Culture

The State of Culture and the Arts is the State of the Nation

We cannot depend on the government to promote culture and arts that will liberate us.  How can we when people in government themselves desire to: change the Constitution to save their own positions? privatize utility companies instead of maintaining these in the service of the people? welcome U.S. troops to ridicule our sovereignty?

By the Concerned Artists of the Philippines
Re-posted by Bulatlat.com

July is State of the Nation (SONA) month.  Allow us, artists and cultural workers, to be the first to give an assessment of what the government did for the culture sector. It is easy. There was none.

It was the executive branch itself that has declared that there is no need for a department of culture because culture cannot be regulated. Indeed, a revelation that affirms the perception that bureaucracies exist to “regulate,”—like, the Department of Labor is there to regulate labor; the Department of Agriculture to regulate farmers; the Department of Education to regulate what is to be taught.  We would like to think that these organizations exist in order to promote the interests and develop the potentials of their specific sectors.

Oops, but there’s the Department of Tourism, with a whooping P1B budget, which is supposed to promote Philippine culture—unfortunately, to tourists.  Back to base one. So, aside from the largest salad bowl, the longest longaniza, the biggest shoes, where is our culture coming from?

In the economic scene, the trend is liberalization.  And liberalization it is too for cultural products. In films, local production dove from a high of more that 400 per year in the 1980s to a low of less than 100 in 2001.  Looking at cinema billboards displaying two local productions out of 10 movies, it is easy to deduce that year 2002 was no better.  From here, it can also be deduced that what is ailing the industry is not just piracy.  In fact, anti-piracy drives actually serve giant foreign (mostly American) producers because they have many more products to protect. And that’s on us, meaning, the protection of foreign film producers comes from public funds– the people’s money, part of which comes from the artists’ 10% VAT.

Ironic– we protect those that kill us.

It is common knowledge that, today, more and more people are poor and money (power) is more and more concentrated on a few.  This concentration of money (power) is also in the realm of culture. A majority and big time cultural productions are controlled by media conglomerates.  It is a lucrative business after all; incomes of major media networks show that. But productions require multi-million budgets and shrewd capitalists would not risk experimentation, much more, encourage the production of profound stories that examine social problems (because they are much of the problem).

At present, it is apt to say that we cannot depend on the government to promote culture and arts that will liberate us.  How can we when people in government themselves desire to: change the constitution to save their own positions? privatize utility companies instead of maintaining these in the service of the people? welcome U.S. troops to ridicule our sovereignty?

We will not be surprised if many will say, “Why not?”  That is the effect of the kind of arts that dominate in our society.  These are the arts that promote a culture of conformity.  The culture that says that protest and resistance are automatically acts of “terrorism.” 

Given the situation, some honest artists are just too petrified to produce anything, not a few sell out, but there are many who resist. There are those who are not mesmerized by the personal rewards that conformity guarantee. There are artists and cultural groups who make their art speak for the people; who teach art so that the people can express themselves through the arts; and, most importantly, who live the dictum of their art.

Something is terribly wrong with the political and economic order. (We will not be an impoverished country if it were otherwise.)  Artists and cultural workers have a choice: to just live with it and sink with it; or be part of the protest and resistance movement toward rebuilding the nation.  The latter is a hard choice to make. But, for the CONCERNED ARTISTS OF THE PHILIPPINES, it is the right one.

Reference: JULIE L. PO, secretary general, CAP

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