Tayo ang Taumbayan, Tayo ang Pagbabago Inc

Katipunan Avenue, Loyola Heights, Quezon City

23 June 2010

TO THE MIDNIGHT APPOINTEES OF OUTGOING PRESIDENT ARROYO

NATIONAL MUSEUM OF THE PHILIPPINES BOARD OF TRUSTEES AND
CHIEF EXECUTIVE
CULTURAL CENTER OF THE PHILIPPINES BOARD OF TRUSTEES

Dear Sirs/Mesdames:

Together with the artists and cultural workers whom you have demeaned by accepting your
illegal appointments, we at Pinoy Power demand your resignation.

Your entry into the leadership of our major cultural institutions is without legal nor ethical basis.
Mrs. Arroyo exercised autocratic presidential powers. You have colluded in her interpretation of
leadership as impunity. In usurping the positions you disgracefully occupy now, you and your
leader show extraordinary disdain for the decades of work to decentralize power in the art and
culture field while striving for excellence.

You are, we assume, aware of the spirit of the legal provisions against midnight appointments by
an outgoing president. We will not insult you by reiterating what all decent Filipinos ought to
know.

This letter thus focuses instead on what may perhaps have escaped you about the field you have
presumed to lead. The art and culture field of the Phiilppines is well known in our region and the
world, since 1986, for its independent spirit, its autonomy from the interests of the powerful, and
its decentralizing momentum. May we therefore point out that in accepting your appointments at
the wrong hour, with no vetting system followed, and with apparently no concern for the
consultative, democratic bias of many of our artists and cultural workers, you have all denigrated
what is probably the most important character and achievement of this field.

Please join us in signalling change at this point in our national history. There is a crying need to
sustain our creativity as a people, and it does not help to have to endure massive demoralization
from the sudden, arbitrary moves of the national leadership. Such a leadership (or concept of
leadership) belongs to a past, unlamented era, when leaders assumed and exercised subjective,
even capricious powers. This is no longer valid as a political and cultural perspective.

In solidarity with the arts and culture sector,

PINOY POWER BOARD OF TRUSTEES, ADVISORS, AND OFFICERS

Fr Arnold Abelardo Dr Ruby Alcantara Mano Alcuaz Paco Alcuaz

Bujon Apostol Steve Cua Kay Bunagan Renan Dalisay
Gerry Esquivel Leon Flores III Esther Pacheco Mae Paner
Jim Paredes Marian Pastor Roces JJ Soriano Dr Ofelia Samar Sy
George Syliangco Atty Ruben Tobias Drae Ybañez Noel Tolentino