CEPPIO's Allen named arts, culture council officer; Oliveras city tourism executive

By Jason B. Neola

WITH high hopes of fulfilling the mandate to protect, preserve, and promote the cultural heritage of Naga City, Mayor Nelson S. Legacion constituted the Naga City Culture and Arts Council, a multi-sectoral consultative policy and planning body that shall provide the city with comprehensive and effective strategies for the development of the city’s culture and arts sector.

The City Events, Protocol and Public Information Office (CEPPIO) is tasked to serve as the secretariat of the Council, which is required to ensure timely, effective and efficient delivery of manpower and administrative assistance.

The city mayor’s executive order 2023-011, which designates Allen L. Reondanga as the Naga City Arts and Culture Officer, stipulates the Council’s roles and responsibilities to be as follow:

1. Prepare an annual plan on culture, arts and cultural heritage consonant with the Philippine Development Plan for Culture and the Arts, to be integrated in the local development plan and considered in the annual appropriation ordinances;

2. Formulate programs and recommendations to develop and sustain local cultural and artistic talents, cultural industries,

traditional and contemporary arts and crafts, and their processes;

3. Coordinate with the appropriate affiliated cultural agencies of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts for the conservation and monitoring of national cultural properties found in Naga City;

4. Conduct cultural events, such as cultural festivals, competition, lectures, seminars and symposia;

5. Ensure the protection, preservation, conservation and promotion of the local cultural and historical heritage;

6. Declare and maintain Local Heritage Zones;

7. Establish a Local Registry of Cultural Property;

8. Acknowledge the importance of traditional folk artist as singular conduit between skills of the past and the future;

9. Revitalize a community’s artistic tradition thereby protection a valuable fact of Philippine culture;

10. Provide mechanisms for identification and assistance for qualified traditional folk artists to transfer their skills to the community;

11. Create opportunities for popularizing the works of folk artists;

12. Support the Philippine Creative Industries Development Council in all of its functions;

13. Report to the Philippine Creative Industries Development Council the development and status of the implementation of programs at the local level;

14. Regularly maintain a database of business support organizations and creative workers associations within the territorial jurisdiction of Naga City and transmit such data to the Philippine Creative Industries Development Council;

15. Formulate, plan, coordinate, implement, and assess policies, programs, activities, and projects that promote and develop the locality’s creative industries, in coordination with the Philippine Creative Industries Development Council; and

16. Identify and implement such other programs and activities for the promotion of local cultural heritage and arts.

A separate directive designates Reuel Oliver, executive director of the Naga City Investment Board, who is also the head of the Naga City Investment and Tourism Promotions Office (NCITPO), as the Naga City Tourism Officer. It tasks also the NCITPO to work as secretariat for the council.

Legacion issued EO 2023-010 to enable the city to advance its tourism industry, which, as indispensable engine of socioeconomic growth, would capacitate Naga to generate substantial investment, foreign exchange, and employment.

“In the performance of its functions, the council shall be guided by the provisions of Republic Act No. 9593. Thus, among others, it shall ensure the preparation and implementation of a tourism development plan, the enforcement of standards and the collection of statistical data for tourism purposes. It shall, insofar as practicable, prepare local tourism development plans that integrate zoning, land use, infrastructure development, the national system of standards for tourism enterprises, heritage and environmental protection imperatives in a manner that encourages sustainable tourism development,” a provision in the executive order said.