Creative body concept gets DTI-Cebu support

CEBU, Philippines - The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI-Cebu) provincial office supports the Cebu creative sector’s aim to form an official organization in order to professionalize the industry and build up Cebu’s niche in design.

DTI-Cebu provincial director Nelia F. Navarro said that together with the support from different institutions like German Technical Development (GTZ), CBI-Netherlands, among others, Cebu will have its own organization of creative people and efforts to group the creative talents together.

“We will include different sectors in the creative industry, including visual arts, publishing, designs, and others,” Navarro said.

Following the declaration of the British Council naming Cebu as the “Creative City” in the Philippines, Navarro said the province has to step up in professionalizing the industry, and achieve its dream as the legitimate design capital in the Philippines, or in Asia.

“We are still on the getting to know [the people] in the creative industry. We hope we could soon create the Creative Council organization,” Navarro said adding that if the creative industry in Cebu can have its own group, it is easier for them to get support not only from the Philippine government, but also from other countries.

Since, artists are not easy to “connect with”, Navarro said “we are very careful in handling them. But, we are confident that we would be able to identify leaders in this potential industry.”

Earlier, Creative Cebu prime mover Jay P. Aldeguer made a call for Cebuano creative community to put premium on their creations to take advantage of the strong demand for creative skills in the world, not just focus on the limited local market.

Aldeguer made this call after realizing that a lot of artists in Cebu are charging very cheap professional fees to outsourcers such as companies, art buyers, among others.

According to Aldeguer there is a need for Cebuano artists, including singers, event organizers, content providers (writers), graphic artists, visual artists, designers need to adopt a paradigm shift in using their talents to rake wealth.                                                     

By creating a professional business support organization, or a Creative Council, Navarro said artists, or creative people will be able to learn the ropes of playing the international market, and at the same time constantly upgrading their talents.

Creative icons in Cebu such as Aldeguer, Butch Carungay, and others had established the Creative Cebu Network Inc., to educate artists how to make money out of their talents—making their creative as main capital in a business.

“Indeed, we have good and even growing number of creative people here,” Aldeguer said.

However, the problem is “most of them don’t put a premium to creativity and majority of them also do not have business acumen,” he stressed.

Navarro added that the reason Indonesia and other countries had been able to gain stronger competitive advantage especially in terms of design and creative skills, because Indonesia has a professional group of creative sector that is constantly getting support from their government, as well as other international finance organizations. — Ehda M. Dagooc