Heartof
Music
Organization Philippines, Inc.
TESTIMONIALS
I'm mark baling, a fellow musician. i am one of many people who have been infected by the Dengue virus.
on the night it happened, it hit me fast and hard. i got the flu around 12 midnight & at 7am i could barely walk! fortunately w/ the help of my girlfriend fel i was able to rush myself to the ER of the asian hospital. after taking tests, i was told i had dengue & pneumonia.
my temperature was bouncing between 40 & 38, and my headache was so bad i was having paracetamol injected into me. my platelet count dropped to 13 in just a couple of days.
what scared me most was that on the day that i was told i needed 2 bags of blood type o+, all the blood banks didn't have any stock & the hospital didn't have any either. fortunately my relatives were able to donate 2 bags from red cross. but before we could even receive the donations, my doctor had informed me that i needed 8 more.
it was then that i remembered a conversation i had w/ Marben Romero about "heart of music" (HOM). it was a group that skarlet had put up to assist fellow musicians in need of health assistance.
i contacted him & though they both had busy schedules, they prioritized me & spread the word as fast as they could. the day after, aside from the help of my other friend's donation, more donations started coming in from people i personally did not know. this actually gave me hope & strength to fight my illness. the mere fact that people were praying for me & going out of their way just to donate their blood. i was also lucky enough to have Philhealth shoulder a part of my hospital expenses.
i am now back to work, feeling better. what i learned & cant stress enough is that we all have to VALUE OUR HEALTH. Salamat po sa lahat ng tumulong at nakasama namin sa pagdadasal. Tama ang HOM, kumuha kayo ng Philhealth. ---Mark Baling aka Mark Banat (fb name)
Anthony Frank Tan wrote on your timeline.
sa dinami dami ng mga bayani na hindi napapansin, isa ka doon Skarlet, mabuhay ka! isang saludo sa napakabuti mong puso!
Lilia T. Tibayan wrote on your timeline.
Thanks for the Losartans you sent, God bless you more!...
Motmot Isvarah (deceased) wrote on your timeline.
maraming maraming salamat sa inyo ni Marben, natanggap ko na kanina ang mga gamot, isang dosenang pasasalamat po ulit...
Conversation started August 3, 6:19pm
Irma Tolosa posted to Skarlet Brown
hi skarlet,i know you as the lead singer of put3ska, we dont know each other personally.i was surprised when you txted me. i never knew that you help a lot of people specially musicians and that includes me. you helped me get the much needed financial assistance after my accident last year. 2 months medication na lang 2nd operation ko na... thank you very much and more power to you kapatid...i'll keep you updated...God bless you always.
Thank you Heart of Music for updating my papa's (Gigi Tereza, percs Deceased)Philhealth and for the medicines:) Papa was all smiles:) Our family is really grateful. God bless you and your cause♥
Mary Ann Jimenez-Salvador shared a link.
Thanks Heart of Music (HoM) headed by Ms. Skarlet for donating medicines for Lirio. Let's support HOM... Your support to their initiative is your support to Philippine music and Filipino musicians.
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READ our INQUIRER ARTICLE:
http://skarletbrownbeat.wix.com/skarlet-officia
Help on the way for ailing musicians
http://entertainment.inquirer.net/76873/help-on-the-way-for-ailing-musicians
Help on the way for ailing musicians
By Allan Policarpio
Philippine Daily Inquirer
January 16, 2013 | 10:20 pm
MYRA “Skarlet” Ruaro
A lot of Filipino musicians, because they are not permanently employed, do not have access to health care or insurance, said jazz singer Myra “Skarlet” Ruaro.
What happens when they grow old, or fall gravely ill, or meet accidents? “The frustrating reality is that many of them are resigned to this fate,” Skarlet told Inquirer in a phone interview. “Without money, they just live with their illness.”
Benefit shows are organized intermittently to help sick industry members shoulder treatment and hospital bills, but these are stop-gap solutions, Skarlet noted.
In 2008, her close friend, singer-songwriter Susan Fernandez-Magno, was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, prompting Skarlet to urge fellow musicians to mount fund raisers. Magno died in 2009.
Two years later, jazz guitarist Edgar “Koyang” Avenir succumbed to lung cancer. This got Skarlet thinking, “Is this all that musicians can do—panic at the last minute when something terrible happens to one of us?”
With the help of other musicians and business friends, Skarlet organized Heart of Music (HoM), an NGO that aims to distribute PhilHealth insurance to at least 100 aging musicians in dire need of healthcare and assistance.
“We need to think collectively and long-term, to protect ourselves,” said Skarlet, former vocalist of Pu3ska and the Brownbeat All-Stars.
She is HoM president, with R.G. Salazar as vice president; Jocelyn “Gou” de Jesus, secretary; Butch Saulog, legal counsel; and Bam Aquino, Julius Alip, Leocadio Ferreria and Cooky Chua, board members.
Priority beneficiaries are ailing musicians 50 years and older. Younger industry members with severe illnesses can also ask for assistance. “I’m urging all musicians to register as members,” Skarlet said.
HoM also aims to implement an education outreach program. “Musicians could teach music to kids as an alternative livelihood option,” she added.
Heart of Music will be formally launched with “Mabuhay Nyor!,” a benefit show tonight at 6 at the Camp Crame Multi-Purpose Hall in Quezon City. Featured performers are Guarana,Sitti, Cooky Chua, Gou de Jesus and Bayang Barrios.
There’s the Rub
By Conrado de Quiros
Philippine Daily Inquirer
12:45 am | Thursday, January 17th, 2013
http://opinion.inquirer.net/45013/go-girl
Today, Heart of Music will hold an activity at 3 p.m. at the Camp Crame Multipurpose Hall. Musicians who need a medical checkup can go there and get one free from a medical mission. Heart of Music is an NGO formed by musicians for musicians, specifically to meet the medical needs of ailing and aging musicians. They’ve been dying plentifully of late. Myra Ruaro’s brainchild, HOM has the virtue of striving to be self-reliant while welcoming help from private and public institutions.
The event will be capped by a concert at 6 p.m. that’s open to the public. It features Gou de Jesus, Lynn Sherman, Sitti Navarro, Bayang Barrios, Cooky Chua and the Guarana Band. Tickets are P1,000 with cocktails and P500 without. It will also be HOM’s coming-out party.
Music has charms to soothe the savage breast, as Congreve says. With your help, maybe it can also have the spells to cure tubercular ones.
Read more: http://opinion.inquirer.net/45013/go-girl#ixzz2W5FsoXSH
Follow us: @inquirerdotnet on Twitter | inquirerdotnet on Facebook
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Skarlet Seeks Health Coverage For Working Musicians Via New NGO
By Aldus Santos on
Friday, Jan 11 2013
There is perhaps a Filipino musicians’ utopia: an idyllic and meritocratic terrain inhabited by well-paid session players, property-owning roadies, margarita-sipping retirees, and, at its center, the eternal fountain of youth. Our beloved entertainers don’t succumb to ailments in this particular narrative, and they are able to concentrate solely on their craft. But this remains every bit a fantasy. The painful reality, unfortunately, veers closer to a tragedy that’s Shakespearean in scale: working musicians, unbeknownst to many, do not live protracted lives of glitz, glamour, and debauchery. Most of them, subsisting on a per-gig existence, are not covered by any form of health insurance whatsoever. Clerks in humdrum offices have it better. It was a pinprick, a back-to-Earth jolt, a wake-up call, and Myra Ruaro (ak.a. Skarlet Brown) could not simply shrug it off and let the status quo persist.
Instrumental, furthermore, were the deaths of people dear to her (the late singer-songwriter Susan Fernandez, who succumbed to ovarian cancer in 2009, and the jazz guitarist Edgar “Koyang” Avenir, who passed on due to pneumonia arising from lung cancer in 2011) in her decision to establish Heart of Music (HOM), “a non-government organization that would focus on health care coverage for all working musicians,” as reported by Inquirer’s Eric Caruncho, to whom Ruaro also explained that she wanted it to be “a catch-all organization for any type of musician, whether singer, songwriter, or instrumentalist,” and would also include auxiliary music workers such as recording technicians and roadies.
Details on the organization’s plans and programs will be fleshed out some more in the coming days, but it would be great if you could attend its formal launch-cum-concert (dubbed Mabuhay, Nyor!) on January 17, 2013 at the Camp Crame Multi-Purpose Hall. Show starts at 6PM, and will feature performances from Eileen Sison e Guarana with Sitti Navarro, Cooky Chua, Bayang Barrios, Lynn Sherman, and Gou de Jesus. A medical mission will precede the event between 3 to 6. “Ang tumutugtog ng soundtrack ng buhay ninyo [nang] live ay mga Pilipinong musikero. Sa aming pagtanda at wala nang tugtugan, tulungan ninyo kami. Umpisahan na ito, ngayon na. Support Heart of Music,” Skarlet appeals.
All proceeds from the show will go to senior musicians’ healthcare, as well as HOM’s music education youth outreach program for 2013. For ticket reservations or information on how to donate to this worthy cause, contact Skarlet at 0916.362.4596 or RG at 0917.500.1517. Event poster and details culled from Skarlet Brown’s Facebook page. Performance photo taken by this author.
Myra Ruaro a.k.a. Skarlet is singing a different tune these days.
This time, the jazz singer and former lead vocalist of the ska outfits Put 3 Ska and Brownbeat All Stars hopes to make beautiful music with some friends in the industry for a good cause—specifically what she calls a “one of a kind advocacy for Filipino musicians’ healthcare”.
As one of the leading forces of Heart of Music, a newly formed non-government organization that seeks to secure and protect the health and livelihood of Filipino musicians, Myra is spearheading a medical mission and social services program to help her fellow artists in the industry.
“Heart of Music estimates that today there are a lot of musicians in the country whose physical wellness and livelihoods are at risk on account of several factors, but chiefly because of the lack of formal medical coverage/insurance and access to credit and alternative revenue sources,” she pointed out in a letter directed to friends in music who wish to partner with their organization in raising the needed funds.
“The world, including the Philippines, cannot live without music. There will always be Filipino musicians, many of them outstanding, whose passion for music will be undiminished by the financial instability attached to the craft. HOM hopes to make musicianship a less volatile vocation while creating more opportunities for them to pass on their skills to the next generation until such time that they can take care of their own,” she added.
Myra’s plea has not fallen on deaf ears. On January 17, Heart of Music will stage “Mabuhay Nyor!” a medical mission and fund-raising event for Musicians Health Care Fund. The event will be highlighted by a concert headlined by the group Guarana with special guest performances by Gou De Jesus, Lynn Sherman, Cooky Chua, Sitti Navarro and Bayang Barrios.
Bayang Barrios.
“Naniniwala ako sa advocacy na ito. Maraming mga artists na wala talagang pupuntahan pag nagkasakit. Kaming mga kapwa artists lang ang nagtutulungan. Malaking bagay na may ganitong organisasyon na madaling malapitan kasi mga artists din naman ang namamahala,” Bayang Barrios told InterAksyon.
Cooky Chua had been aware for some time of Myra’s plan to organize such a group.
“Nung ininvite niya ako na maging part ng board, umoo ako agad dahil maganda at sincere ang hangarin. Sabi ko lang na tamad talaga ako sa madalas na meeting, pero ok kung bibigyan nila ako ng specific na tasks mas magiging effective ako.
“Syempre medyo may halong takot na baka sa umpisa lang ito, pero sa nakikita ko sa dedication ni Myra at ng lahat ng involved, naniniwala ako na malayo ang mararating nito at ang pinaka importante, marami ang matutulungan”, Cooky said.
Aside from Myra who acts as president of the organization, the other officers of Heart of Music are R.G. Salazar of Hapinoy (vice president), fellow jazz singer Gou De Jesus as secretary, piano player Butch Saulog as legal counsel and Cooky Chua, Cadio Ferreria, Julius Alip and Bam Aquino all acting as board members.
For her part, Gou De Jesus gives a lot of credit to Myra for making HOM happen.
“I had been among Skarlet’s friends with whom she went into a funk following Susan Fernandez’s death a few years ago, and then Koyang Edgar Avenir’s not too long ago. We talked about the seeds of HOM, and I promised her I would be part of whatever would shape up down the road because, indeed, the cause hit so close to home. It’s time musicians took care of their own,” she recalled.
“Skarlet has since done a lot work in that direction, and the show on the 17th is also HOM’s launch. I’m deeply honored to be part of the HOM board, as well as the show, which features the best female vocal artists we have today. I couldn’t think of a better personal advocacy, or a better group with whom to work on it.”
According to Myra, every donation to Heart of Music will bring them closer to enrolling 100 aging and ailing musicians in Philhealth for 2013 which is the initial phase of their Social Services Program even as they will also start their Music Education Outreach Program (MEP) at the same time.
As the health and well-being of musicians are the primary concern, one of the industry stalwarts that hope to benefit from HOM’s objectives is veteran lyricist Ernie de la Peña whose career spans more than 40 years and has co-written such classic tunes as “Araw Araw Gabi Gabi”, “May Bukas Pa”, “Lupa”, “Ang Pag-Ibig Kong Ito”, “Tayong Dalawa” and the EDSA-inspired, “Magkaisa”.
Lyricist Ernie de la Pena could be one of the first beneficiaries of Heart of Music's efforts.
According to Debbie Gaite, former general manager of the Filipino Society of Composers, Authors & Publishers, Inc. (FILSCAP), De la Peña’s health condition has taken a turn for the worse and now he needs an angiogram and angioplasty, which he both cannot afford.
“I used to facilitate his medical assistance when I was in Filscap, sometimes lending him my personal funds. Kaso now grabe na ang condition niya. Like most old composers he has lost control over some of his songs and never really made much money,” Gaite said. “I remember kasi when Mang Levi Celerio and the other composers died, lahat ng tulong na dumating were just too late.”
Hopefully, that won’t be the case with De la Peña and other talented musicians who are in most need of medical assistance at this time. With Heart of Music, Myra and her fellow musicians have certainly high hopes for the success of their advocacy.