The Squabble For National Artist Awards Reeks Of Political Ignominy

This just a glaring example of how pathetic and crass Philippine politics is.

Recently another domestic controversy erupted over the choice of National Artist awardees.

The Political Process

The awards had supposedly been meant to be ``given to a Filipino who has been given the highest recognition for having made significant contributions to the development of Philippine arts,” according to the Inquirer. (emphasis added)

Who determines the winner? ``The selection committee is composed of representatives from the CCP and the National Commission for Culture and the Arts” says the Inquirer.

And what was the object of the controversy?

According to Manila Times’ Rome Jorge ``The recent inclusion by President Gloria Arroyo of four nominees who did not go through the painstaking selection process (as well as her omission of one candidate who did) has provoked public outrage as well as condemnation by the country’s most esteemed artists, many of them National Artists themselves.” (emphasis added)

So the CCP, NCCA and the eventually President selects the awardees.

And yet, the irony is that both parties (CCP and NCCA) in the screening committee are said to be politically colored but under opposing camps. Again from Mr. Jorge, ``More than just legacies of opposing regimes, the CCP and NCCA represent two divergent viewpoints on what Philippine arts ought to be. Their latest battleground is the National Artist Award—itself a relic of political manipulation of the arts.” (emphasis added)

The Apolitical Fantasy

Haven’t two quasi political parties along with a political President imply that POLITICS AND NOT OBJECTIVITY been the ultimate parameter for the reckoning?

How does one measure the “contribution to the development of the Philippine arts”? Because the CCP says so? Because the NCCA says so? Or because the President says so? Or because of a unanimous decision?

Isn’t art subject to the eyes of the beholder?

How can these so called representatives constitute as the national voice of the Filipinos when their aesthetic artistic palates or tastes are different from the rest of the society? Do their political positions or expertise entitle them to account for vox populi vox dei?

The reality is that politics and arts are two distinct animals.

Hence it is of no question to us, that since politics has been the principal determinant of the awards, there will always be “aggrieved” parties who think that they deserve such politically bestowed privileges but had been “manipulated” out of the race.

Ironically, the belief that the awards must be kept apolitical, but is in truth sustained and decided for by political forces, is thus nothing but another unalloyed fantasy.

Manny Pacquiao’s Lessons

In the field of sports, Manny Pacquiao does NOT need to be recognized by any political party/ies in order to be hailed a “National sportsman”.

His accomplishments have NOT just been breaking boxing world records, but most importantly his feat has been recognized by the MARKETPLACE.

That’s why he has been paid millions in currencies for appearances, for endorsements and advertisements and for the matches where he engages in.

As proof of the market’s generosity, even members of his family gets a share of the limelight by reportedly having their own ads or as guests in several TV programs, etc.!!!

In short, the market has accorded Mr. Pacquiao with the prestige of an international boxing legend more than just a national celebrity- award or no award from politicos.

In addition, he doesn’t require any blessings from politicos to become part of boxing history.

To the contrary, because of his overwhelming success, politicians have been all over him to generate political advertisement by mere association!

Thus, the accolade he receives transcends politics and subjectivism because his performance buttressed by the market has elevated him to such preeminent pedestal.

One may argue that Mr. Pacquiao maybe an extreme case, but nevertheless, you can’t achieve “significant contributions to the development of the arts” without the patronage of the public.

Ultimately, it is the artists’ contributions to the public that determines the level of “significance” to the society-a sine qua non! Even an art teacher would need pupils to ascertain his/her efficacy where success would mean higher wages or other perquisites.

Abolish The Farcical Awards

This brings us back to the issue of arts; if politics and not the markets determine the legacy of the so called “national artists” then the whole process is nothing but a sham.

Instead of advancing and fostering the cause of art, the inherent political process in the determination of the beneficiaries of the National Artist awards would only nurture political partisanship, factions, envy and rancor thereby defeating the very objective of its existence, as manifested by the recent disgraceful controversy.

Hence, given the above circumstances, the best option would be to abolish it.

Swine Flu: Mostly A Media Fuss

I was supposed to write something about the seeming fear mongering by media on the swine flu, but the Associated Press beat me to the punch.

Here is an excerpt (all emphasis mine)...

``The so-far mild swine flu outbreak has many people saying all the talk about a devastating global epidemic was just fear-mongering hype. But that's not how public health officials see it, calling complacency the thing that keeps them up at night.

``The World Health Organization added a scary-sounding warning Thursday, predicting up to 2 billion people could catch the new flu if the outbreak turns into a global epidemic.

``Many blame such alarms and the breathless media coverage for creating an overreaction that disrupted many people's lives.

``Schools shut down, idling even healthy kids and forcing parents to stay home from work; colleges scaled back or even canceled graduation ceremonies; a big Cinco de Mayo celebration in Chicago was canned; face masks and hand sanitizers sold out — all because of an outbreak that seems no worse than a mild flu season.

``"I don't know anyone who has it. I haven't met anyone who knows anyone who contracted it," said Carl Shepherd, a suburban Chicago video producer and father of two. "It's really frightening more people than it should have. It's like crying wolf."

``Two weeks after news broke about the new flu strain, there have been 46 deaths — 44 in Mexico and two in the United States. More than 2,300 are sick in 26 countries, including about 900 U.S. cases. Those are much lower numbers than were feared at the start based on early reports of an aggressive and deadly flu in Mexico.

``Miranda Smith, whose graduation ceremony at Cisco Junior College in central Texas was canceled to avoid spreading the flu, blames the media.

``"It's been totally overblown," she said Thursday.

Well speaking of "overblown" and "breathless media coverage" Pew Research shows of how the epidemic scare has eclipsed all other topics.
According to Pew Research, ``Yet all those stories were overwhelmed by the frantic coverage of a new flu virus that in a matter of days had made its way around the globe and was threatening to become the first influenza pandemic in four decades. From April 27-May 3, the swine flu, or H1N1 as it officially became known, accounted for nearly one-third of the newshole (31%) studied, according to the Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism."

It is understandable for media to revolve around sensationalist news simply because its fundamental incentive is to generate more audiences. And when fear or panic is in the air, the public gropes for information to which media obliges.

But for governments, aside from the "social service" function, the unstated incentives may vary from expanding government control, desire to increased access to funding, or cronyism as discussed in Swine Flu: The Black Swan That Wasn’t and Swine Flu: The Politics of Fear and Control.


Yet according to Gallup, Americans appear nearly evenly split between those who say that media coverage of the swine flu had been exaggerated and those who say media coverage was just right.

But I don't think this will last.

The subdued impact from the swine flu infestation has reduced fear as shown by the Gallup survey above. Note that at the peak only 25% of those surveyed said they were personally worried by the Flu which means 75% were not. Now only 17% are concerned, which implies 83% aren't.

This suggests that, despite the intensive media coverage, the American public hasn't been cowed into panic. This further implies that media has indeed overhyped its coverage of the swine flu.

This declining trend of swine flu scare has likewise been apparent in Google's search trends. Thus eventually I expect more converts to the exaggerated camp for as long as the spread of the disease do not worsen.

Lastly, congratulations to world boxing legend Manny Pacquiao not only for a stunning triumph in his latest quest for glory but also for defying authorities who had been trying to curtail his civil liberty from a vastly inflated health scare.

The Socionomics of the First Philippine Olympic Gold Medal-Thank You Manny Pacquiao

``Many people want the government to protect the consumer. A much more urgent problem is to protect the consumer from the government.”-Milton Friedman (1912 –2006), an American Nobel Laureate economist and public intellectual

The Olympic season is upon us.

What more is there than to speculate on whether the Philippines will attain or harvest its first ever dream gold medal. And I believe that the time is ripe where boxing among other sports will most likely deliver the goods. And mind you, we may be speaking of more than just one medal.

Although I had been an aficionado during the era of Muhammad Ali and Sugar Ray Leonard, I haven’t followed the sport enough to know the chain of events since. Candidly speaking, not even much of the recent string of triumphs by our legendary Manny Pacquiao (until this article) or of the composition of our national team for the August Beijing 2008 Games.

The online Wikipedia encyclopedia says that the Filipinos have had a disappointing record of only 5 medalists throughout the years: 2 silver-Anthony Villanueva, Featherweight in 1964 Tokyo and Mansueto Velasco, Light Flyweight in 1996 Atlanta and 3 bonzes:-José Villanueva - Bantamweight 1932 Los Angeles, Leopoldo Serantes - Light Flyweight 1988 Seoul, Roel Velasco - Light Flyweight 1992 Barcelona.

These despite some 30 world professional boxing champions past and present; the noble list of Philippine boxing greats from boxrec.com -Pedro Adigue Jr., Rene Barrientos, Bobby Berna, Rolando Bohol, Frank Cedeno, Eric Chavez, Florante Condes, Roberto Cruz, Nonito Donaire, Morris East, Flash Elorde, Luisito Espinosa, Joma Gamboa, Ceferino Garcia, Eric Jamili, Tacy Macalos, Manny Melchor, Small Montana, Rolando Navarrete, Donnie Nietes, Manny Pacquiao, Rolando Pascua, Dodie Boy Penalosa, Gerry Penalosa, Erbito Salavarria, Jesus Salud, Malcolm Tunacao, Pancho Villa, Bernabe Villacampo and Ben Villaflor.

Of course one may argue that professional boxing and amateur boxing are worlds apart. This may somehow be true but overall the incentives from the expression of social mood could be an indicator of the sport’s likely bright future.

There are 3 main factors why I think the elusive Philippine Olympic gold medal in boxing will be within reach hopefully this August at the Beijing 2008 Games:

1. Social Acceptance

Prior to Manny Pacquiao’s glory, boxing as a sport has been mostly associated with the lower levels of the social strata. Pacman overhauled this image. Today, the proliferation of boxing gyms even within the rich enclaves (yes I have seen a gym at a hotel in Ortigas) have virtually closed the gap of societal participation in the sport.

This means that with more people-regardless of the income or social class-getting connected or involved, structural support (financing, training and etc.) for the sport is expected to mount.

2. Economics of Boxing and Wider Access to Financing.

Of course boxing is not only a sport, it has become an industry.

Aside from prestige or fame, Pacman’s humongous prize earnings, plus the ancillary fees such as pay per view, advertisement or sponsorships, merchandising, appearance and others (I suspect that these have even grown more than the prized earnings) should be another incentive to draw in more participants (players, trainers, coaches, investors, financers, media coverage etc.).

Of course Pacman signifies a statistical “fat tail”, whose feat will unlikely be replicated soon. The fact that he joins the ranks of Sugar Ray Leonard, Oscar de la Hoya, Roberto Duran and Floyd Mayweather Jr. in capturing championships in four weight divisions, the Pacman has become a legend in his own right and importantly one for the WORLD sports history books. What prestige!

The point is that the economics of boxing has shown its potential rewards in both tangible and intangible aspects as powerful incentives enough to attract a larger segment of participants. The Pacman model now becomes a sizeable magnet for the industry’s growth!

In contrast, in relative terms, Billiards, another sport where the Philippines have excelled internationally, has shown similar bandwith (of social acceptance and economics), but whose incentives (not included in the Olympics, lesser degree in terms of price money or fame or world audience relative to boxing) have not been as compelling enough to generate sustainability to the same level (as seen by the diminishing billiard pool outlets). Nevertheless, we are glad to see a continuing stream of supply of world billiard champions.

And this burgeoning economics of boxing has been emblematic with the sprouting of boxing gyms nationally. In short, the industry/sport now has not only garnered the social support but a wider reach or access to capitalization.

When finance greases the wheels of the industry/sport we expect a boom to follow with attendant results.

Importantly this also shows that private initiatives and not of government (in contrast to the conventional thinking) will drive the Philippines’ realization for world boxing supremacy-and our Olympic gold(s).

3. Plentiful Supply of Talents

As we earlier mentioned the Philippines has a cornucopia of boxing talents even during times when the sport was not as socially diffused as it is today. The 20+ champions (prior to Pacman regime) and 5 Olympic medals during those scarcity times are enough credentials to state of the endemic supply of champion quality boxers.

The snowballing economics fueled by social action will improve on the scale and quality of participation aside from increasing the pool of available highly qualified candidates for the championship class.

If I am not mistaken this marks the first time in Philippines sports history where we have four simultaneous incumbent world champions as of this writing, specifically Manny Pacquiao, Nonito Donaire Jr. IBF Flyweight, Gerry Penalosa WBO Bantamweight and Donnie Nietes WBO Minimumweight. This is a testament to the progressing dynamics from a booming boxing industry.

Of course in the games there will be other factors involved such as acclimatization, conditioning, the quality of opponents, judge biases and plain ol’ lady luck…among other variables.

The important thing to remember is that the greater the caliber or quality of our players emanating from the above dynamics, materially increases the odds for the realization of the long sought after gold medal/s. To my intuition, this dream could come into fruition by next month at the Beijing games.

To our Olympians (boxing and non boxing representatives), it's time to Go for Gold!