At seven years old, Flora Mae lost her father Lindo Lupugan, one of the 58 individuals who were brutally killed in barangay Salman, Ampatuan town, Maguindanao on Nov. 23, 2009.
Flora Mae, the youngest of three siblings, was her father’s favorite, her mother Arlene told Bulatlat. Now a Grade 8 student, Arlene said that after Lindo was buried, Flora Mae never had another chance to pour her grief out.
When Flora Mae was invited to participate in an art workshop organized by the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines and Kapatiran at Ugnayan ng Natatanging Sining at Talento (KUNST) last Nov. 19, the pain buried deep within surfaced again.
About the author(s)
Kathy Rowland is the Managing Editor of ArtsEquator.com, a registered charity that she co-founded with Jenny Daneels in 2016. The site is dedicated to supporting and promoting arts criticism with a regional perspective in Southeast Asia. Kathy has worked in the arts for over 25 years, working in the areas of critical writing and arts advocacy, with a special interest in media platforms for the arts. She is the Project Lead for ArtsEquator’s Southeast Asian Arts and Culture Censorship Documentation Project, launched in 2021. She has written extensively on censorship of arts and culture in Malaysia. She was a member of the International Programme Advisory Committee of the 8th World Summit on Arts and Culture, 2019.
