The fate of Philippine creative industry

CEBU, Philippines - Despite the Filipino’s self-proclaimed and widely recognized quality of being “malikhain” or creative, very few persons today realize a “creative industry” exists in the Philippines and that this industry can contribute significantly to Philippine growth and employment – if better supported by a more caring national government.

This situation of our creative industry seems to have been far better in 2005 when the Philippines held its “1st Philippine Creative Industry Forum” in September of that year. By doing so, the national government at least recognized the existence of the Creative Industry as an industry alongside others such as services and manufacturing.

Since then, however, not much has been heard of government efforts to push the growth and development of the creative industry of this country.

It was also 10 years ago that the European Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines (ECCP) proposed the creation of a “Creative Industries Coalition” of individuals and organizations, private and government, local and abroad to advance the growth of the creative industry. ECCP also called for the government to support the Creative Economy Agenda.

The government in 2005 was run by the 14th president of the Philippines, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. Today, there has been no similar effort by the national government to push the development of the country’s creative industry despite this industry contributing P661 billion to the economy in 2010, said the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines (IPOPHL).

In November 2014, IPOPHL said the creative industry, which it also refers to as the “copyright-based industry”, accounted for 7.3% of the country’s GDP in 2010 compared to 4.9% in 2005. The industry also employed 561,000 persons in 2010, 11% more than in 2006.

Equally important, the industry took 3.1% of total exports and 0.81% of total imports in 2010. Such are the little known but very positive impacts of this neglected industry.

IPOPHL defines the creative industry as that consisting of firms engaged in the creation, production, manufacturing, performance, broadcast, communication and exhibition or distribution and sales of works and other protected subject matter.

In contrast, the definition adopted by the Center for International Expositions and Missions (CITEM) says the components of the creative industry in the Philippines are the Performing Arts, Visual Arts, Installation Art, Literature and Publishing, Architecture, Crafts and Design and Audiovisual and New Media.

Whatever the definition, what is clear is the creative industry must be given its rightful place as a priority industry worthy of government funding and fiscal support.

We are grateful to the lawmakers in both Houses of Congress to have passed the Creative Industries Act. While the Act became law about two years ago, the Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR) which should have been created by the Design Center of the Philippines have not been approved yet. The Act proposed the establishment of a Creative Industries Development Council “to provide a clearly defined direction for setting an environment for sustainable growth of creative industries through the utmost utilization of the skills, talents and capabilities of the country's human resources. It shall assist the creative industries by helping them achieve their full economic potential.”

The Council has not been formally established, to the best of our knowledge, partly because the IRR has not been approved. No draft IRR has been released.

The Act also provides generous government support for the creative industry. This support includes exemption from the income tax arising from the operations of a creative enterprise. The only tax to be paid will be a 1% tax on income as a local tax collected by local government units.

 The Act also mandates the Land Bank of the Philippines, the Small Business Guarantee and Finance Corporation and the People’s Credit and Finance Corporation open a special credit window for the financing needs of qualified creative industries. As for manpower development, the Council in coordination with the Department of Trade and Industry is expected to hold a regular annual National Manpower Summit to promote and strengthen the sustainability of the creative industry.

But, having a pro-creativity law that would undoubtedly deliver a massive boost to the industry is useless if not implemented.

For the sake of the hundreds of thousands of Filipinos that depend on the creative industries for their livelihoods, one can only look past the dark clouds and to a future aglow with the silver lining of hope…   (FREEMAN)