versARTile

BY IAN URMAZA AND LEI SHA TIBALDO

A painter, filmmaker, photojournalist, editorial cartoonist, editor, educator, curator, information officer, environmentalist, and a father.

Art Tibaldo took up his Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts major in Painting from the University of Santo Tomas in 198. His style was inspired by the conservative style of the renaissance artists. Before his media career, he took up filmmaking in the University of the Philippines Film Center which could be found in Diliman, Quezon City, he also took up TV program production in Japan as a Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) scholar.

The young Art honed his skills and became one of the photojournalists of the Weekly Highlander of Roces Publishing. Due to the scholarship grants he got from UP Film Center, Goethe Institute and MOWELFUND, he was able to produce award winning short films and video documentaries using the now obsolete Super-8 and 16mm film cameras wherein he spent a great sum of money in buying camera films. At that time, he had to send the film rolls to either Hong Kong or Australia so they could develop the film; they also had to manually cut and put the scenes and audio together.

Since he was a pioneer member of the Baguio Arts Guild, he was tapped to be a weekly editorial cartoonist for the Cordillera Post from 1986 until the paper stopped circulating in 1989. Art also worked as a VTR editor under the no longer existing Maharlika Broadcasting System (MBS) and Newscenter-4 during the Marcos high-time regime until the EDSA People Power. When media supporters loyal to incoming President Corazon Aquino took over MBS prior to its turnover to ABS-CBN as the rightful owner, Tibaldo decided to go home without much regret knowing that the network was sequestered by Marcos during the Martial Law period.

Art used to edit election campaigns showing First Lady Imelda Marcos, and delivered edited tapes to the engineering department two floors below the newsroom of Channel-4. Thereafter, he volunteered to serve as an information officer at the former National media Production Center in Baguio City under the new administration of President Corazon Aquino.

Since Art was of service to the Philippine government under the rule of five presidents as an Information Officer of the Philippine Information Agency (office of the Press Secretary), he was hired as a Media Specialist of the Department of Trade and Industry-CAR, where he is still currently working. His group, Cordillera News Agency has also been producing a local weekly cable TV program called as “This is Baguio TV Show” which started in 1993.

Art also worked as a part time instructor of the University of the Cordilleras and University of Baguio during 1993 to 2010 wherein he taught subjects such as Electronic Media, Photography, Desktop Publishing, and Radio-Television Production to journalism students. Over the years, he has conducted numerous workshops on the different fields of mass media including, the art of paper & print making and 2D Digital Animation.

AIn 2007, Tibaldo turned himself into a curator and artist-in-residence by undertaking guided tours on per appointment basis at the Baguio Media Museum and Animation Studio which he established himself.

This edutainment facility is located within the Baguio City’s university belt which was made possible out of his involvement with mass media, passion and sense of self-fulfillment out of teaching. Aside from a wide collection of communication tools and media gadgets, Art’s studio has a growing number of research materials that include books on art. However, he still hopes to expand his museum to be able to put more informational materials.

Furthermore, Art is a member of the Baguio Re-greening Movement and the Alay Sa Kalinisan. He co-founded the Eco-Walk Program that is now gaining popularity as a children's school in the forest that teaches value formation for the environment. As a newsman, Tibaldo contributes to local weeklies and writes a weekly column focusing on consumers at Sunstar Baguio every Tuesdays.