WITH ITS SWEEPING WAVE-LIKE CURVES overhung by a monolithic slab and set against the backdrop of Manila Bay, the Cultural Center of the Philippines easily inspires awe, if not trepidation, in the ordinary passerby. This was quite the intended effect, as it was envisioned by then-First Lady Imelda Marcos to be the “Cultural Pantheon” of the Philippines. Besides the classical allusion, the fortress-like structure was also conceived as "the repository of the Filipino soul" (a somewhat disturbing image for those who believe in an after-life). Inaugurated with much fanfare forty years ago, the CCP stands today as a reminder of a regime which took art and culture very seriously, indeed, both as a mark of prestige and a vehicle for ideology.
Along with more tangible assets, the Marcoses amassed “cultural capital” (a term coined by the sociologist Pierre Bourdieu) at a rate never seen before or since. This cultural capital was parlayed into a grandiose myth-making scheme which made the Bagong Lipunan (New Society) the inevitable end and distillation of all Philippine history, beginning with “Malakas at Maganda”. With the CCP at the center, a whole complex of cultural institutions was founded to discover, nurture, and display talent that would reflect the beneficence of Imelda as patroness of culture and the arts. In fact, my earliest experience of the CCP was as a scholar at the Philippine High School for the Arts at the National Arts Center in Mt. Makiling, the “Cultural Parnassus” to the CCP’s “Pantheon”. The CCP itself was the headquarters of Imelda's cultural operations from day one up to her family's precipitate departure in 1986. After the EDSA Uprising, so closely identified with her was the role of art patron that succeeding administrations have distanced themselves from cultural matters—some of them to the point of assuming a “populist” philistinism, as if laying claim to any interest in the aesthetic were right next door to owning 1060 pairs of shoes. Thus, it is worth reconsidering the CCP and its heyday, if not with fondness then as something that still holds lessons for the future.
MONUMENTAL FEAT
From an art history point of view, a reconsideration of the CCP is not much different from a reconsideration of the Egyptian pyramids. Both were meant to be lasting monuments to power whose grandeur would justify any and all means toward their realization. While the latter would not have been possible without a virtually unlimited supply of slave labor, the construction of the neighboring Film Center is likewise testament to a pharaonic singleness of purpose, an "edifice complex" as architect and art scholar Gerard Lico put it. In the rush to complete the building in time for the opening of the Manila International Film Festival of 1982, an undetermined number of construction workers were buried alive in fast-drying cement and sacrificed willy-nilly as if at the altar of Moloch or some similar deity. The ribbon-cutting ceremony, graced by Sylvester Stallone at the peak of Rocky fame, the teenage Brooke Shields fresh from Endless Love, and the preternaturally tanned George Hamilton among others, went ahead as planned. Today, the Film Center is a haunting (and some say, haunted) reminder of architectural hubris.
The case of the CCP is fortunately less tragic. Its construction, after the reclamation of a vast tract of land along the bay (an ambitious project in itself), was uneventful and it has managed, somehow, to survive the vicissitudes of the past forty years. In the same way that the Manila Post Office is a reminder of our history under the direct supervision of the American governor-generals, the architecture of the CCP—as designed by Leandro Locsin—is representative of the Marcos era. While said to have been inspired by indigenous architecture, its hooded gaze is at odds with the bahay kubo's openness. In fact, it is not possible to see the famed Manila sunset from its few windows. Inside the building, one might play at being aboard the Titanic, its carpeted upper levels with chandeliers and grand staircase reserved for the first-class passengers, and the cramped lower levels for everybody else. Like the movie's fantasy closing scene where everyone comes back to life, it doesn't take a stretch of imagination to hear the cultivated chitchat and clink of champagne glasses toasting to the Iron Butterfly's latest cultural coup.
IMELDA THE HOUSEHOLDER
What contributes to the time capsule feel of the CCP, especially in the Main Lobby, is that the works on display have hardly changed since the building's unveiling forty years ago. Like any good householder who knows better than to hang a painting that clashes with the sofa cushions, Imelda was well aware of the importance of interior decorative touches. With uncanny taste—and some astute advisers—she chose works from painters and sculptors many of whom would go on to become National Artists (incidentally, another cultural institution founded via presidential decree). Given the First Couple's penchant for mining the mythical past to support their reign, the selected works are surprisingly cutting-edge for their time, even by Western standards. Instead of bucolic Amorsolos, all the works chosen for permanent display on duly designated walls have a forward-looking and Modernist tendency. Arturo Luz's monumental black-and-white abstraction is as striking now as it must have been during the late 60's, yet time and artistic discourses since have taken their toll. It is the same with Vicente Manansala’s bronze wall sculpture, Cesar Legaspi's transparent cubist frieze, Eduardo Castrillo's bronze relief mounted on an interior pillar, and Hernando R. Ocampo's flaming red tapestry at the Main Theater. Almost all have a retro and slightly forlorn air of shabby gentility which is not intrinsic to them but the result of having become, as it were, part of the furniture.
While the mastery of these works is undeniable, the motive behind their selection is open to question. It would be the height of naivety to suppose that these works were chosen as reflective of the tastes and aspirations of the Filipino people at the time, the great majority of whom were mired in semi-feudal and semi-colonial conditions. It would have taken a hardy-souled pedestrian to venture into Imelda's domain, but then it was not for the bakya crowd that the CCP's sirens sang but for the elite, the culturati and glitterati. Modernist art, with its perceived universality and ascendancy of form over content, was considered "safe" and writ in code that required at least a nodding acquaintance with New York (not Cubao) style. Abstraction was assumed to exist in a vacuum of timelessness, thus making it susceptible to cooptation by interests that would rather not go into the details.
The fact, however, is that art and culture are not eternal and unchanging, navel-gazing in ivory-towered isolation. All works, even Modernist, are products of their time and engaged—either explicitly or implicitly—in its various struggles. Even Kazimir Malevich, the supreme Suprematist, whose most famous work is "Black Square" (which is just that: a black square) was quoted as saying: "I have transformed myself into the zero of form and dragged myself out of the rubbish-filled pool of Academic art." Imelda's concept of art was, as might be expected, a pastiche of avant-garde theorizing liberally sprinkled with classical tropes. With her appropriation of the Platonic ideals of "the true, the good, and the beautiful", she sought to identify herself, by association, as the epitome of these ideals. Yet the most basic knowledge of our recent history tells us that the Marcos regime was far from true, good, or beautiful. Martial Law is martial law in any culture, as even the most hardened cultural relativist has to admit. There is nothing true about controlling the media, nothing good about ill-gotten wealth, and nothing beautiful about human rights violations.
A NEW BEGINNING
But there is no suppressing creativity and, outside the CCP's rarefied atmosphere, the arts flourished with a timely urgency. During the 80's, it was possible to watch Mozart's The Magic Flute as conducted by Sarah Caldwell at the CCP, then go to UP Diliman for a performance of Chris Millado's Buwan at Baril sa C-flat Major and Joey Ayala circa Panganay ng Umaga. In painting, the Social Realists became a force to be reckoned with and their portable murals played no small role in the escalating mass actions that led to the Marcos' downfall. To paraphrase the first sentence from Dickens' romance set during the French Revolution, it was absolutely great and absolutely awful at the same time during the years leading up to the EDSA Uprising—although, with the changing of the (elite) guard, Imelda, for all her frivolity, still managed to escape Marie Antoinette's fate.
The Cultural Center of the Philippines, like all agencies that owe their existence to the conjugal dictatorship, is still in the long and arduous process of rehabilitating itself from its past as a major cog in the Marcos propaganda machine. That it has survived to celebrate its 40th anniversary is testament to the determination of its administrators and regulars not to let it go to rack and ruin. (The Manila Metropolitan Theater here comes to mind.) As outgoing CCP head Nestor Jardin said, one of the Center's main objectives is to make art relevant to the lives of Filipinos. This—as well as its rather droll anniversary slogan: Life begins again—is an admission of the CCP's ongoing struggle to become a genuine national center for the arts.
Due to various factors, the Center remains inaccessible to most Filipinos and a casual observation of its visitors leads one to suspect that it is still, for the most part, preaching to the converted. However, serious efforts are under way to correct this, as may be seen from the number of outreach and cultural exchange programs that the CCP has been conducting in recent years. From being a temple devoted to High Art, it now holds exhibits and events with more range and wider participation. Notable among these is a 2007 exhibit by activist artist collective Tutok Karapatan, Re-view: Pasang Masid, which examined the CCP's history and the interplay of culture, power, and politics—subjects which would have been anathema to its original founder. Meanwhile, its resident companies for music, dance, and theater conduct season performances that cater to a broader audience. A crowd-pleaser from a few years back, ZsaZsa Zaturnah (Ze MuZikal), based on a comic book by Carlo Vergara, will be restaged as part of the Center's anniversary offerings. All these moves to dispel the CCP's elitist reputation are necessary when funding is hard to come by and there are no Lord and Lady Bountifuls in the offing. As with education, culture and the arts get scant government support these days and while it may be said that our country has more urgent problems to deal with, it would be a sorry state of affairs, indeed, to consign a people’s cultural formation to malls and noontime TV shows. (Sofia Guillermo)