Hall of shame

Most of the posts I read seemed happy with the Supreme Court decision to annul the National Artist Award conferred by disgraced and ex-President Gloria Arroyo.  The four unlucky recipients were filmmaker Carlo Caparas, fashion designer Pitoy Moreno, architect Francisco Manosa and theater artist Cecile Guidote Alvarez, whose names had magically appeared out of nowhere and landed on Gloria's list.

Never mind that their names had not surfaced during the screening process, or were present in the short list finally elevated to Gloria.  Gloria exercised the prerogative of naming names she thought were worthy of the award, prepared her own list, and voila, we had instant National Artists.

That led to furious reactions from the artist community, and bitter arguments over the relative worth or lack of it of the awardees.  Many thought that the body of work of these artists merited the award anyway.  Other critics, frenemies, and non-fans pooh-poohed their contributions, and pretty much picked apart the relative worthiness of the “art” given birth to by the unfortunate four.

Rhetoric was not enough, and pretty soon, existing National Artists had filed a petition in the Supreme Court praying for the annulment of these latest awards, as they did not want to be in their 'undistinguished' company.   And surpisingly, they got the high court on their side.

I had thought that the Supreme Court would wash its hands off the matter, with a quick nod to the power of the President to exercise her executive discretion as she wished.  Plus, defining what art is and whether an artist is good, and especially whether artist in question is actually good enough to be a National Artist, would be beyond the competence of the court.  So the indignant legitimate awardees had a tough job ahead of them, convincing a court (mostly appointed by President Gloria herself) to undo what she had just done.

As it turns out, I was happily wrong.  The lawyers focused on demonstrating to the court that the existing laws actually gave parameters which the President should observe, and which she disregarded, and so we now have four people who were stripped of the prestige.

The most galling thing about this for the four is that they might have really deserved to win the award, except they had powerful supporters who maneuvered in secret and pushed for their names to be presented before the President. Or they might have actually used their connections with the President to get hand-picked by her.  That's something we'll never know.  But now, they will have to live with the shame of being stripped of their awards.

Sounds exactly like what a tortured artist needs in order to create more genius work.

What will they do in the future?  Some observers believe the four really deserve the award, and so maybe their names will be submitted to the selection committee for formal consideration.  Maybe they will eventually get the award the regular route, as some hope will be the case for Pitoy Moreno.  Or they won't, in which case the ignominy will just haunt them as long as they live. (I'm using what's called my artistic imagination.  Something which will never get me nominated for the award.)

Looking at the larger picture, I'm convinced the decision is a good thing.  It restores the faith the public has in the awards and the awardees.  It brings legitimacy to the artists, and dispels doubts as to the process through which artists have to go and win.  Moving forward, respect for the awardees will be the rule, rather than reluctantly given depending on individual merit.  No need to figure out what year the award was given or which President gave the award.

It's a pity some reputations had to suffer. Let's blame it on Gloria.