The Colors of StoBosa

The Colors of StoBoSa, officially designated as the StoBoSa Hillside Homes Artwork, is a community artwork designed by the Tam-awan Village group, and is a locally recognized tourist attraction in the town of La Trinidad, Benguet. The paintwork of multiple houses composes the single artwork.

The artwork was commissioned as part of the Rev-Bloom Urban Redevelopment Tourism Campaign a project conceptualized by the Department of Tourism - Cordillera Administrative Region.

Based on favela paintings of Brazil, the making of the Colors of Stobosa involved the painting of around 150-200 houses or an area of 18,000 square meters (190,000 sq ft). It is a combination of four designs made by the Tam-Awan Village artists. The designs, perceived as easy to make an aesthetically pleasing, were selected from a multitude of designs. The sunflower was chosen as a main motif of the artwork since the area used to be full of flowering plants. Rainbows also form part of the design.

The Irony of Life

Why is it that someone can maintain an opposing position against the company that has given him his bread and butter? Why does conflict of interest continue to plague certain corporations when people they hired overtly or subtly antagonized their goals and vision? Or in government or family units why do parents raise up kids only to find out when they grow up, they can bark back at you when needs are thwarted and when wants were never filled?

Like McDonald's opened a website aimed at providing work and life advice to its employees and in return the website's crew urged workers not to eat the very fast food, they are hired to sell?

Or like Cebu City having a 180-degree turn when they decided to go optional for use of masks versus the president's strong and continued effort to encourage face masks?

Or children forgetting it's their mom's birthday ... or the little guy's "forgetting" it's Father's Day but shamelessly never forget to make his needs known when he has to.

Food For Thought

 

Dumb Questions

 For those who want to lighten the mood, these funny stupid questions to ask are perfect for you. These questions will help you start a fun.

Question: Your dog looked angry. Does your dog bite?

(I think he will ... if that is what you want.)

Questions You Thought Don't Have Answers

 Filipinos love a good riddle and answering crossword puzzles. Our desire to answer all the questions and completely finish the job gives us some kind of titillation, the need to continue and persevere until we accomplish the task. It tickles our brain cells, and we feel mighty proud once the cryptogram is decoded.

People ask why everybody loves Jessica Fletcher of Murder She Wrote? Or Ben Matlock or Jake and the Fatman.  Well,  they always solve mysteries.

Too bad, there are a lot of questions and mysteries out there that we may never learn the answers to their intriguing nature. The universe is far-reaching and its mysteries limitless, and there are many things that even geniuses have their arms raised upwards because they don't have answers to some of these queries. 

Let’s explore some of the questions that there are no answers to.

Question: Can you have a daydream at night time? How is it called ... nightdreaming?

Answer: Or was it called Midsummer's Night Dream? Joke.  Seriously daydreaming is a concept rather than a time-of-the-day thing. So you can daydream at night, it doesn't have to be daytime to daydream, nor do you have to coin a new word just in case the reverie happens in the night. 

There ... I have an answer!

Quotable Quotes

 

The Irony Of Life

Why is it that everything hits you all at once and there's something like a conspiracy of situations that were planned and hatched and executed to make you all down and out?

Like when your loved one died, you lose your job after that.  Then your friend transferred work and there's nobody to cry a shoulder on.

 

You are all up and frisky one day and morose the next.  You have figured it out on Monday and by Wednesday, everything is falling down like the house of cards. 

Life is a constant wave that washed you out on the shore.

Think About It

 

Responding To Netizen's Comment

Netizen's Comment: As an artist, she should be. It is an injustice if Nora Aunor is still not named as national artist in cinema.

If you talk about arts and link it with drug use, should we condemn majority of the actors, singers, writers, editors, directors, agents in the US and Philippine film industry? How about Andy Warhol and Jean-Micheal Basquiat , famous pop artists in the world also known to abuse drugs?

I think the super high pedestal they gave to this title is due to the fact there is a linkage to certain government subsidies until the national artists die. I do hope that immaculate criteria be removed, just talk about arts and the achievement , prestige and applause they gave to the Philippines.

Response: 

The main reason for Nora Aunnor's exclusion from the National Artist list in 2014 and 2018 was drugs.  

I still remember what President Noynoy said: "when I was faced with the nominations, there was only one question, and this is with regard to the title national artist. In my view, the honor and praise of a National Artist Award are given to people who contributed a lot to the Filipino race and someone who should be emulated. If I give it to her, having a history of drug use what message does it give to the Filipino people” Aquino said.

If the number of awards both international and local is the yardstick, Nora has more than enough CONTRIBUTED A LOT and has given the Philippines enough honor more than anybody else. More than the rest of the National artists he approved. And the president was contradicting himself. How can he say Nora was not someone we should EMULATE?

He should at least compartmentalize Nora as a person. Being an artist she is worth emulating ... but drug use is not. And having a history of drug addiction doesn't have to do with being an artist. Gone are the days when presidents have hackneyed and antiquated ideas on who to bestow these awards.  It is so selfish of him to deny her the penultimate award.

In 2018, I also remember what the Presidential Spokesperson and Chief Presidential Legal Counsel Salvador Panelo said: "the 65-year-old actress is “still young” and “will be proclaimed as a National Artist in God’s perfect time.” At a press the conference, he stated, “Her non-inclusion does not diminish her iconic stature as the country’s Superstar and her significant contributions to film, theater, television, and music industries,” Nora Aunor being most known as Philippine’s ‘superstar’ for outstanding performances in movies such as Miracle, Thy Womb, and Three Godless Years, to name a few.

Panelo added that “Her non-inclusion is to spare Ms. Nora Aunor from the emotional and psychological torment coming from the barrage of mixed reactions, the award will bring,” possibly referring to Nora Aunor’s involvement with illegal drugs in 2014.

When Panelo said Nora is still young ... are they going to give it to her post-humously? And when is God's perfect time? And saying that her non-exclusion will spare her from emotional and psychological torment ... well it already did. More than what Panelo knows.

I know that the rank and title of National Artist is conferred by means of a Presidential Proclamation, but what really dopresidents know about art, music, Dance, Theater, Visual Arts, Literature, Film, Broadcast Arts, and Architecture or Allied Arts? And what do they really know about the intricacies of giving an award, except perhaps asking if the recipient has a criminal record, or in Nora's case does she have a drug history?

The Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) and the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) should try to reexamine this minute detail but an important one.   Why can't they give the awards themselves, and why do they have to ask for the president's approval? 

Year in and year out, they are giving the National Artist award like it was a big sale in the mall. Had there been issues like philandering or corruption, adultery, child abuse, tax evasion, or any cases involving moral turpitude that came out with the past nominees? If there is (although we really don't want to know because it is all water under the bridge now) what message does that give to the Filipino people?

If the exclusion of the nominee is political or maybe personal, as the president said" What message does it give to the Filipino people? 

What I felt was "They should not be playing GOD with the artist's awards. Nora was a blatant and a flagrant example, there will be someone for sure in the near future who will suffer the same fate.