His Life Ministries Iloilo: Changing mindsets with Freedom! Festival
"We usually define freedom as doing what we want, something that is devoid of restrictions. But real freedom is our ability to say NO. Neither religion nor habits can give us that kind of freedom. There is this one person who can set us all free and this person is God," explains Pastor Glenn Arellano, senior pastor of His Life Ministries Iloilo, during a press conference at the Chino's Asian Restaurant and Grille last March 8, 2007.
On its 5th year anniversary here in Iloilo, His Life Ministries together with SM City Iloilo, Skinetics Medical Day Spa and Skin Center, Light of Glory Taxi Services, Chino's Asian Restaurant and Grille, Bethany Life Center Academy, Milagros Jardeleza Food Processing, Mama Maria's Pizza and Mang Inasal will be having the first ever Freedom! Festival at the 3rd Floor Event Center of SM City Iloilo on Sunday, March 11, 2007 at 5:00 pm.
Freedom! Festival
We always see music as the soundtrack of our life with its lyrics as our script and its melody our rhythm but we often forget the fact that music is a gift from Heaven. It is the voice of God, a symphony of his unconditional love. Therefore, it is empirical to say that music is His way of reaching out to his people and our way of communicating with Him.
With the goal of providing Ilonggos with a life-transforming entertainment and changing the mindsets of Ilonggos towards church, His Life Ministries Iloilo brings to the city a one-of-a-kind free concert and variety show dubbed as Freedom! Festival.
Freedom! Festival will feature the talents of young individuals from different churches as expressed on different forms of entertainment which will include live band, street dancing, and interpretative dances with a storyline that will tackle about the things that are affecting the Filipino people on this age of anger, bitterness, drug abuse and materialism. The show will serve as a launching of this festival, which is perceived to be done bi-annual starting next year.
"We want the people to realize that there is still hope for change since the talents who will be performing in this event are actually the products of this transformation," quips Pastor Glenn Arellano.
Mark Cabag, an active member of His Life Ministries Iloilo, assures that the show will cater to the needs of different generations with a series of jazz music, street dancing, break dances and ballet for families to enjoy. "Freedom! Festival is entertainment with heart. With this, pre-set notion, we can eliminate that church is boring. It is not. In fact, church is also culture-current."
The Tres Band
Defying the pop-culture stereotype of alternative rock bands as an easy-going and morally-slack group of talented young artists who strum their guitars and hit their drums to create loud music, the Tres Band stands as a testimony of real freedom with each member equipped with an inspiring story to match their musical prowess.
The Tres Band owes its name from the colloquial term for three (tres) since originally the band has three members – the Tres triumvirate Noy Delamar, Archie Tolarba, and Mark Tabura. Later on, a student by the name of John de Goma, the band's session bass player, became a part of it.
Tres Band is more than just a collaboration of music connoisseurs. It is a marriage of prolific talents and a fusion of varying genres ranging from alternative rock, inspirational, love songs to jazz. These melody virtuosoes were honed by their vast experiences in their field considering that each member used to perform in different bands prior to the birth of Tres. Noy Delamar used to be with a Bacolod-based Expresso Band while Archie Tolarba and Mark Tabura were once a part of the Upnext Band. When their former bands were disbanded, these young and talented churchgoers decided to put up a band and began singing in His Ministries Church in Bacolod, wherein they were all active members.
This seven-month old band became a household name in Bacolod after their first single "Ikaw ang Aking Musika" topped the ABS-CBN MOR countdown for two consecutive weeks. Likewise, "Para Lang Sayo", the second cut from their soon-to-be-released album entitled "Ikaw ang Aking Musika" climbed the local charts after it was played on air in local stations. Captivated by the soothing melody and heartwarming lyrics of their songs, ABS CBN MOR Manila chose their songs to be aired nationwide starting next week. Though they are still working on the last part of their album, which will be released two weeks from now, some of the tracks from their album are available for request at MOR Iloilo. All of the 12 cuts from the album are the original composition of Mark Tabura.
When asked what differs them from other existing bands, Mark, the band's vocalist, quickly replied "Aside from the genre of music that we play, it is the life that we follow that sets us apart from the others. We write love songs for God".
The Tres Band will be performing at the Central Philippine University Anahaw Drive later at 6:00 pm and at the Mama Maria's Pizza at 8:00 pm today. The band will also visit the Lapaz Campus of St. Therese tomorrow at 10 am and will be participating in the Freedom! Festival on Sunday at SM City Iloilo. They will be embarking in a Negros Tour two weeks from now. You can also log on to www.tresband.com for their schedules.