Top folksingers perform for a cause March 1

BAGUIO CITY – This city’s pioneer folksingers who  set the trend of living out the humanitarian message of their music through concerts-for-a-cause will be reunited here on March 1 in a pro bono performance to give alive an ailing girl’s dream for a kidney transplant.

MhiaTibunsay, former female vocalist of the Foggy Mountain Band at the Wild West Music Saloon, will fly in from Singapore this week to team up anew with fellow expat Conrad Marzan for the show set 8 p.m.  at the covered court of the Quirino Elementary School at Irisan barangay here.

Marzan, now based in northern California, returned to Baguio the other weekend to visit his daughter Soliel and three grandchildren.  

Dubbed “A Walk Down Memory Lane”, the two hour musical treat will also feature lawyer Jose “Bubut “ Olarte, Alma Angiwan, Liza Noble, the Seldom Seen group of March Fianza, Alfred Dizon, Paul Cuyopan and Dick Oakes, together with soloists Kenneth and Zeny, Nelson, the Baguio-Benguet Cowgirls and the country band of the regional police command based at Camp Dangwa.

Also performing are Conrad’s brother, lead guitarist Arsen, and fellow Foggy Mountain back-ups Dolfo and Jim.

The reunion performance is for QuakelynLisayen, a 24-year old former volunteer rescuer of the City Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council who was diagnosed for end-stage kidney failure in October, 2013.

The eldest  of four children, Quakelyn , who lost her father to kidney disease, has been following up her application for an organ transplant at the National Kidney and Transplant Institute in Quezon City, with her younger brother Jason, 20, as probable donor.

“I started  from scratch, given the prohibitive cost of transplant and maintenance medicine thereafter, yet I have no choice but to fight it out, hoping people would prop me up,” the girl said.

Moved by her blind courage, a congressman set aside P200,000 from his priority development assistance fund to initially whittle down the NKTI’s estimate of P640,000 for the transplant, including the recovery for the organ donor.

Likewise, women leaders the likes of former city prosecutors Gloria Agunos and Evelyn Tagudar, regional director Helen Reyes-Tibaldo of the Philippine Information Agency and city social welfare and development officer Betty Fangasan teamed up with Irisan barangay captain Thomas Dumalti to sustain the fund drive.

The five have opened up bank account number 0563845279 at BPI-Harrison branch, through which donors can course their cash support.

People who would like to help may also call up the following cellphone number:  Quakelyn( 09393559927),   Agunos (09176556201), Tagudar 

(09175069481), Tibaldo (09175088534), Dumalti (09465971520), this writer (09167778103).

Part of the concert proceeds will also go to four other patients from Irisan who are undergoing life-=time hemodialysis due to kidney failure.

Among the initial Samaritans were  certain Richie with a P15,000 contribution, Pradeep “Paul” Lalwani with P11,000 a woman from Bontoc, Mt. Province who handed over P5,000, the Quijencio family (P1,000) and a kid named Rocel Anne Santos who skipped her birthday celebration to be able to donate P1,000.  – Ramon Dacawi