Some paintings end up on the walls of a home. Others find their way into a school or an office—or, soon, help shape a playground for children in Batanes.
For self-taught artist Roel G. Cabulang, painting has become more than a pursuit of healing. It has given him a way to give back, one canvas at a time.
And so he put his art to work in Batanes, where 10 paintings raised ₱1.675 million in just five hours for a children’s playground in Basco. Partnering with Batanes First Lady Hazel Aguto, Cabulang pledged all the proceeds to the project, part of a bigger dream to build seven playgrounds across the province. The paintings sold out on opening day, October 10, long before the exhibition was scheduled to close on November 30.
The successful partnership between the Biliran-born artist and the Batanes First Lady, Cabulang said, “will continue until all seven playgrounds are built.”
“A few well-known artists learned about the auction and asked to be included in the succeeding auctions to benefit Batanes’ children,” he added.
Aguto, meanwhile, was grateful for how quickly Cabulang embraced her vision. “It was through my sister that I met Roel. And he has been to Batanes only once. Just a few months ago, when I told him my intention to build children’s playgrounds across the province, he immediately said,
‘Let’s hold an art auction.’”
Art auctions have become a familiar way for Cabulang to raise funds for causes close to his heart, from his home province of Biliran to Uganda and now Batanes. Somehow, the mention of Batanes—our country’s northernmost province, frequently battered by typhoons—tugs at the heartstrings. And when Ivatan children are mentioned, even more so.
‘The Hymn of the Ivatan Hills’ by Roel Cabulang
But Batanes is only the latest chapter in his love story with children that began years ago, thousands of miles away. That was Cabulang’s 10th solo exhibition. The artist paints. The artist gives.
In 2012, while working at the Children’s National Medical Center in Washington DC, Cabulang joined a medical mission to Uganda. Afterward, while backpacking, he came across Kengoma, a village he described as one of the poorest he had seen in all his travels.
Something about the place stayed with him. He returned in 2014, determined to help. Using proceeds from the sale of his paintings, along with contributions from family and colleagues, he helped build a school that opened in 2015.
Today, the school serves 145 children. For years, his art sales covered its entire annual operating budget of US$10,000. Since 2020, his paintings have continued to cover about 60 percent of its expenses, with friends and family pitching in for the rest.
Closer to home, he has also turned art auctions into a way of helping his fellow Biliranons in Eastern Visayas. He has helped build a library at the elementary school he attended and fund a clinic at another school. His art has also supported medical missions and paid for surgeries for patients in need.
It is quite a journey for someone whose own career took an unexpected turn. Cabulang studied nursing and worked in the profession in the Philippines before moving to the Middle East and eventually the United States. Nursing provided a living, but art remained a part of him.
‘My Blood Sings Your Name’ drew the highest bid at the fundraising exhibit.
In 2021, he began acquiring a 117-year-old church in Buffalo, New York. His plan was to turn its sanctuary into an art gallery and live in the adjoining convent. He had barely begun renovations when his mother died unexpectedly in May 2022.
Grief brought him back to painting. What began as a refuge during a difficult period eventually became his full-time calling. A few months after his mother’s death, he left nursing. In April 2023, he sold the church and committed himself to his art. “Art saved my life, and for this very reason, I am a strong advocate for utilizing art as a force for good,” he said.
His paintings have since reached audiences in the Philippines and the United States. In 2023, Seb Chua, owner of ArtAsia Gallery at SM Megamall, invited him to mount his first solo exhibition.
At 55, Cabulang is still discovering how far a painting can go. With Batanes, the goal is not simply to sell art, but to help create places where children can run, play, and enjoy the childhood every child deserves.
He also writes poetry, incorporating words into his paintings. One inscription seems particularly fitting for a man who believes small acts can ripple outward: “Everything in this world serves a purpose, for even the tiniest drop of water can alter the ocean.”
For Cabulang, perhaps that is what a painting is meant to do. It begins with one person, one canvas, one buyer. Then, somewhere beyond the frame, it becomes something else entirely—a school, a clinic, a surgery, or a playground waiting to be filled with children’s laughter. And in Batanes, that dream has room for many more helping hands.
At the ribbon-cutting ceremony: Batanes Gov. Jun Aguto, Hazel Aguto, artist Roel Cabulang, Redge Burila, Geronimo Siy, Beauty Elements founder Jazz Burila, and Malaysian Ambassador H.E. Dato’ Abdul Malik Melvin Castelino,
