Here is an article that came out in Conrad de Quiros' Inquirer Column. Extra ako. Hehe..
(photo: Conrad, Tita and Miguel de Quiros)
There's The Rub : Dreams
First posted 00:50am (Mla time) Mar 20, 2006 By Conrado de Quiros
Inquirer Editor's Note: Published on page A14 of the March 20, 2006 issue of the Philippine Daily Inquirer.
LATER, SOME OF THE MUSICIANS WOULD ask how we swung off the one big party they had that night. Later, too, some of the veterans of rallies and mass actions would wonder how many organizations and how long it took to put it all together. That was the concert "Never Again! Concert for Freedom," which was held last Thursday at the UP Sunken Garden and turned out to be one huge blast.
The second question is the easier to answer. It took a couple of weeks and no organization (in the sense of a mass organization) to put it up. We just had a lot of volunteers. In my columns last week, I repeatedly used the pronoun "I" to refer to the making of the concert. It is a way only of making it a personal account, I by no means want to claim a franchise on it. That was the work of many people, many of them preferring not to be mentioned at all-not out of fear but in the profound belief that a good deed is its own reward.
I will, however, take this opportunity to express my profoundest gratitude
to all the musicians who came to that, well, giant gig. Most of them could easily have commanded a fortune elsewhere, but they did it for free here. All we could offer was transportation money so they would not be set back unduly financially-it's not easy ferrying some of their equipment. My profoundest gratitude also goes to all the volunteers, particularly to the four persons who racked up a huge cell phone bill calling up the musicians and staking their own credibility in the invitations: Cooky Chua of Color It Red,
Yna Dalisay of Conspiracy Cafè, Renard Bartolome of 70s Bistro, and Debbie Gaite who manages bands. My profoundest gratitude finally to all who gave to the concert, and I do not just mean money. We got tons of text messages from people who said they had nothing to offer but their prayers. That is not nothing, that is everything. Those prayers were clearly answered.
I was bowled over by the turnout. I half-expected some of the bands to pull out at the last minute. They did not. I half-expected some of our target audience to stay away at the last minute. They did not. Some people, especially the TV reporters, asked me why there were politicians there. I answered: Because I invited them. I did say in my column everyone was welcome whatever their creed, color, or (preferred) gender. Everybody at least that professed to hate dictatorship and love freedom. The invitation extended even to Mike Defensor, though I could not have guaranteed his safety. Someone there told me he remembered Defensor when he was still a student activist exhorting fellow students to rise up against the Marcos dictatorship.
But the throng that gathered there warmed the heart and misted the eyes. Which brings me to the first question: How did we pull it off?
I have no idea. It was just pure magic.
Someone would tell me later it happened because everybody wanted it to happen. Another one would tell me later it happened because it was an idea waiting to happen. Still somebody would tell me later, "Pare, I think you touched a chord with that line, 'I believe in the power of music, I do not believe in the music of power.'" Good to know that even if I'm not a musician, I touch chords.
It began a couple of weeks before the event. I broached the idea to my friend Pancho Lara, who also helped put up our concert for press freedom in 1999 at the Bahay ng Alumni. His friend Oya Arriola suggested June Rodriguez, a veteran organizer who never stopped serving the people. We got in touch with Joel Saracho, the "emcee ng bayan," and held a meeting a couple of days later. From there it took a life of its own.
Everything just conspired to make it possible. If ever there was a conspiracy, divine and human, it was that. I cannot, however, give Raul Gonzalez the exact address of God if he should choose to issue an arrest warrant for Him, I am not in the possession of any such information.
It was enough to make you believe in Providence. People gave freely, and every time we thought we'd fall short of what we needed, something would suddenly turn up. Someone from out of the blue asked us during the concert how much more we needed and plunked down the cash before our flabbergasted eyes. She did not want to be mentioned, she was just an ordinary citizen, she said.
The stage was magnificent, I have to thank the events organizers we hired for it; they did an exceedingly professional job. The sound system was even more magnificent, donated by people who too would like their generosity to be noted only by heaven. Miraculously, I did not get visited by my perpetual scourge, gout, though I had been drinking nearly every night for the last two weeks while meeting with the musicians and volunteers. (That's a very good excuse!) Many more bands wanted to play, except that some of them had out-of-town gigs that day and we cut off the number of participants at a little past 30. As it was, we had an absolute surfeit of talent. I had worried about the weather some days before because it was always raining in late afternoon; but, lo and behold, God even donated a full moon that night.
I've not seen an event like this where I felt no bad vibes altogether. There was no note, or whisper, or shadow, of discord that night. Everybody was happy. The musicians were happy, the organizers were happy, the contributors were happy, the crowd was happy, the UP police and bouncers were happy, even God was happy-or so He had it writ in people's faces. Only the person who claims God put her in Malacañang for a purpose was unhappy.
It was enough to make you believe in Providence or in that line from the movie "Field of Dreams": If you build it, they will come. You have a dream, build it.
They will come-in more ways than one.
(with co-Conspirators: Tina Gary & Arthur)
