Ang Maging Bata - Open Mic to Celebrate Children's Month

The Philippines Against Child Trafficking (PACT) and LIKHANAN, in cooperation with Bistro ‘70s, invite you to a night of poetry, music and other forms of artistic expression to celebrate Children’s Month.

Come to Bistro ‘70s* on October 26, 2007 (Friday) and join us in remembering children who suffer, are exploited and violated; and in renewing commitment to children’s rights.

Please invite children. The program is from 7 – 9:30 P.M.

*Bistro 70s, # 46 Anonas St., Project 2, Quezon City

Top Indie Artists Perform at "Pa-Gig Para sa Puso"

Likhanan organized a fundraising concert called "Pa-'gig Para sa Puso" on March 24, 2007 at '70s Bistro for a friend, Rorie Fajardo, whose brother Ronie suffered from a heart attack and recently underwent angioplasty. He is now recovering and undergoing therapy.

The event opened with a speech by Becky Lozada who talked about Likhanan's other activities and projects. Rorie Fajardo then gave the audience an update on her brother's condition and gave some good advice on health.

The intro was followed by the screening of the Purplechickens' video for their song, "Dream Systems," which won 1st place at the 19th Gawad CCP for the Animated Video category.

The gig featured some of the country's most critically-acclaimed independent artists---Cynthia Alexander, Cambio, Ciudad, the Purplechickens, and Peryodiko---for going out of their way to perform for a good cause.

Likhanan would like to express its heart-felt gratitude to all the artists, attendees, and donors. That night, Likhanan was able to raise around P10,ooo worth of ticket sales.

Special thanks goes to the '70s Bistro for opening their door once again to Likhanan and for giving all ticket sales and cover charge to the fund.

Likhanan would also like to thank Aldus Santos, author of Vocalese and singer-songwriter for the Purplechickens, for all the hard work in booking and coordinating with the bands.


No less than Cynthia Alexander opened the night with her heart-wrenching song, "U & I," from her second album "Ripping Yarns."
Known as a staunch advocate of the Clean Air Act, Cynthia requested the audience not to smoke, after which she sang "Malaya," because "after all," she said, "we're all entitled to our own opinion."





The usually "in-your-face" but poetic rock band Purplechickens played a "silencer" set and performed new materials from their second album, "Girls, Etc.," slated to come out this year. This includes a beautiful song in Filipino, "Patihulog," which, Aldus explained, means "freefall."







Ciudad (left) gave the audience a good dose of geek-rock music, which energized the crowd mid-way the event. They closed their set with the dainty but heavy-hearted song, "My Emptiness," from their new album.








Cambio's lineup was enough to wow the crowd: Kris Dancel on vocals; Ebe Dancel on vocals and guitars; Jason Caballa on guitars; Buddy Zabala on bass; and Raimund Marasigan on drums! They opened their set with "DV," a smart spoken word litany of street names, followed by the very apt "Call Center," a song about, well, call centers. Cambio closed with the chills-down-my-spine-brutally-honest song "Patlang."





Vin Dancel took over the last set with his new band "Peryodiko," which featured a new new line up of equally brilliant musicians. Peryodiko played all new materials from their upcoming debut album. Aldus sang back-up vocals for the first song "Pikit." The other songs---"Agawan-base," "Tayo," and "Kumapit Ka Twing Lunes"---all have the Vin Dancel trademark of excellent writing.

Pa-gig Para sa Puso: A fundraising concert for a heart patient

Likhanan invites everyone to "Pa-gig Para sa Puso"!

Be blown away by some of the best local indie bands today

Cambio
Ciudad
The Purplechickens
and
Peryodiko

March 24, 8 P.M. at the '70s Bistro, Anonas Ave. Quezon City.

Also, catch the screening of the Purplechickens' video for their song "Dream Systems," which won 1st place at the 19th Gawad CCP for the Animated Video category.

Have fun and contribute to the fundraising for Rorie Fajardo, writer and journalist, whose brother recently underwent angioplasty at the Philippine Heart Center. Rorie, a friend of Likhanan, is the family's breadwinner. Unfortunately, like millions of Filipinos, she and her family have no medical benefits, insurance or savings.

All ticket proceeds will go to a fund that will help Rorie’s family pay hospital and post-recovery therapy bills.

For the tickets, please contact Becky (09175362638), Clarissa (09212750731), Grace (09178167492) or Liezl (09209085734).

For more information on the fundraising cause, please contact Rorie (09053154986).

About the bands...

Cambio, in a nutshell, is a supergroup. More or less ten bands are well-represented in this group’s ranks, featuring at least three frontmen, a frontwoman, and the most celebrated rhythm section of the past decade. Their major label debut, Derby Light, is still out in the market, although these days, they could be heard previewing several songs from their upcoming follow-up disc.

Ciudad can get you to bob your heads, shake your toes, and, not surprisingly, they can get you to jump around, too. This is geek rock, sure, but these guys are no lightweights in musicianship and songwriting. Their third album, It’s Like a Magic, is a collection of songs they wrote prior to their debut in 2000.

Peryodiko is singer-songwriter Vin Dancel’s first proper post-Twisted Halo outfit. Dancel almost called this band “Manong,” but it didn’t slide quite well. In any case, Peryodiko’s lineup is perhaps the most enviable of all, featuring members from Indio-I, Affinity, and Greyhoundz, among various other bands of equal caliber. Listening to Peryodiko’s music is, on any given day, better than reading disheartening news.

The Purplechickens recently bagged the 1st Prize at the Gawad CCP Video Animation category for the video of their almost-two-year-old single “Dream Systems.” Two band members have also put out poetry books, Babel by Mayo Uno Martin (from High Chair Press), and Vocalese by Aldus Santos (from Likhanan, Inc.). They are currently recording material for their sophomore CD entitled Girls, Etc.

Open Mic on Carlos Bulosan’s “America is in the Heart:” a Timely Tribute from Likhanan

That 2006 is the 60th anniversary of the publication of Carlos Bulosan’s “America is in the Heart” makes a public reading of his book very timely.

But what gives Bulosan’s semi-autobiographic, semi-fiction novel more currency is its theme: the story of the migrant Filipino in a foreign land. Bulosan’s book was published in 1946 and based on his own experiences as a migrant worker in US farms in the 1930s-‘40s. It is a telling tale of how the Filipino worker’s odyssey abroad has started long before the era of globalization—and that poverty, the main trigger of this phenomenon, has been around since colonial times.

According to non-government institutional studies, there are now about eight million overseas Filipino workers (OFWs). Scattered in about 180 countries around the world, these Filipinos face war or the threat of war, abuse (physical, sexual and psychological), social-political and economic discrimination, and loneliness caused by separation from the family, often resulting in mental distress especially for women. There are now about seven females out of ten OFWs.










On November 16, 2006 personalities known in the circles of civil society, activist political organizations, as well as lovers of Bulosan’s work and literature in general took time to read favorite parts of Bulosan’s “America is in the Heart.”

The public reading is the first in a series of planned readings and other activities aimed at celebrating Bulosan’s work. These activities lead to the centennial celebration of his birth anniversary in 2011. Included in the planned activities are readings and workshops in schools.

There were those who chose to read on the narrator’s (deemed to be Bulosan) childhood poverty:

“Then I saw my mother's familiar back. She was following the plow, her skirt tucked between her legs. Suddenly I knew what Leon had felt that day he came home, running suddenly to take the plow from my father. I started running across the fields and leaping over ditches, shouting and calling frantically: "Mother! Mother! Mother!"My mother stopped the carabao and looked toward me. The sun was falling directly upon her face, and she raised her hand to protect her eyes from the strong morning light. When she recognized me, she tied the rope to the handle of the plow, as my father used to do, and waited for me."Have you come home, son?" she said. And that was all she could say. Her mouth began to tremble with joy and sorrow always one and the same. Suddenly, she grabbed me affectionately and wept, murmuring: "We are poor people, son. We are poor people, son."

Another favorite was excerpts about the journey to the United States as a young adult.


“I found the dark hole of the steerage and lay on my bunk for days without food, seasick and lonely. I was restless at night and many disturbing thoughts came to my mind. Why had I left home? What would I do in America? I looked into the faces of my companions for a comforting answer, but they were as young and bewildered as I, and my only consolation was their proximity and the familiarity of their dialects. It was not until we had left Japan that I began to feel better.





One day in mid-ocean, I climbed through the narrow passageway to the deck where other steerage passengers were sunning themselves. Most of them were Ilocanos, who were fishermen in the northern coastal regions of Luzon. They were talking easily and eating rice with salted fish with their bare hands, and some of them were walking, barefoot and unconcerned, in their homemade cotton shorts. The first-class passengers were annoyed, and an official of the boat came down and drove us back into the dark haven below. The small opening at the top of the iron ladder was shut tight, and we did not see the sun again until we had passed Hawaii.”


The most read were parts about how the main character survived life in the US.

“…The man said something, but they had already turned and the wind carried it away. I was to hear that girl’s voice in many ways afterward in the United States. It became no longer her voice, but an angry chorus shouting:

“Why don’t they ship those monkeys back where they came from?”

We arrived in Seattle on a June day. My first sight of the approaching land was an exhilarating experience. Everything seemed native and promising to me. It was like coming home after a long voyage, although as yet I had no home in this city. Everything seemed familiar and kind—the white faces of the buildings melting in the soft afternoon sun, the gray contours of the surrounding valleys that seemed to vanish in the last periphery of light. With a sudden surge of joy, I knew that I must find a home in this new land.


I had only twenty cents left, not even enough to take me to Chinatown where, I had been informed, a Filipino hotel and two restaurants were located. Fortunately two oldtimers put me in a car with four others, and took us to a hotel on King Street, the heart of Filipino life in Seattle. Marcelo, who was also in the car, had a cousin named Elias who came to our room with another oldtimer. Elias and his unknown friend persuaded my companions to play a strange kind of card game. In a little while Elias got up and touched his friend suggestively; then they disappeared and we never saw them again.”

Publisher Karina Bolasco, president of Anvil Publishing that just renewed in 2006 the right to reprint Bulosan’s “America…,” read a very timely message on America:


"It is but fair to say that America is not a land of one race or one class of men. We are all Americans that have toiled and suffered and known oppression and defeat, from the first Indian that offered peace in Manhattan to the last Filipino pea pickers.

America is not bound by geographical latitudes. America is not merely a land or an institution. America is in the hearts of men that died for freedom: it is also in the eyes of men that are building a new world. America is a prophecy of a new society of men: of a system that knows no sorrow or strife or suffering. America is a warning to those who would try to falsify the ideals of freemen."


America is also the nameless foreigner, the homeless refugee, the hungry boy begging for a job and the black body dangling on a tree .America is the illiterate immigrant who is ashamed that the world of books and intellectual opportunities is closed to him.



We are all that nameless foreigner, that homeless refugee, that hungry boy, that illiterate immigrant and that lynched black body. All of us, from the first Adams to the last Filipino, native born or alien, educated or illiterate— We are America!"

"Vocalese (Poems)" Launch a Huge Success!

The launch of Aldus Santos' first book, "Vocalese (Poems)," was a huge success! Two members of Likhanan, Becky Lozada and Grace Mirandilla, were there at the event to support the project and give a few words on behalf of Likhanan.


Aldus, author of "Vocalese (Poems)"













Paul Catiang, the booth man













Friend and bandmate Marco Harder hosted the launch













Aldus gives a speech while holding a bottle of beer












There was an overwhelming show of support from friends and fans












Gerard and Kats of Romage Graphic, printer of Vocalese













Marco with Khavn dela Cruz, world-renowned indie filmmaker












Siblings Mike and Mick of indie band Outerhope perform songs from their debut album Strangely Paired











College friend Easy Fagela reads a poem from "Vocalese"












Friend and colleague in the band scene, Vin Dancel, sings new compositions for his band Peryodiko.











Vin and Aldus perform a song by the now-defunct indie band Twisted Halo












Aldus sings with his band, The Purplechickens

Rock icon Cynthia Alexander wows the crowd with her superb performance

Likhanan's Becky Lozada asks for Aldus' autograph










Grace and Aldus, tired but happy after the launch