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Republic of the Philippines
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Quezon City, Metro Manila

Nineteenth Congress
First Regular Session

HOUSE BILL No, 4329

Introduced by Hon. MUJIV S. HATAMAN of the Lone District of Basilan

EXPLANATORY NOTE

Traditional arts in the Philippines is one of the most diverse in the world. This is especially true
in Mindanao, where there are 18 Lumad tribes, 13 ethnolinguistic tribes of Moros and 64 settler
groups who all have call the island their home.

Each and every one of these groups has its own ethnic background and its own cultural
diversity, which manifests in their respective traditional arts: all worthy of protection,
promotion and conservation.

The traditional arts in Mindanao and Sulu, as well as in hundreds of adjacent islands, are well
understood in academic, popular and community contexts as profoundly meaningful and
deeply embedded in history. As such, they can be considered as national heritage.

However, Mindanao and Sulu traditional arts are waning very fast and becoming extinct. Arts
such as metallurgy, hand weaving, music, architecture and epic chanting are slowly being
relegated to memory. Some are not passed on to younger generations and are in danger of being
forgotten. This is exacerbated by armed conflicts that destroy and burn pieces of art, and
eventually add to the decline of traditional arts.

This bill seeks to arrest that downward trend and promote, protect and conserve the traditional
arts in Mindanao and Sulu by establishing the Institute of Sulu and Mindanao Traditional Arts,
or INSUMINTRA. This institution will be mandated to plan, institute, implement and monitor
traditional arts, crafts, program, projects and activities aimed at the conservation and
enhancement of traditional arts in the islands mentioned.


Traditional arts in Mindanao and Sulu must be kept alive not only because they provide income
for the artisans and their communities, but more importantly because they are the remaining
proof of the pre-colonial identity of the people of Mindanao and Sulu, and of all Filipinos.

The importance of this measure to the traditional arts in Mindanao and Sulu cannot be
overstated, and the approval of this bill is earnestly sought.

Representative
Lone District of Basilan


Republic of the Philippines
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Quezon City, Metro Manila

Nineteenth Congress
First Regular Session

wns 4329

HOUSE BILL NO. _*~

Introduced by Hon. MUJIV S. HATAMAN of the Lone District of Basilan

AN ACT PROVIDING FOR THE PROMOTION, PROTECTION AND
CONSERVATION OF THE TRADITIONAL ARTS IN MINDANAO AND SULU,
CREATING FOR THE PURPOSE THE INSTITUTE FOR SULU AND MINDANAO
TRADITIONAL ARTS AND APPROPRIATING FUNDS THEREFOR

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the Philippines in Congress
assembled:

SECTION 1. Short Title. - This Act shall be known as the “Traditional Arts in
Mindanao and Sulu Act.”

SECTION 2. Declaration of Policy. — With the growing awakening of the Filipino
masses to understand, appreciate and celebrate the nation’s cultural diversity and with the call
to correct historical injustice against the Muslims and Indigenous people, it is hereby declared
to be the policy of the State to foster the promotion, protection, conservation, enrichment and
dynamic evolution of the traditional arts in Mindanao and Sulu for their cultural values and to
support the traditional artists for their contributions to the national heritage by ensuring that
their skills are passed on to future generations of Mindanaons and Tausugs.

SECTION 3. Institute for Traditional Arts. ~ Pursuant to the above-stated policy, the
Institute for Sulu and Mindanao Traditional Arts or INSUMINTRA is hereby created to
formulate, implement and monitor policies, plans and cultural programs, projects and activities
that promote, preserve, enhance and develop the positive elements of the traditional arts and
culture in Mindanao and Sulu. The INSUMINTRA shall coordinate with other agencies
engaged in similar and related activities.

The INSUMINTRA shall be an independent agency. It shall render an annual report of
its activities and achievements to the President of the Philippines and to Congress of the
Philippines.


As used in this Act, traditional arts in Mindanao and Sulu refer to the culture of a group
of people in Mindanao and Sulu, their skills and knowledge that are passed through
generations, from the master craftsmen to apprentice, which include weaving, sculpture,
painting, relief work, metallurgy and metal smithing, house and boat architecture, culinary,
poetry, and epics, solo and ensemble instrumental music, solo and ensemble vocal music,
dance, theatre, and multi-media expressions such as ritual.

SECTION 4. Coverage. - The INSUMINTRA covers the island of Mindanao; the Sulu
Archipelago including Basilan, Tawi-Tawi and all the islands in between; Sarangani (or Balut)
Island; Siargao, Dinagat and neighboring islands; Samal and Talikud Islands and all nearby
islets; Camiguin Island; the islands off the coast of Polloc Harbor; Capul Island located at the
southern tip of Samar whose inhabitants and their descendants speak the Samalan language.

SECTION 5. Principal Office. - The INSUMINTRA shall have two main offices, one
in Zamboanga City and the other in the Municipality of Maramag, Province of Bukidnon. It
may establish field offices in other parts of Mindanao and Sulu, as may be necessary, to achieve
the objectives of this Act.

SECTION 6. Duties and Responsibilities. - The INSUMINTRA shall exercise the
following duties and responsibilities:

a) Consolidate an active database of traditional arts forms and practices in Mindanao
and Sulu, practitioners or artists, locations, relevant genealogies, and historical
anthropological and archaeological accounts;

b) Conduct the necessary research and grassroots consultation to develop project
designs aligned with community interests and structure;

©) Determine an annual priority list of traditional arts practitioners to engage in the
recuperation or resuscitation projects based on priority-setting metrics;

4) Undertake a pioneering role in project design that:

1) Account for the highly specific, localized nature of traditional arts;

2) Create economic support systems other than gross commercialization;

3) Allow transition of old arts to modernity without decay of quality;

4) Support communities rather than individual artists; and

5) Promote traditional arts in their full complexity, without simplification of
social context;

) Include in the design of projects, the environmental dimensions that impact the
chances of survival of specific forms of traditional arts in Mindanao;

f) Implement projects in different parts of Mindanao and Sulu based on set
priorities;

g) Monitor and evaluate projects based on priority setting metrics;


h) Represent traditional artists if in negotiation with regional, national and
international entities in matters concerning the staging, circulation and the
use of traditional arts, through partnership with the National Commission
for Culture and the Arts (NCAA) with regard to the Gawad sa Manlilikha
ng Bayan Awards (GAMABA) laureates’ activities;

i) Initiate or engage donor agencies and philanthropists in designing projects
to secure the future of traditional arts in Mindanao and Sulu;

i) Engage top caliber scholars, and develop scholars within traditional arts
communities, in writing, publishing and circulating information and
analyses of traditional arts in Mindanao and Sulu;

k) Commission and supervise the circulation video and digital products on
traditional arts in Mindanao and Sulu, in ways that can economically benefit
the practitioners;

}) Include design and implement projects or programs that involve entire
communities in ways that assure dignity and the communication of
complexity;

m) Nominate deserving traditional artists to GAMABA Search Committee of
the NCAA ;

n) Support the NCAA-established Schools of Living Tradition (SLT), by
providing evaluation services and educational training modules for
community skills in passing on tradition to their young; and

©) Perform such other duties and responsibilities as may be necessary for the
effective implementation of this Act.

SECTION 7. Board of Trustees. - The governance and policy-making powers
of INSUMINTRA are vested in, and its powers exercised by, the Board of Trustees,
hereinafter referred to as the Board, composed of eleven (11) members as follows:

a) Chairperson of the Mindanao Development Authority;
b) Chairperson of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts;
©) Secretary of the National Commission on Muslim Filipinos;
d) Chairperson of the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples;
e) A representative of the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao;
f) Executive Director of INSUMINTRA; and
g) Five members of the private sector who are of known probity and who have
professionally studied or practiced traditional arts in Mindanao and Sulu,
or who are graduates of anthropology, education, or social science.
The members of the Board coming from the private sector shall be appointed
by the President of the Philippines upon the recommendation of their respective
organizations.

The Chairperson of the Board shall be elected by the members from among
themselves.


SECTION 8. Powers and Duties. - The Board shall exercise the following powers and

duties:

a) Prepare and adopt such rules and regulations as may be necessary for the effective
discharge of its responsibilities;

b) Constitute the organizational structure and appoint INSUMINTRA’s executive
director, assistant executive director, officers and employees;

©) Review INSUMINTRA programs periodically;

4) Receive donations from local or international donors, in cash or in kind, and
appropriate such sum as maybe provided by law for the support of the (ITAMS)
INSUMINTRA; and

©) Perform such other powers and duties as maybe necessary to carry out its powers
and duties.

SECTION 9. Meetings. - The Board shall meet, preferably at its principal office, at

least once a month to discharge its duties and responsibilities. A meeting of the Board may be
called by the chairperson or upon written request of majority of its members.

The votes of the majority of the members consisting a quorum are sufficient for the
adoption of any rule, regulation, resolution or decision of the Board.

SECTION 10. Secretariat. - The Board shall organize a secretariat headed by an
executive director.

The Secretariat consists of the following component offices:

a) Office of the Executive Director;
b) Monitoring and Evaluation Office;
©) Field Work Team; and

d) Library and Archives.

The Board shall fix its staffing patter, determine the duties, qualifications,
responsibilities and functions as well as the compensation scheme for the position to be created
upon the recommendation of the executive director. The staffing pattern shall be approved and
prescribed by the Board within one hundred twenty (120) days from the approval of this Act.

SECTION 11. Functions of the Executive Director. — The executive director shall
exercise the following functio1
a) Prepare the staffing pattern of the INSUMINTRA which includes the qualifications
and compensation of officials and personnel in as may be necessary for the proper

discharge of the functions of INSUMINTRA;

b) Control and supervise the operation and internal administration of the

c) INSUMINTRA in accordance with existing laws, rules and regulations;

d) Recommend to the Board such policies and measures which are deemed necessary
for the effective exercise and discharge of the powers and responsibilities of
INSUMINTRA;

Submit an annual report to the Board on the status of the programs and the financial
condition of INSUMINTRA, including a recommendation for its budget for the
ensuing year; and

f) Perform such other functions as may vested herein by the Board.

©)


SECTION 12. Appropriations. - The amount necessary for the establishment of the
INSUMINTRA shall be set aside from any available funds of the National Treasury not
otherwise appropriated. Thereafter, such sum as may be necessary for the continued operation
of the institute shall be included in the annual General Appropriations Act.

SECTION 13. Implementing Rules and Regulations. — Within ninety (90) days from
the approval of this Act, the chairperson of INSUMINTRA shall, in coordination with the other
government agencies mentioned in Section 7 of this Act, formulate the necessary rules and
regulations for the effective implementation of this Act.

SECTION 14. Repealing Clause. — Any law, presidential decree or issuance, executive
order, letter of instruction, administrative order, rule or regulation contrary to or inconsistent
with, the provisions of this Act is hereby repealed, modified, or amended accordingly.

SECTION 15. Effectivity. — This act shall take effect fifteen (15) days after its
publication in the Official Gazette or in a newspaper of general circulation.

Approved,