For art's sake

Artists and concerned citizens filed an urgent petition last week to the Supreme Court seeking to stop the government from conferring the National Artists Awards to the four winners this year over alleged violations of rules and the country’s 1987 Constitution. The petitioners, composed of former recipients of the prestigious award, asked the High Court to restrain the Palace from conferring the National Artist award to film director Carlo J. Caparas, Cecille Guidote-Alvarez, popular international couturier Jose “Pitoy” Moreno, and architect Francisco Mañosa.

The petitioners claimed President Arroyo added the names of the four in the shortlist submitted to her by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) and the Cultural Center of the Philippines. The group accused the Palace of grave abuse of discretion when it disregarded the results of the selection process in adding the names of the four and dropping from the shortlist the name of Dr. Ramon Santos, the only nominee for the music category.

The petitioners charged there was an alleged violation of rules on the selection of national artists since “none of them (four awardees) have been chosen by their peers, or recommended by the CCP and NCCA Boards.” The CCP and the NCCA are the two bodies tasked by law to select National Artists in the Philippines.

While the controversy regarding this year’s roster of National Artist awardees has now reached the High Tribunal, several questions come to mind, foremost of which is whether those people now criticizing the choice of awardees have forgotten that it is ultimately the President’s prerogative to decide who gets the honor?

Historically, at least two former presidents named National Artists who did not come from the list of nominees of the CCP and the NCCA. One even created an entire category of awardees. This I read from the article that appeared in the Manila Bulletin on Aug.12 and written by Giselle P.Kasilag, grandniece of former CCP president Lucrecia Kasilag who later became National Artist for music. An art curator and freelance writer,the young Kasilag aptly entitled her piece “National Artists or National Pretenders?”

When I bumped into former President Fidel V. Ramos in a diplomatic function, we both attended recently, he expressed amusement over the hullabaloo in this year’s winners of the National Artist Awards. During his time, FVR created the category of “historical literature” and named Carlos Quirino as National Artist in this category. FVR chirped there should be no problem over the choice of National Artists if President Arroyo would just create categories for her own nominees like Guidote-Alvarez and Caparas. The two apparently were the National Artist awardees being strongly opposed by the petitioners.

Former President Joseph Estrada named his favorite multi-awarded movie musical scorer Ernani Cuenco as National Artist for music. But neither the CCP nor the NCCA signed Cuenco’s citation. I could forgive Estrada for his “senior moments” in forgetting about this when he took potshots on the brouhaha over this year’s National Artists issue. Estrada’s digs were obviously politically-colored because Caparas — although a colleague in the movie industry — supported Mrs. Arroyo and not his bosom buddy, the late actor Fernando Poe Jr. during the May 2004 presidential elections.

So there were precedents and not something that happened only now. President Arroyo herself made previous choices of National Artist Awardees outside the so-called shortlist of the CCP and the NCCA. In 2003, she inserted the name of former Education Secretary Alejandro Roces as National Artist for literature. Again, the President added the name of Abdulmari Asia-Imao for visual arts (sculpture) in 2006.

As far as I could remember, this was not the first time that controversies hounded the selection of National Artists. So she has done it before, why the fuss now? Certainly, however, it can be argued that doing things repeatedly do not make a wrong right (if ever it was wrong). But this only proves that the final authority in the naming of National Artists is, and has always been the Chief Executive.

Although the appointment to the Order of National Artists is a discretionary power on the part of the President, the petitioners argued that this is not absolute or unlimited, insisting that Mrs. Arroyo has no discretion to appoint one who has not been recommended by the CCP and NCCA Boards. They asked the SC to issue a definitive definition of the discretion given to the President in the matter of naming awardees to the Order of National Artists for guidance in future selections and for the instruction of all stakeholders concerned.

It is also my understanding that the role of the CCP and the NCCA is limited to the nomination process but not on the actual conferment of the award. In other words, their responsibility is to simply recommend but not to “anoint.” Hence, the nomination processes of both CCP and NCCA do not apply to the exercise of Presidential prerogative.

This brings us now to another burning question: Were the people named by President Arroyo so undeserving? One of the recently named awardees getting the most flak is Guidote-Alvarez who is the founder of her own Philippine Educational Theater Association (PETA). She is also, incidentally, the executive director of the NCCA. The harshest critics have accused her of using her current position and influence as the presidential adviser for culture to gain the title of National Artist. However, both Malacañang and numerous supporters have disclaimed this allegation.

While Guidote-Alvarez is automatically disqualified from the nomination process of the CCP and NCCA for being an official of the latter, this does not mean that she cannot be nominated by anybody else. Neither is she disqualified from receiving the honor altogether. Critics of this year’s National Artists might have conveniently forgotten the lifetime body of work and achievements of Pitoy Moreno? Will they deny the fact that this recognition is long overdue? The same goes for all of the other awardees that the President has named.

In refusing to respect Presidential prerogative, it makes us think that the detractors of Guidote-Alvarez, et. al, (among them well-known “bashers” of President Arroyo) are not simply concerned for “art’s sake” but is rather on to something more political in nature.