Philippine Arts Festival - Ani ng Sining, Yaman ng Lahi

Philippine Arts Festival
Ani ng Sining, Yaman ng Lahi
By Felipe de Leon, Jr.

The arts provide the most lucid mirrors of who we are as a people, capturing the widest diversity and most profound depths of the Filipino creative spirit. Excellence in the arts is a powerful magnet around which national unity may evolve.

Promoting a Filipino perspective in the arts, then, is the basis for Ani ng Sining: Yaman ng Lahi, Philippine Arts Festival 2007. This perspective builds on our strengths as a people, works for the good of the nation as a whole, and promotes pride, commitment, and excellence.

Pride in being Filipino leads to commitment to the nation, and commitment to the nation always brings about excellence or great achievement. The deepest meaning of pride in being Filipino is pride in our cultural identity, whether it is identity shared across the country such as our high relational tendency or that of a cultural community, e.g., Tboli ikat weaving or San Fernando giant Christmas lanterns.
It is finally our cultural identity that will harness national competitiveness, eonomic or otherwise, in the global arena; our cultural identity that will anchor national development.

In traditional Filipino (and Asian cultures), an integral philosophy of life ensures that the deepest strivings of the human spirit are given expression. People from all walks of life are expected to engage in artistic creation and performance. A farmer may at the same time be an expert puppeteer, a medicine man the best epic chanter, and a barber an outstanding lute performer.

Ani ng Sining: Yaman ng Lahi invites all of us to renew our ties with art and in so doing, enrich, celebrate and honor our proud heritage and identity.

Taken from http://www.ncca.gov.ph/paf/index.html