a passion.

“What’s important is how I carry myself as a role model,” says Iya. “To be in the middle of conflict (e.g. Mindanao) is to feel the importance of having peace and making a difference.”

She and Jay-R are rolling up their sleeves and sitting down together for a duet album that contains positive songs promoting peace. The album, which Jay-R will produce, will include songs he himself wrote, along with that of Iya’s.

Come Christmastime, Jay-R takes his social consciousness stance a step further by releasing an album for the benefit of the GMA Kapuso Foundation.

“I’m also trying to organize a foundation that will promote environmental awareness,” he reveals.

It comes as no surprise that he and fellow ALV talents will join succeeding Global Peace Festival efforts in Iloilo, Cabanatuan, Baguio, Dumaguete, Trece Martirez, Antipolo, Roxas City, Ozamis and Urdaneta. All these will wind up in a grand finale at the Quirino Grandstand on Dec. 9 to 12. The rally is expected to draw a mammoth crowd of two million people, led by government officials, interfaith leaders, the youth and ALV artists, of course.

“I’m willing to travel around the world to promote peace,” volunteers Billy. He actually can, what with all that traveling he does in France, Manila and the US as host and in-demand singer-recording artist.

For Billy, and the rest of his like-minded artist-friends, singing and dancing has never been this fulfilling.