The wealth within us
(Conclusion)
The arts are the tangible and creative expressions of our culture, and this is where our strength as Filipinos lie — a strength, however, that we should first recognize, recover, and sustain.
We Filipinos have distinct natural cultural advantages. We are a naturally and irrepressibly expressive people, with strong artistic and creative talents and impulses. We think and speak freely, no matter the cost or the consequences. We reject and resist tyranny; we have no taboos, no sacred cows. We sing of love and death in the same breath, we laugh and weep without shame, we create and light up lanterns even in the most difficult and darkest of Christmases.
That freedom and that courage is our strongest cultural resource, the wellspring of innovation and productivity. This is why we have such great artists, writers, musicians, singers, dancers, filmmakers, designers, and artisans.
This brings me to the economic argument, which is that culture is not just an expenditure, but a valuable resource that, properly managed and supported, can reap substantial material benefits for our people, in the form of what have been called “creative industries.”
In 2009, when the Joint Foreign Chambers of the Philippines initiated a focus group discussion on creative industries in the Philippines, they defined the sector as embracing “a wide array of subsectors including advertising, animation, architecture, broadcast arts, crafts, culinary arts, cultural/heritage activities, design, film, literature, music, new media, performing arts, publishing, and visual arts.”
I won’t go into great detail here, but there are many studies — a recent report commissioned by the British Council, among others — that show how vital these creative industries are. According to that report, and citing UNCTAD figures, “Depending on how they are defined, the Creative Industries are estimated to represent anywhere from 3 percent to 12 percent of global GDP.”
I noted in a previous forum that in 2010 — the last year for which I have solid figures —copyright-based industries or CBIs contributed more than P660 billion to the economy, according to the Intellectual Property Organization of the Philippines. In GDP terms, the economic contribution of CBIs climbed from less than five percent in 2006 to more than seven percent in 2010. Core CBIs comprising companies in the arts, media, and advertising largely accounted for this surge. A corresponding rise in employment occurred in the sector, from 11 percent of the total number of jobs in 2006 to over 14 percent four years later.
In 2014, the DTI and BOI held a series of Trade and Industry Development Updates to present six industry roadmaps, one of which concerned creative industries. In that particular forum, the DTI’s presenter noted that Singapore and Thailand led ASEAN in creative exports, and while our creative industries have grown, we were a net importer of creative goods as of 2008, with books and movies apparently accounting for the bulk.
This reminds me that in that conference of Asian writers and translators that I attended a couple of weeks ago in Bali, it was reported that Asia is now the world’s biggest producer of books, movies, and games. But that’s an Asia dominated by China, Japan, Korea, and India. The question is, how can we Filipinos and Southeast Asians partake of that boom? First, of course, by strengthening those industries in our countries.
There seems to be a greater awareness on the Philippine government’s part of the economic utility of our artistic talent. In 2012, for example, RA 10557 was passed to promote a “national design policy” highlighting “the use of design as a strategic tool for economic competitiveness and social innovation.”
It’s heartening to note that Chapter 7 of the Philippine Development Plan for 2017-2022 is devoted to “Promoting Philippine Culture and Values,” in which it is acknowledged that “The current governance framework for cultural development has been inadequate in addressing the concerns of the sector.” The plan contains salient proposals for using and promoting cultural values to promote the common good and identifies key legislative measures to achieve full cultural development, including the long-overdue establishment of a full-scale Department of Culture that will not be a mere adjunct of education, sports, or tourism.
But we remain a long way from translating policy into action. As with most things cultural, the first transformation has to take place in the mind — more specifically, in the mindsets of our leaders.
Only now, in preparation for this talk, did I become aware of the ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community and of its noble concerns which include human development, social welfare and protection, social justice, and so on. But only at the very end of its “scorecard” report does it deal with “Building ASEAN Identity” and promoting cultural creativity and industry — talking, for example, about networking among small and medium-sized cultural enterprises of SMCEs around the region.
It’s rather sad in a way to speak of culture as a business, but if that’s what it takes to wake people up to the wealth within them, then by all means, let’s draw on our hearts and imaginations to showcase the best of what we can be, and inspire ourselves in the process toward a stronger sense of nationhood and of regional community.
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Email me at jose@dalisay.ph and visit my blog at www.penmanila.ph.
