| June - August 1999 |
| inside pages |
| IPAG UPDATES |
| WORLD TOUR |
| WRITERS PAGE |
| back issues |
| May-June
1998
March-April 1998 February 1998 1997 |
| An Open Letter to All Filipino Artists in Music, Dance, Theater, Visual Arts, Literature, Cinema and All Filipino lovers of Arts and Culture: |
Recent events of a barbaric nature at the Cultural Center of the Philippines have debased its hallowed premises and caused it to become a battleground between the Philistines and Artists and promoters of the Arts and Culture.
The CCP belongs to all Filipinos, from every walk of life, who look to the Arts to remind us that we are God's creatures, and that life can be beautiful, if only for the few hours that we spend to partake of the CCP's offerings. Often, when performances and exhibits are excellent, the experience can be ennobling. That is what good art is all about.
Monday evening's international incident is a national disgrace and an international embarrassment, not to mention its implications to our diplomatic relations with France and Spain, since the CCP is a government institution.
The roughhousing and scuffle that ensued between the diplomats and the CCP security guards happened as an offshoot of Gloria Angara's instructions to bar the legitimate Board from the CCP premises, in her memo of April 22.
Angara continues to masquerade as "CCP Chairman" notwithstanding she was deposed by the Board in April, and nothwithstanding that the Court of Appeals has ruled to retain the Board of which Baltazar Endriga is president. Dom Bernardo Perez, OSB, was elected chairman of the Board in April, when the legitimate Board ousted Angara for conflict of interest.
We had tried to remain neutral on the issue of which CCP Board is the legitimate board. But the Court of Appeals has ruled that the Endriga Board should be retained.
Court of Appeals Associate Justice Consuelo Morales, who penned the decision, with the concurrence of Associate Justices Artemio Luna and Bernardo Abesamis, must be congratulated for voting with conscience, in spite of attempts to cajole them to decide against Endriga, et. al. We do not hail them for upholding Endriga, et. al, but for resisting whatever pressures were brought to bear upon them. They demonstrate amply that not all the judiciary is corrupt, and that there remain decent men and women who uphold the majesty of the law.
The time has come for all of us, as artists, to defend the CCP's integrity, and to protect the CCP from all manner of ugliness and wrong-doing which deter the Arts' progress.
We invite all Arts-loving men and women to spend all Saturday evening starting 6:00 pm in an outdoor vigil at the CCP grounds. Artistic events are being lined up for the entire evening until dawn Sunday, to erase the memories of the nightmare Angara has brought about, and to greet the new day and a new era for the Arts -- free of politics and driven only by the muses who inspire us to create work that will help ease mundane burden.
Come read a poem, create a mural, dance, sing, listen and appreciate. Philippine Arts and Culture burn bright - and free.
Lucrecia Kasilag
National Artist for Music
Napoleon Abueva
National Artist for Visual Arts
Arturo Luz
National Artist for Visual Arts
Nick Joaquin
National Artist for Literature
Levi Celerio
National Artist for Music
Lucrecia Urtula
National Artist for Dance
- related site
in IPAG UPDATES
