Bazaars are the answer to the reign of need / An update on Elielle: Calling the NCCA, FCCP

With Christmas coming, spouses will gift each other, as they would gift their children, brothers and sisters, relatives, friends, employees, colleagues, compadres and comadres, household help, etc. In true Filipino fashion, they will give gifts to whom they owe favors. And in even truer Filipino fashion, they will give gifts to those to whom they owe no favors – namely, telephone operators, delivery boys, receptionists, messengers, security guards. Although we might argue that these people get paid for doing their specific tasks, they will be remembered with gifts, anyway.

Bazaars are the answer to this reign of need, so to speak. Tomorrow, the International Bazaar Foundation will open at the PICC Forum Complex on Roxas Boulevard, staying open from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. A globe-shopping experience will be had by visitors because 34 and eight members of the diplomatic and consular corps, respectively, and 124 local participants will be putting up booths.

Among the foreign countries displaying their wares will be the UK, Belgium, France, Japan, Mexico, NZ, Nigeria, Russia, Spain, Switzerland, India and China. On sale will be jewelry items, beauty aids, apparel, handkerchiefs, silks, shawls, food, objets d’art, house furnishings, Filipiniana masterpieces, dairy products and scores more. In brief, there will be something for every taste and inclination.

At a preview held earlier at Chito Madrigal Collantes’ residence, so tempting was the display, guests went on a shopping spree! An incentive to buy at the International Bazaar will be the fact that proceeds will go to help the poor and less fortunate, to the education of hundreds of scholars, to the sponsorship of livelihood training of women and out-of-school youth, to calamity-stricken victims, to medical supplies for various hospitals, to dental and medical missions.

The IBF, now on its 40th year, was started by Mrs. Angela Valdez, wife of then DFA Secretary Narciso Ramos, and mother of former President FVR.

Rosie Lovely Romulo, wife of current DFA Secretary Alberto Romulo, has been the IBF’s over-all chairman since 2004, and its goals continue to be religiously carried out under her with the active help of the spouses of Cabinet and other government officials, and women from the private sector, among them Justa Tantoco, Tina Carlos, Connie Garcia, Fortune Ledesma, Ada Mabilangan, Susie Ortigas and Alice Guerrero.

Tomorrow, likewise, members of the Assumption College Class ’81, and of the Basic Education Family Council, as also the Silver Jubilarians will answer the reign of need with their own Annual Assumption Bazaar at the Inter-Con ballroom. An enticingly wide range of affordable items will be on hand from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.

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Sometime ago, I wrote an appeal calling attention to the 14-year old brilliant pianist Elielle who, since she was nine, has been airing a wish to her parents, Lt. Col. Mike and Wina Viaje, to study music in Vienna.

In September, after the Viaje family went through tremendous and often agonizing preparations, mother and daughter left for Vienna where shortly thereafter, Elielle celebrated her 15th birthday. Mrs. Viaje has returned to Manila since then, leaving Elielle as a house guest of a couple – a German married to a Filipina. Incidentally, when Ambassador to Austria Linglingay Lacanlale knew of the Viajes’ presence, she called on them immediately. Consul Issa Almojuela was likewise most solicitous.

Elielle is now studying on her own at the Musich Kreative Cooperative Mittleschulle as a 10th grader (the equivalent of our 4th year h.s.). Tuesdays, she takes piano lessons at the Prayner Conservatory for Music and Dramatic Arts. A fast learner, she now speaks conversational German, starting with basic German, she has been transferred to the advance class. The school principal, happy to see her rapid progress, is very supportive of her efforts.

Last Oct. 17, Elielle was assisting artist to the Vienna-based Filipino tenor Abdul Candao who was gracious enough to allow her to accompany him in kundimans he rendered at the celebration of Phil-Austrian Friendship Day. Filipino-Austrian violinist Johnny Cech willingly helped Elielle prepare for Filipino folksongs and Viennese music.

Elielle will be auditioned in February. Meanwhile, there are study and living expenses to cope with, and Elielle will need financial support.

I have heard Elielle perform and I assure readers she is extraordinary. Last September 2005, after participating for the first time in the Piano Teachers Guild Festival, she was awarded a scholarship under Carmencita Arambulo. In January 2005, at the Suzuki International Conference at the New South Wales U. in Sydney, she attended master classes and performed in junior recitals. At 13, at her very first competition at the Guild, she won first place. In April 2006, in the 14th World Suzuki Conference in Turin, Italy she participated in master classes under world renowned teachers. She was chosen one of 15 instrumentalists in its senior concert after having auditioned along with 200 other participants from around the world. There she played her winning piece, the Haydn Sonata. Thereafter, she was invited to perform in a concert in Barcelona. In May, she performed at the F. Santiago Hall Mendelssohn’s Concerto No. 1 which she had learned only in ten days!

This should be no surprise because at 12, in her first solo recital, she played Bach, Mozart’s Sonata in C Major, Chopin’s Scherzo Op. 31, Mendelssohn’s On Wings of Song, Rimsky-Korsakov’s Flight of the Bumblebee, Buencamino’s Mayon Concerto and Federer’s Fantasy in F.

Since childhood, Elielle has always finished at the top of her class. As versatile as she is brilliant, she was awarded second place in Metrobank’s regional Search for a Math Wizard.

Those who wish to respond to my appeal for Elielle can obtain her parents’ address from me. The first agencies that come to mind are the NCCA under executive director Cecile Guidote Alvarez and the FCCP headed by president Lulu T. Castañeda.