Arts & International Affairs Volume 5, Number 1, Summer 2020 | Page 55

ARTS & INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS
Introduction
A
few months ago, I chanced upon the book on Cultural Democracy: The Arts,
Community, and the Public Purpose by James Bau Graves, and was struck by the
question he posed in his introduction: “What does your community need to
keep its culture vital and meaningful?” This question made me reflect on my interest
in intangible cultural heritage management and cultural policy, and the current conditions
in the Philippines. In 2001, while I was still studying to be a dancer and thespian,
I was intrigued by the cultures and artistic expressions of Indigenous people in the
Philippines. I visited a couple of Indigenous communities in the Central and Southern
Philippines. I watched their dances, listened to their songs, and noted their stories often
asking questions on why and how they came about with what I just experienced.
A few years following this immersion, I started on a research project on nurturing Indigenous
culture and arts in the Philippines, taking a closer look at how the National
Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) in the Philippines formulated policies
and created mechanisms to provide Indigenous people with the support they need to
keep their cultures alive. This has been a constant inquiry of mine ever since. How have
the policies and mechanisms developed in the past decade? Is it responsive to the needs
of the communities?
Models of cultural policy, the Philippine model, and the role of
the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA)
Governments traditional work with a “limited palette” when framing options or designing
programs aimed at supporting arts and culture. Four historical models dominate the
conversation on cultural policy, irrespective of the predisposition of the government
(Craik 2007). These are the facilitator, the patron, the architect, and the engineer models.
In the facilitator model, the government aims to create conditions that favor cultural
production. In this model, cultural activities are subsidized by appropriating tax expenditures
to provide tax relief or other benefits for those who give cultural support. In the
patron model, the government directly supports the cultural and artistic forms that it
favors. This model involves distributing funds directly, and largely through an “arm’s
length” mechanism. In the architect model, the government is directly involved in shaping
the development of culture. This enables direct government funding, and relieves
artists from dependence on “box office” mechanisms to survive. In the engineer model,
the government owns the means of artistic production, and creators are employees
whose creations are required to reflect the political agenda of the state in a positive light
(Dingstad 2008).
Unlike other Southeast Asian countries where the Cultural Ministry holds sole authority
in making decisions for cultural industries, the NCCA follows a hybrid policy model.
Like most continental European countries, the NCCA acts as an architect, wherein it
provides funding for culture and the arts and tends to support the arts as part of its social
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