A bureaucratic nightmare

Many Filipino artists and cultural organizations are up in arms against new rules coming out of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA)—the Philippine government’s premier grants-giving body for the arts—which seem certain to stifle rather than encourage cultural development.

Issued last September, these new rules open up the NCCA’s grants to government agencies and local government units, to the detriment of private sector organizations, to which most artists and cultural workers belong. Additionally, private cultural groups now have to go through a laborious vetting process by—here let’s insert an “OMG”—the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), which will certify to the trustworthiness of these “civil society organizations” to receive government funds.

Apparently, based on the NCCA’s own press release, the DSWD, the Commission on Audit (COA), and the Department of Budget and Management (DBM) came to an agreement and issued a joint resolution in 2014 “on the accreditation of reputable, qualified and capable Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) as implementing entities of government and public funds,” so that anyone now applying for an NCCA grant now has to submit the following requirements:

Certificate of accreditation from DSWD; Sworn Affidavit of the Secretary of the CSO that none of its incorporators, organizers, directors or officers is an agent of or related by consanguinity or affinity up to the fourth civil degree to the officials of the NCCA; BIR prescribed and authorized Official Receipt (OR) bearing the Tax Identification Number (TIN); and

Photocopy/ scanned copy of bank book with complete bank account information of the organization (bank account name, number and branch). ?

That doesn’t look like an unreasonable list, until you discover all the processes you have to follow and the forms you need to fill out to secure DSWD accreditation—a total of 10 forms, most of which require visits to the SEC, COA, DOLE, BIR and/or the LGU, which each of those visits requiring—what else?—more forms to fill out.

It’s a bureaucratic nightmare worthy of Hieronymus Bosch, otherwise an accountant’s orgasmic fantasy, as only accountants and people who live in Excel spreadsheets can dream up these mazes.

Why did they do this, and how could the NCCA have allowed itself to be bulldozed into submission by these three agencies — especially the DSWD, which, much as I respect its mission and the work it does on the ground, should have no oversight role over cultural policy and implementation, burdened as it already is with meeting its own goals? I can understand the DSWD vetting an organization proposing to improve rural microcredit or to create livelihood opportunities for typhoon evacuees, but what on earth does the DSWD have to do with epic poetry, installation art, green architecture, and dance improvisation?

I’m no naif as far as government procedures are concerned, having worked for a decade at the National Economic and Development Authority and having ghostwritten policy speeches for a host of government officials these past 40 years. I think I can understand governance and accountability issues, which leads me to suspect—not knowing what led to this situation—that someone out there thought that scams of the Napoles kind could be avoided if everyone were to be put through the vetting wringer. Fake NGOs? Why, this gauntlet should weed them out!

Unfortunately, the sheer complexity and agony of the new process will also discourage proponents with truly worthy cultural projects from applying—can you imagine a fellow like Botong Francisco filling out those mounds of forms?—and encourage the plodder type—unimaginative but patient—to secure precious funding for mediocre undertakings. What’s worse, the new rules now favor LGUs, prompting Iligan-based playwright and cultural mover Steve Fernandez to warn—and I don’t think he was being facetious—that “We can expect a deluge of street-dancing festivals and beauty contests, all in the name of ‘culture’ and ‘tourism.’”

And it isn’t as if the old procedures and requirements weren’t byzantine enough. To apply for an NCCA grant, some proponents have to find and go through “conduits,” usually private foundations meeting strict requirements, which then receive a fee for their intermediation. This extra layer, we were told, was a COA demand, for whatever purpose it may have served.

I’d have expected the NCCA leadership to stand up for its constituency and to resist the DSWD-COA-DBM memo, but of course it can’t do that, having no firm platform to stand on. Issues like this remind us why we need a real, Cabinet-level Department of Culture, and not a substitute tasked only with approving projects and disbursing funds, to formulate and implement cultural development policy.

And I’m saying this as someone who’s worked with and for the NCCA, as a former member of its Committee on Literary Arts and a participant in many an NCCA conference or activity. We’ve been thankful for the NCCA’s help in bringing our projects to fruition, even as we’re mindful that the funds it provides numerous cultural beneficiaries aren’t really even its own.

In the very least, project proponents with long, unblemished records for performance and accountability should be “grandfathered” into the new system, to cut down on needless red tape. Well established organizations that have run the same successful and properly audited programs for at least a decade can’t be what the new rules are after, and hounding them out of business with unreasonable paperwork can only be counterproductive for cultural development.

Is it any wonder that the World Bank very recently downgraded the Philippines in its global ranking of business-friendly countries for much the same reason? Instead of simplifying procedures, we seem hell-bent on making them as torturous as our traffic, for reasons only our bean-counting bureaucrats can understand.

I’d be more than happy to receive and to publish a rejoinder from the NCCA or from any other agency mentioned here on this issue. Meanwhile, let sanity prevail!

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Email me at penmanila@yahoo.com and check out my blog at www.penmanila.ph.