Summer time again, children are out of schools and parents are busy either organising holidays or somewhere to leave their children while they are at work. For many Filipinos summer is the busiest time of the year. So many festivals around the UK, quick trips back home, birthdays, weddings, christening and BBQ’s!
This year the Philippine Generations team attended the 25th 
Silver Anniversary of Barrio Fiesta sa London on 19th July, 2009 to promote the organisation and also promote the upcoming workshop KULTURA. On the day a surprise visit from Myleene Klass was well…. surprising! For two years, the PG team never really thought she would actually show up or even take part in these kind of events. Especially when she often avoids talking with the media and public about her Filipinos roots. Maybe she was affected by the negative press we as a people seem to attract, maybe her daughter has made her rethink her involvement in the community, maybe her trip to the States showed her that being vocal about being Filipino does not hurt your career from people like Lou Diamond Phillips, Allen Pineda aka APL from Black Eyed Peas or even Manny Pacquiao. Maybe her management feel she is accepted enough a personaility to discuss her Filipino roots, either way it is still very hard to speak to her management about the Philippine Community. This years barrio fiesta definitely made it into the local newspaper where Myleene was the talk of the town along with Jano Gibbs & Arnel Ignacio, celebs from the Philippines and Micheal Copon a hollywood actor who starred in Scorpion King 2. Many was dissapointed that Robin Padilla did not make it due to problems with his visa, bad boy kasi eh!
Many Filipinos and non Filipinos attended the fiesta despite the bad weather. The PG team distributed flyers about the workshop and met different people and groups. Particularly the SEAMUSIC group, one of their members Larry Oliver Catungal play the Kulintang. It’s an indigenous musical instrument usually played in the southern part of the Philippines. He had a tent in front of us and he played beautiful music through this distinctive sounding instrument. As always we all enjoyed the food and meeting old and new friends, I look forward to next year’s fiesta!
On the 25th July, a week after the Barrio Fiesta in Hounslow we at the PG team hosted our
first ever funded event ‘KULTURA’ that was funded by the Grassroot grant provided by the Westminster council. Hooraay! Finally after so many attempts we had a break through. The workshop was a series of cultural activities featuring different Filipino groups in the community.
Other activities on the day were playing ‘Sungka’ a popular game from the Philippines traditionally played by women. Children coloured pictures of different things you can find in the Philippines, such as carabao (indeginous water buffalo), jeepneys and women washing clothes by the river. There were also speech bubbles of tagalog words with English translations and posters with different facts about the Philippine Islands. This event was truly an educational day not just for us Filipinos but also to non Filipinos, not only for the children but also for the adults and parents!
It was a great day for everyone and a worthwhile event where we could all share the beauty of Philippine culture.
our tent next to the Mayor of Redbridge who was fundraising for a charity. This year we shared our tent with Doce Pares who were performing on the main stage, they created so much interest about filipino martial arts! After seeing them do a demo on Eskrima (Kali or Arnis), showing some techniques using the sticks and also the Bolo (Machete). Many came to our tent asking about the Philippines, thankfully the Departement of Tourism for Philippines gave us some posters and information to give out & a WoW Philippines bag to go with it!PG did a raffle competition on the day too, giving 1st prize (ticket no.89 Simon) a Dinner for 2 at Guanabana Restaurant, 2nd prize (ticket no. 62 Andy Castle) a Fresh water pearl with gold pendant and 3rd prize (ticket no.129 Ryan) Box of Chocolates.
Philippine Generations partnered with Katrina Woodford, a British documentary maker and created a short film about the filipino community and the issues filipinos in UK have. The film ‘WE ARE’ can be seen on Youtube, this is just a very short film made for her course on documentary film making using moving image capture, she has previously specialised in still image and narrative films. We are in the progress of making a longer film and are hoping to send the documeary to channel 4 to show it to a larger and wider audience. Watch the film here!
r social event every 1st thursday of every month held at the Comedy Pub in Oxendon street. We were joined by the new Ambassador Antonio Lagdameo, DCM Reynaldo Catapang and his family, Manny Guzman, Consul General Tess De Vega, PG directors & members and PG supporters. On behalf of the PG team I want to thank those who made it. We also showed the short film ‘WE ARE’, everyone liked the film and are looking forward to seeing the longer version. So watch this space!
