J O S E P H P U R U G G A N A N is an independent songwriter and activist from the Philippines. Joseph has written and performed songs as part of the Village Idiots, a band that evolved from Banda RR, a collaborative project among NGO workers/musicians to write and perform songs and promote music as a tool/platform for community organizing and education. The Village Idiots have been involved in a number of collaborative projects including the compilation albums Rock against the Round (2005), Stand Up against Poverty (2006),and Huling Balita (Songs for the Disappeared, 2008). Joseph has also written songs and music for independent films like Hinagap (Imagination) by JL Burgos (2005), Jumpy Ladies of Lebanon by Herbert Docena (2006) and Walong Linggo (Eight Sundays) by Sunshine Matutina (2007). He also helped produce Jess Santiago’s Puso at Isip album (2009). Joseph is part of the Asian Movement for Peoples Music (APM) collective. The collective manages the Asian People’s Music website, which serves as an online platform for the promotion of socially engaged music from Asia and the rest of the world. The collective has also produced two one-‐hour long episodes of the Asian Village Radio Show featuring music and discussing relevant issues from around the region. Joseph has a degree in Agricultural Economics from the University of the Philippines at Los Banos (UPLB). He started his development work in 1993 as a community organizer working with marginalized fishers in Manila Bay in a program on coastal resource management of the Philippine Rural Reconstruction Movement (PRRM), one of the oldest non-‐government organizations in the Philippines. In his last years at PRRM he headed the campaigns unit of the organization. In 2003, he joined Focus on the Global South, a regional activist think-‐thank as the coordinator of a national coalition Stop the New Round (SNR) that spearheaded the Philippine campaign on
Photo by Sonny Yabao. 2009
Sudsanan Bar in Chiangmai , Thailand. 2005. Photo by J.Pasimio
the World Trade Organization (WTO) during the historic Cancun and Hong Kong Ministerial meetings. In 2007, he became the co-‐coordinator of the EU-‐ASEAN FTA Campaign Network, a regional campaign platform monitoring and spearheading the campaign on the free trade and investment regime being pushed by the European Union across Southeast Asia. He is currently program officer of Focus on the Global South working mainly on the thematic areas of trade and investment, as well as climate and environmental justice. He has written a number of papers on the WTO, FTAs, and broader trade and investment policy regime in the Philippines and Asia. Joseph is married to Judith Pasimio, an advocate for indigenous women’s rights. They have a 5-‐year old daughter named Yolena. Songs by J. Purugganan Palengkera (‘Lolita the market vendor’)1998 -‐ https://soundcloud.com/sepidiot/palengkera Radyo Diskurso (Radio Discourse) Lyrics by J. Purugganan and Leonard Reyes, music by L. Reyes 1998 Buntung Hininga (‘Sigh’) 2002 Espasyo (‘Space’) 2002 Ingay (‘Noise’) 2005-‐ https://soundcloud.com/vileyds-‐idyotz/ingay Screensaver 2005-‐ Live (2010) video by JL Burgos http://vimeo.com/23673320 Nasan Ka? (Where are you?) 2008 Taos Puso (Filipino translation of Anais Mitchell’s ‘ Your Fonder Heart). 2009 Music for short films Paalam, Lebanon (2006) -‐ https://soundcloud.com/sepidiot/paalam-‐lebanon