Duterte hints at selling Cultural Center to buoy up dwindling SAP funds

The summary of the press conference was terse and direct – their well is fast running dry, and they have to pull down the curtains earlier, and dim the spotlights even faster.

The bland scenery that saw the tension-laced press conference via Zoom by the Cultural Center of the Philippines Wednesday, April 29, was more of a tear-jerking variety.

Its financial condition that highlighted the conference, among a few items, came out in some print media a few days following the high-tech covered clustering.

Used to being appreciated for its aplomb and glitter, the country’s most revered arts and culture institution – the Cultural Center – may be closing its doors in the most unceremonious way.

Officials admitted it is cashstrapped, but not of its own making. The very nature of its revenues — arts programs and cultural shows — demand live audiences which the present governance discourages. The realities are harsh.

First, CCP’s main business necessitates face-to-face appreciation and the presence of large gatherings which are now anathema to the prohibitions by the Inter-Agency Task Force of the government’s General Community Quarantine promulgation.

Second, its scheduled crowd-attracting shows the past two months failed to draw lines to the ticket booths because of the lockdown and stoppage of public transport.

CCP officials placed the ticket losses alone at

R90 million.

Third, as a wholly owned and controlled corporation of the national government, CCP is vulnerable to budgetary cuts and budgetary alignments. And a victim it became when the administration’s executive department chopped off 45 percent of its budget, presumably, in favor of funding its fight against COVID-19.

But CCP officials are optimistic they can make do with whatever is left. They are experts in the field of arts and culture presentations, and such resources are at their beck and call.

And survive they will. President Duterte, in one of his evening addresses on live TV, said the special fund for the war against the virus was running low. And one way to replenish that was to sell premium assets of the government. One of those mentioned was the CCP complex.

Aside from the CCP building itself, the complex includes the Folk Arts Theater, commercial buildings rented out to restaurants, a small marina, and a wide parking area.

Dear readers, don’t laugh now if I tell you that one serious buyer of the property may be TV game show host Willie Revillame. Reports are circulating that he has been scouting around for a suitable place to permanently house his weekday riotous show WoWoWIN.