Cultural barbarians

ON TUESDAY, the Clark Development Corp., per its press release, “distributed 3,000 relief goods” – bags or packs of relief goods, I presume – “to typhoon victims in the towns of Sasmuan, Guagua, Candaba, and San Luis.”
Supervised by CDC President-CEO Felipe Antonio Remollo, “along with other executives and 20 CDC volunteer employees from the Association of Concerned CDC Employees, Association of CDC Supervisory Personnel, and Association of CDC Executives,” the press release continued, “the relief operations are not only the CDC’s response ‘to the dire conditions wrought by Typhoon Quiel’ but also the state-owned corporation’s new Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) program that is geared to help address the various concerns that affect local communities.”
“Clark CARES was launched last week amidst preparations for Typhoon Quiel. It was first broached when CDC committed P10 million to a project that will address the 440 classroom backlog in the 1st District of Pampanga.” So was Remollo quoted as saying. CARES there standing for Community Assistance, Relief and Emergency Services.
“This is a project inspired by President Aquino where there is a need to come out and reach out to the needy sectors, especially those that are being displaced by recent typhoons,” Remollo stressed. So said the press release.
Well and good, most admirable even, for the CDC incorporating to its core values the good neighbor policy, aye, the friend in need virtue.
Now, were the CDC as caring – and sharing – when it comes to culture…That’s going way ahead of the story though.
Last September 20, a CDC press release headlined “CDC renews contract with ‘Nayong Pilipino’ in Clark” found its way in Sun-Star Pampanga, to wit:
CLARK FREEPORT – Clark Development Corporation (CDC) President Felipe Antonio B. Remollo has signed the renewal of contract of the Nayong Pilipino Foundation (NPF).
With the signing of the contract renewal, Nayong Pilipino will become
more vibrant and attractive to tourists and guests in the coming months.
Remollo bared that Nayong Pilipino will feature regular cultural shows, construction of a palaruang pambata facility, shuttle service, and a vibrant calendar of monthly events to attract more tourists.
The CDC president was also informed by the NPF that new programs will be introduced soon involving research and development on orchids and the golden tilapia, floral jewellery, and hybridizing of unique varieties of orchids, among others…
Everything about the NPF done there. The press release though ranting on to Remollo’s CDC priorities, thus:
More sports tourism events such as baseball, football, frisbee, paintball, and marathon will be slated.
“There are on-going talks with a number of organizers for Clark to become the venue for a number of meetings and conventions,” Remollo added.
Remollo pushed for the setting up of directional road signs and electronic billboards that will provide information to commuters, guests, and local and foreign tourists.
So what’s wrong there? Everything. It just did not happen. Remollo has not signed any contract with Nayong Pilipino.
“We had very encouraging talks with the CDC at first, which turned very discouraging soon after,” well-placed sources in the NPF told me.
They claimed that Remollo was “not only discouraging but even disparaging the presence of Nayong Pilipino in Clark.”
“Imagine, the CDC President saying to our faces: ‘Culture does not pay’ and ‘There is no profitability in culture’. It’s something you don’t expect from anyone even remotely educated,” the sources lamented.
It appears now that the CDC would want to increase their rental to P3 million per year. Too stiff a price, at this time, given the situation the theme park is in.
(This becomes all too personal to me. The CDC for the past number of years already subsidizing the hot air balloon festival by as much as P3.5 million free of any auditing and liquidation requirements while imposing P3 million rental on the prime promoter of Filipino culture. It just ain’t right.)
“We cannot charge a higher entrance fee as most of those who come to Nayong Pilipino are students on field trip, then there is the maintenance and operating costs that include the allowances we pay for our cultural dancers, among others.” So the NPF sources said.
This, even as they took exception to Remollo’s alleged claim of culture being unprofitable.
The NPF, they said, has a marketing arm in Manila solely dedicated to Clark.
“Ninety percent of the 300,000 patrons who come to Nayong Pilipino every year come from Manila. They just don’t stay at Nayong Pilipino the whole time they are in Clark. They usually go to the other places of interest in the freeport like Paradise Ranch and the Clark Museum, eat in the various restaurants and shop at the duty free shops. There’s profit for Clark there.”
The greater, indeed the greatest, profit culture brings in is of course intangible. Like psychic income to Clark.
It is the re-acquaintance with one’s own national identity, the very enrichment of the Filipino soul. For isn’t culture the very seat of a nation’s soul?
So has Clark fallen into the hands of barbarians?