At the conclusion of the Philippine Web3 Festival, held November 14-18, 2022, in Bonifacio Global City, Metro Manila, festival co-hosts Yield Guild Games (YGG) and BlockchainSpace donated PHP 1,000,000 to the Apl.de.Ap Foundation to support Filipinos in uncovering earning opportunities in web3 while advancing education, art and technology in the Philippines. The funds will be used for training programs that will allow individuals to find work in the creative industry, whether in music, audio engineering, podcasts, design or illustration.
Filipino artist Allan Pineda, popularly known as Apl.de.Ap of the multi-Grammy Award-winning music group Black Eyed Peas (BEP), founded the Apl.de.Ap Foundation in 2012 to empower Filipino youth and communities. Pineda accepted the donation on November 17 following a fireside chat with Director of Emfarsis, Leah Callon-Butler, titled “How Filipino Creators Will Take on the World.” During the talk, Pineda talked about the importance of pursuing creativity and how he sees the Philippines now being primed to support such passion economically.
“I heard horrible stories about Filipinos creating logos for companies but they only get paid US$20 to US$30 because they’re not known as artists,” said Pineda, who traveled across the Philippines in 2018 to meet with local creators and launched a scholarship program to teach them about entrepreneurship and business. “I realized that Filipinos weren’t being judged by their creative talent, they were judged by where they’re from,” said Pineda.
“Web3 protects creators’ work from being copied or stolen, and gives them access to the global economy, so they can explore much more,” said Pineda. “The possibilities are endless with technology and we have to grow this industry in the Philippines because it is a new era for us.”
At the Philippine Web3 Festival, Pineda performed two songs live: Bebot, a song from the BEP 2005 album, Monkey Business, which was written by Pineda and rapped entirely in Filipino, and Filipina Queen, from the BEP’s latest album, ELEVATION, released on 11 November 2022.
As an advocate for Filipino creativity, Pineda has consistently used his global personal brand to showcase Filipino culture to the world. In 2021, he collaborated with Filipino artist AJ Dimarucot to launch an NFT collection, donating a portion of the proceeds to the First Mint Fund, which provides finance and education to Southeast Asian creators to help them mint their first NFT.
“Apl’s efforts in charity and empowering artists resonates with what web3 is doing for creators here in the Philippines and all over the world. Our donation to the Apl.de.ap Foundation is just one step to enable more talent to discover web3 and benefit from the possibilities of this digital economy,” said Gabby Dizon, co-founder of YGG.
“This week has been a celebration of talent and creativity for web3. We are glad that Apl.de.Ap understands and supports the vision that we have for web3, especially on how it can empower creatives,” said Peter Ing, founder of BlockchainSpace.
The festival was the first and biggest week-long event showcasing the future of web3 in the country. Co-hosted by Yield Guild Games and BlockchainSpace with support from Infinity Ventures Crypto and Emfarsis, a variety of crypto projects, web3 games, guilds and VCs from all over the world convened to the epicenter of web3 adoption, the Philippines.
The event was co-presented by GCash, Globe and MetaverseGo, as well as supported by Binance, Polygon, Huawei, Angkas, XPLA, MetaCene, MixMarvel, Rangers Protocol, BNB Chain and XY Finance.