The real score behind Abrera’s board

Transparency does not seem to be a virtue of Emily Abrera as chair of the board of the Cultural Center of the Philippines. With the public already confused by the ruckus over Mideo Cruz, this public institution accountable to the Filipino people could have grabbed the opportunity to tell the public (“Kayo ang boss ko”) how it handled the situation within the confines of the board room. It took one member of the board, not the chair, to do that.

At the Aug. 5 meeting of the CCP board of trustees, six of the nine trustees were against the Cruz exhibit. The public has the right to know. These six right-thinking trustees were CCP president and acclaimed concert pianist Raul Sunico, Zenaida Rustia Tantoco of the prominent family that owns Rustan’s, former Ambassador Isabel Caro Wilson, multi-awarded film, stage and television director Nick Lizaso, educator Antonio S. Yap, and Fra Paolo Maria Diosdado Casurao, who heads the Ibabao Arts Council of Calbayog City, Samar. It was Casurao who revealed to the media what really transpired in that board meeting.

Those in favor of the exhibit were Abrera, the known nationalist and communications expert Dr. Florangel Rosario Braid, and the public relations practitioner Carol MacGregor Esposo Espiritu. Espiritu is said to be a close Aquino ally. But that does not matter now. Simple mathematics already tells us how the CCP should have decided. That was not the case. How that happened is something that Abrera owes the public an explanation.

Casurao writes that “at the end of the meeting, Abrera said she was not calling for a vote, but only to consult with the board members, and that the exhibit could not be closed due to the contract that provided for the use of the venue until the third week of August.” Is Abrera then running the CCP as her fiefdom so that she can outvote the wishes of the board majority?

So much has been said about freedom of expression and artistic maturity (“Juvenile,” says National Artist F. Sionil Jose). We need not dwell on that. Neither is there a need to dwell anymore on religious sensibilities, although the chief of the institution’s visual arts division, Karen Ocampo Flores, was said to have been tongue-tied when asked by board members if she would allow an exhibit that blasphemed the Prophet Mohammed (peace be upon him). She was heard to have muttered that it did not occur to her. Obviously she had not done her homework. Obviously she does not belong to that department.

Somebody has pointed out that in academic institutions, scholarly works are subjected to a peer review process. Those that are deemed not meritorious do not cry foul—no fireworks; it is simply part of the process. Yet these scholarly works are also intellectual creations. How come no rallies come in their wake?

As the commotion was picked up by many church denominations (not just the Catholic Church), it was a chance for many spin writers to again lambast their favorite whipping boy, the Catholic bishops. “Bishops do not pay taxes,” one proudly proclaimed, as though the Catholic Church was made up only of bishops. One writer boasted of the right to blasphemy, although a cursory reading of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights will not show where that right comes from.

These are all neither here nor there. Perhaps the most sensible perspective coming out of the Senate investigation was the fact, lest we have forgotten, that the Cultural Center of the Philippines is a public institution funded by us. It is all about taxing the public to engender the creation of art as an important cultural dimension of Filipino culture. As such, it cannot disparage the cultural sensibilities of one sector of the Filipino populace, whatever that sector may be.

Abrera, whose public pronouncements do not seem to acknowledge the representation the institution must safeguard, has much to answer for. Her post-colonial thoughts and the paean she heaps on the relativity of art are certainly well articulated. But what of the substance it puts on her governance of the CCP? That is another matter. It must now be asked what further business she has sitting as chair of the board.

The equation should be very simple. How can a Filipino pay taxes to finance the wherewithal of a public institution if that institution discriminates against that taxpayer’s cultural sensibilities? The issue is not just about the Catholic Church and the “conservatism” of its bishops. That is farthest from the point. It is about human respect. It is about creating a body of artistic works that does not target its audience for public denigration or for ridicule. Precisely because it is a public institution that the people are funding, the CCP cannot, even for the sake of good manners alone, use those taxes to divide the nation. Yes, that is a form of corruption of public funds. As a public institution, it must unite, and art is certainly a potent vehicle for that.

Is division a staple of the Aquino administration?

The erstwhile unknown Mideo Cruz is now a celebrity. His art works must now fetch a lucrative price. Let him be. He is free to put up a thousand phalluses on the face of Jesus Christ in a private art gallery. And those aggrieved are as free to mount their protests.

But that is not the issue. The issue is that the CCP has not assured us where and how our taxes will be spent. Yes, that too is corruption of public funds. Abrera is playing the fiddle while Rome burns.

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