Music against environmental ills
Bayang Barrios and the power of music
PIPES OF PEACE. Bayang Barrios, with her group, says the poor aren’t limited to city dwellers living in shanties. It can also refer to people in the countryside like the lumad being driven from their homes.
Published in the print and online version of the Philippine Panorama of the Manila Bulletin.
https://newsbits.mb.com.ph/2017/09/17/music-against-environmental-ills/
FOR MOST OF US, music is a regular pastime, a way to unwind after a long day, or just a way to entertain us, to distract us while we go about our daily lives.
But for many Filipino musicians, music is not only an art form, but a statement, an advocacy.
This is how Filipino cultural musician and singer Bayang Barrios sees music—as a potential tool to effect change, and as a method of bringing about awareness for various societal issues, in particular, environmental and ethnic issues.
But political activism in music is not something new. Abroad, we have bands like Rage Against the Machine, The Clash, John Lennon, and Pink Floyd.
In the local scene, however, the genre has recently regained its prominence from the time it exploded in the late ’80s and early ’90s. Several greats of this genre include Joey Ayala, Freddie Aguilar, Florante, and Heber Bartolome, as well as the bands Asin, Yano, Buklod, and Wuds.
Like in all other genres in the scene, there are also recent examples of musicians of this genre rising in the scene like Bullet Dumas, Johnoy Danao, and several bands, too, like Johnny Alegre’s Humanfolk, and Peryodiko.
Bayang’s music, however, is characterized like that of Ayala’s, using a variety of ethnic musical instruments and techniques. This is attuned to her being a Manobo lumad (indigenous person) herself. And Bayang sees this as a way to bridge awareness between different people.
Growing up in music
Bayang’s love for music began in her teen years in her home province, Agusan Del Sur. As a choir member at her church, she found her voice, literally, as a musician.
Her inspiration growing up was the music of Asin. But it wasn’t easy, too, for her. Bayang’s interest in lumad music was stifled by discrimination from other migrating people from the Visayas and Luzon, who have ultimately driven them not only from their ancestral lands because of emerging businesses in mining and other resource-based industries, but their cultural environment as well.
“Growing up as a Manobo, I loved our music—the distinct use of our instruments like the kulintang and the kudyapi, that set lumad music apart from other tribal music from the Philippines. In the ’70s, however, people from Luzon and the Visayas have migrated en masse to Agusan del Sur, and with it “they discriminated against lumad as being lowly,” said Bayang.
But all that changed in her college years, when she met Ayala, who was teaching in Davao City. Ayala then found great potential in Bayang whom he eventually took in his band Bagong Lumad. The band rode on the musical renaissance in the country in the late ’80s and early ’90s.
Mining and militarization
Now as a solo artist, Bayang is often in the field, singing the songs of her people. She’s not only an advocate of ethnic preservation, but also of human rights, women’s rights, and environmental awareness.
But Bayang is not the only one in the forefront of her style. Other cultural musicians like Maan Chua, also from Mindanao, and Rodelio “Waway” Saway, a Taalandig from Bukidonon, are also rising in the scene, and their message is clear: We need to preserve our ancestral lands and cultural integrity.
According to Bayang, the worst dilemma that has plagued lumad people for many generations is not the mass migration from the North, but how fragmented the lumad are, and other entities have seized this opportunity to take advantage of them. Bayang said that lumad people are naturally gentle, welcoming and peaceful, and this pacifism is the reason they are easily militarized by both sides, and get always caught in wars not of their own making.
“The poor isn’t just limited to the city areas, where they are often depicted, living in shanties with barely enough to eat. ‘Poor’ can also refer to people in the countryside like the lumad being driven from their homes. Mining is really destructive, you can only imagine huge and beautiful mountains being reduced into pits where both indigenous people and wildlife lose their natural habitat. Not only that, the industrial waste it produces sickens the surroundings.”
Mining is the other half of the problem of the lumad, and Bayang believes that through her music and that of others, there is a chance for people to learn its effects on culture and nature.
“There is a lot of work to be done in order for our other kababayan to learn the effects of mining. We should stop looking at the profit it gives off. To begin with, it’s not even us who own majority of it. We should look at the long-term effects of it, and we can see where it leads. In part we can blame the depletion of our resilience against natural disasters to man-made industries like mining. We shouldn’t trade off our heritage for profit,” said Bayang.
Bayang said that the government should be the most instrumental in effecting this change. Recently, however, the current administration is aligning to the idea of shutting down mining.
“There are policies for this. The government just needs to put them in place. I think there are environmental safeguards, but I think we need to fortify them further, and not always give in to finding loopholes. I think younger people now are more mulat (awakened). We must drive this initiative further because we need to build up on awareness in this age of information, misinformation, and distraction. I mean, you can’t look the other way anymore when mountains are being taken down, floods are oftener, and whole communities being driven away,” said Bayang.
Music for proper upbringing
Bayang believes in music not only as a tool for entertainment, but a tool for building character. She believes that the youth should not lose in their way in appreciating their own music, but she also ascribes to the idea that the young people of today are more inclined to innately appreciate music.
“I think music has a huge impact on one’s upbringing. If, at an early age, children know the message in songs, they’re able to be mulat, responsive, and to build up on character. But thankfully, I believe it’s natural for us to appreciate our culture—if not entirely return to it, at least acknowledge it. And I think that’s inherent in all of us. So in terms of music, I think it’s as natural for us to appreciate traditional music as it is natural for me to be in music. It’s a universal language. Music is deeply rooted in experience,” said Bayang.
The 49-year-old singer also explained that the country has no shortage of brilliant minds and voices, only a shortage of opportunities.
“There are many brilliant voices in the provinces. It’s just that we tend to look up to those in Manila. And the way we have to bring help to others, and to bring awareness to people is to use our talents. If you are a writer, you reach out by writing about nature or ethnic culture. If you are a musician, do it through music,” she said.
“The key, therefore, is for mulat people to reach out to other people through their own means. I think that’s how I am whenever I perform in different places in the country. You need to reach out to people, to show them that we have a lot in common. I think there is no better commonality than music. There is no perfect government, and it can only do much, the best change we can give is our own participation,” Bayang added.
With more people being aware of more social and environmental issues like mining and the displacement of indigenous people from their ancestral lands, the future doesn’t look as bleak anymore.
In this age, we see the real issues through various means like music, the media, and even literature, subtly put by brilliant artists. And once these truths have been revealed to us, to look the other way around, to cup our ears, to hold our voice, to disassociate ourselves, has become a wrong against our inherence to goodness.
To quote Mahatma Gandhi: “Silence becomes cowardice when the occasion demands speaking out the whole truth and acting accordingly.”
