VSU Culture and Arts joins Sanghaya 2025 National Youth Literary Festival

The Visayas State University-Culture and the Arts Office (VSU-CAO) brought home fresh perspectives on contemporary artmaking after joining young creatives from across the country at the Sanghaya 2025: National Youth Literary Festival, held July 30 to August 1 at Camarines Norte State College (CNSC).

The festival gathered delegates from Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao for keynote talks, workshops, and cultural tours. 

Dr. Jude Nonie A. Sales, CAO director, led the team along with Ms. Mariane U. de la Peña, assistant coordinator for radio drama and head of the Gender and Development Office, and Mr. Michael Carlo C. Villas, assistant coordinator for literary arts (Waray and Cebuano) and faculty of the Department of Arts, Languages, and Literature.

Two acclaimed young writers , playwright Eljay Deldoc and poet-editor Paolo Tiausas, opened the event with discussions that sparked dialogue on the ethical issues surrounding artificial intelligence in creative work.

Esteemed novelists Edgar Calabia Samar and Niles Jordan Bries, who chairs the NCCA’s National Committee on Literary Arts, offered practical ways to safeguard authenticity, such as in-class writing and side-by-side comparisons of AI and human-created works.

Workshops on experimental theater, zine-making, filmmaking, and creative writing followed. Dr. Sales joined the theater sessions, Ms. de la Peña immersed in creative writing, and Mr. Villas explored zine-making. 

The sessions revealed how technology has shifted artistic production away from being institution-driven to being artist-led, and enabled young creators to produce bold, fast-paced experiments that challenge conventional forms.

The cultural tour also offered a deeper understanding of Camarines Norte’s role in shaping national identity. Delegates visited the country’s first Rizal Monument and the memorial for revolutionaries, including Perico Amorsolo, brother of National Artist Fernando Amorsolo.

The group also explored the ancestral home of Wenceslao Vinzons, revered as the father of student activism, whose resistance against Japanese forces in World War II remains a powerful story of youth leadership.

Heritage sites included the 400-year-old St. Peter the Apostle Church, predating even Francisco Ignacio Alcina’s historic accounts of the Visayas, underscoring the deep historical roots of the province.

For VSU-CAO, Sanghaya 2025 was an opportunity to participate in national discourse on the arts. It became an immersion into a living archive of culture.

The event was hosted by the CNSC Sentro ng Wika at Kultura, in partnership with the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA).

This article is aligned with Sustainable Development Goal (SDGs) 4: Quality Education Well-being and SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities.

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