Star of the Side Hustle: Why do we silence what moves us?

By Eliza Consuelo Bellones

The Philippines is a country of art: street murals, church choirs, stories passed around like heirlooms. Filipinos cheer for singers on noontime TV and cry at teleseryes; family reunions are full of dance numbers and magic shows. And yet, the moment someone says they want to pursue the arts for real– as a profession, not just a party trick– the tone shifts. The same people who sing karaoke until midnight will tell you to be realistic at the thought of pursuing art. In a nation bursting with creativity, it’s baffling how little room we make for actual artists.

I grew up immersing myself in creativity, whether it be dance, theatre, art, and of course, writing. I’d spend the bulk of my summers and weekends at classes and workshops, cultivating what has now grown to be the direction of my life. And yet, as a child, it was always emphasized that my creative pursuits should remain exactly as they were– relegated to the summers, consigned to the weekends. At the end of the day, the focus should always be on what was “real”: doing well in school, getting into a top university, landing a stable job.

The arts, in this logic, are soft. Optional. Hobby material. You can dance, sure, but only on the weekends. You can paint, but only on the side of your corporate job. This binary of art as indulgence versus STEM as necessity has cost us more than we realize. For one, it stifles talent. The Philippines is home to countless brilliant artists, playwrights, filmmakers, and storytellers who are forced to abandon their craft or push it to the margins of their lives.

Worse, this disregard for the arts shapes how we see ourselves as a nation. Art tells us who we are. It is how we archive memory, process pain, and imagine futures. Without it, our national narrative risks becoming flat, sterile and incomplete. How can we expect to build a compassionate, creative society when we dismiss the very disciplines that help us reflect, question and connect?

The irony is that in times of national crisis– natural disasters, political unrest, even a pandemic– people turn to the arts. We watch films, write poems, and sing together in crowds. Art is what unites us in the most daunting of times; and yet, we still struggle to treat the artist as essential.

If we want to build a country that values expression, understands empathy, and champions introspection and innovation, we need to start with how we treat the arts: not as extras, but as essentials. We must understand that creativity is not a distraction from progress. It’s the blueprint for it.

This is why continuing to create matters. The stories we tell, the movements we stage, the songs we write– these are what help people understand themselves, each other, and our nation. So yes, I still – not despite the challenges, but because of them. Art, in itself, is a quiet rebellion. A statement that we exist, that we feel, that we have something to say even when the world tells us to stay silent. It’s a refusal to shrink ourselves to what is practical and profitable. In the world we live in, art is not just expression– it’s resistance.