‘NO matter how your heart is grieving, if you keep on believing, the dream that you wish will come true.”—Cinderella. From black and white to blue and green, from the silent world to the real loud world, the Philippine Institute for the Deaf (PID) presented Cinderella, a musical stage play for the “Gift of Speech” to Indigent Deaf Children, directed by PID’s founder and Executive Director Julie Esguerra at the Carlos P. Romulo Auditorium, RCBC Plaza on March 5.
The musical stage play consisted of deaf children taught to speak at PID. Jasmine Concepcion played the role of Cinderella. She is a Filipina singer born profoundly deaf but was able to overcome her communication disabilities. She is being hailed as the first Filipina deaf singer to reach national renown.
Different Filipino artists also participated in the musical stage play, including the country’s Soul Diva, Jaya, and Vina Morales. Their performances were not only for entertainment purposes but also to raise funds for the scholars of PID who can’t afford to pay for one-on-one speech therapy. Aside from producing the first Filipina deaf singer, the PID also produced the first deaf ballerina, Denisse Limcuando, and the first deaf rapper, Dexter Belandres.
PID holds an annual stage production featuring deaf students that gives them a chance to showcase their talents and prove that disabilities are not hindrances to a normal way of life. PID was founded by Dr. Sergia Esguerra, a special-education teacher, in 1988 to help deaf children learn how to listen, talk, read and succeed on mainstream society. The deaf children came from families who are financially unstable.
Alleana Chua and Ferosa Marie Pablo