Briccio Santos' 4-fold plan for FDCP

MANILA, Philippines - He has the concerns of the Filipino film industry both in his heart and mind. Briccio Santos, the newly-appointed chair of the Film Development Council of the Philippines (FDCP), knows what he wants for the film industry and certainly knows how to achieve it.

Santos has ingenuously crafted his master plan for the film industry through a four-fold priority campaign that includes the creation of Sine Pambansa and Cine Barangay, establishment of a national film archives arm; the strengthening of the film distribution infrastructure; with the hopes of broadening FDCP’s mandate to include all other bodies that are audio-visually related.

His first priority project is the establishment of a Sine Pambansa (National Cinema) and Cine Barangay (Community Cinema) — two key programs he expects to achieve with the support of the local government units as well as the private sector in a partnership heralded by Pres. Noynoy Aquino.

Santos said a national film archives arm is one of the most important mandates of the film council. “This is the missing link. We have such brilliant films but they are not preserved properly for posterity. By establishing a national film archives, by honoring our past masters and by giving today’s youth a solid sense of film history, we can achieve a lot towards the realization of a true national cinema, a Sineng Pambansa. Once we have a national film archives in place, everything else will follow.”

Santos proposed a three-phase program for the next five years. In the first phase FDCP will set up a clearing house in the new Makati facility. It will establish limited archiving for priority films at same time create the database and MIS that will prepare the consolidation. The second phase will be the permanent facility for storage. The bunkers in Subic, The Mount Makiling area and Baguio are now being surveyed for that purpose.

The third and final phase is consolidation and creation of a film library that will entail digitalization and finally a genuine Cinemateque.