Eumlangwaoe

Filmed in Minahaw, Bonobono, Bataraza, Palawan on 12-16 August 2016, Sound Tenderness: Music of the Non-violent Pala'wan Community in Southern Philippines highlights the idea of music that sustains the non-violent nature of Pala'wan culture. Pala'wan traditional music is very delicate and tender, save the boisterous gong and drum in celebratory dance and, in former days, rice wine drinking feasts. In Palawanun society, negative emotions like anger are not channeled to violent acts-men and women nor children never hurting each other-but by repression, a number of times of which has led to tragic suicides. Palawan people rationalize that acts of suicides are "hereditary," i.e., if parents commit suicide, then children would most likely follow them. This documentary suggests that the predisposition to suicide is not genetic but is underscored by the value for social conformity. Palawan music is a compelling evidence of this. Music, which is often seen as providing a moment of forgetfulness to sour interpersonal relations, is not a solution to suicide. For a society who values working in groups, alienation from society is the most painful human experience. Rather than forgetfulness, music accentuates the remembering and feeling for togetherness, the absence of which means death or embracing the opposite of society, which is nature. Thus the documentary contemplates on music in the praxis of its social use. The documentary is the second of the series "Resilient Music at the Margins," which was funded by the National Research Council of the Philippines, in cooperation with the University of the Philippines College of Music. —Jose S Buenconsejo