KIDAPAWAN CITY (MindaNews / 10 Feb) – Twenty-eight lumads, mostly from Southwestern Mindanao, are participating in a three-week training on song composition and video production that started Saturday at the DXND mini-auditorium here.
Fr. Ed Vasquez, OMI, executive director of I-Watch Productions, said the training is the second of three parts of a series of seminars that aims to empower the lumads through indigenous music, audio-visual productions, and social media formations.
This month’s training, Vasquez said, is focused on song composition and production of videos of indigenous music.
Contents of the songs the participants are set to produce would be based on several issues affecting the lumads, including the Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro and the upcoming elections.
Vasquez said that at the end of the training, they would be uploading on the I-Watch’s website the music videos produced by the participants.
“Based on a survey, 70 percent of the YouTube viewers, mostly the youth, watch music videos. If we upload videos of indigenous music that would mean we would be getting a share of the YouTube viewers. By doing that, we would be making lumad music known, not only in the Philippines but in the whole world,” the enthusiastic priest said.
The second phase of the training was set up just in time for the National Arts Month celebrations, he said.
The project is funded by the United States Embassy in Manila and some of Vasquez’s supporters and friends from the US.
Participants are Tedurays from North and South Upi in Maguindanao, T’bolis from South Cotabato, Dulangan-Manuvu and Aromanon-Manuvu from North Cotabato, and Tagakaolo from the Davao provinces.
The third and final phase of the training, according to Vasquez, is a concert on April 25, just in time for the seventh anniversary of the I-Watch and blessing of its new recording studio here. (Malu Cadelina Manar / MindaNews)