The family of school teachers from Legazpi City had won the DSWD songwriting contest last October 18, 2014 held at Pacific Mall, Legazpi City.

The song entitled “Kapit-Bisig” of SOP band made the audience burst into loud cheers while impressing the judges with their vocal stunts and outstanding musicality adjudging them as the grand winner of the recently concluded KALAHI CIDSS─NCDDP PAMANA Songwriting Contest taking home P30,000.00 as the grand prize.

The seven-piece band is composed of Jona Joy Orobia as the lead vocalist, Joash Orobia on bass guitar, Jephthah Orobia on keyboards, Leo Rosales on drums and Jediael Canicula on guitars with Joshua and Jireh Orobia as the lyricists and musical arrangers. Most of them are public school teachers.

The group’s original song conveyed the theme on community-driven development, a successful poverty-reduction strategy used in Kapit-Bisig Laban sa Kahirapan Comprehensive and Integrated Delivery of Social Services (Kalahi-CIDSS).

According to Jireh, the band’s representative, the inspiration for their composition was about the love for God and love for the country.

“We believe that a transformed nation starts from changed individuals. We also believe that when we move together with the government, we can do better than just finger-pointing at anybody,” he added.

Moreover, the same group won as the People’s Choice Award with the most number of likes in DSWD Field Office V’s official Facebook fan page with P5,000.00 incentive. They were also recognized as the best interpreter.

The band SOP had bested the other four finalists, namely, Mash-up, Team Gubat, Jan Aldrin and Rocha Sisters. Non-winners received P5,000.00 each as consolation prize.

The songs were judged based on their performance (20%), musical arrangement (40%) and lyrics and its relevance to the theme (40%).

In addition, Joshua and Jireh of SOP were awarded as the best musical arrangers and Jane Rocha of Rocha Sisters was the best lyricist.

The judges were Melanie Sison, the Communication Specialist from DSWD Central Office, Carlo Aycocho and Armand Mikhail Templado of DSWD FO V and Jospeh Perez and Victor Medalla. Dir. Arnel Garcia was also present during the activity together with Asst. RD Corazon Miña and Information Officer Evelyn Jerusalem.

The grand winner is a Christian band with progressive rock genre who aims to influence and promote transformation of nation through music and original compositions. They started playing together as a kids’ band in the year 2000, trained by their parents who were band members of Sounds Of Praise where the band’s name originated. They were frequently invited to play in different events around the region.

They also joined some contests and bagged awards. They won their first song-writing championship in the 2000 PhilHealth Jingle Writing Contest when they were still kids. This year they won in the Bottle of the Bands Song-Writing Title and also won the Best Composition and other major awards in the Magayon Festival Battle of the Bands 2014.

SOP will record their winning piece with DSWD as part of their responsibility as the grand winner. The other four finalists will also be invited to record their original compositions to form an album compilation for Kalahi CIDSS.

The said contest was an initiative of the field office to promote CDD and Kalahi CIDSS to the public specially to the new areas covered by the program’s expansion this year. (with reports from Jireh Orobia)