F.A.R.M. - from Trash to Craft

Many followers say we have been missed. Thank you! It does not mean that F.A.R.M. has become unpopular. In fact, it has been making waves. If we were not able to bring you news on time, simply blame it on CB's demanding day job.

The past month has been pretty hectic and exciting. F.A.R.M. joined SM City Naga in its campaign towards a cleaner environment and a greener earth through "Trash to Crafts" - an event that showcased Bicol products made of recycled materials.

As anticipated, F.A.R.M. was a big hit: most visited, most photographed, most admired.

F.A.R.M. did not only share its products to the Bicol market, it also showcased the ingenuity and uniqueness of its craft.

Along with other Bicol merchandise, F.A.R.M. celebrated the value and benefit of artful recycling. As you know, F.A.R.M. is made out of old and discarded materials - trash brought back to life.

Bernadette de los Santos was another hit. She shared, as in many occasions, the wonders of engaging into artful recycling.

F.A.R.M.ers were there to support.

And the public was in awe with such a wonderful creation, advocacy and opportunity that is F.A.R.M.!

With the help of SM and the Department of Trade and Industry, F.A.R.M. achieved another milestone in its barely two-year history.

We got another rare chance to say that for mother earth, we care!

All hands down to the HOPE event!

Dine. Wine. Celebrate HOPE. May 22, 2010. A. Bonifacio, Fortunata Village, Paranaque City. Smart casual.

The backyard garden of Chito and Jo Intia and the magnificent wedding-like set up were so befitting for a happening of extreme importance as the HOPE event. The Good Lord did not give us rain, but sheltered us with the perfect summer weather.

The nicest dinner buffet (nicest = hot and good food, super service and reasonable bill) was provided by Verleo Catering, courtesy of the Intias.

The generous hosts Jo and Chito enjoying a dance

The yummy spread included yang chow fried rice, baked beef lasagna, chicken-ala-pobre, crispy fish fillet with aoli, pork spareribs, fresh lumpia wrapped-on-the-spot. And mango crepe and fruit salad for the sweet tooth. Plus we had a taco bar as a pre-dinner treat.

And of course, there were red and white wine overflowing! Thanks to Ruby Penarubia for sending boxes of wine over!

Bidibidi, Eena and Mia toast to the success of BTH

The guests weren't the only ones who needed dressing up. Bernadette de los Santos (Bidibidi) accentuated Verleo's table setup with dainty yoyo quilts and vintage black and red mini buttons. The design kept us true to our roots, and we were all drawn to it!

F.A.R.M. had to be on the spotlight. Fabulous new pieces of the F.A.R.M. bride collection plus the classic pieces were on display for the guests to feast on. F.A.R.M. scholar Nico and BTH scholar Jam efficiently managed the booth. And they even weaved choice buttons on the spot for the discerning guests!

Direk Ray Defante Gibraltar's documentary on F.A.R.M. and Buttons to Hope was a total must as it captured the inspiring story of this beautiful advocacy. The guests were so thrilled to see it (it was the first time to be seen by a wider audience) and were more than convinced to help. The documentary is the award-winning director's pledge to helping spread the good news about Buttons to Hope. Teresa de los Santos-Salah and other F.A.R.M.ers helped in producing the 24-minute film.

Direk Ray came with wife Queenie.

Ray, Jet, Queenie and Shiela

Buttons to Hope team leader Jane Barcenas-Bisuña (and Bidibidi), presented the project's milestones, financial status, and showed the many ways people can help Buttons to Hope. They also introduced the six scholars who are going to college in June (details about the scholars coming up in a separate blog entry).

Projectors4rent provided the facility.

Everyone thoroughly enjoyed and got wacky over the F.A.R.M.ers' performances, which proved to be more delightful than the band's. We were all yearning for more. The Seven Verses band provided excellent music and was quite good in not letting the jammers pass up their chance of a lifetime to sing live! The HOPE event was a big hit because of you guys!

Jonathan and Adie jamming with the band

Monette and Diesu brought the house down

Adie was a total performer

Our ever-generous F.A.R.M.ers from overseas paid for the music. Terie, Susan, Gladys, Perlie, Mafe, Jessamyn, Margee, Sheryl and Jo - the fab and pretty girls with big hearts - thank you!

Professional singer Bembot and rather elusive Pecto were excellent!

We would never settle anywhere in the middle ground. So even the pass to the event and paparazzi wall were elaborately done and did not disappoint the paying guests! Jane conceptualized the designs and had them executed by professional artist, Arch. Jare Encallado. Bidibidi and the F.A.R.M. scholars added that remarkable button twist to the pass - which shows this at the back: Keep this button pass as proof that you have bought HOPE for Baao's youth. Isn't that interesting?

Thanks Jet, Jonathan, Mia, Cherry, Atty. Matt, Wheng and the rest for the great ticket sales!

The paparazzi wall, as expected, was a hit!

Grazielle and Jare; F.A.R.M.ers Bidibidi, Mia, Eena, Jane, Monette and Lani strike a pose!

As of posting, photos of the HOPE event are still selling all over Facebook. Thanks to Rommel, Adie, Bidibidi for these beautiful pictures!

We got around P40,000 ($900) additional funds from this benefit dinner-concert - just enough to sustain a scholar's two-year college education. But other than that, the fact that we were all able to put on a show as successful as the HOPE event is already getting a lot in return.

Thanks thanks thanks everyone for your support! You rocked our world!

F.A.R.M. on a Writer's Blog!

We are thrilled to the highest level! Just learned that F.A.R.M. got a special spot on a professional writer's blog - Sa Dulang ni Deedee!

"I am a freelance writer, doing integrated communications work. For the past 20 years, I have written news articles, feature stories, advertising copies, annual reports, technical manuals, on varied subjects. Writing is my passion, so I will continue doing so until I come up with my first book, perhaps before I turn half a decade. Allow me to share with you life’s stories, whether mine or those of others. I hope the stories you read here inspire you, because sharing them with you gives me pleasure no end." Check out Sa Dulang ni Deedee

Here's what she wrote about F.A.R.M.:

A good friend gave me a bracelet in one of the Christmas parties I went to recently. The only thing I am requested to do, he told me, is to email a photo of it on me. And so, I did, and decided to write a short note about it.

F.A.R.M. is an acronym for Fabulously and Absolutely Rural-Made.

At the back of its product label is written:

“My F.A.R.M. bracelet carries with it a love story…a story of a mother who suffers in silence becasue she cannot send her child to school…a wife who quits her job to provide health care for a sick husband…a daughter who has to earn so she wouldn’s ask for allowance from her mom.
My F.A.R.M. bracelet is about love…my love for my art and my environment. It is about recycling, re-purposing, refining and re-finding things. It is about glorifying the old and the vintage. Each bracelet is one of a kind and is made from used or discarded buttons.”

Check them out: http://farmbaao.blogspot.com


Seeing F.A.R.M. on women of real substance is certainly a pat on the back for us! Thank you Ms. Deedee from the button of our hearts!

Why do you read the F.A.R.M. blog?

This blog, which will turn ONE on May 1, has become an indispensable part of my routine for so many reasons, the most important of which is: it serves my purpose to help my little rural town Baao.

Because of its inspiring stories and growing readership, the F.A.R.M. blog has been mentioned conspicuously at least twice in national/global media: ABS-CBN Online (Lifestyle) and ANC's Shoptalk. I've read from somewhere that if a blog gets noticed by the media (positively, that is), it must be something worth spending your time on :=)

The F.A.R.M. blog also continues to get hits and attract followers. Please do "become a fan" of F.A.R.M. on Facebook, so you get more updated on the latest blurbs. Thank you for making us reap these titillating little achievements!

I've put up a month-long poll on our homepage: Why do you read the F.A.R.M. blog? Please take a second to click on your choices. It will help me think about better and more exciting articles in the future.

Thank you all from the button of my heart. - CB

A F.A.R.M.er fights for her dream

And we are all for it. Venus, we support you from the button of our hearts!

Dethroned Bicol beauty queen fights for dream
By Ephraim AguilarInquirer Southern Luzon, PDI
First Posted 02:35:00 04/09/2010

BATO, CAMARINES SUR—Streamers of congratulations still hang in Barangay San Vicente here for its instant celebrity-daughter, Maria Venus Raj, who would have represented the country in the Miss Universe pageant in August after winning the most coveted Binibining Pilipinas title.

But her reign had been cut short by organizers less than a month ago.

“My fight is now more than just chasing a dream. It is about clearing my soiled reputation. It is about standing up for people who are poor and born out of wedlock. It is a fight for acceptance,” Raj said in an interview at her house made of wood, bamboo and “anahaw” leaves.

She has been living in the house without electricity for 21 years.

Binibining Pilipinas Charities Inc. (BPCI) took back her crown when it discovered false information in her birth certificate—that she was born in San Vicente, Bato, Camarines Sur, when she and her mother said she was actually born in Doha, Qatar; that her father is a Catholic Filipino when, in fact, he is an Indian; and that her parents were married when they were actually not.

Mother is OFW

During the pre-pageant’s panel and individual interviews in November last year, Raj had said she was born in Qatar, where her mother, Ester Bayonito, had worked as a domestic helper from 1986 to 1988, and was brought to the Philippines a month later.

Raj has professed her innocence, saying she had nothing to do with the information her aunt put in the document when her birth was registered three years after. She discovered the inconsistency when she applied for a college scholarship at the Francis Papica Foundation, which had not been corrected until she was dethroned.

Raj said she and her mother had no idea that she would someday be joining a national beauty pageant and that they were not able to correct the errors in her birth certificate because this would entail extra expenses.

Local contests

The youngest in a brood of five children, Raj started joining local beauty pageants when she was 17 years old, as well as oratorical contests at San Vicente High School.

“Whenever I won, I would give the prize money to my mother, who saved it up to buy seeds for the planting season,” she said. Her mother, now 59, is a tenant farmer, dressmaker and “hilot” in their village.

“My dream, more than to be a beauty queen or a model, is to just really give my family a comfortable life,” said Raj, who graduated, cum laude, with a journalism degree at Bicol University.

Raj was Miss Bicolandia in 2007 and Miss Philippines-Ecotourism in the Miss Philippines Earth pageant in 2008. With her winnings, she started buying land on installment basis for her mother.

“We moved from one place to another … about four times. It was hard not to have your own place. When there were conflicts we were always forced to leave,” Raj said in Bicol.
Ma. Lourdes Pili, Raj’s English teacher at San Vicente High School, said she used to coach Raj for oratorical contests.

“What always amazed me about Venus was her determination to succeed. Whenever she joined contests, we would borrow uniform and shoes because hers were old and faded. But she was never discouraged,” Pili said.

Resign or be dethroned

In a press conference in Naga City on Wednesday, Raj recalled how hard she cried when she was told about the decision of BPCI officials to strip her of her title.

Her predicament, she said, started a day after she was crowned on March 6 when Stella Marquez de Araneta, pageant head, supposedly expressed shock when she learned that she was born in Doha.

Raj said she was given two options—resign or be dethroned.

She said she was coaxed to sign a letter of resignation and was advised not to talk about the reason for it to protect her and her family from “judgmental people who would belittle them because of her past.”

When she told the organizers that she could not just sign a document without the presence of a lawyer, they met again for several hours only to tell her that she would be dethroned, she said.
Raj’s replacement will be the contest’s second runner-up, Helen Nicolette Henson, as the first runner-up, Dianne Necio was only 17 years old then.

According to Miss Universe pageant rules, the winner of the title must be 18 years old.

Poor girls’ dreams

Anjo Santos, Raj’s talent manager and mentor, said he was shocked at the sudden decision of BPCI. “It killed the dreams of poor beautiful girls like her who came from poor families to pursue their ambitions to succeed.”

She was never given due process, he added.

Because of embarrassment over her dethronement less than a month after she was crowned and the fear of being the talk of the town, Raj and her mother would not go out of their house.

Raj’s name is now all over the blogosphere. Fan pages on the social networking site Facebook were created to petition her reinstatement as the “country’s rightful candidate in the Miss Universe pageant.”

Free legal support

Lawyer Francis Padua Papica, who sponsored Raj’s college education, and another counsel volunteered to defend her for free.

A netizen, who requested to be identified only as King and a student of Bicol University, said his fan page would average around 300 interactions a day and had more than a thousand members.
One of Raj’s friends, Christian Jay Millena, 21, of Daraga town in Albay, believes BPCI has not dealt with Raj’s case with tact and decency.

“Take note that the BPCI even failed to properly inform the public and even the persons concerned of the real issue why Venus was dethroned,” he said.

Even Dante Jimenez, chair of the Volunteers Against Crime and Corruption and also a Bicolano, pledged his group’s full legal support during the press conference held at Avenue Plaza Hotel
in Naga.

‘Handiwork of losers’

“I think this is the handiwork of losers who wanted to dethrone a legitimate winner,” Jimenez said.

Some 50 children from poor communities welcomed Raj with flowers to dramatize her roots and support from fellow Bicolanos. Before leaving, she told them not to give up on their dreams even though how poor they were.

“She is an inspiration to ordinary girls with beauty and brains who are just daughters of poor farmers or fisherfolk. She is a perfect inspiration to ordinary Filipinos who can tell the whole world that economic status is not a hindrance to fulfill a career using their God-given talent,” said Santos, Raj’s talent manager.

With a report from Juan Escandor Jr., Inquirer Southern Luzon

See earlier post: A F.A.R.M.er wins the crown

A F.A.R.M.er wins the Crown!

"Three of the country’s most dazzling beauties were proclaimed as this year’s Binibining Pilipinas during the Coronation Night held March 6 at the Araneta Coliseum. The three candidates bested 21 other aspirants and will represent the country in the prestigious Miss Universe, Miss World, and Miss International pageants.

Getting the judges’ nod for the three most coveted titles are candidate no.11, Krista Arietta Kleiner, as Bb. Pilipinas-International, candidate no.10, Maria Venus Raj, as Bb. Pilipinas-Universe, and candidate no.21, Czarina Catherine Gatbonton, with candidate no.22, Dianne Necio, and candidate no.18, Helen Nicolette Henson, as first and second runners-up, respectively. The winners were constant favorites during the series of exciting pre-pageant activities, showing winning forms especially during the first-ever Pre-Pageant, which showcased the swimsuit and long gown competitions, and a Question and Answer portion with the judges."

"21-year old Venus stands at five feet and nine inches tall and hails from Bato, Camarines Sur. Currently working as an Information Assistant at the DENR Region IV, she has a degree in B.C.A. Major in Journalism. Aside from playing volleyball and basketball, she is also into singing.Vital Statistics: 35-22-35Weight: 110lbs"

- Bb. Pilipinas website

Congratulations Venus for this remarkable feat! You shine among the rest!

Your beauty and F.A.R.M combined is simply divine! You are without a doubt, the loveliest!

We are so proud of you. From the button of our hearts!

(See more photos of Venus on the runway, with F.A.R.M.)