A first-term legislator has urged his fellow lawmakers in the House of Representatives to resolve a systemic “funding, education, and coordination” deficit facing the Filipino arts industry as the country commemorates National Arts Month this February.
Negros Occidental 3rd District Rep. Javier Miguel Benitez, who chairs the Special Committee on Creative Industries, argued that while Filipinos have a massive appetite for culture—evidenced by record-breaking attendance at Art Fair Philippines and the National Museum—the experience is being stifled by inadequate infrastructure and “broken systems.”
He cited bureaucratic bottlenecks such as manual registration at museum entrances, lack of staff knowledge, and misinformation that discourage public engagement.
“The problem is not that Filipinos do not care about art. The problem is that we have made it unnecessarily difficult for them to experience it, and unnecessarily easy for them to walk away confused, misinformed, or indifferent,” Benitez said in a privilege speech.
He emphasized that the creative sector is a vital economic pillar, not a luxury.
According to the Philippine Statistics Authority, the sector contributed ₱1.94 trillion to the National Gross Domestic Product in 2024 (7.3 percent of GDP) and employed 7.51 million Filipinos, accounting for 15.4 percent of total national employment.
Despite these figures, Benitez lamented the lack of dedicated venues, noting that major exhibits are often relegated to converted car parks and mall annexes.
“A sector that contributes ₱1.94 trillion to the economy… deserves more than borrowed parking lots,” he said.
“The result is low ceiling heights that prevent large-scale work from being shown properly, partitions that are too short and flimsy, and multi-floor layouts with slow elevators that destroy visitor flow,” Benitez added.
He further warned of a “brain drain” of cultural practitioners, noting that the Philippines is losing its top talent to better-funded neighbors.
Benitez cited the example of renowned curator Patrick Flores, who now serves as the Chief Curator at the National Gallery Singapore because the domestic ecosystem fails to provide adequate support and institutional infrastructure.
While laws like the Philippine Creative Industries Development Act (RA 11904) and the PCIDP 2025–2034 exist, Benitez stressed that “instruments without infrastructure produce no music.”
To resolve these gaps, he proposed several critical investment areas:
- Modernizing Venues: Shifting from “developer-donated spaces” to purpose-built, large-format tents (similar to those used in Hong Kong and Paris) offering professional lighting and accessibility.
- Educational Reform: Reintroducing meaningful art appreciation into the curriculum and engaging art students as volunteer museum docents for course credit.
- Regional Accessibility: Operationalizing RA 11333 to establish regional museums and funding traveling exhibitions so national treasures can reach provinces like Negros Occidental, Davao, and Zamboanga.
- Cultural Coordination: Creating a unified citywide calendar for cultural events and integrating art into public spaces like MRT stations and public markets, following the South Korean model.
“The Philippines does not have a talent deficit. It has an infrastructure deficit, an education deficit, and a coordination deficit,” Benitez said.
“Those are solvable problems. They are legislative problems. They are exactly the kind of problems this chamber was designed to address. Let us, at last, build the ecosystem the talent deserves,” he added.
