MY PUERTO GALERA (Part 1)

(A story by STIFF - Proprietor at Loudhouse Music Enterprise, lead vocalist of Rizal Underground and a musical voyager to some of the most beautiful destinations of the world.)

 

This journey begins in 1988, after a five year stint in Los Angeles that I return to the Philippines. In one of my first ever trysts outside of Manila and with the encouragement of a dear friend, Madam CRISTY FUENTEBELLA, I visited beautiful hideaway called COCO BEACH, an exotic destination in Puerto Galera, Oriental Mindoro owned and operated by a close family friend. And from that point never looked back.

In my succeeding visits, I journeyed towards the center of the island and met the natives, who in my surprise, were quite informed with the growing popularity of reggae music and thus COCO JAM, fronted by my favorite songwriter and mentor, ROLLY MALIGAD. This coincides with my upcoming venture into music and the formation of THE RIZAL UNDERGROUND.

It was 1992 – the height of the twelve hour brownouts, during the production of Loudhouse’s largely successful, independently released compilation album entitled ALERT LEVEL that I became close to another pioneer of reggae music in the Philippines, the late PAPADOM, whose TROPICAL DEPRESSION together with CHARLIE YSMAEL’S THE BREED, RIZAL UNDERGROUND and COOKY CHUA’S COLOR IT RED filled this lineup of up and coming bands.

As the rise in popularity of bands in the country grew exponentially, all four bands received radio airplay, TV guest appearances and were signed to major labels. Biggest of the four was TROPICAL DEPRESSION, who in 1995, got an invitation to perform in the first ever PUERTO GALERA MUSIC FESTIVAL at White Beach, organized by Ms. LOU BONNEVIE. Wow! Performing at one of the first ever beach festivals has always been a dream and so I decided to tag along, had a remarkable time and remember quite fondly to have crashed on the beach that evening. And the dream comes closer to realization.

On the other hand, RIZAL UNDERGROUND, my band, that featured a very talented core of young musicians like MIKE VILLEGAS, ANGELO VILLEGAS and future P.O.T. drummer HARLEY ALARCON, was enjoying quite a comfortable ride with the success of our self-titled debut album that included the popular SAN MIGUEL BEER commercial “SABADO NIGHTS”, featuring the beautiful MS. INA RAYMUNDO.

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And due to the extensive promotions for the campaign, I unfortunately missed perhaps a more glorious 2^nd offering of the PUERTO GALERA MUSIC FESTIVAL in 1996, this time organized by JAMIE WILSON and the future MISS SAIGON lead star MONIQUE WILSON. An elaborate stage and great show I’m told plus the integration of an art facet to the festivities that featured the Philippines most prominent such as SANTI BOSE and AGNES ARELLANO, to name a few.

The dream continues to elude me. But after the success of ALERT LEVEL though, I decided to expand LOUDHOUSE and venture into concert production to fulfill my lifelong dream of performing in a beach festival. And so the partnership with COCO AROMA proprietor JOEL DE VEYRA blossomed, with the help of my growing connections with the SAN MIGUEL BEER marketing group, we organized the third offering of the PUERTO GALERA MUSIC FESTIVAL in 1997, integrating sporting events. Thus with my links and passion for football, I tapped original AZKAL, LUDWIG FUENTEBELLA, proprietor of ENCENADA BEACH RESORT, and current PHILIPPINE FOOTBALL FEDERATION Beach Football Chairman MIKE AHTAB to organize the first ever BEACH FOOTBALL tournament in the Philippines.

To soup up the promotions for the event, we got very lucky to be granted by the Singapore based MTV ASIA as media partners to this event. It was then that I met the popular and amiable VJ MIKE KASEM and his sister KERRI KASEM, whose lineage comes from the late great CASEY KASEM of the long running AMERICAN TOP 40 fame, currently hosted by none other than RYAN SEACREST. Also included in the crop of talents brought in by MTV ASIA to cover the event was VJ REGINE TOLENTINO and MTV NEWS host LEE LAUREANO.

In cooperation with the local government of Puerto Galera, we brought together an exciting weekend of merriment that included the first ever OFF ROAD MOUNTAIN BIKE RACE, AQUATHON, BEACH FOOTBALL and culminating with a marvelous concert program featuring the finest Filipino artists namely: RIZAL UNDERGROUND, BLUE RATS, NATIVE SCION, COCO JAM, SPY, PUT3SKA and LOLITA CARBON.

With the success of the partnership with our sponsors, we decided to bring it back in 1998. This time, the festivities got boosted with a little more action - the sporting events grew both in popularity and participation. With the help of ENERVON, we organized the first ever OFF ROAD TRIATHLON, way before it’s time and the Second BEACH FOOTBALL CUP. More media personalities came to cover the event, former MTV ASIA and CHANNEL V VJ KAMAL SIDHU for AXN and long time local TV sports program GAMEPLAN, hosted by the lovely couple – PAOLO and SUZIE ABRERA.

And as tourist numbers doubled from the previous year, and so did the number of concert attendees. This time we feature PAROKYA NI EDGAR, TEETH, PUT3SKA, COCO JAM, and RIZAL UNDERGROUND.

In 1999, the results of our two previous efforts became too obvious to ignore as PUERTO GALERA become a favorite destination amongst the bohemian population of the country. There was a clamor to do it one more time and headlining this editions’ lineup were internationally acclaimed artists KULAY,  BLUE RATS, RIZAL UNDERGROUND, PUT3SKA and SPY.

It wasn’t easy nor lucrative yet priceless in terms of experience. It is only now that I begin to realize the accomplishments promoting Puerto Galera as a destination for tourism with a cool taste in music, a proper venue for sporting events and a great overall vibe. 17 years on, I keep coming back and am still amazed at the beauty of this place and shall always remain one of my favorite destinations – MY PUERTO GALERA!

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