I’m a Lumad (indigenous person) from the Talaandig tribe in Mindanao.

I’m an artist, art educator, and cultural worker. My work was my entry point when I migrated to Canada under the Provincial Nominee Program. I extended my practice further into construction because I have a background in civil engineering and architecture.

My father is Cebuano while my mother is indigenous from Bukidnon. My family settled in Lanao del Sur when I was in Grade 5. It was a time of intense in-fighting among Christians and Muslims in Mindanao. The dictator Ferdinand Marcos used this chaos as a rationale to declare nationwide Martial Law in 1972. But the truth here is that he used “divide-and-rule” tactics to fuel that in-fighting.

I gained admission at Mindanao State University and became a student activist. I saw discrimination and other social ills in my political awakening. My father once told me, “You’re a university scholar, but you don’t use your head. Why are you joining students’ and workers’ protests?” Of course, I wanted the university to subsidize all students as full scholars. If workers don’t protest, how will their living standards improve? We have severe economic problems, no matter who is seated in power. It cannot be solved by elections.

After teaching in the university, I designed art courses and mentored street children within depressed communities every weekend.

I targeted Davao’s Isla Verde community in breaking discrimination and popularizing unity in diversity. Thankfully, I wasn’t alone. Cultural workers and religious leaders from all fronts were doing similar work. We established a Mindanao Week of Peace that ran every first week of November. I created a peace mural out on the streets. This initiative became institutionalized – I even got invited to teach a university course named Peace Building in Arts.

Otherwise, I enjoyed my earlier life in the Philippines because my art eventually sold like hotcakes. There were lots of buyers! I contributed to world art, especially with my innovative bamboo stick paintings. I did my first international solo exhibition in Japan. One thing led to another. But amid all that, I couldn’t support my parents financially due to my wife’s lifestyle.

I was invited to Australia in 1995 and decided then that I want to migrate.

I attended the Artists’ Regional Exchange (ARX4) symposium in Perth and did an artist residency at the University of Western Australia School of Architecture and Fine Arts.* But 1995 was a time of heightened racism in Australia. I didn’t know how the system worked there and had a difficult time in the university. I just also had a new-born baby. I couldn’t stomach the racism and went back home, much to the indignation of my then-wife.

Three years later, a Freeman Foundation Asian Artists Fellowship landed me a residency at the Vermont Studio Center in the United States. Painter Michael Goldberg criticized my work there: “He’s an idiot, why is he making political art?” A curator from Montreal was scouting for artists for another arts event, and I was told: “I like your art but it’s political.” If professionals here harshly criticize colleagues like this, what more with ordinary people? I decided that migrating to the US is off the table either.

Canada is where I found warm and friendly people. I first visited Vancouver in 2002 with a group of Filipino artists. I met Richard Appleby, co-founder and former Vice President of the Vancouver Film School. His generous support brought me a new life here as a practicing artist and his right-hand man. I brought my family here in 2008, eventually divorced my wife with my children’s full support, and found a new life partner who shared my values and life’s work.

In my art, I trace back my roots and fuse them to the modern times.

Bert with his mentors in Caraga, Davao Oriental, Philippines (circa 1997)

Not that I want to bring back the old times, but I want our old practices to advance ourselves. The Lumads take inspiration from the environment: the river flow, mountain ranges, contours from plants and leaves. You find “okir” – Philippine plant-based motifs and aesthetics – in the sarimanok. The swirling curves of this mythical bird came from the shapes of ferns. Zigzag contours were mountains. And so on.

When I arrived in Canada, I transformed their meanings. In my mind, I don’t see ancestral mountains anymore – I see Vancouver’s Lions Gate Bridge instead. Atop the bridge, you see water currents below. I fuse these elements I see now into my contemporary art. My sarimanok now holds a salmon in its claws. My plant designs and motifs depict the gardens I tend in West Vancouver.

We know that today’s lifestyles are influenced and molded by technology. But nowadays, many people have forgotten their values and cultures. For me, it’s like burning that bridge we rely on to return back. How can we proceed in our journeys if we don’t reclaim our roots?

I always divide my time for the community.

I don’t just create work as an artist to gain popularity and recognition. I would concern myself with what I can do to alleviate existing problems in my community. I’m not like others who would buy houses, host parties, or go for cruises they can’t even afford. I would work three days a week to support my art projects.

I would also hold free workshops to students of the John Oliver Secondary School, all art materials in tow at my expense. I see Filipino youngsters with family problems because of earlier long-term separations caused by migrations. When they finally move here, they don’t do well in school. They don’t want to finish their studies anymore. High school dropout rates are rampant. And yet they show up for my workshops. I can’t turn a blind eye when fellow country folks struggle like this.

My friends wouldn’t understand my life choices: “Bert, look at your former Fine Arts students. They’re millionaires now, they own two cars…” Of course, I can always make high-demand Impressionist or Expressionist artworks if I really want to. But I call that “cute-ism art.”** You poise yourself as cute in front of art collectors simply to sell work.

Bert’s Banner Works for Migrante BC

Emotions peel off in every brush stroke.

You tap into that realm when you draw or paint as therapy. You usher in healing from traumas through this process. Let’s take still life drawing as an example. In the fine arts, you pay more attention to shading, composition, and layout. But as therapy, you simply let an object sit to ignite someone’s visualization if they can’t directly draw images on the canvas. I bring actual objects like flowers or fruits for that purpose. Healing starts when you manage to break someone’s silence due to trauma.

Sometimes, a student would confide to me in tears: “I thought we’ll have it good when we finally move here. But my mom works so much that I don’t see her anymore. She would be hot-tempered when she arrives home. We siblings would share a bedroom in our small living space. Kuya Bert, we lived better lives back home.” I would console them by saying that living standards are getting far worse nowadays. Their hourly wages at McDonalds here in Canada would even amount more than a farmer’s daily wage in the Philippines.

I hope that with the quality of life we have here, we don’t forget that many others still live in poverty back home. It doesn’t matter even if you no longer consider yourself “Filipino.” People back there are still human. We must always care about fellow humans, no matter what.