The historic gathering of Unesco-ITI 31st Congress and Theatre Olympics of the Nations was hosted by the Philippine government through an Administrative Order of the President mandating the NCCA, DepEd, DOT, and DFA in partnership with the Philippine Center of the ITI and PEN. This is the first gathering in the institution’s 58 years of existence to be held in Southeast Asia with resounding success. It was applauded and its impact acknowledged. In as much as we are delighted that the Philippines excels in boxing, in beauty contests and in mountain climbing, there is equal cause for celebration for the harvest of artistic talents in the Philippines for public service. The Education-for-All policy using the arts as a catalyst for poverty alleviation has been heartily applauded by leaders in performance and media arts.
The event established the Philippines as a gateway for eco-cultural tourism in the ASEAN region while the wealth of our bio-cultural diversity and the President’s policy commitment to heritage preservation, as well as arts education for the youth particularly the disadvantaged sector was modeled globally.
The government’s total war against poverty has mobilized culture and arts to reach out to our marginalized and disabled youth and to our indigenous communities.
The Philippine ITI Center was elected as Asia Pacific Bureau of the Unesco ITI Chair for training in Theatre after demonstrating its decentralization initiative in 11 regional satellite ITI bases in Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao. Ramon Magsaysay awardee Cecile Guidote Alvarez, who is the first Filipina to be in the ITI Executive Board, was designated as Adviser of the said body to plan programs in line with Unesco and UN objectives.
The UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, in a message read by UN Resident Coordinator Meleema Noble, had hailed this intercultural, interfaith encounter held for the first time in Southeast Asia as a vehicle for social transformation and peace that can help "bridge the dangerous gap of intolerance, ignorance and miscommunication." Unesco Secretary General Koichiro Matsuura, who personally presided over the Leaders Forum and Theater Olympics involving representation from 80 countries, noted with satisfaction "the great importance your government places on the preservation of the country’s rich cultural heritage and the development of its arts. I should like to take this opportunity to assure you of Unesco’s readiness to strengthen its cooperation with your country in this respect." Mr. Matsuura highlighted also his congratulations to Mrs. Alvarez for the extraordinary work that she has undertaken in the Philippines with her Earthsavers Dreams Ensemble as a means for fostering social cohesion."
It is laudable that the President has adopted a creative economics policy to promote the industry of our indigenous peoples by assisting them with capacity building not only for intergenerational transmission of their heritage but also with initiatives for cooperatives, direct access for marketing their creative goods and development of curriculum and communications modules to forge a strong cultural identity. Recently, President Arroyo inaugurated, at Tesoro’s, a permanent home to display and sell the products of our Gawad Manlilikha ng Bayan Awardees and provide access to the international market.
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo is on the right track in giving importance to theatre arts and its electronic offsprings. The Unesco-ITI event included a ministerial meeting on media content industry. Booth Tarkington pointed out that "a country could be perfectly governed, immensely powerful and without poverty, yet if it produces nothing of its own in theater, architecture, sculpture, music, painting, or in books, it would someday pass into the twilight of history, leaving only the traces of a creditable political record.