When asked.

When asked.

What is Rock Ed Philippines?
 Rock Ed started in the Philippines . It was not patterned from any existing organization. It took its shape as the people started to join. And as more young Filipinos participate, we predict that its form will still continue to change.

Rock Ed is not a traditional NGO.  Although it is a duly-registered non-stock, non-profit organization, Rock Ed as a social movement ends in the year 2015. Come 2015, we disband. But our projects can be continued by the people who started them.  (bookdrives, vaccination drives, dental missions, music camps for streetkids, etc) 
 We are a ten-year campaign.  It was designed to be that way because without a deadline, people don’t feel the urgency to move.  Other than that, to date, Rock Ed is run by sheer volunteers, no paid staff. No money is paid to rent an office. We have never printed a business card, no flyer, no brochure.  We have never paid a publication to cover us. We have never paid media for publicity or exposure.  All photographers donate their services for free. All film-makers, the best in the country document us as their volunteer work. We have no equipment, save for our personal cellphones, cars, laptops, borrowed projectors. Even our workshop materials are personal donations. All the occasional funding from the UN went straight to staging projects or books. 
 No administrative funding goes to Rock Ed as an overhead. All the people in the administrative core group are volunteers as well. This is not our job.  All our cars are over-used for delivery of books and transportation. All campaign materials like shirts and buttons are donated. All commercial sponsors paid for the rented equipment for every gig and event. We rarely ask for cash except for vaccines and load allowances for volunteers who coordinate the projects via phone.  Our website is designed, maintained and updated by a volunteer without a single cent ever paid to him. None. We started with no cash. Just guts, creativity, sweat, insomnia, and the will to party for a cause. All projects are funded by the people participating in the said projects. Minimum talent fees are usually donated by other institutions that request for our participation. We still have no cash.

We don’t have official celebrity endorsers even if our volunteers are mostly famous musicians.  We have never appeared on any commercial tarp on any street lamp, town plaza or gas station. We have never claimed to change the system nor declared God to be on our side. We’re not even boy scouts or girl scouts.  Many of us are not even nice.  Salbahe karamihan dito. Our volunteers don’t help out for fame either, they already have that. 
We do not report to a foreign funder. We are not bound to support any foreign agency’s objectives because they do not fund our administration.  We have never paid a full fee for artists. Their generosity has been the backbone of this campaign.  We never solicit from politicians. Only one politician has donated to us and stuck by our policy of not endorsing him nor even acknowledging his donation in public.  We are not bound by any creed. 
We do not take money from obviously corrupt officials because this only abates their own guilt (if any).  It gives the corrupt official a justification. A feeling that what he’s doing is okay because ‘he helps an NGO anyway.’ He donates to build houses on the side when he’s not stealing or carousing with women, alcohol and guns. We are not officially with any government agency. We are just a group of Filipinos who believe that there is no more excuse not to help our nation lift its chin against all the violence that bad governance in the past has caused us. Bad governance from incompetent dynasties who win because of apelyido-driven machineries. Or old fashioned cheating.

We don’t have MTV aspirations, so we don’t try to shock you on youtube, because most of the volunteers are already on MTV. We can’t claim much, actually, but one thing we can do — we have grown exponentially, nationally, without meaning to.  No media strat-plan. No expert financers. No blue print on the board room. No board room. No council of elders. We grew because the young ones listen. We grew because we got the issues out to the usually deafened ears of the young.  We got through because of our music. And because we don’t intimidate the younger ones with titles or an org chart, nor an office in Ortigas, Mandaluyong or RCBC Tower.  We’re not underground, nor flying over it. We just do what we do. And we stand our ground. We weren’t appointed by relatives to do this, we don’t need our last names or patrons to do what we do best. We just do it.

We are just a group of artists, teachers, musicians, poets, photographers, entrepreneurs, private citizens who want to say ENOUGH.  We are a collective of creative organizations who believe that the madness of being impoverished should end now.  Our most concrete task is to make the Filipino teen-ager ask more questions.  And we will do it on our own. And we will do it with integrity. And we will do it now. No More Excuses, Philippines . Enough.

And, again, we never claimed to be the one group that will change the system —that’s everyone’s job.   
(www.rockedphilippines.org) 

Words by Gang Badoy.


I am Gerhard Bandiola. I will frustrate the cynics. I am a Rock Ed Volunteer.