The National Commission for Culture and the Arts and the Negros Cultural Foundation Inc. will spearhead the celebration of National Filipino Values Month Festival this November.
Dubbed Bálay Pinoy, the festival aims to streamline and expand the awareness of 20 core Filipino values identified through a research conducted by the NCCA and the National Economic Development Authority in 2019 and 2020.
With health restrictions easing up, Bálay Pinoy will be a hybrid event between online and offline festivities.
The festival will have three components: An opening day to kick off the celebration; delivery of information, education, and communication (IEC) materials; and a publicity campaign in mainstream and online media channels.
Opening day is on 6 November at the Rizal Park Open-Air Auditorium with booths and activities such as henna tattoo, face painting, live sketching, arts and crafts, T-shirt printing, and screenings at Sine Halaga Film Festival Year 1.
“We have to be creative in the new normal to stay culturally relevant to the public. People are hungry for physical experiences and we see it as an opportunity to deliver our message,” said NCCA deputy executive director Marichu Tellano.
The festivities are anchored on the theme “Halagahan, ang puso ng pagka-Pilipino” (Filipino values, heart of the Filipino identity).
Creative storytelling will play a major part in the event, said organizers.
There will be a global screening of NCCA’s three flagship multimedia productions through SolarTV and the NCCA Learning Hub website. These include Project Destination (Filipino values teleserye), Heneral Tuna (Filipino values animated series directed by Avid Liongoren), and Sine Halaga Film Festival (Filipino values short film program with indie filmmaker Elvert Bañares as festival director).
The festival will maintain its online presence on Facebook through Bálay Pinoy with interactive content and online contests.
Webinars for Values Education Teachers will also be held in partnership with the Department of Education. The webinars will tackle the 20 Filipino values — among them family, faith, resilience, care for environment, honesty, love for country, valuing culture and arts, and good governance.
Surprise love team
The ABS-CBN series 2 Good to Be True, starring Kathryn Bernardo and Daniel Padilla, is on its last three weeks. It has turned out as the network’s longest series — longer than six months with a young cast.
It has also surprisingly produced a new love team out of seasoned stars Gellie de Belen and Cris Villanueva. Headwriter Mel del Rosario said the love angle in their characters was not in the original concept of the story. But feedback from the focus groups which previewed the early episodes found the characters of Gellie and Cris can develop into mature lovers.