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This second-hand bike is dressed in beadwork that boasts of Filipino culture

Roasalie Abeto Zerrudo on Facebook shared photos of her bike dressed in beadwork that boasts of Filipino culture.

Rosalie, an assistant professor at the College of Fine Arts in the University of San Agustin Iloilo, told GMA News Online that she got hold of her bike as a second-hand white utility road bike with a front basket in June 2014 during the Freedom Ride in Iloilo. She named her "Pangga."

And then Rosalie dressed her up in intricate and beautiful beadwork, which is actually a product of community collaboration with Indays who are mothering behind bars or women who are Persons Deprived of Liberty (PDL).

"It is my great joy to see marginalized and vulnerable women assert themselves to have a unique voice, visible and heard through community-engaged art projects such as the Hilway Art Project with Indays mothering behind bars," she said.

The inspiration behind the beadwork of her bike "is bulak ka labug (wild flower) and pako-pako (wild fern) from the fabric embroidery or Panubok designs as a signature Panay Bukidnon identity as the living culture of our Indigenous people," she continued.

For Rosalie, she said it is "important for me to incorporate the local culture as part of my design process as a way to a challenge women PDL [Persons Deprived of Liberty] collaborators to get-out-of-the-box."

Rosalie would ride Pangga to school daily from Molo to University of San Agustin. Amid the pandemic, she has also began using it as her primary mode of transportation, looking it as art that she can take anywhere.

"I use my bike for my grocery and daily errands. People are happy to meet Pangga, it always opens conversations and sometimes some likes to chat or take pictures. It is great to spread the happy vibe," she added.

Rosalie note why it is important to learn about one's own local culture and art.

"We came from the lineage of great artisans and culture bearers that should reflect our contemporary local aesthetics, architecture, functional designs and distinct character as a sense of pride of the Filipino genius," she said.

"It is important to learn about your own local culture with strong rootedness so you have something unique to share to the world, making our age-old traditions still relevant in the present," she explained. "Wear your own originality and promote local community products of excellence."  

We couldn't have said it better. — LA, GMA News

Rosalie Abeto Zerrudo is a former member of the Executive Committee in Dramatics Arts at the National Commission for Culture and the Arts.

As part of  her passion project in Panay, she started a psycho-social intervention for women Persons Deprived of Liberty (PDL) in Iloilo City District Jail Female Dormitory in 2015 to present  initially funded by her Professorial-Chair Research grant from the University of San Agustin, Iloilo which evolved into a restorative social enterprise and gave birth to Inday Dolls Hilway Art Project.