The hullaballoo about the 2009 National Artist Awards would be avoided if only the protesting artists acknowledge that the prerogative to nominate candidates for National Artists does not lie exclusively in the joint committee composed of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) and the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP). The prerogative to nominate ?recipients of honors? of ?exceptional prestige? within the ?Order of Precedence? is also entrusted to an ?Honors Committee? by Executive Order 236 (?Honors Code of the Philippines?), which was issued by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo on Sept. 19, 2003. EO 236 states that the Honors Committee (composed of the executive secretary, foreign affairs secretary, chief of the Presidential Management Staff, presidential assistant for historical affairs, chief of presidential protocol, and Department of Foreign Affair?s chief of protocol and state visits) ?shall assist the President in evaluating nominations for recipients of Honors hereunder, as well as of Presidential Awards.? Under this EO, the committee ?may authorize relevant departments or government agencies to maintain Honors and/or Awards Committees to process nominations for Honors and/or Presidential Awards.?
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Obviously, the Palace considers that the National Artist Awards fall under this EO?s sway. In past years, President Macapagal-Arroyo made her decision on whom to name National Artists based on nominations from the NCCA/CCP committee. But since 2003 a second layer was put above the NCCA/CCP committee?the Honors Committee, to screen nominations from renowned persons and institutions and draw upon the expertise of various individuals and institutions. In 2006, Muslim bronze sculptor Abdulmari Imao was a nominee of this committee. I understand that this year, when the committee saw that certain categories were not filled by the NCCA/CCP committee, it nominated Carlo J. Caparas, Cecile Alvarez, couturier Pitoy Moreno and architect Francisco Mañosa. Alvarez, who?s also NCCA?s executive director, didn?t pass through the joint NCCA/CCP committee?s screening process; the Honors Committee nominated her upon the recommendation of renowned theater and communications personality James B. Reuter, National Artist Alejandro Roces, Sen. Edgardo Angara and various local leaders such as Antique Gov. Salvacion Z. Perez. The latter, voted one of the ?most culture-friendly governors in the country,? cited how her province benefited immensely from the NCCA?s ?cultural care-giving? under Alvarez?s tutelage.
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Artists, by temperament, have always been a jealous lot, and over the decades Filipino artists have come to regard the National Artist Awards as their own domain, protesting what they regard as the unwarranted intrusion of presidential prerogative into these awards. The artists think their peer judgment should be above question and that presidents ought to just award the scrap of paper and medal; but the latter have refused to give up this power. President Fidel Ramos created an entirely new category called ?Historical Literature? and named historian Carlos Quirino as its first National Artist. President Joseph Estrada named famed composer Ernani Cuenco, even though both awardees were not in the joint committee?s list and neither president had any EO to back them up. The artists protesting the inclusion of the four Honors nominees this year are either feigning ignorance of the EO or they simply refuse to recognize the Honors Committee?s authority to filter recommendations.
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It?s no secret that the local artistic world is bound up in tight, jealous cliques and gangs, e.g., the ?Marcos-era clique,? the ?UP gang,? etc., and perhaps no one realized this better than the presidents. It appears that Arroyo decided to create that second layer after her decision to name Dr. Alejandro Roces in 2003 as National Artist for Literature drew protest from some artists? groups. Interestingly, EO 236 stated that its issuance was done in consultation with ranking government offices, including the NCCA then headed by Evelyn Pantig and Maria Fina Yonzon. Yet there was no stir from the NCCA or CCP about the EO then. Today some NCCA officials have joined some members of the CCP Board in questioning the Honors Committee?s authority to nominate National Artists. But until this EO creating their hated second layer is revoked by a new president in 2010, it remains part of the law of the land and the Honors Committee?s nominations can be defended in the Supreme Court. Instead of symbolically burying their medals as a protest (did they also bury their emoluments and monthly stipends?), what the protesters should also do is to pressure Congress to pass a better-defined National Artist Awards law. A congressional investigation is welcome.
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Of this year?s four Honors nominees, Alvarez and Caparas have drawn severe political flak from anti-Arroyo artists for their perceived closeness to Arroyo; the intense negative sentiment for Cecile has flowed to NCCA chair Vilma Labrador. As Cecile told media, ?Pinagaganda ko raw si Gloria? through her grassroots cultural care-giving. She?s also reaping the wrath of the Marcoses (Irene and Imee Marcos joined last Friday?s protest rally) because of her and her husband Heherson?s anti-Marcos activities during their 13-year exile in the US during the martial law years. They also led the protests when Imelda Marcos sought to bury her husband in Libingan ng mga Bayani. Ironically, Imelda used her clout as patroness of the arts to try to entice the Alvarezes, in a three-hour talk with Heherson in a New York hotel, to stop their anti-Marcos activities and return to the Philippines where she was said to have dangled the prospect of Cecile?s heading the CCP. But they did not bite and continued their activities until the EDSA People Power Revolution.
