ABOUT 10,000 students, parents, school officials and spectators took part in the 23rd Alay ng Rotary sa Araw ng Kabataan at the Amoranto Sports stadium in Quezon City on Saturday.
Armand Nocum, a Rotary Club of Kamuning (RoCK) member and a media campaigns specialist, said the Rotarians are very much into promoting long-lost Filipino arts and culture among the youth amid the rise of social media technology.
RoCK president Leonard Lim said the event is an annual competition “to ignite the interests of the young people” to treasure and value the arts of music, painting, drum and lyre, vocal solo, chorale singing and interpretative dancing.
“The youth seemed to have lost interest in the arts and culture due to technology, especially social media,” he added.
“As the rise of social media technology has exposed our youth to issues and cultures all over the world, we watch with alarm as this [technology] has caused them to stray further away activities that celebrate our culture and arts.”
Citing a study by an American art company, he said today’s millennials would choose to browse Instagram, Facebook and the other forms of social media over a trip to a museum.
The event was organized in cooperation with the Rotary International District 3780, Quezon City schools, the Department of Education and the Quezon City government.
