By Maria Veronica Vernie G. Caparas*
That fateful LapuLapu Day Festival on 26 April 2025 not solely quashed the way forward for eleven lives; it bared the grief, loss, outrage, and trauma of migrant communities. The three ranges of governments lingering disregard for migrants long-sought recognition of their proper to fairness, justice, and safety on all fronts was likewise uncovered.
And the migrant communities started bracing themselves for the duty forward: heal amidst the protracted battle for useful resource fairness and rights recognition. Internationally famend muralist couple Bert Monterona and Mylene Maranoc guided 12 aspiring artists of their therapeutic journey by four-hour mural portray workshops held over twenty-three Saturdays (May 17 October 18). The ensuing exhibition, Healing Colours, runs from October 24 to November 7 on the Sunset Community Centre on Main Street in Vancouver, BC. Two to 4 months into the challenge, the initiative gained important assist from United Way BCs Kapwa Strong Fund and the Sunset Community Association.
L-R Rosa, Precious, Vernie, Rowena, Shahira, Babette, Ate B, JR.
Rosa appears to be like intently at Lory Riego’s Dreams Take Flight & Mylene Maranoc’s My Work is My Life & My Art is My Healing.
Monteronas Sarimanok, collectively painted with the general public and the Philippine Artists Network for Community Integrative Transformation (PANCIT) on Pinoy Festival in June 2025, hangs from the Centres polygonal roof. Such a commanding colourful mural of the Sarimanok an introduction to the richness of Philippine tradition and heritage immediately awes and piques each customer.Just a few paces from the mini corridor for daycare toddlers, Ezra Larsens sculpted LapuLapu stands, as if inviting artwork fanatics and group sympathizers to a spectrum of colours filled with aspirations, frustrations, hopes, and shattered desires.
At the Opening Night, Philippine Consul General Gina Jamoralin was overheard saying, Erie Maestros Flowers and Yellow Ribbons for Mary Jane is my favourite. Then the Philippines Ambassador to Indonesia the place Mary Jane Veloso the alleged unlawful recruiters drug mule has been jailed since 2010, Jamoralin represented the Philippine authorities in interesting for Velosos clemency. Healing Colours should have refreshed Consul General Jamoralins reminiscence for the necessity to push for Velosos complete freedom after fourteen years of incarceration, and never a switch of nation jails. To date, Mary Jane languishes in a Philippine jail for against the law she has been compelled to pay. Will she be denied justice that has lengthy been delayed?
Maestro’s portray is Consul General Jamoralin’s favourite.
Four days after the opening, extra company stuffed the Centre. The colours are sturdy. The group has come collectively to assist one another and thru this, I see an exquisite show of resilience. You can beat me down however Ill come again stronger, says a girl in her 60s, seen admiring the murals together with her husband. I’ve two daughters. One that went together with her son to the pageant earlier within the afternoon. Another went half an hour earlier than the tragedy occurred. So its extremely painful to listen to that such a celebration might be mired in tragedy. Asked how therapeutic would possibly start, she replied, I believe the federal government ought to spend extra time listening to what folks should say. These elected officers are there for a cause: to assist us and assist us in as some ways as they’ll. Communication should go each methods. Weve acquired to maintain at it if we dont grease the wheel, the automobile stops working.
A pair admires Calic Raya Tolentino’s mural.
Suzie, a 69-year-old Filipina daycare proprietor, got here with three youngsters and an assistant. Suzie expresses related ideas, We should let the federal government know of our wants. Its not terrorism. Its not hatred. Its psychological well being. She then caps her go to with, This is a homage to the useless. A giant deal. Im glad I noticed it.
Daycare youngsters stroll the aisle of murals with their trainer.
Daycare youngsters are drawn to Alex Katarina’s Jeepney – Kabuhayan (Livelihood).
Vancouver-based Rowena, a Filipina single mom of two, deliberate to go to the pageant together with her children as April 26 marks her sons birthday. She delights within the metropolis governments 40km/h velocity restrict marker on Fraser Street. For Rowena, this newly put in marker will make drivers extra conscious. She hopes, sooner or later, they may put up concrete barricades for folks to really feel secure. I’ve been scared to go to occasions since that day. I need to see extra efforts from the federal government for psychological well being and for reaching out to the households of the victims. I believe its the governments job to make them really feel secure once more. Government-appointed psychological well being employees already knew there have been lapses within the perpetrators situation. Rowena believes, the perpetrator have to be held accountable.
For JR Guerrero, son of the unsurrendered Hunters Guerilla Lt. Col. Honorio Guerrero, Caparas The Sun Still Rises within the Pearl of the Orient Seas revives reminiscences of his fathers valor throughout WWII. The senior Guerrero and the authors father, Santos Alzona Caparas, freed troopers held captive by the Japanese forces. JR, on behalf of the migrant communities, navigates areas of useful resource allocation and rights recognition as Kiwassa Neighbourhood Houses Director of Settlement and Employment. JRs shock go to to Healing Colours turned extra significant with the presence of Ate B, Babette, and Shahira.
Having come from the battle zone, Mindanaoan Beatriz Ate B to the Filipino group in Toronto gave a simple, Its laborious for me to say something about Healing Colours. I dont need to downgrade the tragedy that occurred right here as pure as a result of it doesnt even examine to what I witnessed. The violence on the earth can’t be captured. Ate Bs pain-contained stance uncovers extra unseen traumas as she shares, In the early 70s, in the course of the Marcos Sr. occasions, there have been bombings within the communities. I used to be 24. I labored in a womens group as a documenter of peoples ideas and emotions about life, how they deal with every day violence and trauma. Theyre simply grateful to get up alive. Beatriz of the Obo Manuvu tribe additionally labored for 9 years with human rights lawyer, Solema Jubilan, identified for defending the rights of various tribes folks. Amid the killing of indigenous leaders and human rights attorneys, Beatriz and Solema ran an orphanage the place there was no counseling and the place youngsters throughout totally different battle zones did the form of Healing Colours artwork. Beatriz first got here as a Babaylan to Canada for a convention in 2016, on JRs invitation. Now married to a Canadian and regardless of the space between the Philippines and Canada, Ate B continues to serve disaster-stricken communities within the Philippines.
Babette joined the Healing Colours challenge early on. Very targeted on group work, Babette determined to place apart her portray and assist Bert Monterona lead muralist and founding father of the Philippine Artists Network for Community Integrative Transformation (PANCIT) safe the Sunset Community Centre as an open house for the murals. Her efforts be sure that Healing Colours would develop into a shared house for dialogue and expression.
JR and Babette share gentle moments whereas viewing the writer’s portray.
Shahira, of Kathara Advisory Board, focuses on the rewards and the constraints of the Kapwa Strong Fund. For one, United Way BC got here so shortly to pool an enormous variety of sources for folks to course of their grief. For one other, the Filipino essences (of kindness, pleasure, generosity, perpetual desk of meals) got here to the fore. Not solely are we grieving collectively; we’re grieving in a great way. Shahira proudly identifies because the daughter of an Ilocana and a Ugandan, and because the dad or mum to a few. She laments, Some organizations are struggling proper now as a result of the deadline for the Kapwa Strong Fund utility is November twentieth. Grieving doesnt occur in six months but stays hopeful that there might be some understanding and a few openness for grieving as a course of. There is rarely a set timeline and to know that these sources are going to be spent in a great way even for people and communities to search out their grounding in such conditions. Regaining ones footing takes time. The unrelenting expectation of produce, produce, produce is a part of the unrealistic expectations that western society is attempting to recover from and redefine. Part of that’s simply slowing down.
Healing Colours has laid naked the persevering with tragedy of inequity and un-peace to have fun the migrants spirit of energy and triumph.
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This article is a unbroken story of Maestro Bert Monteronas Masterclass in Mural Painting: Navigating Healing Beyond the 2025 LapuLapu Day Massacre that acquired featured in Pressenza on 29 September 2025.https://www.pressenza.com/2025/09/maestro-bert-monteronas-masterclass-in-mural-painting-navigating-healing-beyond-the-2025-lapulapu-day-massacre/
*Maria Veronica G. Caparas, a featured artist in Healing Colours, is a group volunteer, researcher, studying facilitator, and journalist. Vernie delights in reuniting with JR Guerrero and Babette Santos. Each of them served, at totally different durations within the early 2000s, as Multicultural Helping House Societys Youth Program Coordinator. She might be reached [email protected]
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