SPCC celebrates 10 years of Grant projects

Spain, the Philippines and the former Spanish territories in the Pacific Islands share a common legacy which has been continually nurtured through the years, opening windows for mutual growth and understanding through collaboration and cooperation.

At the helm of these efforts is the Ministry of Culture of Spain which began this noteworthy undertaking in 1997 through the Spanish Program for Cultural Cooperation (SPCC) which started a grant program for Philippine Universities in 1997, and was formally launched on June 15, 1998. Three years late, four countries from the pacific Islands formally joined the program: the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, Republic of Palau and the Federated States of Micronesia.

Today, these countries share a common desire for mutual cooperation and understanding, embodied in the program theme “Toward a Common Future.” This is made possible through financial grants and support extended to noteworthy projects in the Humanities, the Social Sciences and the Arts, initiated by scholars and artists who aim to study and promote the Spanish culture, and that shared heritage and shared future between these participating countries and Spain.

The program is oriented to Universities in the Philippines and the said countries in the Pacific Islands, and this collaboration has not only spawned the publication of classic and modern Spanish texts in translation, but original research work as well such as Cine: Spanish Influences on Early Cinema in the Philippines by Nick Deocampo, 81 Years of Premio Zobel: A Legacy of Philippine Literature in Spanish by Lourdes Castrillo Brillantes, Plantas Medicinales de Filipinas by Trinidad .H. Pardo De Tavera, and Cinco de Noviembre Story by Rene B. Javellana, S.J. with illustrations by Felix Mago Miguel & Jason J. Moss.

The program covers a wide range of projects and categories, and may include Contemporary Spain: modernization, democratization, migration and ethnic diversity, social services, and regional organizations; Comparative Studies on Spain and the Philippines, or the Pacific Islands; Spanish Language: didactics, borrowings; The Performing Arts, Visual Arts, Design and the Cinema; and Preservation of Cultural Heritage.