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A post shared by Celeste Legaspi (@mscelestelegaspi) on Mar 23, 2020 at 9:54am PDT

MANILA -- The Organisasyon ng Pilipinong Mang-aawit (OPM) is setting its sights on one of its most ambitious projects -- the creation of an OPM Archive which will collect local music audio and visual recordings, printed narratives and other memorabilia.

Founding member and first OPM president Celeste Legaspi told ABS-CBN News Tuesday that this is the perfect time to start the legacy project.

“We realized it’s a good time to do it now and get people involved. Another reason is people are looking back much more now at the past on social media. Maybe because it’s also hard to live in the present times,” she said.

But more than nostalgia, Legaspi said the OPM Archive will have an incisive curation of local music that will establish the synergy of original Pilipino music through the passage of time. The Makati-based Filipinas Heritage Library (FHL) has been tapped by OPM for the digital preservation of local music.

The archival effort is immense that’s why Legaspi is initially targetting music from the '60s up to the present.

“Ang pananaw din namin hindi lang dapat naka-focus sa urban OPM. The archive should cover all genres of music, nationwide," said Legaspi.

The advocacy is also spearheaded by music industry veterans Girlie Rodis, Tats Rejante Manahan, Lyca Benitez Brown, along with Moy Ortiz, Chevy Salvador, Dinah Remolacio and Krina Cayabyab.

On its website, FHL said it aims to be the leader in digital librarianship of Philippine history, art and culture. FHL said it was the first library in the country to digitize and make available to the public its photo and music collections. It also aims to share its expertise in building community libraries.

The National Commission on Culture and the Arts (NCCA) will help fund the OPM Archive which hopefully will open in 2021, according to Legaspi.

The first big step will be to dig not only actual aural and visual original Filipino music, but also narratives, photographs, music sheets and press releases.

For starters, Legaspi wants to collect the music of trailblazing Visayan novelty singers Yoyoy Villame and Max Surban as well as extant recordings and memorabilia of school glee clubs.

Legaspi hopes that aside from helping music historians and hobbyists, the OPM Archive will also spawn and heighten the creativity of original Pilipino music for generations to come.