Filipino community holds Christmas song festival

A Filipino students association is hosting a music festival on Dec. 4 to celebrate the Christmas season.

Filipino Scholars in Korea has teamed up with the Philippine Embassy and Seoul Global Center to organize a Filipino Song Festival for the yuletide season called “The PIKO Christmas Song Festival 2011.”

The association expects entrants from as far away as Gwangju and Changwon, South Gyeongsang Province, and for more than 800 people to attend.

The winners will be decided by a panel of judges, with prizes of 1 million won, 500,000 won and 250,000 won plus special prizes for Best Concept and People’s Choice.

“Christmas is a very important festival in the Philippines and it’s quite hard for Filipinos here because most of them can’t afford to go home. So this is a celebration of Filipino culture here in Korea,” said PIKO PR officer Rigoberto Banta Jr.

It is the first time PIKO has organized the event, which starts at 4 p.m. at TongSeong High School in Hyehwa-dong, Seoul, near the Filipino market that has been at the center of the Filipino community in Korea for years. Previous song festivals have been organized by other Filipino community groups.

Banta said the event was a gathering of different communities in Korea.

“It’s a singing contest but it’s also a way for Filipino students and other Filipinos as well to show that the sense of community is being upheld.”

The event will also feature the Seoul Global Center’s 2011 Fashion Show, a joint project by the center and Waterdrop, a charity focusing on multicultural families. The show will feature costumes from 10 Asian countries as well as Korean Hanbok.

Proceeds left over from the event will go to PIKO projects that support Filipino students in South Korea.

Banta said PIKO and the event was being supported by the Philippines Embassy because the situation was different to migrant workers, who have certain policies tailored toward them.

“Currently there’s no policy for students specifically,” he said.

Tickets for the festival are 10,000 won, available on the door. There will also be a raffle at the event.

(paulkerry@heraldcorp.com)