Why Artists Haven't Been Sleeping Well Lately, Madame President
by Geejay Arriola
I never made it to the first part of your speech at the National Conference on Culture and the Arts 2002 on June 13, Madame President—although many have told me I didn't miss much. I was in the lobby smoking my impatience off—you arrived late. And when you did arrive, I was in the middle of a very important chat with somebody from the Concerned Artists of the Philippines (CAP) who told me they were organizing a demonstration outside the Pearl Manila Hotel entrance where the conference was held. (Some of us joined them later.)
When I finally got inside the ballroom to hear you speak, I had to stop myself from walking out on you. I wanted to give you a chance, Madame President, so I decided to stay on. As a line in this movie I just saw goes, "I never hung up on anyone, just in case the next thing he/she says will change everything (for the better)."
First I heard you say, Madame President, that you wanted to get rid of the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) because it is "elitist." Alas, you probably just inherited that word "elitist" from the activists of yore, during the time of Imelda Marcos when the CCP was, indeed, built for herself and her socialite friends.
You probably don't know, Madame President, that soon after the Marcoses left, it was because of the CCP that there were National Theatre Festivals where grassroots, traditional, and contemporary performing artists would meet, dialogue, share skills, and network. It was because of the CCP that the Mindanao theatre network (Mindulani, Inc.) thrice held Mindanao-wide Theatre Festivals. You probably don't know, Madame President, that it was because of the CCP that music and theatre groups in Mindanao like the Kaliwat Theatre Collective, Sining Kambayoka, IPAG, and Joey Ayala at ang Bagong Lumad, among others, became known nationally because of the CCP's production and tour grants. You probably don't know that it was because of the CCP that people in Mindanao know there is a Tony Maigue, a Cecile Licad, and a Ballet Philippines, among others—all wonderful, competitive artists bred locally and known internationally.
You probably don't know, Madame President, that because of these many inter-artist, inter-cultural, inter-regional exchanges and journeys, artists in the regions have developed friendships with staff at the CCP whom you can approach not for an autograph but for a problem at your local arts group, for advice, or for consolation even.
And you probably do not know, Madame President, that when there are budget cuts at the CCP, the first casualties are these powerful and beautiful exchanges between and among artists from everywhere in Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. That's when CCP is forced to become "elitist" again, confining its services to performances and workshops inside the building, because it can no longer afford nationwide mobility.
Then I heard you say, Madame President, that you were going to revitalize the Metropolitan Theatre because the cinema, for you, is the most popular form of art—to which I grudgingly agree. (I only watch Lino Brocka, Peque Gallaga, and the younger Carlitos Siguon-Reyna.) As a kid, you said, you used to watch the movies of Nida Blanca and Nestor de Villa with your grandmother at the loge of a movie house while your driver Romeo would pay for his own ticket and watch the same movie at the orchestra. After the movie, you said, your grandmother would call out, "Romeo, Romeo, uwi na tayo!"
You said, further, Madame President, that 20% of the population in the country come from Metro Manila. Add another 20% from neighboring towns and cities, you can get 40% of the entire population to go to the Metropolitan Theatre to watch a movie, perhaps of Judy Ann Santos, as Nida Blanca is now dead (my line).
Because of this population estimate—your version of bringing art closer to the masses—and because of your wonderful memory of watching movies with grandma, you would shell out 50 million pesos for a nationwide search of the best movie script.
Now that, Madame President, implies that all artists and writers ought to shift to movie scriptwriting—because that's where the buck is. Meanwhile, while the Judy Ann Santoses and Sharon Cunetas of Philippine cinema get paid millions for each puppy love, Cinderella, and ménage-a-trois movie they make, theatre artists get paid 500 pesos for every performance of a play about peace in Mindanao. Traditional performing artists get paid much, much less, if at all!
And how sad it is, Madame President, that you do not know that culture and art exist among the majority of the population which this government must seriously support as well.
Consider the traditional arts of Moro and indigenous peoples, Madame President—their crafts, their dances and their music—which have managed to survive, despite the onslaught of MTV culture. Now traditional art is not to be "accommodated," as you condescendingly said, Madame President, rather it is to be nurtured. There is a major difference. When you "accommodate," you presume it exists as a non-essential, as an "other," an existence outside your own which you put on display in museums or wear at costume parties. When you "nurture," you presume it exists as an essential part of your identity, which it is, in case you don't know, Madame President-unless you have forgotten you are a Filipino.
Imagine for a moment, Madame President, if you allocated that 50 million pesos for the sustenance and development of Moro and indigenous art. Trees will grow, rivers will flow—for their art is sourced from nature—and the countrysides will reverberate with the sounds of gongs, drums, flutes, bells, and stomping feet playing all night long, singing the music of peace. You will be filling tables with food and houses with the harmonious spirit of art.
Consider other folk art traditions—the tinikling, the harana, the uyayi, the rondalla. Have you heard Visayan folk songs, Madame President—Matud Nila, Usahay and their kin? Alas, these traditions are slowly dying as well.
Consider the many Pasyon plays performed in small towns and barangays during the Holy Week and witnessed by entire Christian communities, the child angels singing on Easter Sunday, and the Flores de Mayo—these are all part of the rich folk arts traditions of our nation.
Consider the visual artworks on peace made by children survivors of war during stress-debriefing workshops, the storytelling sessions and the songs sung in refugee camps and crossfire communities, the poems written by women survivors of abuse and domestic violence. Culture, Madame President, is the process of creation from human minds and hands, and art is making sense and creating order out of the world—art that won't make it to the entrance of your Metropolitan Theatre.
Artists and cultural workers are therefore not unruly, Madame President, as you implied, so much so that they need to be managed by "professional managers," or facilitated by "professional facilitators" to put order to what you think would otherwise be a chaotic organization or event. Perhaps you meant they are free, and not unruly—free to express, free to talk, free to write—that's why it appears like they have no sense of order? Or perhaps you meant they are "too free" and must therefore be silenced, put in single-word hexagonal meta cards without explanation, like what we were subjected to during the conference?
Historians, ethnographers, archeologists, folklorists, and Margaret Mead will tell you, Madame President, that civilizations were borne out of creative work. Nations have been built upon arts and culture. Thus the first casualties of war and invasion are the arts and culture. Remember Hitler? Remember the Cultural Revolution? Remember the Japanese and the Spaniards?
And, Madame President, you wear a dress because an artist invented cloth.
And in case you don't know, Madame President, the conference ended with a closing speech from the new NCCA Board Chairperson Undersecretary Evelyn Pantig who told all of us that because there was little fund for the arts and culture, the distribution of funds is on a first-come, first-served basis. We therefore request you, Madame President, to advise the Chairperson that a first-come, first-served basis of fund distribution does not spell sustainable development. Neither is it an effective resource and artist management. It is compelling us, artists and cultural workers, to race against each other for that single plate of rice on the table. Fortunately, Madame President, we don't work that way. For us to have happy and peaceful lives, we need to plan, to program, and most of all, to share resources.
The resource speakers saved the day, Madame President. Except for one or two, they were, to say the least, virtuosos in their field who provided exciting information based on a wealth of experience and research. Unfortunately, the process of interaction and reflection provided by the workshop facilitators was stifling. Fortunately, artists that we are, we knew better. And so on the second day, Madame President, we broke away from the hexagons and we managed our own group processes. Now that, Madame President, empowered us all. Empowerment and genuine interaction are supposed to be the essence of a gathering of minds.
Despite the many bugs in the conference, Madame President, I left the two-day session in high spirits. The best discussions about culture and the arts were at the coffee table after the conference sessions, late into the night, and mostly with artists I have met for the first time. There at the table were debates and quite disparate views about globalization, peace, unity, spirituality, and nationhood. There at the table were artists negotiating each other's views, and facilitating their own discussions amid joy and laughter.
I hope that one day soon, Madame President, you will sit down with us and discuss and learn about culture and the arts, not as a keynote speaker, not as the President of the country, but as an ordinary human being seeking answers to age-old questions.
I know we can work together, Madame President. I personally think people in government can be open-minded, and can work well with artists and cultural workers. We continue to have successful government-business-artist partnerships in the regions—Bohol, Zamboanga del Sur, and Davao, to name a few. It is just that the arts and culture is not your territory, it is ours. All you have to do is to listen, understand, and support our endeavors. Leave it to us experts in this field to define our structures and programs, and to set our own directions.
We are not here to destroy society, Madame President, we are here to re-build it.
