Manifesto on NCCA Fiasco # 1

Manifesto on NCCA Fiasco # 1:

DELICADEZA, OR THE ABSENCE OF IT:
Not Something to Crow About at NCCA

It has been almost a month since the "Dear Madame Armida" letter first came out and raised more questions about the integrity and credibility of some already beleaguered personalities in the Philippine culture sector – particularly the NCCA Executive Director, her trusted artist-collaborator s, and the NCCA Board of Commissioners led by Chairman Ambeth Ocampo.

Written by a certain New York-based Marianito Parreñas, the letter raised allegations of corruption, artistic dishonesty, and the "folly of bringing 'plundering cultural productions' such as Something To Crow About to New York by NCCA using people's money…" Calling it "the much-ballyhooed, very bad and almost fake musical production from the Philippines," Parreñas called for an investigation and enquired if, in Madame Armida Seguion (sic) Reyna's opinion, "the NCCA Board also deserves to be revamped for perpetrating such gross oversight or conspiracy on their part?"

Depending on the reader's perspectives, the letter may be construed as either a severe case of inggit-driven nitpicking and crab mentality, or as another one of the many detailed charge sheets against a cultural leadership that has seen more criticisms than achievements in its incumbency.

Still reeling from the outrage that its own sponsored revision of the NCCA Internal Rules and Regulation (IRR) has generated, the NCCA Board of Commissioners and top management cannot afford another debacle brought about by their callousness and complete disregard of public criticism and perceptions of mismanagement of the country's cultural affairs and the resources of the country's premier cultural agency. They have already squandered the opportunity to correct their follies by choosing to remain deaf and blind to the expressed rejection of most of the proposed revisions to the NCCA IRR by most of the members of the National Committees whom they separately assembled precisely to solicit inputs to the revision process.

It will be recalled that the IRR revision process was called to examine the structural nature, composition and functions of the NCCA National Committees – something that the NCCA Board feels ought to be undertaken to streamline NCCA operations. It is not incidental that the NCCA Chairman, Mr. Ambeth Ocampo, has previously issued a statement to the effect that "the Committees are the weakest link" – a declaration that inevitably drew the collective ire of Committee volunteer-members who subsequently demanded an official clarification on the context by which the Chairman issued the statement. Characteristic of Mr. Ocampo's demeanor, an official clarification has yet to come from his office despite the insulting damage done to the morale of NCCA volunteers.

In most of the SubCommission assemblies convened for the IRR revision – held in lieu of a general assembly or NCCA-wide summit, which the NCCA Board apparently fears – the resounding vote was to maintain the integral and pivotal role of the Committee system in the NCCA's decision and policy making processes. For most of the unpaid NCCA volunteers serving in the agency's 22 National Committees, there is absolutely no need for IRR revision if the perceived weakness lies in system failure in other operational and management areas, not the least of which were the performances of the NCCA Secretariat and the NCCA Board itself. What could have been done by mere internal review of the manual of operations became a costly, shameless, and divisive exercise along the lines of classical authoritarianism.

NCCA has been heralded as one of the pioneering government agencies who has successfully institutionalized the spirit of "people power" and volunteerism in its operations. The Committee system is in the heart of NCCA operations as the grassroots-based volunteers in the various National Committees serve as listening posts and channels of civil society, local government units, other government agencies, and individual artists and cultural workers whose cultural programs the NCCA seeks to support, influence, enrich, and catalyze. What the proposed revisions seek to institutionalize are exactly the opposite: to weaken the same structure that strengthens the entire NCCA operations. From the looks of it, the NCCA Board has unilaterally and successfully undermined the process and went ahead with the revisions in complete disregard of the so-called consultative process.

And for what ends? To illustrate the point that the culture sector remains as divided and fragmented as ever? To silence the critical majority? To legitimize an already illegitimate cultural regime from the very start? These questions beg answers as charges upon charges of abuse of authority persist. The NCCA Board must answer and be held accountable for the following irregularities:

1. Why did it allow Mr. Ambeth Ocampo's misrepresentation of the National Historical Institute in the NCCA Board when the NCCA Charter is very clear on its provision that the NHI Executive Director should be the one sitting in the NCCA Board? Granting that there was no sitting NHI Executive Director during the constitution of the current NCCA Board, Mr. Ocampo should have served as a mere representative or alternate just as other represented ex-officio government agencies practice.. Why did the NCCA Board include Mr. Ocampo as a nominee for the position of Chairman and not advise the President of possible legal repercussions of having Mr. Ocampo as Chairman? Why did Mr. Ocampo not object to his nomination when he knew all along that he was not the legally authorized to represent his institution in the NCCA Board? Why did he not relinquish his NHI representation upon the appointment of the new NHI Executive Director? A rather odd note that appears in the newly-printed NCCA institutional brochure serves as an unsolicited and obviously defensive justification for Mr. Ocampo's continued presence in the NCCA Board. This, however, does not erase the fact that a violation of the Charter was perpetuated. Mr.Ocampo should immediately resign. Delicadeza tells us that this is the proper way. It is, in fact, the only moral and legal way.

2. Why does the NCCA Board allow Mr. Ocampo's act of unilaterally pulling out from the Board meeting agenda some calendared project proposals which have been properly reviewed en banc and endorsed by the National Committees and the SubCommissions, on the mere excuse that he has not read the proposals? This self-serving practice has delayed the implementation of some project proposals, some of which have been designated Commission-wide flagship programs which have gone through the rudiments of research, wider sectoral consultations and rigorous substantive and logistical review by both the NCCA Secretariat, the concerned National Committees and SubCommissions.

3. Why does the NCCA Board remain complacent about Ms. Cecille Guidote Alvarez's perennial habit of abusing her authority as NCCA Executive Director? Why does it allow projects authored and proposed by Ms. Guidote-Alvarez to be directly discussed and approved by the Board in wanton disregard of due process where project proposals are supposed to be reviewed, deliberated on and endorsed by the Committee/s and concerned SubCommissions? Why does it allow other Board-represented institutions to do the same? The NCCA Board and the Secretariat have always been nitpicking on the "conflict of interest" doctrine when it concerns project proposals initiated by National Committees and their members. Why does the NCCA Board exempt its members from the same rule of delicadeza when it fully knows that it is not just unethical but outright unlawful for the guardians of the law and order to vest upon themselves the authority to propose and approve projects that are self-benefiting?

4. Why does the NCCA Board allow project proposals already disapproved by the National Committees and/or SubCommissions to be discussed and approved at the Board level without consulting the concerned National Committees? Many of the disapproved projects are proposals submitted by agencies or organizations whose representatives sit in the Board. Are there separate conflict-of- interest rules for Board Members and the rest of the proponents outside the Board?

5. In the same token, why did the NCCA Board authorize the annual allocation of One Million Pesos for each of the represented government cultural agencies? Didn't the Board find it irregular and unethical for Board Members representing the beneficiary institutions to approve a self-serving measure? Where is the delicadeza and conflict of interest that they so assiduously demand of Committee members? And for what ends? A cursory review of the government cultural agencies' approved proposals for NCCA funding reveal a very disturbing fact: that the funds are intended for such non-cultural matters as repair of broken ceilings or leaking roofs and capital expenditures on office equipment – items that would normally form part of each agency's regular operational costs that should have been part of their regular institutional budget allocations. Costs that would have benefited quite a number of marginalized cultural organizations whose project proposals are regularly subjected to unreasonable, whimsical and voluminous requirements and justifications before they get awarded a ridiculously small portion of the requested budget.

6. Why does the NCCA Board allow itself to be bamboozled by the NCCA Executive Director whose penchant for throwing her weight around always manifest on matters of reconsideration for her already disapproved projects? The case of the multi-million Sining Gising television show, which even NCCA constituents barely watch, is instructive. Already disapproved twice by the NCCA Board, the Executive Director got her way and secured Board approval after invoking the powers-that- be for a media project that she conceptualized, produced and starred in. Another case is the anomalous and monumental flop that was the International Theater Festival, which cost the NCCA more than Twenty Three Million Pesos to stage to the detriment of many other local projects with far-reaching impact on the local and international theater communities.

7. Why did the NCCA Board allow the NCCA Executive Director to go scot-free for her illegal and unauthorized act of touching and moving the NCCA Endowment Fund upon mere recommendations of the NCCA Internal Auditor without approval of the NCCA Board? In other government agencies, this would have constituted a major criminal offense punishable by removal from and future appointment to public office not only of the offending officer but also of the authorities who, knowingly, condone such act or do nothing to prevent it. The NCCA Board fully knew of the offense and did nothing but remind the Executive Director of the rules. It did not bother to authorize a full-scale investigation and find out whether anyone has actually benefited personally from the financial transactions. Was the NCCA Board not aware that such transactions normally – albeit illegally – yield monetary commissions for parties who broker it? Are there deeper issues and wider collusions in the transactions? We're talking here about public funds, not personal moneys that one can easily manipulate at will.

8. Why does the NCCA Board continue to approve travel grant proposals from its members disregarding the procedure of having such proposals pass through National Committee and SubCommission endorsements?

9. Why does the NCCA Board insist on the practice of having separate meetings for policy matters and project proposals' review? This practice has been observed to be illogical, inefficient and unsound as policies and project implementation go hand-in-hand. Even on the matter of policy review, the NCCA Board has demonstrated a reactionary tendency to decide on issues when they become acute and not treat them in anticipatory manner. Many of these policy issues are actually advocacy issues which the National Committees have already identified as weak areas of NCCA operations.

10. Why did the NCCA Board cancel the scheduled NCCA Summit and General Assembly for this year? Is it afraid of the backlash from its self-engineered revision process of the IRR? Is it afraid of the major issues that the National Committee members may lodge against the NCCA leadership? The NCCA Board did not have second thoughts about conducting repetitive and costlier SubCommission assemblies. Why did it balk at the conduct of a less costly and more democratic general assembly where other procedural matters – such as the National Committee assessments and new elections for National Committee Executive Councils – could have been accomplished at one-time cost to NCCA? As it is, the NCCA Board has officially not disclosed its final disposition on the IRR revisions, save for unofficial information from the NCCA Secretariat that the widely-contested revisions have been officially approved and the term of office of the National Committees has expired. Is this the NCCA Board's way of appreciating the services of its volunteers? Or is it their way of easing off current criticisms and issues against it?

There are many more questions and issues that the NCCA Board has chosen to ignore.

Mr. Parreñas' letter cited in the beginning of this manifesto occasions not just an investigation but an immediate revamp of the NCCA Board to protect the institution from further abuses by its own leaders.

This manifesto is the first in a series of questionings on the institutional efficacy of the NCCA as a public institution with the primary mandate of promoting the development of the country's culture, arts and heritage. This was written guided by the spirit of the constitutionally- guaranteed right to freedom of expression, pro-active engagement and constructive criticism, and the principles of transparency and public accountability. The writers believe that NCCA could not efficiently and truthfully deliver its mandates with questions on the professional credibility and personal integrity of its public servant-leaders who are sworn to uphold the highest ideals of their offices.

Mr. Parreñas' letter referred to in this manifesto is copied below in its full version for those who have not read it.

Dear Madame Armida,

So the Filipinos would know Madame Armida Seguion- Reyna, I am writing you straight from the Big Apple after I watched the much-ballyhooed, very bad and almost fake musical production from the Philippines "Something To Crow About" at La Mama Theatre. The musical was brought in New York City reportedly to the tune of FIVE MILLION PESOS from the funds of the Presidential Management Office in Malacañang under the auspices of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts(NCCA) chaired by Ambeth Ocampo.
The budget could be more than that considering that other government agencies were tapped as major sponsors like the NCCA, GSIS, DOT, PAGCOR, etc. The big question that we should ask Madame Armida is: "Was the act of bringing an unworthy, half-baked musical to New York worth the people's money at all?"

Outright, we say a big NO! to that. It is an act of plundering the people's money when that amount could have gone to the country's social services instead of dispensing it to finance the junket of about 50 people in the cast all passing themselves off as Filipino cultural ambassadors headed by the executive director of NCCA & also the adviser of the Office of the Presidential Assistant on Culture Cecile Guidote Alvarez and a certain Frank Rivera.

We were told that "Something To Crow About" took off as a dream project that reached the point of folly on both sides of Cecile and her long-time benefactor Dr. Roces whose National Artist award has become a source of an unending controversy among those who never believed that the old man deserves the title even if it was awarded through a presidential discretion by Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo herself (Dr. Roces by the way was the Education Secretary during the presidency of GMA's father, Diosdado Macapagal).

Why folly? (or madness, or foolishness ?). To begin with the production was composed of amateur students of voice mostly from the University of Santo Tomas. Some of them can sing alright, but all them (except the four in lead cast) cannot act or even dance. Think even if it's off-Broadway that the group was trying to conquer. The gall, ha? Other performers were picked out from Cecile's & Hereherson Alvarez' Earthsavers Ensemble made up of street kids who did not possess the look and luster of a Broadway performer. Clear case of casting lesser talents to save up on talent fees obviously for some gainful motives. The librettist was a mediocre Phil. Star columnist Isagani Cruz who is never known to excel in the area. The composer is virtually an unknown in the field who goes by the name of Ferdie Dimadura.
We have read how the same production was lambasted in a review by Gibs Cadiz of Phil. Daily Inquirer when the same show was first presented to local audiences. This should have served as Cecile's wake-up call, but she looked the other way and went on headlong to make or break it off- Broadway thinking that she could get away with a bad, ill-motivated production. But hasn't the world become so small with the advent of internet? Read on Madame Armida!

Why such venture turned out to be such a disastrous folly? It did not prove anything at all to the snooty circumscribed off-Broadway/ Broadway world of New York even if it was staged at La Mama whose proprietor Ellen Stewart is also a long-time, ingratiating benefactor of Cecile if you still did not know. We all know how snobbish the New York's performing art critics can be. They don't waste time watching a production from a developing country in stilted and badly-written script in English yet written by Frank Rivera. New York critics snubbed the four nights of performances of the shamefully boring production of the Philippine team. "Pagka-pangit- pangit," were the words used to describe the show uttered by a well-known Filipino theater aficionado in New York Melvie Pacubas who also watched it on the first night.
So what reviews did the Phil. delegation get? The ingratiating solicited feedbacks from credulous, unsuspecting Pinoy audiences who rarely watch legit performances all their lives and crafted back home for general press release by the spin doctors of Cecile at the NCCA. You must have read it by now mostly in the pro-Administration broadsheets their self-serving and glowing press releases.

In all, the hoopla of "Something To Crow About" getting off-Broadway was actually part of an agenda of Cecile Guidote Alvarez' to promote and prop-up the career of her husband who passes himself off as a staunch environmentalist former senator Heherson T. Alvarez and who is now as everybody knows a virtual political has-been.

We were told again by some members of the cast that the English zarzuela "Something To Crow About " is a co-production venture of Earthsavers, Inc. Earthsavers is an unregistered organization without accountability papers founded by Heherson that continues to receive funding and donations from overseas on behalf of the stable of performers with disabilities (blind, deaf, crippled, street kids, ethnic, retarded, etc.) who sadly have not benefited from it at all. Some NCCA insiders have bewailed the fact that Cecile has been using her power to bamboozle and browbeat all of them to include the Earthsavers agenda of her husband in all NCCA-related activities and make the event appear as one of the seven arts when it is not. How true?

So, what did the folly of the Phil. team prove by going off-Broadway?

1. Bringing the supposed oeuvre of Dr. Roces' short story to off-Broadway was Cecile's last-ditch attempt to prove to all and sundry that her benefactor is a writer (but doesn't everybody know that he is not even a great journalist?) of consequence and deserving of the title National Artist.

Unfortunately, something went wrong in the process of transposing Dr. Roces' slim, short story into an English zarzuela. It lost its wit, brilliance if any, and integrity due to bad & unfocused writing, highly derivative musical compositions, lousy ensemble acting, & poorly executed set design betraying the lack of knowledge even on basic perspective by designer Len Santos. Filipino costumes were so badly designed and shabby. The minus one's used to accompany the actors' songs sounded like it was coming from a creaking, vintage phonograph. Poor guy Joey Nombres' inadequate lighting went helter-skelter.

The leads, however, composed of couple Leonel and Cynthia Guico, including Joel Trinidad & Liesl Batucan were real talents gifted with brilliant singing voices, but it was obvious that their performances were stymied by an ill-conceived material and bad direction from the assistant of Cecile, Frank Rivera who also tried so hard to act out the role of a rich man, but failed miserably because he simply did not look the part.

Sadly, the production was not a par with the reputation of Cecile as a theater artist who dreams of becoming a National Artist herself. We are bound to believe that her obsession to lift up her husband's vanishing career in any way that she could has led her to engage in such folly, ending up in a magnanimous act of self-destruction for a beloved husband who is rumored to have carried up to the present time an affair with his own secretary.

Here are questions and complaints we heard from the cast themselves which not only Cecile ought to justify but also the Philippine government for being a party to the racketeering plunder under the pretext of her hoodwinking buzzword "cultural caregiving to the Filipino Overseas Worker."

1. Why were most of the cast of about 50 lumped together in a dormitory fit for refugees and were even made to sleep on the basement floor, while Cecile and her minions composed of her seven year old grand daughter, a closed-in nervous-wreck lesbian staff named Susan Claudio, a secretary, Frank Rivera known for writing books without methodology, and others luxuriated in a classy hotel? Where did the funds of the highly-financed production as endorsed no less by Pres. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo go?

1. Why should Cecile Alvarez put the Filipino delegation to eternal shame by begging food from the Filipino Consulate and Filipino communities in New York to feed the cast for four days?

1. Why is it that before the show begins Cecile Guidote Alvarez always does an act of apologia or explanation to the audience about the problem that her company went through to come to New York when it is the least of our concern having paid 25 dollars to watch it. Was it her way of preempting the audience to accept the failure of her too high-schoolish production? Or was it her way of begging for more donations and dollars?

1. The case of an Earthsavers performer named Ramil is one for the book horrors. The young man wanted to extend his stay in New York, but was advised against from so doing when the prospective host found out that he could neither read nor write.

1. Isn't it shocking to know that Cecile's Earthsavers group could win an award like UNESCO Artist For Peace as she has been bandying it around in her own press releases when some of her performers are actually illiterate, and are still living in the slums without decent housing? Where did the donations for the group who has been in the business of showcasing their disabilities for fund-raising go? The group is also asking why the passenger van donated to them is now in the hands of the nephew of Heherson named Rico Alvarez.

1. Of what aesthetic sense and relevance was the paraplegic named Niki Pajati in a wheel chair being thrown here and there at the finale of "Something To Crow About"? Was it to tell the audience that there was a member from the Earthsavers, the organization of Cecile's husband in it?

To us that scene was absolute exploitation of a person with disability. We feel that scene was an emotional blackmail to force us into sympathizing with the disabled. That was gross! A repeat of the preposterous St. Louis Exposition.

1. The promise of an honorarium of $200 (Two hundred dollars) from the NCCA for each performer was never fulfilled and was cut- off to one-hundred dollars. Worse, others were given but a measly 50 & 20 dollars each. The aggrieved performers cannot complain because the sponsoring NCCA never issued a contract to the performers. Can the NCCA Chairman Ambeth Ocampo explain or justify? As a sign of protest we were informed that the cast from UST will boycott the scheduled homecoming performance at GSIS.

Isn't it high time that an investigation be made on the folly of bringing "plundering cultural productions" such as "Something To Crow About" to New York by NCCA using people's money? Isn't this a case of plunder , of squandering people's money committed by the mentioned production group being unashamedly passed off as a cultural show to afford Cecile's favored friends, employees, and relatives with junket that they don't deserve? What do you think, Madame Armida? Don't you think the NCCA Board also deserves to be revamped for perpetrating such gross oversight or conspiracy on their part?

Thank you for publishing this so others would know the other side of the coin far apart from from their blatant, face-saving NCCA engineered press releases extolling the fake medals and successes they supposedly earned in New York City.

Sincerely,
(Sgd.) Marianito Parreñas