Text, photos and video by JHESSET THRINA ENANO
IN contrast to the busy urban scene outside, the halls of St. Paul University in Manila are quiet on a Saturday afternoon. At its College of Music and the Performing Arts, however, voices resonate through the corridors, singing to the accompaniment of a piano.
The maestro on the piano is Anderson Go. As his fingers skim deftly over the ebony and ivory keys, he listens intently to the trio of male voices that fill the room. During Saturday rehearsals with his chorale, Go makes sure every note is hit perfectly. Otherwise, his fingers stop playing.
“Can we repeat that?” he says as he corrects the singers: a flat note here, a high pitch there.
To people listening from outside, the chorale seems only common in the college. But a closer look shows that the performers are extraordinary: All of them are visually impaired and have been brought together by a passion for music.
Go leads this team. Now 46, he was born with congenital glaucoma, a progressive ailment that increases pressure in the eyes because of fluid build-up. Despite several eye operations, he completely lost his sight at 14 years old.
Two years after, he began his formal training in music. Little did he know that nearly two decades later, he would not only be playing for himself, but for a bigger purpose.
In September 2000, Go formed the Ambassadors of Light, a group of musically talented children and young adults, aimed to provide formal musical training, educational scholarship and assistance to its visually impaired beneficiaries. The initiative opened a new path to young visually impaired but musically talented Filipinos like him.
Go himself had struggled to pursue his own passion for music after he could no longer see. The adjustment for the young Anderson, who used to be active in sports, did not come easy. Unlike the basketball and the bicycle, letting go of the piano keys was out of question.
“Before, I can still see the keyboard, the keys of the piano,” he said. “When I became totally blind, I really needed to know the touch and feel of the keys, the distance of one note to the next.”
In his musically inclined family, Go and his three siblings had taken formal piano lessons when they were young. In the end, however, he was the only one who pursued music as a career. Pushing the boundaries further, he began formal classical voice training at 17 years old.
Three decades of studying music has made Go’s ears attuned to even the slightest mistakes in singing or playing, and even the most minimal of noises. During rehearsal, he politely requests parents to avoid going out the door, as he hears it swing open and close.
Like many young visually impaired Filipinos, Go attended the Philippine National School for the Blind (PNSB) in his early schooling years, where he further studied Braille. Without an exclusive college yet for blind students in the country, he decided to enroll in the Philippine Women’s University (PWU), studying double degrees in classical piano and classical voice.
It took him nine years to finish both programs, becoming the first visually impaired graduate of the university.
“Joining a regular class for us is not easy,” he said, noting that all blind students from PNSB enroll in regular universities after. “You have to adjust, cope with the lessons as fast as you can. That was the most challenging, yet interesting part of the experience.”
Upon graduation, Go taught voice classes in PWU for six years and also worked in St. Paul University. Recently, he was given the opportunity to teach at the College of Music of the University of the Philippines Diliman.
He originally wanted to be a performer, but life took him in a different direction: He became an educator.
“I enjoy teaching when I see my students are learning and improving, and that is now my greatest achievement,” he said. “If they have other skills that I do not, it’s good for me. They can go farther than what I have achieved.”
As the founder and musical director of the Ambassadors of Light (AOL), Go gathers scholarship funds through the help of donors and supporters. The beneficiaries should be enrolled in a music degree in college.
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Financial assistance also comes from those who witness the students’ singing and dancing talents during the group’s performances. Their members have performed major concerts locally, even represented the Philippines in music festivals abroad such as in Taiwan and Japan.
For Go, the decision to call the group “ambassadors of light” is based on his own experience of finding guidance through God’s “heavenly light” whom he calls his personal ambassador.
He said he hopes the group would bring light to others who also have visual impairment, especially those who think losing their sight means the end of their world.
“I want to show them that no, this is just the start of a new path in your life,” he said. “As you go through (your) journey, this group will be your light.”
This Saturday, only three of eight members show up for rehearsal owing to schedule conflicts. Julius Contrata, 32, was one of the first scholars of AOL; he took a special course in voice in PWU from 2000 to 2005. He now works as a licensed masseur therapist at the Visually Impaired Brothers for Excellent Services, but still performs with AOL.
Contrata describes Go as a strict teacher. “He picks apart every detail, from the right breathing technique to the proper vocal release,” he said. “But if we have a personal problem, he is not just our teacher. He is also like our kuya (brother).”
Since its inception, AOL’s long-term goal is to put up its own music school to also give employment to its scholars.
But financial and logistical problems hinder the fulfillment of this dream. In addition, AOL needs a good and accessible location for students with visual impairment. At present, St. Paul University lends the group a room to rehearse.
Access to quality education and equal opportunity for employment are mandated by the Magna Carta for Persons with Disabilities, or Republic Act No. 7277. With the thrust for inclusive education, more efforts are directed toward mainstreaming students with special needs in regular schools. However, the lack of accessibility and reasonable accommodation makes it difficult for persons with disabilities to participate on an equal basis with those without disabilities.
Go said the country still lacks materials to teach music to people who have low vision or are blind. Braille music books are hard to come by in the Philippines, compared to other countries such as the United States.
“If there is a song or piece that I want to teach to my students, I have to ask for somebody to read the notes for me, or record the whole piece,” he said. “I study it through listening, and only then can I teach it. It takes a longer time that way.”
Even in UP, the country’s lone national university, resources for visually impaired students are limited. Despite the opening of a music theory class for visually impaired students last school year in the College of Music in UP Diliman, the lack of resources forces Go and another blind teacher to use their own materials to teach Braille music notation to students.
As an educator with disability in the Philippines, Go said there are still a lot of challenges. Apart from physical barriers, the Filipino attitude toward disability is a work in progress.
“They think we (persons with disabilities) are pitiful. This is something that society should overcome,” he said, adding that there is still a huge need for facilities and resources for persons with disabilities like him.
As he continues to work for a bigger goal, Go feels happy where his passion has taken him and his students.
“Through music, we can show the people, the world, what we can do,” he said. “Through music, we can let them see that we can.”
(The author recently graduated with a journalism degree from the University of the Philippines-Diliman. She submitted this story for the journalism seminar class “Reporting on Persons with Disabilities” under VERA Files trustee Yvonne T. Chua.)