Opinion: quo vadis, CCP? The infrastructural realities haunting the state of the Philippine visual arts ecosystem

For the Aquilizans, the foundation of the future lies in arts education. They emphasised the urgent need for government institutions to maximise their capacity to expand arts curricula, particularly at the high school level. To achieve this, the artists suggested that the Philippine High School for the Arts (PHSA)—currently the educational arm of the CCP—should have its model replicated nationwide, potentially through the development of accessible educational modules. Furthermore, drawing on their experience conducting art workshops in remote communities in Australia, Indonesia and the Philippines, among others, the Aquilizans challenged the CCP to figure out how to share its resources more effectively with underserved communities.

While this vision is profoundly empathetic, replicating the PHSA model nationwide is, in my opinion, a herculean task that could be economically untenable. The PHSA is a highly specialised, boarding school, operating on a massive per-capita budget. In a developing nation where the broader public education system struggles with severe underfunding and a lack of basic facilities, state-sponsored arts education must be pursued with extreme pragmatism.

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The secondary suggestion of developing “accessible educational modules” is the far more viable path. However, these modules must be designed assuming a baseline of zero infrastructure, utilising locally sourced, cost-effective materials rather than gallery-grade supplies. Furthermore, while conducting remote workshops can provide brief moments of inspiration, one-off interventions rarely foster lasting cultural competence. Instead of attempting to conduct direct, student-facing workshops across an archipelago, the CCP’s resources would be better spent on educator-facing upskilling. Take note also that the CCP’s resident performing companies have always engaged with schools across the country to perform their shows and hold training and workshops. Can the CCP do the same for its supported visual artists?

The most transformative act the CCP could perform is to design intensive masterclasses for existing public school teachers, addressing the root deficit of specialised visual arts training in the regions. The Aquilizans also pointed out the importance of sustainable support systems, such as government-funded travel grants and mentorships. Yet, given the national budget’s constraints, not to mention the CCP’s ongoing rehabilitation of its main building, true sustainability will require the institution to act not as the sole benefactor but as a liaison connecting artists with public-private syndicates and international endowments. As it brings some of its art collection (21AM) to various locations like the BenCab Museum in Baguio City,  the Iloilo Museum of Contemporary Art in Iloilo City and the Arthaland property in Cebu City, there is indeed a potential for interaction with the key cities outside Metro Manila.

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Instead of replicating the PHSA model in other provinces by building massive campuses, what if the CCP aligns its educational outreach with existing cultural programming in the local government units? Extension offices or learning centres for teachers and students, by partnering with existing educational spaces, artist-run galleries or artist-residency programmes, could be a good start, and then maximising the CCP-supported visual artists or awardees in nearby locations by having them as ad hoc educators.

By treating culture not just as a gallery exhibit but as something that survives when it is intentionally taught, practised and passed down, the state can ensure education reaches the grassroots sustainably.

Chikiamco correctly identified a critical vulnerability in the contemporary arts ecosystem—namely, the importance (or lack thereof) of accessibility and conservation. CCP is in an integral position in this, as it holds the legacies of significant artists such as Roberto Chabet, Rod Paras-Perez, Arturo Luz and many others who served significant positions in the CCP’s visual arts and museum division. Chikiamco argued that it is very important for the CCP, and Philippine institutions in general, to collect contemporary art and work with artists to develop specific guidelines for its future display.

Chikiamco’s assessment flawlessly identifies the conservation crisis. Conceptual and installation art, like Chabet’s, often relies on everyday materials that inherently decay. Without explicit, artist-sanctioned archival guidelines, these works effectively disappear over time. The CCP’s 21AM initiative represents a strong step forward in digitising archives to solve the accessibility issue Chikiamco raised.

However, a digital database cannot solve the physical conservation crisis alone. While the CCP must actively acquire and safeguard significant art collections, the state severely lacks the structural funding for climate-controlled physical storage and specialised material conservators in a relentless tropical climate. Although there are esteemed conservators in the country today, such as June Dalisay and Margarita Villanueva, to name a few, the demand for more practitioners and experts in this field is perhaps one of the things no one dares to raise

Relying on the CCP as the primary custodian of nationally revered modernist and contemporary art history creates an unsustainable bottleneck. Archiving must be decentralised. The CCP could pivot towards providing grants and rigorous archival training to regional museums and university galleries, empowering them to protect their local contemporary outputs, thus future-proofing the current scene.

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Lorenzo brought a sharp, market-aware perspective to the dialogue, arguing that the CCP must position itself as the gold standard for exhibition-making across the region. She noted the CCP’s amazing collection but questioned how it broadcasts this information to the world, stating that the institution cannot afford to remain insular and must be more outward-looking. To be fair, since the pandemic, the CCP has maximised its digital platforms, such as its YouTube channel, the website of its encyclopaedia and the recently launched CCP Channel, to make its repository of visual and performing arts more accessible to the public. Lorenzo, however, advocated a significant investment in social media platforms such as TikTok and Instagram to build audiences across multiple generations. She also highlighted the need to expand the reach of CCP’s collections through nationwide touring exhibitions, increased publications and visibility in international events.

Lorenzo’s push for modernisation is necessary, but her suggested strategies may conflate the agility of a commercial gallery with the realities of a state bureaucracy. Social media visibility is a modern prerequisite. In fact, the CCP is already present in these platforms. However, going viral on TikTok does not automatically equate to meaningful audience building. Bridging the conversion gap between digital views and physical foot traffic requires robust on-ground programming, accessible transport infrastructure to the CCP complex (if that will be the venue) and sustained community engagement—metrics that “likes” cannot capture.

More critically, Lorenzo’s proposal to tour the CCP collection across the Philippines requires logistics and partnerships. Exhibiting a multi-million-peso, historically fragile collection to regional transit requires first ensuring that the destination galleries possess museum-grade, climate-controlled environments. As mentioned earlier, the CCP’s 21AM collection has already reached various locations, including the National Museum of the Philippines; it is not impossible, but it needs careful planning. Regarding publishing, there are state bureaucratic roadblocks that we cannot ignore, making increased publications about artists a costly endeavour plus need enough time for comprehensive research.

Moreover, it has been private, commercial galleries that have been supporting or representing Filipino artists participating in international exhibitions. Instead of attempting to act as an international touring agency, the CCP could function as an incubator and policy advocate.

The most effective way for the state to support its artists in global exhibitions is to provide structural financial mechanisms—such as securing export subsidies, tax incentives and travel grants—to the agile private galleries and artist-run spaces that already know how to navigate the international art market.

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Indeed, culture must move beyond our shores so the world may witness and understand the depth and richness of the Filipino spirit. The CCP’s role should be to leverage massive, state-secured diplomatic milestones like the participation at the Venice Biennale, Art Basel, and the like to platform our contemporary artists, utilising the soft power that endures rather than conquers.

Perhaps the most structurally urgent point was raised by Quijon, who highlighted the severe brain drain of curatorial and scholarly talent. He noted that while many Filipino curators operate on a global level, limited local opportunities force them to move abroad. Quijon stressed the need to strengthen institutional support so that local talent can stay, allowing the Philippines to be the one who will makikinabang [benefit] from their efforts. He emphasised the need for a functioning local ecology where institutions support one another, and clarified that the curator’s distinct role is to position artists for galleries and art historians.

Quijon accurately diagnoses the core illness of the Philippine visual arts sector: the economic precarity of intellectual labour. The local ecology does not function because the triad of state institutions, academia and the commercial market is unbalanced. Because state funding for research is existent yet weak, curators are forced to rely almost entirely on the commercial gallery system or foreign grants to thrive.

Amidst the struggle, the curator’s role devolves from a rigorous art historian to a glorified project manager scrambling for gig work. The anxieties about participating in global conversations will never be resolved until the Philippine government and private foundations fundamentally restructure how they value and compensate the people writing the histories of our art. In all honesty, we cannot expect world-class scholarship out of measly wages.

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If the CCP then wishes to retain top-tier curators, critics and artists, the wider governmental apparatus must ensure they are supported by baseline economic security, research grants and a viable income.

The CCP Board of Trustees has initiated a necessary dialogue on strengthening the future of Philippine contemporary art. However, the brilliant visions of our curators and artists will only survive if they are woven into the nation’s legislative and infrastructural framework.

To build a resilient future for the Philippine visual arts, the CCP must evolve from a centralised, physical benefactor to an agile, decentralised incubator. It must prioritise scalable teacher training over localised workshops, decentralised digital and physical archiving over centralised hoarding, systematic private-public funding over state-sole reliance, and the economic protection of its cultural workers over purely aesthetic global ambitions. The talent and the legacy are already here; it is the infrastructure that must finally catch up.

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