Fil-Am musician sings for ‘Sendong’ victims in Dumaguete

DUMAGUETE CITY, Philippines—He may have been half a world away, but that didn’t stop US-based musician Ryan Villanueva from helping the victims of Tropical Storm “Sendong” in Dumaguete City, Negros Oriental.

Moved by the photos and videos of the floods triggered by the storm, Villanueva organized a small concert in a café in Cumberland, Maryland, and donated all his CD sales to a scholarship fund of a local university, where some students’ homes were either damaged or washed away by the storm.

Villanueva, 25, who has many relatives in Dumaguete and Negros Oriental, didn’t know about the storm until after he received an e-mail from his brother Ray and his wife Amy, about the storm’s aftermath.

Ray and Amy, both in their early 30s, had just arrived in Dumaguete about a month before the storm to work at Foundation University (FU).

Rey, an architect, teaches at the Department of Architecture and Fine Arts while Amy is a consultant at the University Advancement Office.

“I saw photos of homes swept away and belongings washed out to sea from the intense flash floods. I saw photos of where bridges once stood and water rushing through the streets,” Villanueva said in an e-mail interview.

He said he was moved when Ray and Amy sent an e-mail describing how some students’ homes were destroyed. These students could not afford to go back to school, he added.

Sendong destroyed the houses of some 30 students from FU alone, in Dumaguete where 450 houses were destroyed and 1,772 others were damaged. A total of 3,138 persons were displaced by the storm and had to be evacuated.

After assessing the damage, FU President Dr. Mira Sinco saw the generous outpouring of donations in terms of food and clothing for the evacuees.

He, however, saw the possibility that students may be forced to drop out of school as household repairs and rehabilitation would become a bigger priority for their families.

“While our student organizations and several of our university departments also came to the aid of the flood victims by giving food and clothes, we launched a fund drive through the Internet to support our students who were victims of the floods,” Sinco said.

All donations would be properly accounted for and a full report would be given to the donors, he added.

To date, Villanueva is one of the many donors who have donated through the university’s website (www.FoundationU.com). Also joining the scholarship drive are donors from the Philippines, Hawaii, as well as from other cities across North America.

“I wanted to contribute something because I know how important an education is. I don’t want this natural disaster to become a life-altering event that prevents a student from going to school,” Villanueva said.

While born and raised in the United States, Villanueva had been to Dumaguete at least twice.

On his first visit in 1998 with parents Dr. Romulo Villanueva and Kathleen Gamer-Villanueva, Ryan and his two brothers performed in a piano concert at the Luce Auditorium.

They came back in 2008 for his father’s conferral of the Outstanding Sillimanian Award in the field of Medicine, where Ryan performed a string of free shows in Dumaguete.

“Dumaguete is a great little city and I enjoyed my visits there, especially an excursion out to Apo Island,” he said.

While many of his videos are seen on YouTube, Villanueva said he doesn’t perform professionally.

“I guess you could say I’m a professional amateur. I took piano lessons for 12 years while growing up, played the drums for six years in the school band, and taught myself guitar when I was 13. I began writing songs when I was 17, and began performing my one-man-band shows while in college [at James Madison University],” Villanueva continued.

Villanueva is studying to get a degree in Spanish in hopes of becoming a Spanish teacher.

Still on his to-do list is a trip back to Dumaguete this year, where he hopes to perform some shows.