Forthcoming this May is the country’s celebration of National Heritage Month. What’s that? With a surfeit of national this-or-that month, few are able to distinguish one from the other, like the National Fire Prevention Month or the National Arbor Week. What happens is unintended obscurantism that defeats the purpose of achieving public focus.
Not many people know that there exists a government agency named the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA). A few years ago, it was being debated in the corridors of power whether or not a Department of Culture should be established. Culture used to be lumped with sports in the erstwhile DECS—Department of Education, Culture and Sports.
Today we have the NCCA, the country’s de facto Department of Culture. Its mandate is to serve as the “overall policymaking body, coordinating and grants-giving body for the preservation, development and promotion of Philippine arts and culture.” Within its umbrella are the country’s premier cultural institutions. Let me enumerate them in their full official nomenclatures: National Library of the Philippines, National Museum of the Philippines, National Historical Commission of the Philippines, National Archives of the Philippines, Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino, and the Cultural Center of the Philippines.
Among the NCCA’s flagship events each year is the National Heritage Month, a monthlong celebration of events, exhibits and conferences which are undertaken pursuant to Proclamation No. 439 signed on Aug. 11, 2003. The declaration’s raison d’etre is “the need to create among the people a consciousness, respect and pride for the legacies of Filipino cultural history, and love of country.”
May is a busy month for many communities. It is the month of fiestas in Bohol, which is said to “sink” a few inches each May under the weight of Boholanos coming home from their worldwide diaspora. For the Tagalogs, May is for Santacruzan, however “showbizzy” it has become. Elsewhere are pockets of Flores de Mayo tableaus, even in the most remote barangay chapels in Mindanao.
But how does one bring the heritage of Filipino arts and culture to the national consciousness? Surely the old panacea of staging a Manila-based event in the hope that it will trickle down into the consciousness of the people in the rest of the islands may not be the solution to make a national impact. Last year, the NCCA introduced a new “ingredient” to make National Heritage Month popular—put in a television celebrity for instant recall. And so Ogie Alcasid was named NCCA heritage ambassador to achieve mass-wide appeal. Add Venus Raj to the bevy of sagalas and then you have stiff competition with popular mass media.
The pressing need is to move not just the focus but also the NCCA machinery away from Manila. The unique structure of the NCCA actually ensures that. One of the NCCA’s lesser known attributes is that it is one of the few government agencies, if not the only one, that allow private sector participation. Cultural workers and artists from all parts of the Philippines head its four “subcommissions”: arts, cultural heritage, cultural dissemination, and cultural communities and traditional arts. This unique structure fosters a dynamic collaboration with cultural and artistic experts and workers, allowing for an engaged implementation of the NCCA’s mandate.
The brainchild of NCCA’s commissioner for cultural heritage, the noted scholar Regalado Trota Jose of the UST Archives, hopes to bring the NCCA machinery for its National Heritage Month to a not-so-known province that receives scant attention from the “center” that is Manila. Romblon fits that description well. It is a small province, a cluster of about 20 islands, some of which can be considered remote. Romblon is known for marble, much of which ends up as “lapidas”—gravestones in better forgotten cemeteries.
Yet Romblon is richly diverse in cultural heritage. It has a 17th-century stone cathedral, a Hispanic-era fort, a sprinkling of ethnolinguistic groups (have you heard of Bantoanon, Odionganon, Rombloanon?), and an island known as Banton, the source of the oldest woven textile now in the possession of the National Museum of the Philippines.
Thus, this year’s National Heritage Month will officially open in the town of Romblon, the provincial capital of the island of the same name, where it is located. The trip itself to the island province will not be a breeze for cultural workers, artists and NCCA officials. Take one of the thrice-a-week flights to the only airport in Odiongan town on the island of Tablas, proceed by land to a wharf on the other side of the island, then cross the sea to reach the capital town. There, on May 2, will be the national festivity to officially open the 2012 National Heritage Month of the Philippines.
It will not just be rite and ritual. The NCCA will bring its various working committees under its cultural heritage subcommission to hold clinics, conduct consultations with local cultural stakeholders, and determine what needs special attention from NCCA-affiliated cultural agencies. It is a unique way of bringing NCCA’s weight to one of the country’s remote frontiers.
The point is not just showcase but also convergence away from Manila. The framework has already elicited early suggestions to bring next year’s celebration to hardly noticed places such as Catanduanes or Capul Island in Northern Samar.
A nation of islands we shall forever be. The constant challenge is surmounting insularism. The NCCA has taken the dare. Let it be an example for good governance.
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