Sting will not perform at Mall of Asia

by RAPPLER.COM

Posted on 10/19/2012 8:35 PM | Updated 10/21/2012 10:07 AM

MANILA, Philippines (UPDATED) - Environmental activist and musician Sting has officially cancelled his Back to Bass Tour at the SM-Mall of Asia (SM MOA) Arena after fans raised concerns about SM's record moving trees in its Baguio City property.

The Philippine concert will push through but at the Araneta Coliseum, said his official website www.sting.com. "There is no change to the show date, which remains Sunday, December 9th, 2012," said the site.

Announcement at www.sting.com

In a press release, SM MOA said that lawyer Cheryl Daytec-Yangot, with the Baguio-based environmentalist group Project Save 182, wrote to Sting's agents calling on them to change the venue.

"I wrote a letter to Sting’s agents appealing that they abandon SM-Mall of Asia Arena as the venue for the musician’s December concert. Sting, a voice of the oppressed, cannot sing in the halls of the oppressor," Daytec-Yangot wrote on her Facebook.

Sting has been recognized and supported by fans for his environmental activism. In 1989, he and his wife Trudie Styler founded the Rainforest Foundation to support indigenous people in efforts to protect their environment and the world's rainforest.

In a press release SM MOA said, "The SM MOA Arena has nothing to do with the case in Baguio except for the fact that it is also under the same holding company as the Baguio branch. However, with this letter to Sting, it seems that the activists behind Project Save 182 are bent on taking down the SM brand in general."

The statement added, "With this successful move to stop Sting from holding the concert at SM MOA Arena, and referring to the venue as an 'oppressor', it is now looking more like the court battle has extended from saving trees, to ruining a corporate giant’s reputation completely."

Daytec-Yangot celebrated on her Facebook with the message below.

Those who already bought tickets for the MOA show can contact Ovation Productions at (02) 532-8883 and (02) 747-2143 for a refund.
Sting's official website explained that fans who already have reserved tickets will be able to swap their tickets for a comparable reserved ticket at the new venue. Tickets can be exchanged starting October 25, when a special window will be opened at the Ticketnet Office located at the Araneta Coliseum. Fans can exchange their tickets up to the date of the show but refunds will only be available up to Sunday, November 18 at SM Tickets. - Rappler.com

Sting stung by felled Baguio trees, drops venue of Manila concert

By Ces Rodriguez | Yahoo! Southeast Asia Newsroom – Fri, Oct 19, 2012

(UPDATE) Now it can be told: Sting is still a tree-hugger.

The artist is cancelling his Back to Bass Tour at the Mall of Asia Arena scheduled for Dec. 9, 2012 because the group that opposed SM Baguio’s plan to cut 182 trees to give way to a parking lot was credited to have successfully lobbied the known environmentalist from playing in the venue.

The official statement from MOA Arena said it “has exhausted all measures for the show to push through.” An accompanying press release stated that “The SM MOA Arena has nothing to do with the case in Baguio except for the fact that it is also under the same holding company as the Baguio branch.”

Meanwhile, Ovation Productions, producer of the artist’s “Back to Bass” concert, confirmed on Sting's official website that the new venue will be at Smart Araneta Coliseum.

The concert producer further announced that that those who already bought a reserved seat ticket can get another one, this time for the new venue, starting Thursday, Oct. 25.

Fans can exchange their tickets at the Big Dome’s Ticketnet Office. If needed due to the change of venue, refunds must be made at SM Tickets on or before Sunday, Nov. 18.

Online petition for Sting

Cheryl L. Daytec-Yangot, former legal counsel of the group Project Save 182 who filed a case against SM for its Baguio branch’s redevelopment plan, called and then wrote Sting’s representatives, to let them know the environmental issue with SM and to appeal to him to change the venue of his Manila concert.

Daytec-Yangot also directed them to an online petition created by Project Save 182’s Karlo Marko Altomonte. “Sting can't be saving rainforests and enabling SM to rape the environment at the same time!” the petition read.

The petition got 378 signatures.

‘Do something for us’

In her letter, Daytec-Yangot said, “Sting is a well-loved musician among human rights advocates and believers all over the world including the Philippines. This is foremost because he speaks the voice of the marginalized and disadvantaged.”

She continued, “A lot of times, it was because of him that stifled voices were amplified. This happened each time he exposed injustice, iniquity, and inequity in his songs. The world's oppressed classes owe Sting so much. And now, in behalf of the disadvantaged, we ask him to do something for them again.”

She also reminded Sting of something he once said: “If you really want to define civilization it should be a culture that doesn't destroy its environment. If you burn down the kitchen one day and expect to eat the next, it is not even intelligent, let alone civilized."

Daytec-Yangot added: “Your words become empty if you perform in SM-MOA, Mr. Sting!”

On Friday, Oct. 19, she announced on Facebook that Sting had dropped Arena as a venue and wrote: “Yes, efforts worked, it seems. Take note- there was that online petition first which Karlo Marko Altomonte initiated. It was followed by the PS182 US-based members and friend Pedro Jacobo's efforts to contact Sting and his agents here. These were followed up with more calls. In the end, Sting listened to the voice of the oppressed. He did it in regard to his concert in Kyrgyztan before. Let us support Sting always.” With reports from Maridol Ranoa-Bismark

ON THE STING CONCERT

Sting the environmentalist drops MOA Arena as concert venue

Agence France-Presse, InterAksyon.com · Saturday, October 20, 2012 · 3:03 am

Sting. (AFP)

MANILA — Rock superstar Sting, a known environmentalist, has forced organizers to move his planned one-night concert at the SM Mall of Asia Arena to another venue in response to a lobby by local environmental activists.

The Manila leg of the British singer’s “Back to Bass Tour” on December 9 will now be hosted by Smart Araneta Coliseum, said his official website.

Earlier in the day, the local concert promoters informed the MOA Arena that Sting had called off his show there, Arena general manager Arnel Gonzales said.

Sting announced his decision after learning that pine trees growing outside SM Baguio, which is owned by the same holding company that owns the MOA Arena, were being removed for an expansion program, Gonzales added.

“Somebody misled the Englishman In New York over the venue,” Gonzales told AFP, referring to one of the British-born star’s hit songs.

Gonzales said that while Arena and SM Baguio are sister companies, the concert venue had nothing to do with the trees’ transfer.

Environmentalists had sued SM Baguio earlier this year to stop the uprooting and relocation of 182 old trees, mostly pines, growing at its property.

The case sparked calls for a boycott of the SM chain, controlled by the family of the country’s richest man, billionaire developer Henry Sy.

The mall chain said it had secured permits to remove the trees, but the transfer of all 182 trees to a government lot had not been completed due to the civil suit, which remains on trial.
“It’s something that we did not expect,” Gonzales said of the cancellation of the Arena concert.
Sting, former frontman of The Police, founded the Rainforest Foundation in 1989 with wife Trudie Styler.

In a statement issued to local media, SM MOA Arena lamented that Sting was influenced by a letter sent to his agents by Cheryl Daytec-Yangot, a former lawyer for the group Project Save 182.
“With this letter to Sting, it seems that the activists behind Project Save 182 are bent on taking down the SM brand in general,” the SM MOA Arena said in an accompanying press release.

“Sting, a voice of the oppressed, cannot sing in the halls of the oppressor,” Daytec-Yangot related telling Sting’s agents on her Facebook account. After her successful lobby, she remarked: “I love you, Sting! With every breath I take!…”

According to Sting’s website, fans who have already bought tickets for the MOA Arena show can exchange them for the new venue starting Thursday, October 25 at a special window at the Ticketnet Office located at the Smart Araneta Coliseum.

“Reserved seat tickets have been carefully reassigned so that fans that had a reserved ticket at the MOAA will receive a comparable reserved ticket in the new venue,” the website said.
Fans who wish to refund their tickets must do so at SM Tickets no later than Sunday, November 18.

By Ces RodriguezOctober 19, 2012 8:58 AMYahoo Southeast Asia Newsroom

The official statement from MOA Arena said it “has exhausted all measures for the show to push through.” An accompanying press release stated that “The SM MOA Arena has nothing to do with the case in Baguio except for the fact that it is also under the same holding company as the Baguio branch.”

Meanwhile, Ovation Productions, producer of the artist’s “Back to Bass” concert, confirmed onSting's official website that the new venue will be at Smart Araneta Coliseum.

The concert producer further announced that that those who already bought a reserved seat ticket can get another one, this time for the new venue, starting Thursday, Oct. 25.

Fans can exchange their tickets at the Big Dome’s Ticketnet Office. If needed due to the change of venue, refunds must be made at SM Tickets on or before Sunday, Nov. 18.

Online petition for Sting

Cheryl L. Daytec-Yangot, former legal counsel of the group Project Save 182 who filed a case against SM for its Baguio branch’s redevelopment plan, called and then wrote Sting’s representatives, to let them know the environmental issue with SM and to appeal to him to change the venue of his Manila concert.

Daytec-Yangot also directed them to an online petition created by Project Save 182’s Karlo Marko Altomonte. “Sting can't be saving rainforests and enabling SM to rape the environment at the same time!” the petition read.

The petition got 378 signatures.

‘Do something for us’

In her letter, Daytec-Yangot said, “Sting is a well-loved musician among human rights advocates and believers all over the world including the Philippines. This is foremost because he speaks the voice of the marginalized and disadvantaged.”

She continued, “A lot of times, it was because of him that stifled voices were amplified. This happened each time he exposed injustice, iniquity, and inequity in his songs. The world's oppressed classes owe Sting so much. And now, in behalf of the disadvantaged, we ask him to do something for them again.”

She also reminded Sting of something he once said: “If you really want to define civilization it should be a culture that doesn't destroy its environment. If you burn down the kitchen one day and expect to eat the next, it is not even intelligent, let alone civilized."

Daytec-Yangot added: “Your words become empty if you perform in SM-MOA, Mr. Sting!”

On Friday, Oct. 19, she announced on Facebook that Sting had dropped Arena as a venue and wrote: “Yes, efforts worked, it seems. Take note- there was that online petition first which Karlo Marko Altomonte initiated. It was followed by the PS182 US-based members and friend Pedro Jacobo's efforts to contact Sting and his agents here. These were followed up with more calls. In the end, Sting listened to the voice of the oppressed. He did it in regard to his concert in Kyrgyztan before. Let us support Sting always.” With reports from Maridol Ranoa-Bismark

MY FATHER WOULD NOT EAT SWEET POTATOES

by Cheryl Chyt L. Daytec-Yañgot

My father was a World War II baby. As the last child in his family of 7 children, he knew no hardship. He never went hungry. Then war broke out. His family and the rest of the people in their indigenous community had to flee from their homes to save their lives. Life became hard and harsh. Rice was scarce. But camote (sweet potato) was easy to cultivate. And so they spent a few years as virtual war refugees in a place called Ogawi (in Besao, Mt. Province) eating camote to survive.

I never saw my father eat the rootcrop. When I was in high school, he told me stories of the horrors of war he experienced as a child. To his young mind, the greatest horror next to the bombs exploding was eating camote all the time. "I have eaten more camote than an average man can eat for his lifetime," he said. I understood then why he would not eat it regardless of how it was prepared.

Camote is on my list of "yummy" foods. I was pleasantly surprised to discover sweet potatoes being sold in the Rainbow Supermart in Minneapolis, Minnesota where I am living right now. Today I had two of them for breakfast. I boiled and put a lot of melted cheese over them. They go great with hot chocolate drink (with milk). Two days ago, I excitedly told my sister about my food find and we talked about how Dad would not eat sweet potatoes. I suggested sheepishly that Dad, who now has Alzheimer's and has forgotten a lot of things including his children's names, be fed the rootcrop. If he eats it, that is a good thing; if he does not because he will remember World War II as he witnessed it during his tender years, it will be even better. It means he will have recovered his memory.

I still have to hear from Dinah. Meantime, let me share a poem I wrote years ago about Dad's aversion to camote.

Why My Father Does Not Eat Camote

Like clockwork, the green fields transmogrified
Into harvest shining like gold same time each year
Bowls were filled to need (Greed was unthinkable)
Then came trespassers whose ways were strange
Bombs scattered terror; freedom ran to the fringes
Rice fields primed for plenitude became fallows

Routine was shattered; hunger, once a myth, reigned
But resilience can perforate the most solid rock
Inside the parched earth too petrified to nourish life
Camote flourished, a rush of flood drowning despair
They who were listlessly drifting to the end of days
Retraced their gaits, eager to live, to look ahead.

They ate camote
for breakfast
for lunch
for supper
Until the bombs stopped

Out of the caves, an uncircumcised lad emerged a man
Desperate to forget the horrors dripping from war’s fangs
But they are always, always playing even in his aged mind.
/September 2000