Sourced online by Tracy Cabrera
MANILA — Music became Ian Resurreccion’s passport to travel the world, so through every balikbayan box of musical instruments he sends home, he hopes it would become someone else’s opportunity to achieve success.
Resurreccion had humble beginnings, playing music on the dusty streets of Alfonso Town in Cavite, but since then he has been performing in concert halls and symphony orchestras overseas.
However, climbing up the ladder of success and reaching musical stardom wasn’t easy for Resurreccion. The first saxophone he held was not his own and like most children in his hometown’s marching band—the San Miguel Banda 8—he practiced using worn-out instruments passed from one player to another, some dented and others with missing parts or both.
Still, those battered instruments changed Ian’s life of poverty to that of triumph and fame. He is now based in Texas, helping ensure that the next generation of Filipino children will no longer be subject to the hardships he experienced but will begin with better opportunities.
Every now and then, Resurreccion packs a balikbayan box with second-hand musical instruments bound for his hometown in Cavite. He uses his extra money to scour garage sales, flea markets and Facebook Marketplace in Texas for affordable finds—collecting saxophones, trumpets, clarinet and other instruments before shipping them home to aspiring young musicians in Alfonso town.
“Para sa akin napakalapit sa puso ko iyong bandang pinanggalingan ko. Doon ako nagsimula. Way of giving back ko (ito) . . . dahil nakikita ko iyong sarili ko sa mga batang nagsimula doon,” Resurreccion enthused in an interview.
Word about his initiative spread quickly among fellow musicians in Texas and friends from orchestras and bands who learned about his project started donating instruments stowed away in their homes, probably forgotten.
“I have friends here in orchestras and bands who know that story. They remembered that they have a collection of instruments that they don’t use anymore. They’re donating them to our band in the Philippines. I collect them until I can fill a whole box,” he narrates.
Many arrive scratched, dented or no longer playable—but that does not worry Ian: “Although the instruments that I collect are old and broken, we have a lot of talents in the Philippines who are resourceful and repairmen.”
Every repaired instrument, Resurreccion said, represents a chance for another child to discover music. He knows this to be true because once upon a time, he depended on that one chance himself. For him, each donated instrument carries more than notes and melodies because it caries the possibility that another child from a small town may one day discover that music can take them farther than they ever imagined.
ia/xf
