IBAGIW & BACCI

CAVEAT

I do not assume to be an authority on matters relating to corporate affairs, organizational structures or financial management. But the following observations are predicated on realities we experienced in the course of staging the Baguio Creative City Festival 2019. While the recommendations may be considered to be nothing more than a mere lay person’s suggestions, may be disregarded in view of the abundance of experts and more credible professionals either in the current Council for Baguio Creative City or the specialists that it has engaged, it is my hope that the former, it is my hope that the observations, on the other hand will be given due attention by the CBCC, BACCI, the LGU and other stakeholders.

It is not the intention of this report malign or smear persons, and it does not. What it does is merely present issues that are relevant to our shared desire to forward the collective aspirations and alleviate the plight of local artists and artisans. In the end, we all envision a more vibrant and robust creative community in the City of Baguio.

Revisiting BACCI’s Mission and Vision

The establishment of the Baguio Arts & Crafts Collective, Inc. is one of the best things to happen for the creative community in recent years. With the diminished influence of the Baguio Arts Guild which during the late 80’s and early 90’s placed Baguio on the national and international maps as a relevant center for arts and culture, and past administrations’ neglect of the sector in the last two decades, the city has been needing a force that would galvanize and unite the creative community. BACCI has the potential to be that force. 

Surely, it’s still in its infancy, finding its footing, having been formally incorporated only in early 2019, and there are several actions that could be undertaken to make the collective realize its potentials.

Quoting one of BACCI’s statements, we learn that the collective was formed “to help the city in supporting and giving value to artists and their arts and to create a community that will shelter and encourage them.” Furthermore, on its Facebook page, the profile of the collective states that “BACCI is a platform for cooperation, coordination and sharing between and among the artists, artisans and creatives of Baguio and its environs. It works for an enabling and nurturing environment where creativity and innovation are developed.”

But since its creation for the purpose of serving as the lead organization in the staging of the first Creative Festival in 2018 and its formalization and legalization in early 2019, BACCI, other than the staging of Ibagiw, has yet to take concrete steps to realize the above pronouncements. In fact, at least in the months that I engaged with them as a member of the local creative community and as Creative Director of Ibagiw, no proposals for specific projects to realize those aims were forwarded nor discussed, let alone executed.

To date, BACCI has yet to make amendments to the default template for a corporation’s constitution and by-laws that it has adopted to make it specific to the needs and intentions of the collective. The constituency that it intends to serve has distinct social, cultural, industrial and economic circumstances, and an organization that aims to be responsive must be guided by a constitution and governed by rules that were specifically designed to respond to those unique circumstances.

The effect of this lack of a specific corporate mission and vision, constitution and by-laws cascades all the way down to its officers where positions such as “Executive Director” and sectoral representatives were created and persons were appointed without a clear set of tasks and responsibilities.

RECOMMENDATIONS

• Amend the constitution and by-laws of the organization to be responsive to the actual needs of the community it wishes to serve.
• In the absence of the above, the current Board of Trustees may issue a resolution defining the mission and vision of the collective, along with an outline of tasks and responsibilities for each of its officers.

Restructuring BACCI

With the adoption of the default template for its constitution and by-laws comes the default structure for its officers – President, Vice-President, Secretary and so on. And below that set of officers, an executive committee was created with the general assumption that the members of this committee would be the ones tasked to execute all the projects of BACCI and manage all its administrative concerns.

This has not been the case – whether in matters that are internal to BACCI or with projects such as Ibagiw. While it must be noted that some of its officers have a relatively clearer idea of the tasks and responsibilities association with their positions and execute them efficiently such as the Treasurer and the Corporate Secretary, majority do not. This state of ambiguity impacts negatively on all aspects of BACCI’s procedures.

At times, these positions, along with members of the board, are filled arbitrarily and without due process, with recommendations or directions coming from persons who actually hold no official positions in the organization.

The organization also describes itself as an “open and non-exclusive group” that is “non-hierarchical” and “encourages self-management and self-regulation by artists and creatives.” But the lack of a defined membership process also results in an undefined constituency.

RECOMMENDATIONS

1. In addition to the recommendation of defining tasks and responsibilities for each of the collective’s officers, BACCI may also look into streamlining artist representation in its executive committee. In the general assembly held in March, 2019, certain artists in fields of creative expression that have no representation in the current organizational structure asked for inclusion. This was noted in the synopsis of that assembly, but no action has been taken since. This brought to the fore two basic issues: who’s supposed to act on that concern and who else has the collective left out in terms of representation? In this regard, BACCI may limit the number of representatives to umbrella classifications that cover a greater number of creative fields, for example:

• PERFORMING ARTS to cover Theater Artists (actors, directors, playwrights, technical personnel, etc.), Musicians, Dancers, Monologists/Stand-up Comics, etc.
• FILM AND VIDEOGRAPHY to cover Filmmakers, Directors, Screenwriters, Commercial Videographers, Documentarists, etc.
• VISUAL ARTS to cover Painters, Sculptors, Printmakers, Photographers, etc.
• LITERARY ARTS to cover Novelists, Poets, Essayists, Bloggers, etc.
• CRAFTS, FOLK ART & LIVING TRADITIONS to cover weavers, carvers, cultural performers, etc.
• NEW MEDIA ARTS to cover Graphic Artists, Animators, Projection Artists, Vloggers, and other creatives that primarily utilizes new technology in creating works
• CREATIVE & CULTURAL INSTITUTIONS/ENTERPRISES mainly to provide representation for institutions whose functions fall within the local creative eco-system such as Easter Weaving Room, Museums, Galleries, Craft Shops such as DL Silver, Pilak, Mayat-an Handicrafts, and yes, even DTI’s OTOP center, etc.

The above are just examples of those umbrella classifications and either some may be merged or more could be added. Certain specific fields of creativity may fall under more than one category, but they may be assigned to one primary category. The sectoral representatives could then elect a Creative Director who will sit in the Executive Committee side by side with the Executive Director. The reason for this is that having one person leading the executive committee may result in a singular point of view when assessing proposals and executing initiatives – that one person may be an efficient administrator but lack the necessary artistic sensibilities needed in an organization that aims to forward creative endeavors, or vice versa.

This organizational structure may be visualized as follows:

Project proposals may come from the general membership which are submitted to the appropriate sectoral representative. Proposals are then assessed mainly by two officers: the Creative Director who assesses the proposal for its artistic merits and the Executive Director who assesses the proposal for its administrative, logistical and financial implications and forward the proposal their recommendations based on their respective assessments.

2. It may now be time for BACCI to revisit its “open and non-exclusive” policy that may sound romantic but is not really responsive to the collective’s mission and vision. The establishment of a membership process will not only provide BACCI with a more defined constituency, member artists, artisans and institutions become real stakeholders and could claim ownership of, participate in and take responsibility for the collective’s initiatives and projects.

In addition, this will enable BACCI to have access to data from its members that could guide them in conceptualizing and initiating projects for the benefit of its members and the whole creative community.

But this is not to say that the organization should only serve the interest of its members, projects such as the staging of the Baguio Creative City Festival benefit the whole creative sector and the rest of the community - it could and should continue executing projects such as this. But members could be afforded increased participation and more benefits – for one, industry representation for those who have yet to professionalize their occupation or creative community-related endeavors.

The above recommendations revolve around instituting reforms that hopefully could improve the efficiency in which the organization executes its projects. The recommended organizational structure is just one suggestion, more concepts could be explored, but the aim remains: BACCI needs to be restructured as the current composition has been proven to be inefficient.

Funding BACCI and Financial Management

One of the main challenges that the project management team of Ibagiw experienced was funding and the lack of a financial management system in place. Although the root of this problem could be traced back to the issue of ambiguity in BACCI’s organizational structure.

As mentioned in the Director’s Notes section of this document, except for the sponsorship of HABI – The Philippine Textile Council which was made possible through the efforts of BACCI President Adelaida Lim and the funding from the City Government of Baguio, all other funding for Ibagiw was sourced and pursued by the third-party Project Management Team.

And when the festival needed bridge financing, it was also the third-party project management team that secured necessary funding, with the approval of members of the board and the executive committee.

This should have been the responsibility of BACCI as an organization, that was clear, but without a clear and specific set of responsibilities for most of its officers, BACCI could not and did not take steps in this direction, even when faced with the possibility of the festival’s cancellation. This would have been the scenario if we didn’t take on the responsibility of soliciting funds to ensure the success of the festival.

In hindsight, as professionals, it may have been more prudent for us to simply abandon the project when it became apparent that the organization that hired us neither had the financial nor administrative capability to fulfill its obligations. But we weren’t merely mercenaries, we were part of the community whose communal interests the festival, and in fact, BACCI, aimed to serve. At the risk of exposing ourselves to personal liabilities, we moved forward not only to ensure the success of the festival but help BACCI fulfill its obligations as the lead private sector partner of the city in this project.

*The above is part of the full terminal report for Ibagiw 2019 that was submitted to the Mayor, the City Budget Office, the Council for Baguio Creative City and BACCI. The full report is published here.