Concept Paper

OPERATION: TKP (TUNAY NA KULTURANG PINOY)

BUILDING BETTER CULTURAL PRODUCTS IN THE REGIONS FOR PHILIPPINE
TOURISM
I.

INTRODUCTION
For many years, we have been looking silently but deeply and seriously into
the state of our cultural festivals in the light of culture being historically
considered as an important component of the Philippine tourism industry.
There are actually two (2) schools of thought that define the strong
interrelationship of culture and tourism. One believes that culture must be
kept in its purest form, unadulterated and keeping it completely from any
commercial influences. This puritanical stance was the undaunted position of
nationalist culturatis in the country. The other one is a kinder thought
allowing culture to be used for tourism and trade promotional purposes. This
belief attracts danger however - one that might unconditionally destroy culture
and kill it in the end.
But as a policy, the Department of Tourism recognizes the intrinsic value of
culture in the life of the Filipino people. Culture is the soul of the nation. It is a
whole package of patrimonial qualities that differentiate a Filipino from his
Asian brothers and sisters.
And from this perspective itself, this department hopes to put culture to where
it should rightfully belong. CULTURE MUST BE PRESERVED but must be
relevant to the changing times. IT MUST BE CULTIVATED without sacrificing
its true meaning to the everyday life of the people. IT MUST BE USED TO
PROMOTE TOURISM WITH SENSITIVITY portraying our own culture as
the mirror of the unique soul and character of the Filipino nation.
This is the very background on which this new program of the DOT will be
undertaken. OPERATION: TKP (Tunay na Kulturang Pinoy) seeks to
review and re-do all cultural events and festivals that have been created in
the regions to make sure that they reflect the communitys dreams and joy,
true beliefs and creative expressions. In other words, under this new program,
culture must be correct in its form and meaning. The songs, the dances, the
symbols, the rituals should be done because they all had their place in the
communitys past.
And from this perspective, culturally correct and historically accurate festivals
must be the background portraits of the destinations in the country. Festivals
must depict the true and real picture of the beautiful tourist destinations that
we have in the various regions of the Philippines. They must excite the
tourists to come to our islands. And they must help paint a fresh and colorful
portrait of the country in the minds of the visitors.

II.

OBJECTIVES
1. To develop correct and historically accurate cultural festivals and events in
the regions that will help the DOT create exciting and interesting country
image for the Philippines;
2. To make these cultural programs and events part of the tourist products
package that will be promoted and marketed both here and abroad;
3. To assist the local government units develop a strong tourism industry
based on their respective tourist products cultural festivals, historical
attractions and unique tourist facilities and services;
4. To build a strong Culture of Pinoy Tourism in order to make Filipinos fully
appreciate tourism, in general and these new cultural products, in
particular. In the process, they all become the vanguards and keepers of
all our cultural heritage and traditions, the protectors of our environment;
and the friendly hosts to visitors in their respective communities; and
5. To create an effective networking with cultural institutions to do a
continuing collaborative program in the preservation and promotion of our
cultural traditions and heritage sites.

III.

TACTICAL STRATEGIES
1. The first step is to create a Cultural Tourism Advisory Task Force to be
composed of experts in the fields of folk dance, music, theatre, props and
costumes, cultural history, local tourism who will develop a set of policies
governing the cultural development program envisioned under
OPERATION: TKP.
2. The second step is to review the state of cultural programs in each region
determining what measures to do to correct or to continue but enhance
the cultural products available in the community.
3. The third step is to identify and prioritize regions where these development
programs will be implemented. Criteria will cover the importance of the
regions as tourist destinations, the extent or scope of development
required in the area, the proper timing for these events and the kind of
support to be derived from the local community.
4. The fourth and last step is to program the series of consultations,
symposia, lectures, and workshops in the identified regions in order to set
the motion going. These exercises will cover festival management, Culture
of Pinoy Tourism, entrepreneurial skills, creative marketing for domestic
and international tourism, local investment promotion, upgraded tourism
services.

IV.

PROGRAMS TO BE IMPLEMENTED
1. CULTURAL RESEARCH The backbone of this Operation: TKP is
definitely research, and lots of it. It means that the communities must be
encouraged to look into their past to discover the hidden wealth and
intrinsic beauty of their arts dances, music, rituals, life ways and creative
expressions. Any attempt to develop festivals must therefore be based on
their own traditions. They must never be done to purely satisfy the hunger
of commercial tourism. This is the way to make the festivals survive and
felt and appreciated strongly by the people.

Research however must be properly documented in print and in audiovideo form to serve as materials that can be offered to interested cultural
students as well. It must be kept by the local tourism office. Copies should
be forwarded to the DOT Regional office concerned, for posterity and
future use.
And relative thereto, the Operation: TKP will also develop cultural events
that do no necessarily mean pure street dancing. Events could be in line
with cuisine as in a food festival for example. Or, with theatre like zarzuela
festival or a komedya festival. Or with music like the Cagayan harp festival
or the kulintang festival
2. CULTURAL WORKSHOPS/CLINICS In the review and re-development
of cultural festivals, the principle of correcting and enhancing the events
will entail a simple but tedious process
educating the community on correct music and correct dance movements
and correct props and costumes that are based on their own history and
traditions.
Choreographers, artistic directors, local tourism officers will undergo an
intensive training on aspects involved in festival management. Even local
school officials and barangay leaders involved in yearly street dancing
parades will be made to take up workshops and clinics to give them ample
knowledge of their own culture and to teach them tried-and-tested
systems and methods to preserve and enhance their old rituals and
traditions.
3. CULTURE OF PINOY TOURISM The success of all these cultural
development efforts hinge largely on the entire communitys acceptance
and support to the programs of the DOTs OPERATION: TKP. And to do
this, a project that will develop a strong Culture of Tourism that
emphasizes the Filipino Culture is very much in order.
A Campaign called PUSONG TURISMO, DIWANG PILIPINO has been
presented to the Association of Tourism Officers of the Philippines (ATOP)
last year where its objective is to make all Filipinos committed to the
development and promotion of nationalistic tourism in their communities.
Under this program, the barangay leaders will assume major responsibility
in spreading the gospel of the campaign to all the people under them.
Culture of Pinoy Tourism hopes to make everybody the great hosts to
tourists and visitors, the preservers of cultural heritage and traditions, the
protectors of the environment and the promoters of local tourism.
(Please see attachment 1 for details)
4. CONSULTATIVE PROGRAM ON CREATIVE MARKETING To develop
the sense of self-reliance and the creative spirit of the local government
units, OPERATION: TKP will also assist the local communities in how to
creatively sell their cultural products to the targeted markets.
Development and promotion of cultural products must always go hand in
hand. It is our belief that the best promoters of the local products are the
local people themselves. All they need however are creative guidelines to
make their promotions programs acceptable to the taste and needs of the
targeted clientele both foreign and local.

5. CONSULTATIVE TOURISM PLANNING PROGRAM FOR THE LGUs

Unlike the regular planning work done by the DOT in the regions, the
proposed tourism planning exercises to be introduced to the local
communities under the OPERATION: TKP will center on Filipino culture as
the overriding theme for the development of the local tourism industry
the itinerary planning, the preparedness of the local people to absorb the
influx of tourists, the alternative room accommodations like the
culturalized home stay program, tourist services training, creation of
tourist facilities, once successfully implemented, will definitely touch the
hearts of both the foreign visitors and the local tourists. The tourists can
cheerfully say that they have visited CERTIFIED: PROUDLY PINOY
DESTINATIONS in the countryside.
In other words, the end result of all these endeavors is the development of
communities as tourist destinations more known to have a visible mark of
true and correct Filipino culture.
V.A

PROPOSED METHODOLOGY
The work of the OPERATION: TKP starts in July with all the legwork and the
meetings to be conducted in Manila and in the regions. Prioritization of the
regions will also be done paying greater focus to areas that need strong
cultural programs in the light of their exposure to the tourism industry. If we
are to do our own listing, we believe that the following regions deserve
immediate attention:
1. National Capital Region or Metro Manila
2. Cordillera Autonomous Region particularly Baguio and Banaue
3. Region 1 or Ilocandia particularly Laoag, Vigan, Hundred Islands
and La Union
4. Region 3 or Central Luzon, particularly Subic and Clark
Second priority areas:
1.
2.
3.
4.

Region 4 or CALABARZON and MIMAROPA

Region 6 particularly Aklan, Bacolod City and Boracay island
Region 7 particularly outskirts of Cebu and Bohol
Region 11 or Southern Mindanao

Third priority areas:

1.
2.
3.
4.

Region 2 or Cagayan Valley

Region 5 or Bicolandia
Region 8 or Eastern Visayas
Region 10 or Northern Mindanao

5. Region 12 or Central Mindanao

6. Region 13 or CARAGA

Concept Paper
PUSONG TURISMO, DIWANG PILIPINO CAMPAIGN
(Culture of Philippine Tourism)

Tungo sa Turismong maka-Pilipino!

INTRODUCTION
Many believe in the wisdom of former Tourism Secretary Richard J.
Gordon by initiating and doing a reasonably aggressive campaign on the
Culture of Tourism in 2002-2003. This campaign formed the backbone of
his very successful promotions programs called WOW PHILIPPINES and
VISIT PHILIPPINES 2003.
The local government units (LGUs) could not agree more on the fact that
destinations in the countryside need a corresponding response from the
people if they were to promote and effectively market themselves in both
the local and foreign markets.
What is Culture of Tourism? It is basically an attitude and a set of values
that Filipinos must develop and inculcate in themselves to voluntarily do
the following for the tourism industry
a. Respect and assist the tourists both foreign and local while they
are in the destinations being visited;
b. Protect the environment and maintain regular cleanliness of the
surroundings all the time;
c. Preserve our cultural and historical heritage to keep a colorful
and unique image of our country both here and abroad; and
d. Help promote the tourism industry.
If all Filipinos would only keep tourism in their hearts, things would be a lot
easier for the DOT to handle the tourism industry. If everybody would think
tourism, the Philippines could easily develop its destinations, its cultural
attractions, its events, festivals and rituals without much effort being
exerted by the national government.
Thus, a vibrant Culture of Tourism being practiced nationwide could be the
right background at which all the development and promotion programs
being done by the DOT could be successfully implemented.
In other words, Culture of Tourism is very essential to the growth of the
tourism industry. Yet, it is also something that seems to have been
inadvertently neglected by both the government and the industry itself.

PUSONG TURISMO, DIWANG PILIPINO CAMPAIGN CONCEPT

The proposed campaign, PUSONG TURISMO, DIWANG PILIPINO is

another level of the previous Culture of Tourism program where this time,
its dominant denominator is the spirit of nationalism. In other words, it is a
campaign to rally all Filipinos to take deep pride in their country in their
beautiful tourist attractions, festivals, cultural traditions and use this very
pride to help, and make friends with, tourists (hospitality is what we are
known for), protect the environment, preserve cultural heritage and help
promote the Philippines.
PUSONG TURISMO means Filipinos must keep tourism in their
hearts always (like in any cultural process) while DIWANG PILIPINO
means Filipinos must strongly keep the spirit of nationalism alive in
their everyday world (like how we establish the sense of pride for our
country).
This campaign therefore is seen as the main thread to weave the entire
tourism fabric jointly by the Department of Tourism and the local tourism
offices. As such, this is a very ideal program that should be planned and
implemented by the local tourism organizations and to be spearheaded by
the Association of Tourism Officers of the Philippines (ATOP).

OBJECTIVES
To re-introduce and promote this new concept of Culture of Tourism to the
various local communities of the Philippines particularly in areas
where there are existing and potential tourist attractions;
To encourage the local government officials to adopt and apply this new
concept of Culture of Tourism in their own development plans and
programs;
To bring together the government, the academe, the Church, the local
media and the civil society in helping develop and propagate Culture
of Tourism among the people in a given community; and
To make every Filipino an advocate of this campaign in the pursuit of
better Filipino tourism industry in the years ahead.

METHODOLOGY
Production of a Logo Design
It is important that there is a nice logo design for the campaign to
make the project popular and acceptable to the target public. The logo
can be applied to the promo materials for the various tourism
programs of ATOP and its chapters nationwide. It can also be used to
produce stickers, pins, caps, T-shirts and other merchandising
materials. But specifically, logo pins can be a good promotional
vehicle if they are expressedly worn by the local officials particularly
those from the barangays who are doing regular tourist assistance
work in the regions.
Perhaps, it would also help if there is a mascot for this campaign.
Why not PINONG at PINANG? Pinong, playfully, is the nickname of
Pilipino. Pinang is the female counterpart. Juan de la Cruz, to
symbolize the Filipino, is too trite a name already.
Training Programs

ATOP can have several approaches in regard to Training Programs for the campaign. One, is
to create a pool of trainors who will go from one region to another to conduct awareness
dialogues and seminars to civic associations, schools and barangay officers. Another, is to
produce a manual to guide ATOP officers in doing training exercises for the targeted publics.
Or, from the start, this campaign be done in collaboration with schools and DILG so that
each sector becomes responsible for the information awareness programs in their respective
areas of jurisdiction. ATOP and the DOT, in the end, become the main coordinators of this
campaign.
What is to be disseminated to the targeted publics? The dialogues
and the seminars must teach our people on values such as
courtesies, honesty, respect to people, cleanliness and respect to
traditions and heritage.
They must also teach the audience on values of tourism as an
industry, as an economic activity and as a socio-political vehicle to
bring peoples and countries closer to one another.
Supplemental Promotional Programs
Greater success for this campaign can be achieved if there are
supplemental promotional activities that would make people
appreciate the big importance of the Culture of Tourism Campaign.
Samples of these promo programs are as follows:
Search for the Best PT/DP (Pusong Turismo/Diwang Pilipino)
Destination barangay level.
Criteria for this contest hinge on the cleanliness of the
surroundings, active cultural events, friendly barangay
residents, good management of tourism assets by the local
officials and the private sector
Search for the Outstanding Pinong or Pinang of the Year
This is to look for outstanding barangay campaign advocates
who exhibit exemplary qualities in assisting tourists, helping
maintain cleanliness of the surroundings, doing creative work
for culture and history.
Educational Exchanges between Barangays to learn
more about best practices, and best systems for management of tourism resources

The primary objective of this is to afford an exchange of ideas

on how a barangay effectively works to make tourism
profitable and interesting and meaningful for its people.
Media Promotion
Publicity is essential in the success of this campaign. It must promote
the very concept of the program nationwide and at the

same time, publicize the activities of the regions in regard to Culture

of Tourism so that the Filipino people are made aware of the efforts
being done by ATOP and its chapters all over the country.
Media promotion should cover print, radio and television. To sustain
this particular undertaking, it is best to open the promotion to private
sponsors who manifest strong interest in Philippine tourism. Sponsors
can supply banners and other promotional expenses. The LGUs, on
the other hand, and as an example, can pick the tab for ground
arrangements in case the local tourism council and ATOP members
decide to invite media people for familiarization tours of the
destinations under the Culture of Tourism Campaign.
Organizational Concerns
Like a typical national campaign, it is best that within ATOP, there
should be people dedicated to work on this Culture of Tourism
Program.
It is therefore suggested that committees be created to handle the
nitty gritty of this project. The DOT particularly the Regional Offices
and the DILG, particularly the LGUs, become the major partners of
ATOP providing the necessary logistical and moral support to the
ATOP committees handling this program.
The Office of Special Projects in the DOT, under Dir. Ting de los
Reyes, can very w ell help coordinate this program for ATOP.

THE EIGHTH SEMINAR-WORKSHOP ON TUNAY NA PYESTANG PINOY

OPERATION: TUNAY NA KULTURANG PINOY
PROGRAM
Day 1 / May 7

PERSPECTIVE AND IMMERSION

8:00 8:30 AM

REGISTRATION OF PARTICIPANTS

8:30 8:45 AM

OPENING CEREMONIES

8:45 - 12:00 NN

SEMINAR I
a. What is OPERATION: TUNAY NA
KULTURANG PINOY?
Dir. R. Romulo A. de los Reyes, DOT
b. The Roots of Filipino Culture and Their
Significance in Filipino Festivals
Dr. Nick Tiongson, UP (to be confirmed)
c. Festival Planning and Management
Mr. Nilo C. Agustin, DOT
Ms. Riya Lopez, UP
d. OPEN FORUM

12:00 - 1:00 PM

LUNCH BREAK

1:00 5:30 PM

SEMINAR II
a.

Dance Movements and Choreography

Rodel Fronda, BKFI
b. Music
Mr. Benicio Sokkong, Founder,School of
Living Traditions
c. Production Design, Costumes and Props
Mr. Hesus Bobot Lota, Philippine
Association of
Theater Designers and
Technicians
d. Theater Arts Application
Mr. Frank Rivera, NCCA
e. OPEN FORUM
5:30 6:00 PM

RECAPITULATION

WORKSHOP

Day 2 / May 8
8:30 8:45 AM

a.

Workshop Guidelines

8:45 9:15 AM

b. A Closer Peek into Two Popular Festivals:

Sinukwan Festival of the City of San Fernando

9:15 12:00 NN

c. Workshop Sessions
The participants will be divided into 5 groups
and each will be presided over by a cultural
expert to be assisted by a DOT staff. The
purpose of this exercise is to immerse the
participants into a re-orientation on the
development and/or enhancement of cultural
festivals based on the local and authentic
traditions, history, music, dance movements,
costumes, props and other festival elements.
-

Music (Mr. Benicio Sokkong)

Production Design, Costumes and Props
(Hesus Bobot Lota, Philippine
Association Theater Designers And
Technician)
Dance Movements and Choreography
(Mr. Rodel Fronda)
Festival Planning and Management
(Ms. Riya Lopez)
Theatre Arts (Mr. Frank Rivera)

12:00 1:00 PM

LUNCH

1:00 5:00 PM

CONTINUATION OF THE WORKSHOP

SESSIONS

5:00 5:30 PM

RECAPITULATION

Day 3 / May 9

WORKSHOP OUTPUT PRODUCTION

AND DEMONSTRATION

8:30 12:00 NN

OUTPUT PRODUCTION
12 student-volunteers will be assigned each to the
Dance, Music, and Theater Arts workshop groups to
produce the workshop output together with the
participants. Each workshop output will be put
together to create a cultural festival that carries the
image and character of an ideal Gitnang Luzon
Pyesta.

12:00 - 1:00 PM

LUNCH

1:00 - 3:30 PM

OUTPUT PRESENTATION AND REACTION

The participants and the student-volunteers will
showcase their workshop output in the form of a
presentation of a Gitnang Luzon Pyesta and will be
critiqued by a panel of reactors from the regions
cultural communities and the academe.
Participants will be asked to share their learning
experiences and their ideas on how the goal of the
OTKP Program can best be done in the
communities in the region.

3:30 - 5:00 PM

CLOSING PROGRAM/ AWARDING OF

CERTIFICATES

MR. NILO C. AGUSTIN

Facilitator/Moderator