PUBLIC relations (PR) can be a powerful force for good. And for companies, one of the salutary ways they can put PR to good use is for them to promote the development of the arts.
Palanca Awards for Literature
AMONG the most successful of these arts-promotion initiatives is the Carlos Palanca Memorial Awards for Literature, or the Palanca Awards for short. It was established way back in 1950 by the Palanca family, which, then, owned the La Tondena Distillers, then the country’s top liquor distributor. It was named in honor of the founder of the company, Don Carlos Palanca, to recognize Filipino writers, including poets, playwrights and screenwriters, as well as writers for children.
True enough, the Palanca Awards has helped discover and encourage many writers to hone their craft and, eventually, make their mark in the pantheon of Philippine Literature. These include National Artist Cirilo F. Bautista, Rolando S. Tinio, Gregorio C. Brillantes, Isagani R. Cruz, Alfred A. Yuson and Jose Y. Dalisay Jr., plus a host of younger, up-and-coming literary lions.
The award program, which is now on its 76th year, has gained such prestige that it has been considered as a local version of the United States’ Pulitzer Prize or Sweden’s Nobel Prize, both also launched by business families like the Palancas. It has burnished the reputation of the Palanca family, which runs the program to this day through its foundation, as being concerned, not just in making profits, but contributing to the enrichment of the country’s literary heritage.
Shell National Students Art Competition
ANOTHER successful PR project to promote the arts—the visual arts this time—is the Shell National Students Art Competition (NSAC). It was started in 1952 by Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corp., when the company was looking for paintings to include in its corporate calendar. It metamorphosed into one supporting the development of young Filipino talents in the visual arts using as medium oil, acrylic and watercolor, as well as sculpture.
The NSAC was suspended in 1972 during the martial-law period until its revival in 1989. In recent years, it has added the multimedia arts, such as digital print art and digital short film, thus enabling the program to keep up with technological advances in the art field. Like the Palanca Awards, the NSAC has helped launch the careers of many of important figures in the Philippine art scene, such as Jose T. Joya, Federico Aguilar Alcuaz, Ang Kiukok and Benedicto “Bencab” Cabrera—National Artists all—as well as younger ones who have gained international acclaim, such as Ronald Ventura and Andres Barroquinto.
SMC and ABS-CBN support for music
THERE have been no major private-sector initiatives by way of awards programs in the field of classical music and dance. This is probably because the government has already been holding such a program, the National Music Competitions for Young Artists, since 1973 to “preserve, develop and promote Philippine music as an art and as a handmaid of cultural development.” The National Commission for Culture and the Arts has been the primary government agency supporting this endeavor.
Perhaps, only the government, with its nationwide network and enormous resources, could undertake the forbidding task of searching for the major music talents from all over the country, bringing them to Manila, judging and selecting the best among these talents and supporting their further development through workshops and training programs.
Art ennobles a nation
HOWEVER, this has not stopped two private companies from doing their share in the preservation, development and promotion of Philippine music. One is San Miguel Corp. (SMC), which in 2001 organized the San Miguel Philharmonic Orchestra and the San Miguel Master Choral, hiring one of the country’s leading Filipino musical artists, Ryan Cayabyab, to manage these two musical groups. The orchestra and the choir performed and recorded for posterity the best of Philippine music before they were disbanded in 2007.
Picking up after SMC left off, ABS-CBN, the leading Filipino commercial broadcast and television network, put up its own ABS-CBN Philharmonic Orchestra in 2012 with Gerard Salonga as conductor and musical director. Salonga, younger brother of world-renowned singer Lea Salonga, has been making his own name in the music field in his particular genre. The orchestra has been performing in concerts both in ABS-CBN events and TV and film projects, as well as guesting in public concerts sponsored or cosponsored by the network. It has been receiving a lot of plaudits for the smooth and beautiful music it produces.
The benefits of promoting the arts may not, in the overall scheme of things, have as tangible benefits as the usual corporate social responsibility projects for communities, such as building homes for the poor, or holding medical missions, or distributing relief goods to disaster-stricken areas. But they are also needed to ennoble the nation by uplifting the people’s spirits and engendering their pride in their country and their countrymen.
PR Matters is a roundtable column by members of the local chapter of the International Public Relations Association, the premier association for senior professionals around the world. Rene Nieva is the Chairman and CEO of Perceptions, Inc.
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