ON JANUARY 24, Carlos Celdran was in Ateneo—not to stage another protest which would later on make newspaper headlines and various news programs, but to talk about how dreams define who we are and how we must go after them.
Celdran, a Manila tour guide and cultural activist, together with bag designer and entrepreneur Amina Aranaz-Alunan shared how they were able to find their passion and pursue it in the first forum of Why You Do What You Do (WYD), which was held in partnership with a Loyola Schools organization, the Collegiate Society of Advertising.
WYD is a Manila-based production group. It has an online show which aims to inspire its viewers to go for their passions by featuring people that have made an impact in society. The episodes feature a day-in-the-life of several personalities explaining their motives behind their work.
Producer Julo de Guzman hopes that the show will inspire viewers and make them believe “that if [the people featured in WYD] can do it, we can do it as well.”
Titled “In Pursuit of Passion,” the forum was held on January 24 at the MVP Roofdeck.
Not just career
Alunan co-founded Aranaz, a Philippine-based handbag brand that puts together native materials and luxurious fabrics. She is also the co-founder of the School of Fashion and the Arts (SoFA).
Growing up, Alunan said that she knew she wanted to work in the fashion industry. She grew up with her family working in the bag-design industry, and she had always excelled in activities that involved the arts.
After graduating from Ateneo with a bachelor’s degree in Interdisciplinary Studies in 2002, she went to work for Chalk magazine. Eventually, she went into the family business which, at that time, was selling export overruns.
“I felt so sad that most of the Filipino products for export are not available to the local market. All these big names would buy from the Philippines, but [we] Filipinos could not purchase it,” she said.
She went to Milan to study and when she returned to the Philippines, she co-founded SoFA.
Alunan said, “Everything I did, I never thought of it as a career because I have a strong urge or a strong feeling towards doing it.”
Theater and history
Celdran, meanwhile, shared that from the time when he was a kid until high school, “[his] world revolved around one kilometer.” At that time, he grew up in Dasmariñas Village in Makati.
After studying Fine Arts in the University of the Philippines Diliman, he went to study in the Rhode Island School of Design, taking up Performance Art. After graduating, he moved to New York and worked for the Blue Man Group, a theater organization.
He moved back to the Philippines in 1998, after his visa was rejected. He then freelanced as a set designer for Ballet Philippines.
He also volunteered for the Heritage Conservation Society, an organization working towards the preservation of historical architecture. It was at that time when he found his passion of “bringing theater from the microcosm into the macrocosm.”
In 2002, Celdran founded Walk this Way. He described it as “Manila’s longest-running theater show, though people don’t notice that they’re watching a theater show ‘cause they think they’re going on a tour.”
He also said, “The passion that you find becomes your drug. It’s the one thing that you wake up in the morning and want to get a fix of.”
Dream big
Alunan said that dreams define us. “Protect your dreams with your life, because they are your life.”
She also said that one should have practical and big dreams—the practical dreams being for one’s self and the big dreams being for the country and society.
Celdran, meanwhile, gave three tips in order to find one’s dreams—try everything out, develop a work ethic, and show up in job applications andparties, among others.
An audience member, Al Scalabrin, who currently provides free logistical support for organizations operating in remote areas of the Western Pacific, agreed with Alunan and Celdran.
“Most people overlook [Celdran and Alunan] because they see them as rich kids. But the reason why they’re successful is that they’ve worked hard and they’re very good at what they decided to do,” he said.
