GEOGRAPHICAL AND
SOCIAL SETTING
The
project setting is the Province of Antique.
Antique is
one of the 6 provinces of Region VI, the Western Visayas region. The province
is an elongated land area of around 250,000 hectares with a total population of
410,000 (more or less 72,000 household) spread out over 590 barangays. One
third of all barangays are coastal. Still the coastal and lowland area
comprises only 18% of the territory while more than 80% is hilly and mountains.
Antique is
the poorest province in the region according to 1192 classification by the
Presidential Management Staff (PMS) based on nine development indicators.
Antique ranks as the fourth poorest among the 76 Philippine provinces. All of
Antique’s 18 municipalities, including the provincial capital, are only fourth,
fifth and sixth class municipalities indicative of the low tax income and
general level of poverty in the province. Antique is purely agricultural
province where the majority of the people rely on farming and on fishing for
their livelihood. An estimated 22,000 hectares of land is farmed by share
tenants. One out of 5 households living from agriculture is landless and
survives on seasonal agricultural labor during planting and harvesting time.
Antique remains a major supplier of seasonal agricultural laborers (sakadas) to
the sugar haciendas in the neighboring island of Negros. Lack of income
generating opportunities makes Antique also a lead supplier of migrant labor
for Manila and for the international shipping industry. A very significant
portion of rural households is therefore female headed.
A major
characteristic of the province is its physical isolation: mountain ranges
account for it that there is only a southern and northern access road to the
province, there are air and sea transport connections with the other islands
except for a weekly connection boat connection to Manila.
CULTURAL
SETTING
Culturally Antique has some particular
characteristics: Antique has its own distinct language, Kiniray-a. In a number
of barangays Antique boasts of a tradition of popular plays combining elements
from pre-Spanish times, from the Spanish colonial times, and from modern
influences. In a few communities these cultural forms have been transmitted
from generation to generation of barangay based performers. A number of
far-flung villages and barangay boast also of local musicians (violin, guitar,
bas) and folk writers with poetical debating (binangi-anay) skills, many of
them women.
A major cultural and folkloristic
happening in Antique is the yearly “Binirayan” festival between Christmas and
New Year when the arrival is being re-enacted of the 10 datus from Sumatra who
allegedly settled in Antique and Panay in the 13th Century.
These and other cultural
manifestation are part of Antique popular cultural heritage.
Compared to other less isolated and
more “developed” provinces. Antique has, in a way relatively greater richness
in indigenous cultural expressions. Still, there are disturbing indications of “erosion of traditional culture” due to
factors such as: mass media and the promotion of a standardized consumerist
culture, expanding recreational possibilities at the expenses of traditional
forms, denigration of local culture as inferior to dominant urbanized
Tagalog/Ilonggo culture.
Besides this the national
government with its “Philippines 2000” and “Newly Industrialized Country (NIC)
and Tiger Economy” goals pushes very much an economic and industrial
development that tends to go at the expenses of cultural and ecological concerns.
It is in this context that
particularly among development workers there is a growing awareness of the
importance of “cultural action” for community building and strengthening. In
Antique where NGO’s are involved in community organizing and community
development in around 150 barangays much more sustained attention needs to be
given to appreciating and maximizing popular cultural forms as major vehicles
to enhance critical and community development concerns such as sound
ecologically sustainable farming practices the promotion of gender equality and
sensitivity and participation in local governance to name only a few.
Paranubliun’s thrust is therefore
not art for art’s sake, but purposive art to advance specific developmental
goals.
TARGET POPULATION
The
primary target groups of PARANUBLIUN are the rural fishing and farming
communities of Antique preferably those that have been organized by NGOs.
Priority communities are those with indigenous folk and traditional artists,
with existing folk traditions and whose LGUs are supportive of culture and arts
activities.
Individual
art practitioners and artists groups in poblacion centers are secondary
targets. They are the pool of cultural workers for community-based cultural
actions as well.
Special attention is
given the women, children and youth since they are marginalized sectors in the
barangay. Besides they are most responsive to cultural events.