Sowing the seeds of art

When my eldest son, Quintin, first called and mentioned how a friend at work was looking for media “friends” to attend and write about the Japan Foundation Asia Center’s event at the “PHSA,” I have to admit I had to wrack my brain to come up with meaning to the four-letter acronym. While some dim memory eventually dredged up the fact that such a school existed on the grounds of the National Arts Center in Mount Makiling in Los Baños, Laguna, it had been decades since the Philippine High School for the Arts (PHSA) had come up in a conversation or some reading material. And my knowledge about the Japan Foundation Asia Center’s Hopes & Dreams (HANDs) project similarly drew a blank. With my curiosity piqued, I readily made it a point to discover what this was all about.

For those who need reminding, founded in 1978, the PHSA is a specialized High School that offers an arts-focused education. Providing full scholarships and living assistance, entrance is highly competitive, and at any point in time, there are roughly 130 to 145 students making up the Grades 7 to 12 student body. Accepted scholars take regular classes in the morning, then take specialized subjects in the afternoon with five major areas of interest — creative writing, dance (folk and ballet), music, theater arts and visual arts.

In a manner, PHSA is the arts-focused counterpart of our Philippine Science High School System that was established in 1964, which has a longer history and now has 16 regional campuses alongside the original one on Agham Road, Diliman, Quezon City. I mention both High Schools just to point out that there exists a lengthy and proud tradition of us nurturing our “best and brightest” from a young age, whether in Mathematics and Science, or in various arts disciplines.

It was the PHSA’s Grade 8 students who were tasked to participate in the Japan Foundation Asia Center’s HANDs project. A bi-annual youth exchange program, the project centers on disaster education and creativity. While this year’s program involves touring Japan, Indonesia and the Philippines, the center harnesses the efforts of the young people of India, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Thailand and of course, the three “tour” nations.

Presentation of their HANDs project for the Japan Foundation Asia Center at the PHSA.

The umbrella topics are disaster education, environmental issues, and post-disaster recovery. And the mission-vision is to nurture a sense of common feeling and co-existence; how by starting a dialogue between the young children across the participating countries, they can discover there are shared issues, and via this dialogue, some of these issues can be addressed as a region. For 2017, the presentations were divided into headings of Soil, Wind and Water. Soil refers to the local people and community, while Wind represents the seeds of change to the land, and Water is the nurturing of the seeds so they flourish. Divided into groups, the Grade 8 students were asked to tackle each of the headings.

While I noticed there was an aspect of the discussion that may not, at first glance, look connected to the arts, I appreciated how this was precisely the great thing about the PHSA participation. When it comes to disasters that befall a nation, no one is exempted or excluded and it is never too early to impress that upon the artists of tomorrow — that they are citizens foremost and carry the responsibility to interact with their countrymen and even the world at large.

While matriculating at the PHSA is no guarantee of what a graduating student’s career will be like, and there is still university to contend with, it is a golden opportunity to get some kind of head start. Ultimately, it is what each student will make of that potential being recognized, exercised and stretched. Hopefully proud to call the PHSA their alma mater are the likes of concert pianist Rowena Arrieta, singer/ethnomusicologist Grace Nono, film director Raymond Red, ballet dancer Candice Adea, visual artist Jan Leeroy New, sculptor Marc Vincent Cosico and actresses Shamaine Centenera-Buencamino and Leila Florentino.

We can only hope and dream that some of the Grade 8 students in the photos on this page will aspire to reach the heights of the PHSA alumni mentioned above and be part of the future cultural heritage “conversation” and true citizens of the world.