An Inconvenient Truth About NCCA's Culture of Corruption and Trapo Patronage

On September 11, 2007, concerned artists and cultural workers brought their protest against the continuing state control, mismanagement and politicization of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts before its very door. The protest rally served as a launching pad for the formal submission of sectoral demands before the NCCA Board of Commissioners which was scheduled to elect its Chairman upon pressures from Malacanang. The four main demands are as follows:

1. The suspension of implementation of the Revised NCCA Internal Rules and Regulations (IRR) until a system of genuinely democratic consultations is in place where the genuine voice of a wider cultural constituency is assured;

2. The upholding and assertion of NCCA's institutional integrity and independence through rejection of Malacanang's intrusion into NCCA internal affairs, particularly on the election and appointment of its leaders which, by law, is the sole responsibility and function of the NCCA Board;

3. The immediate removal of Ms. Cecile Guidote Alvarez as NCCA Executive Director on the grounds of violating the Civil Service provisions and requirements for Career Executive Service Officer (CESO) eligibility; illegal act of unilaterally moving the National Endowment Fund for Culture and the Arts (NEFCA) without prior approval and authorization of the NCCA Board; self-serving acts of pushing for her personal projects which are inimical to institutional rules and procedures; and her underhanded and undemocratic management style that promotes divisiveness among the ranks of NCCA Secretariat and the culture sector; and

4. The immediate convening of the NCCA Summit and General Assembly where the general elections for the Executive Councils of the twenty two (22) NCCA National Committees and, subsequently, the four (4) SubCommission Heads can be held and confirmed.

The protest rally called attention to the impasse and structural vacuum that the NCCA Board of Commissioners has inflicted upon the entire NCCA organization. As matters stand, the NCCA Secretariat has effectively supplanted the functions and mandates of the National Committees, including the discharge of roles and functions the law assigns to them. The culture sector at large is now effectively robbed of genuine representation and voice in the Commission that it helped institutionalize and sustain.

Presidential appointee Executive Director Cecile Guidote-Alvarez, a self-exiled artist who escaped to the United States during the Marcos dictatorial regime, remains the most powerful functionary in an agency born out of the determined engagement and activism of concerned artists and cultural workers after the EDSA People Power Revolution. She was quoted by the Philippine Daily Inquirer as saying that the protest rally was "initiated by people salivating to become Chair" after declaring that she was open to dialogues but will not step down from her post.

By her own manipulations, Alvarez has engineered the nomination and premature appointment of DepEd Undersecretary Vilma Labrador as NCCA Chairman to replace her nemesis Ambeth Ocampo in complete disregard of the law and established procedures. On September 11, Usec Labrador was elected Acting Chairman by a vote of 10-4 through a secret balloting procedure by the Board. Also elected through the same voting pattern and result was Corazon Alvina of the National Museum as Acting Vice Chairman.

The elections constitute the latest blow in the continuing marginalization of the NCCA's main constituencies by the very NCCA Board of Commissioners mandated to represent and serve them. It clearly draws the line between principled cultural activism, as demonstrated by concerned artists and cultural workers on the one hand, and the cowardly act of betrayal and trapo patronage manifested by the majority of the state-manipulated Board members, on the other. Clearly, a sectoral loyalty check is in order and accountability must be determined.

For whose interest and authority are the so-called honorable men and women of the NCCA Board acting?

We ask this of Komisyon ng Wikang Filipino Commissioner Ricardo Maria Duran Nolasco, he of the undisputed absenteeism record in NCCA Board meetings who suddenly showed up in the September 11 Board meeting and unrelentlessly repudiated the sector's call for suspension of the IRR implementation. In no uncertain linguistic terms, Commissioner Nolasco pushed for the election of Malacanang anointed Usec Labrador whose only credential is that of being Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's political operator at DepEd.

We also ask this of Cultural Center of the Philippines President Nestor Jardin, an otherwise populist and principled artist- administrator with whom we previously rallied against Malacanang's intervention on CCP affairs. Why the silence and indifference to the artists' demands on the IRR and Alvarez's abuses? Where are the much- touted principles behind the artists' engaged activism in the CCP debacle which benefited him and his institution? Considering the unsavory results of the CCP case, which established jurisprudence on the presidential power of appointment that continues to haunt all government corporations and entities, the least that the CCP president could do is to ensure that the NCCA scenario would not fall under the same bureaucratic trap(o).

We ask the same question of the other government cultural agency heads represented in the NCCA Board, namely National Museum's Corazon Alvina, National Library's Prudenciana Cruz, and Records Management and Archives Office's Marietta Chou. How far can they carry on with their sworn mandate of preserving the institutional integrity and independence of the NCCA as prescribed in the law and time-honored traditions?

And to the rest of the NCCA Board Members who continue to ignore the culture sector's calls for anti-Malacanang intervention, equity of representation and transparency in cultural governance, how can you cast your lot with Malacanang and the disgraced leadership it installed at the NCCA which is largely instrumental for the marginalization of its own constituencies? Where were you during and after EDSA, when NCCA was being created to "set directions for and coordinate the participation of the cultural sector in nation building?" The raison d'etre for NCCA's existence, as well as the sense of delicadeza and public accountability, is definitely lost on the majority of the current NCCA Board of Commissioners.

Through sheer tyranny of numbers in the smallest but most powerful structural unit of the NCCA, a trapo dispensation has been forced upon the culture sector. Left unaccounted for in the process was the absence of logic and disregard for qualification standards. Usec Labrador is a non-entity in the culture sector. She possesses neither the stature nor the experience in managing cultural affairs beyond DepEd's sorry definition and practice of such. She has not actively engaged the sector in the conceptualization, promotion, and dissemination of artistic, cultural, and heritage programs. Elected in absentia, she has, to date, personally attended only one NCCA Board Meeting since she replaced Usec Fe Hidalgo last year. She is accused of several graft-related charges before the Ombudsman and is hounded by accusations of electioneering and partisanship in the 2004 presidential elections. The herculean tasks and official duties expected of her at the DepEd will render her NCCA posting
ineffective and ceremonial at best, a situation that compromises the operations of the NCCA Board and portends greater incursions into power play by the Executive Director.

Malacanang and its lackeys in the NCCA Board, particularly the Executive Director, may be gloating over their perceived victory after the September 11 Board Meeting. They conveniently forget that the spirit that moved and sustained NCCA throughout its birthing years remains alive in the hearts and minds of those who actually toiled for its inception. This spirit will see to it that all traces of political and cultural patronage, and the institutions that perpetuate them, will be exposed and held accountable for the damages that they have wrought upon NCCA, in particular, and the cultural movement in the country, in general.

- Reform NCCA Now Movement