‘Salamat sa Pangarap’ wins grand prize in MB Sketch Fest
“Salamat Po Sa Pangarap Niyo,” a black-and-white pastel sketch of a woman with a young graduate standing beside the grave of the artist’s father, won the grand prize in the 5th Manila Bulletin Sketch Fest. The artist, Elbert Caballero, 33, a freelance portrait artist, paid tribute to his father who he said is his hero, to illustrate the event’s “The Hero In Me” theme.
His father, Edilberto Sr., a member of the Philippine Marine Corps, died at age 65. The artist said it was his father’s dream that all his children finish their studies. His tribute to his hero – a black and white sketch of a woman standing with a young man dressed in a graduation toga beside the grave of his father at the Libingan ng Mga Bayani, in Fort Bonifacio, Taguig.
“Tatay ko kasi sundalo at ang pangarap niya lang para sa aming mga anak niya ay makatapos ng pag-aaral (My father was a soldier, and his only dream was for us to finish our studies),” he shared, teary-eyed.
Caballero’s piece won first place in the senior category. The other winners are Anika Biene Padrigo, 16, in the junior category; Brescia Amandy, 12, in the kiddie category; and Herald Donato Jr.’s “Paraiso” was chosen for the MB Choice Award.
The woman in Caballero’s sketch is his mother and the young man dressed in a graduation robe represented his dream for his youngest child – to finish his studies.
“Yung bunso ko na yun di pa gumagraduate pero pinagtutulungan naming magkakapatid yung pag-aaral niya (My youngest has not yet graduated, but my siblings help me in providing for his studies),” he said of the same dream his father had for him and his siblings.
“Pangarap ko na rin po ang makatapos ang mga anak ko (ng pag-aaral) at maging mabuting ama gaya ng tatay ko (I also dream that my children would finish their studies and to be a good father to them, as was my father to us),” he said.
This is the second time Caballero has joined the MB Sketch Fest, and he won the grand prize of 20,000 cash, a printer, sketching package and MB merchandise.
In the junior category, Padrigo won first place for her piece entitled “Heroine: Acts of Me.” The Industrial Design student from the Mapua Institute of Technology received 5,000 cash, a printer, sketching package and MB items.
In the kiddie category, Amandy, from Miriam College, won first place for her artwork dubbed as “Chain of Help.” Her prizes included a mobile phone, gift certificates to Manila Ocean Park, sketching package and items from MB.
Padrigo and Amandy were both firsttimers in an art contest, they said.
The judges in the 5th MB Sketch Fest were Fil Dela Cruz, a National Artist nominee and an awardee of the Benavides Award for Outstanding Achievement; his son, Janos dela Cruz, also a recipient of the Benavidez Award in 2006, noted for his surreal and dreamlike paintings; Benjie Cabrera, an awardee of the 1978 AAP Annual Competition and first prize in Open Fine Print Competition in 2002; and MB graphic artist Eugene Cubillo who recently exhibited his prominent artworks, collectively called “Urbanism,” at the Ysobel Art Gallery in Taguig; and MB Vice President for Advertising Melito Salazar, an art collector.