Arts training for Mindanao ethnic groups concluded

COTABATO CITY, Philippines  -  Thirty members of different indigenous communities in Central Mindanao completed Monday a week-long training on audio-visual and ethnic music composition as part of a campaign to preserve and protect the unique cultural identities of the region’s tribal groups. 

Representatives from Central Mindanao’s Aromanon-Manobo, Manobo, Tiboli, Dulangan-Manobo, and Teduray communities participated in the training, according to its organizer, Oblate missionary Eduardo Vasquez.

Vasquez, who is a member of the Oblates of Mary Immaculate (OMI), is executive director of the I-Watch Productions, a media outfit engaged in the study and documentation of the ethnicity of Mindanao’s cultural groups and the goings-on in the Southern peace process.

Vasquez said the same group will undergo a more advanced music composition training in January 2013 and study social media formation in February of the same year.

The follow-up studies for the Lumad trainees are supported by the I-Watch center and its partner non-government organization, Kaliwat, which is also involved in various projects meant to preserve the cultures and traditions of the country’s indigenous groups.

Vasquez said the trainees will organize in March 2013 in Cotabato City a concert as their initial exposure and to determine the extent of their learning from the unique courses they have studied.

Vasquez said the basic content of the music, songs, and audio-visual materials produced during their initial week-long training focused on the situation of Mindanao’s Lumad people and their political and social aspirations as centuries-old communities.

The songs and audio-visual productions also underscored the need for electoral reforms and on perceived solutions to relevant socio-economic and political issues besetting Mindanao’s indigenous people.

Vasquez said the objective of the training on effective social media formation for the selected Lumad talents is for them to learn how to effectively use social media networks to disseminate their songs and documentaries.

Vasquez received a citation for his projects in Mindanao during the Ninoy and Cory Fellowship for Professional Development on December 6, 2011 at the US embassy in Manila.  

The US embassy is assisting the I-Watch Productions in its on-going training program for Lumad talents.

Vasquez founded the I-Watch outfit in 2006, as an independent "pro-people" media entity aiming to pursue interventions and special projects meant to propagate public awareness on vital issues and concerns besetting Mindanao’s various communities through documentaries.

The OMI congregation, to which Vasquez belong, has five “peace” radio stations, under the Notre Dame Broadcasting Corp., in different parts of Mindanao, all engaged in programs supporting the culture of peace and awareness on the importance of interfaith dialogues and diplomacy to resolve security issues in Mindanao.

The OMI, whose missions in Mindanao begun in the 1930s, also has dozens on-going humanitarian projects in Moro communities in the island provinces of Sulu and Tawi-Tawi.