Almario picked as NCCA head

National Artist for Literature Virgilio S. Almario has been chosen as the new chairman of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA), it was announced last week. 

In a statement posted on its website on January 5, the NCCA said Almario “was elected for the term 2017 to 2019 and shall lead the NCCA Board of Commissioners, composed of representatives from the legislative, executive, and private sectors.”

Almario shall continue “to champion language and literature as the chairman of Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino [KWF],” it added, noting that he was its executive director from 1998 to 2001.

The NCCA also said its 13 commissioners shall also serve for two years. They are Sen. Paolo Benigno “Bam” A. Aquino, chairman of the Senate Committee on Education, Arts, and Culture; Rep. Evelina G. Escudero, head of the House Committee on Basic Education and Culture; Atty. Alberto T. Muyot, undersecretary of the Department of Education; Dr. Rene R. Escalante, OIC chairman of the National Historical Commission on the Philippines; Jeremy R. Barns, director of the National Museum of the Philippines; Yolanda E. Jacinto, OIC/assistant director of the National Library of the Philippines; Victorino M. Manalo, executive director of the National Archives of the Philippines; Raul M. Sunico, president of the Cultural Center of the Philippines; Fr. Harold Ll. Rentoria, OSA, commissioner of the Subcommission on Cultural Heritage and Almario’s rival for the chairmanship; Teddy O. Co, commissioner of the Subcommission on the Arts; Alphonsus D. Tesoro, commissioner on the Submission of Cultural Communities and Traditional Arts; Orlando B. Magno, commissioner of the Subcommission on Cultural Dissemination; and Marichu G. Tellano, OIC-executive director of the NCCA.

The KWF congratulated Almario on his election, saying in Filipino that it’s “extremely grateful” for his “continued service to Filipino language and culture.”

The National Museum also congratulated the literary giant, noting that he served as a “former trustee of the National Museum, appointed by President Benigno S. Aquino III, from 2010 to 2012,” and that “he will be returning to the Board of Trustees as an ex-officio member in his new capacity.”

Almario’s election effectively ended persistent talk about folk singer Freddie Aguilar—a staunch supporter of President Duterte—strongly lobbying for the position, wthich is not appointive.

According to Republic Act 7356, or the law that established the NCCA, the chairman is selected from among the agency’s commissioners.

On its website, the NCCA described itself as “the overall policymaking body, coordinating and grants-giving agency for the preservation, development and promotion of Philippine arts and culture; an executing agency for the policies it formulates; and [tasked] to administering the National Endowment Fund for Culture and the Arts [Nefca].”

Better known as Rio Alma, Almario is a “poet, literary historian and critic who has revived and reinvented traditional Filipino poetic forms, even as he championed modernist poetics,” the NCCA said of its new chairman.

“He has published 12 books of poetry, including Makinasyon and Peregrinasyon, and the landmark trilogy Doktrinang Anakpawis, Mga Retrato at Rekwerdo and Muli, Sa Kandungan ng Lupa,” it added.

“In these works, his poetic voice soared from the lyrical to the satirical to the epic, from the dramatic to the incantatory, in his often-severe examination of the self and the society,” the commission said.

For his contributions to Philippine literature, Almario was inducted into the Order of National Artists by then-President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in 2003. ALVIN I. DACANAY