A lawmaker said the Philippine economy will reap benefits from the Creative Industries Act if the government and private sector are willing to work closely together.
“You know you can’t really scale to the level of ubiquity that Korean content has if you don’t have government working closely with the private sector,” Pangasinan 4th District Rep. Christopher VP de Venecia said in a televised interview when he was asked on how the soon-to-be law will contribute to the Philippine economy.
The Creative Industries Act, the combined version of House Bill 10107 and Senate Bill 2455, is set to become a law on July 27, if it won’t be vetoed by President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. The bill was principally authored and sponsored by De Venecia, who’s also the chairman of the House Committee on Creative Industry and Performing Arts.
Private sector-led Creative Economy Council of the Philippines unveiled that the creative industry was worth roughly P1.27 trillion in 2019.
De Venecia said that he always looked to the example of South Korea “and how they seemed to have figured out their content industries back in 1997 at the wake of the Asian financial crisis.” According to the lawmaker, it was the time then-South Korean president Kim Dae-jung had to resort to another growth strategy “because they had lost their main driver which was manufacturing, …so they decided to invest in their content industries.”
The lawmaker said the Filipinos are now among the biggest consumers of K-Pop and K-drama. However, he stressed that the success of Korea in their content industries did not happen overnight as it required strong ties between the government and the private sector.
“So what South Korea’s reaping now are really the creative consequences of an international policy shift on the part of the government,” de Venecia said.
Meanwhile, relative to the tourism industry in the Philippines, De Venecia noted that prior to the passage of the Tourism Act of 2009, the industry was only at 5 percent of the country’s gross domestic product (GDP). This has now gone up to 12.9 percent, he said.
As for the creative industries, the lawmaker revealed that in the early 2000s, it was contributing roughly 7 percent to the country’s GDP.
“it’s probably even bigger now” since gastronomy and the freelance industry wasn’t included yet in the GDP figures in the early years of the new Millennium.
“I think now is the way to build back better. Post-pandemic; now is the time to really invest in creativity and use resources that are available to us even at a grassroot level,” De Venecia said.
Once it becomes a law, the Creative Industries Act mandates the creation of a government agency: the Philippine Creative Industries Development Council (PCIDC). The agency would be responsible for growing the sector by monitoring key performance indicators (KPIs) on the short, medium and long-term basis.
“KPIs include how much revenue should be generated in each industry, how many jobs are generated, export targets, intellectual property targets and how to grow the market both domestically and abroad,” De Venecia said.
The bill defines over 50 industries that are included within the framework. But these industries will have to be aggregated into nine developmental domains namely: audiovisual media; digital interactive media; creative services media; design; publishing and printed media; performing arts; visual arts; and, traditional cultural expressions and cultural sites.
The lawmaker will discuss the immediate impact of the law in a presentation at the Creative Futures 2022, the flagship program by the Department of Trade and Industry-Center for International Trade Expositions and Missions (DTI-CITEM), which will be held through a digital platform from July 28 to July 29.
The said digital conference will include an expo, knowledge sharing sessions and business development and networking opportunities among creative professionals, policymakers, business leaders and potential clients.