I would have missed the announcement for an Engagement Meeting between local artists and Mayor Benjamin Magalong which was held today, if not for a friend who forwarded the invitation she received. This I believe highlights the limitations of social media as the main means of reaching out to the community - which is not to say that it's entirely not effective, but each individual's news feed is tailor made by Facebook based on that person's preferences, and it's not impossible for important messages such as this one to be missed. And there are many in our sector that are not on social media, or the internet at all, and they may be among the ones that need immediate relief more than those of us who actually have the means - gadgets, mobile data or home internet connections - to be online.
Back to the meeting, as someone who lives in the outskirts of Baguio's city limits, it's a bit more difficult for us to go out and we weren't sure if we could make it to the meeting. So I wrote a few recommendations and emailed it to the Mayor and the Council for Baguio Creative City, in case I didn't get to go. Below are those recommendations that I hope could somehow be of help to the city government, particularly the CBCC, as they try to come up with ideas for initiatives that would address the needs of the creative sector during this time, and more importantly, when we all come out of this and begin the healing and recovery process.
April 25, 2020
THE COUNCIL FOR BAGUIO CREATIVE CITY
thru
MS. ADELAIDA LIM, Chair and
THE HON. BENJAMIN B. MAGALONG, co-chair
I hereby humbly submit some recommendations
that may help address the needs of the creative sector both immediate and in
the near future.
I.
IMMEDIATE
CONSIDERATIONS
1. Identifying
individuals and groups that belong to the sector
2. Granting
creatives access to services and businesses that would allow them to continue
practicing their respective professions under the current circumstances, and
while strictly following physical distancing and other mitigation policies,
such as, but not limited to:
a) Art
supply stores
b) Music
stores
c) Computer
shops
d) Crafts
suppliers/stores
II. IDENTIFYING
MEMBERS OF THE SECTOR
This is where NGOs are
needed, and since the Baguio Arts and Crafts Collective, Inc. (BACCI) does not
have a formal membership system, and no other organization currently engages
the whole creative community at large, the need for an actual list of local artists,
artisans, cultural workers and organizations could be drafted. This would be
the proper take off point for initiatives to reach out to the sector, especially
in times like this.
CBCC recently started
working on something like this, albeit limited to reaching out on social media,
which may not provide us with a comprehensive list.
Sources of data with
regards to individuals and groups that could be included in the initial list of
members:
-
Participants in Entacool
-
Participants in Ibagiw
-
Members of each of the known creative
organizations
-
Attendance sheets for all the general assemblies
held since BACCI’s establishment
If the establishment
of yet another institution that would directly respond to and protect the
welfare of local artists and artisans seem unrealistic right now, either:
1. The
CBCC could step in as the overall umbrella organization
2. BACCI
may be deputized and requested to abandon its policy of a loose membership
system in favor of a more formal and defined one.
3. The
CBCC could create a special task force for this purpose, which could later be
developed into a full-fledged Creative Industry Equity.
After the initial list has been drafted, persons and
groups in the list may be notified either by email or mobile phone, depending
on the available contact information, and through this they could confirm their
inclusion in the list.
The basic information needed may be:
1. Name
2. Field
of expertise/industry
3. Location
/ address
4. Contact
information (Email, Mobile Number)
III. FUND
SOURCING – INITIAL SOURCES
A minimal membership fee may be collected, although during this time,
not from the members themselves. Perhaps
the CBCC could forward a resolution endorsing the sponsorship of artists’ membership
fees taking it from the city’s allotted budget for art and culture since
given the current circumstances, we don’t see any major artistic or cultural
events in terms of exhibitions and performances being staged in the coming
months that the city would need to provide major funding for, probably even for
the rest of the year.
For example, a
membership fee of P300 per person multiplied by 1,500 individuals would total
P450,000.00. Institutions, organizations and organizations could have a higher membership
fee of P1,000, half of which could be subsidized by the LGU.
This enables us not
only to access available funds already earmarked for the creative sector, but
utilize such for efforts that are more sustainable than mere direct payouts or
dole outs or distribution of relief packs and have a more significant impact in
the lives of displaced artists and artisans.
IV. IDENTIFYING
BENEFICIARIES & DETERMINING PROJECTS
Most artists and artisans already are in a struggle to
make ends meet, with or without the further displacement brought about by the
current crisis. Identifying the beneficiaries to be prioritized would be a
challenge. Some points for consideration:
1. CREATIVE IN BLISTT AND THE REST OF THE
CORDILLERAS - The last two festivals engaged artists and artisans who practice
their profession outside of Baguio. But since we acknowledge that much of
Baguio’s cultural and creative eco-system involve artists, artisans and other
cultural workers from its immediate neighboring municipalities and the rest of
the Cordilleras, they must be included for consideration.
2. A SYSTEM THAT WOULD DETERMINE
SUB-SECTORS/INDIVIDUALS WHO ARE MORE VULNERABLE – Some of us are
struggling, some of us would be able to weather this crisis. Some of us are can
immediately resume work, some of us would be displaced for a much longer time
even after the ECQ is lifted. Some of the more vulnerable sub-sectors may
include, but not limited to:
a)
Artists
who are senior citizens or with disabilities
b)
Performing
Artists - particularly groups such as bands, dance troupes and theater
groups, etc. who, by the very nature of their field of expertise, need
audiences. That would not be possible in the near foreseeable future.
3. THE ACTUAL BENEFITS NEED NOT BE PROVIDED BY
THE COUNCIL/TASK FORCE ITSELF - What it could focus on is to function as a
bridge between its members and institutions who are already mandated and in a
position to provide relief efforts.
For example, Mr. Alex Ognayon, 2nd place winner in the Ibagiw
Woodcarving Competition, spends much of his time in Hungduan, Ifugao but his
wife and children are here in Baguio. He’s been calling for the past few weeks,
mainly to ask if there was any relief efforts being done for artisans like him,
and for assistance for his wife to be included in the list of SAP beneficiaries.
He shared that while his wife, who lives in Asin Road, Baguio City, submitted
the necessary documents required by their barangay, for some reason she was not
included in the list of approved beneficiaries.
The council/umbrella
organization/union could help engage barangays and other LGUs and agencies to enable
its members to access government relief efforts and subsidies already in place.
V. TAKING
IT A STEP FURTHER – A CREATIVE INDUSTRY EQUITY TO STRENGHTEN THE CREATIVE
COMMUNITY DURING ITS RECOVERY
The current crisis has brought to the fore the lack of
institutionalized sustainable support systems for the creative sector, and this
is three years into being designated as a creative city by UNESCO. With regards
to this, we must really go beyond staging events such as the Baguio Creative
City Festival.
While the current social distancing measures in place prevent
us from working full time, if at all, it also gives us much time to work on a structure
that would benefit the sector not just in the time of Covid-19, but in years to
come.
With this, I
recommend the establishment and institutionalization of a Creative Industry
Equity that would have the functions of both a collective and some form of
union that protects and advocates artists and artisans’ welfare that would:
-
Professionalize the industry further.
-
Provide for opportunities for its members.
-
Protect local artists and artisans from market
saturation brought about by artworks, products, services and the like brought
into the city by non-residents.
For example, for
theater artists, most schools in Baguio are able to require their students to patronize
one theatrical production per semester, or two productions per year. Sadly, given
the city’s inclination to discriminate against its own, whenever a local
production is pitted against one from Manila, more often than not the schools
tend to choose to send their students to the latter, displacing local artists.
An equity system may be put in place, perhaps through the initiative of CBCC and
to be implemented by a partner NGO, institutionalized by an ordinance, which would
oblige the visiting production to contribute part of their revenues to the Creative
Industry Equity. The same concept could be applied to visiting visual artists
exhibiting in Baguio, visiting musical artists staging concerts in Baguio, etc.
And for local artists
and artisans to benefit from this equity system, they must be bona fide and card
carrying members of the Creative Industry Equity.
In our shared resolve to help the
creative community cope with the current crisis and make a speedy recovery, I
shall remain,
Yours sincerely,
KARLO MARKO ALTOMONTE
Artist
I did make it to the meeting, by the way, and in the exchange this morning, more great ideas were floated that I would be sharing in a succeeding post.
