Blast in Congress

The moment i heard the news that a bomb exploded at Congress, the first question that came in to my mind was - what happened to the security?

We have been made to believe that security at the Batasan complex was of the highest quality, what with all those armed security personnel, policemen, cameras installed in the right places to monitor the comings and goings of people, and the omni-present highly-trained, expensive bomb-sniffing dogs (K9s). With such security measures in place, how come the bomb planted in the building's south wing was not detected? Where were the security personnel at the time of the explosion? For that matter, where on earth were the expensive, highly-trained K9s?

The security personnel in Congress really fucked-up on this.

Sambawitan 2007

We went to Ateneo de Davao around 2:30 in the afternoon for the sound check. Upon arriving, we saw and heard the other groups singing / practicing their songs. I immediately noticed that the seven groups (there were 8 competing groups) had at least 20 members. Since visual effects or choreography is part of the criteria, the number of members in a group matters. While waiting for our turn (sound check) our conductor and arranger informed us that we have to double our effort since we are outnumbered (the other groups are really good).

After the sound check we went to one of the rooms in Ateneo to vocalize, change outfit, and last minute instructions. We are the sixth contestant.

This event was organized by the Brothers of the Sacred Heart and one of the Judges is Mr. Ryan “The Masestro” Cayabyab.

Before announcing the winner, Mr. Cayabyab informed the participants that we should minimize the visual effects or choreography (deep inside I said to myself that it is not fair since it was part of the criteria!!!!!!!!) and to focus on the song especially the melody.

“Its now time to announce the winner” said the emcee…..

The second runner-up for the Sambawitan 2007 goes to Le Voix Chorale!!! (yehey!!!!).

The winning groups received the following:
Champion 100,000.00
1st runner-up 50,000.00
2nd runner-up 30,000.00

Personally I wasn’t expecting for our group to win but I guess we weren’t that bad :-)

To God be the glory!

Group Members: Sheila (S), Karen (A), Choy (A), Aishen (S), Elena (A), Jally (S), Daniel (B), Jelly (S), Gel (S), Jillian (A), Melvin (B), Francis (T), Jeffrey (T), Michael (T), David (B), Butch (B), Paul (T)

Rehearsal

On November 4 we will be joining the Sambawitan Contest to be held at the Ateneo Covered court. For the past two weeks our group called Le Voix Chorale has been practicing daily (7-9 pm) to master the song and choreography. This is a different kind of contest because the organizers provided us with two "unarranged" songs. So basically aside from the interpretation by the group it is also a contest for the arrangers.

My younger brother David is our conductor, Alan Hioca is our choreographer and Greg Canceran the arranger.

I grew up singing in our church choir and has joined several regional and national competitions already. God has given our family the gift of music since all of us (including my parents, cousins, aunts, uncle) can sing and play instruments. But when we got married and had families of our own we kinda lost our passion for music except for my brothers David and Daniel. So when they invited me to join this contest I immediately said yes. This experience has rekindled my love for music and allowed my 12 year old son to witness this kind of event that i have been telling him since he was a little boy.

The pictures were taken in one of our rehearsals.

On my next post i will update you of the result ...