Where are our national artists now?

By Noel Galon de Leon

The question of where our National Artists are is not merely rhetorical; it is a pointed political, cultural and ethical inquiry. It challenges the frameworks through which the nation measures value, excellence and belonging, revealing the implicit hierarchies that shape recognition. To ask this question seriously is to confront the uneven distribution of cultural power, where institutional endorsement often serves as both gatekeeper and form of governance. Recognition, in this context, is not simply honor — it is a mechanism through which the state legitimizes certain voices while rendering others invisible.

The reality is that many of the Philippines’ most significant and socially engaged artists operate outside the formal circuits of Manila-based institutions. They are dispersed across islands, provinces and rural communities, where creative work is inseparable from local histories, collective memory and everyday survival. In these spaces, art is not primarily a career or commodity; it functions as community service, resistance and the preservation of cultural heritage. By overlooking these artists, official recognition not only erases vital contributions but also reinforces a narrow conception of cultural legitimacy rooted in urban and institutional centers.

These artists create in regional languages that embody centuries of knowledge, struggle and lived experience. Cebuano, Ilokano, Kapampangan, Hiligaynon, Bikol, Waray, Tausug, Maranao and many others continue to sustain cultural life across the archipelago, yet they remain largely invisible within the frameworks of national recognition. For these artists, language is not merely a stylistic choice or a medium of expression; it is a deliberate political stance that asserts the legitimacy of local histories, memories and epistemologies in the face of a system that privileges Manila-centric norms.

Many regional artists work without access to museums, galleries, publishing houses or formal funding mechanisms. Cultural infrastructure in the Philippines remains heavily centralized, concentrating resources, audiences and networks in the capital. This centralization does more than limit access — it defines the very standards by which artistic merit is measured, effectively marginalizing creative practices that do not conform to institutional expectations. The result is systemic invisibility that undervalues regional contributions and perpetuates a narrow, hierarchical understanding of Philippine art.

Despite systemic constraints, regional artists continue to produce work of remarkable depth, rigor and societal consequence. Their creative labor preserves communal memory, transmits ethical and moral values and engages directly with local histories shaped by colonization, resource extraction, conflict and resilience. This is cultural work on which the nation depends, yet it is rarely acknowledged, institutionalized or materially supported. In sustaining the cultural fabric of their communities, these artists perform a form of labor that is both indispensable and largely invisible.

In this context, the designation of National Artist demands rigorous scrutiny. National significance cannot be measured solely by visibility in Manila or circulation within elite cultural institutions. A nation as geographically and culturally plural as the Philippines cannot afford a singular, centralized conception of artistic authority without impoverishing itself. Recognition that privileges the capital over the provinces risks rendering invisible the very practices, histories and languages that sustain the nation’s diverse cultural life.

Each year, public attention turns to the announcement of new National Artists, accompanied by media coverage, speculation and celebration. Yet this spectacle primarily circulates within metropolitan spaces, reinforcing a Manila-centered vision of cultural authority. For many artists working in the regions, the process is distant, opaque and structurally inaccessible, leaving their contributions unacknowledged and undervalued within the national imagination.

To understand this disparity, it is necessary to examine the National Artist Award itself. As the highest cultural honor bestowed by the state, it recognizes individuals who have made significant contributions to Philippine arts across multiple disciplines. However, the criteria, nomination procedures and institutional networks that govern the award are concentrated in the capital, privileging those who operate within metropolitan circuits and marginalizing creative practices rooted in regional communities.

Nominees for the National Artist Award are carefully screened by cultural agencies and expert committees, with final approval resting at the level of the presidency. Awardees gain not only symbolic honor but also material benefits, including pensions, financial support for their work, public authority and historical inscription into the national narrative. In this sense, the award carries tangible consequences: It can shape careers, influence cultural memory and define which artistic legacies are preserved and celebrated.

Given its power, the award has long been the site of contestation. Past controversies have included allegations of political intervention, favoritism, inconsistent application of criteria and the sidelining of peer review. These disputes reveal that cultural recognition is rarely neutral; it is shaped as much by institutional hierarchies, personal networks and political interests as by artistic merit. The processes surrounding the award thus illuminate the broader inequalities embedded in the structures that govern Philippine art and its historical valuation.

Structurally, the National Artist Award reproduces Manila-centric bias. The overwhelming majority of awardees have lived, worked or maintained institutional affiliations in the capital, reflecting patterns that cannot be dismissed as coincidence or the result of pure meritocracy. This concentration underscores how cultural authority, visibility and historical recognition are deeply tied to proximity to institutional power in Metro Manila, rather than the intrinsic value of artistic work.

The scarcity of National Artists from the regions stems from multiple interlocking causes, the most immediate of which is infrastructure inequality. National museums, archives, universities, funding bodies and media platforms are heavily concentrated in Metro Manila, creating cumulative advantages for artists located there. Access to these institutions shapes not only opportunities for professional development and exhibition but also the criteria by which artistic merit is recognized, further entrenching capital-based dominance over national recognition.

The second structural barrier is linguistic hierarchy. Works produced in regional languages — Cebuano, Ilokano, Hiligaynon, Kapampangan, Bikol, Tausug, Maranao and others — are systematically marginalized: They are less likely to be taught in schools, reviewed by critics, translated or archived in national repositories. Consequently, the intellectual, aesthetic and ethical contributions of these artists are consistently undervalued, reinforcing Manila-centric and Tagalog-dominated definitions of cultural significance.

A third barrier is documentation bias. Many regional artists work in oral, performative, ritual or community-based traditions that do not conform to the conventions of academic publishing, exhibition catalogs or international shows. When evaluation criteria privilege written records, curated exhibitions or global visibility, entire traditions of knowledge and practice are rendered invisible. These biases not only limit recognition but also shape the historical record, determining which forms of artistic labor are preserved, remembered and celebrated.

A fourth structural barrier is network exclusion. Nomination for the National Artist Award requires advocacy from individuals embedded within dominant cultural networks. Artists operating outside these institutional circles, regardless of the significance or rigor of their work, are effectively shut out of consideration. The award’s reliance on gatekeepers with institutional authority reinforces existing hierarchies and systematically privileges those already connected to the capital’s cultural infrastructure.

These dynamics are not accidental. They reflect a broader pattern in Philippine governance, in which resources, decision-making power and legitimacy flow from the center outward. Cultural policy has largely mirrored this centralized structure, reinforcing metropolitan dominance rather than challenging it and shaping which forms of artistic labor are deemed worthy of recognition. In this sense, the National Artist Award functions as both a symbolic and practical instrument of centralization, codifying structural inequities into the very mechanisms of cultural honor.

Responsibility, however, does not rest solely with Manila-based institutions. Regional cultural organizations must also take deliberate steps to document, archive and critically engage with local artistic production, articulating its value on its own terms rather than through the lens of the capital. By building robust systems of scholarship, critique and institutional support, these organizations can ensure that regional creativity is legible, respected and historically preserved.

This requires sustained investment in regional journals, research centers, translation programs and artist-led archives. Without such infrastructure, local work remains highly vulnerable to erasure, its intellectual, aesthetic and ethical contributions invisible within the national narrative. Strengthening these mechanisms is not merely an administrative task but a necessary intervention in cultural sovereignty, allowing communities to assert the legitimacy and relevance of their own artistic labor.

Artists themselves should not be burdened with bureaucratic labor, yet support systems must exist to help them navigate recognition processes without compelling relocation or compromising their commitments to local communities. Proper infrastructure — administrative guidance, mentorship and accessible nomination pathways — can allow artists to gain visibility and recognition while remaining rooted in the places and practices that sustain their work.

At this point, reform becomes unavoidable. The current system systematically underrepresents women, regional artists and creators working in non-dominant languages. This inequity is not a matter of oversight or occasional omission; it is the result of structural design. Without deliberate intervention, the mechanisms of recognition will continue to reproduce historical patterns of exclusion, privileging metropolitan, male and Tagalog-centric cultural authority over the diverse, plural reality of Philippine artistic life.

Across all disciplines, women remain severely underrepresented among National Artists. This underrepresentation reflects deeply gendered barriers to education, time, patronage and access to institutional authority. Correcting this imbalance requires deliberate and sustained policy interventions that recognize both the historical exclusion of women and the structural conditions that continue to constrain their artistic trajectories.

In literature, the marginalization of writers working in regional languages is particularly pronounced. Philippine literary history remains heavily skewed toward English and Filipino, despite the vibrancy, historical depth and resilience of regional literatures. This linguistic bias distorts the national canon, erasing or undervaluing the intellectual, aesthetic and ethical contributions of writers who sustain local traditions and communities.

From a cultural policy perspective, the Philippines lags behind several ASEAN neighbors in recognizing and supporting regional artistic practices. Countries such as Indonesia, Thailand and Vietnam have invested in decentralized cultural councils, regional heritage funding and language-based cultural preservation programs. These policies create institutional mechanisms that valorize local creativity while integrating it into the national cultural landscape, ensuring that recognition is not limited to metropolitan centers.

Indonesia, for example, formally recognizes regional cultural masters whose influence may be local yet whose significance is nationally protected. This approach treats national culture as an interconnected ecology rather than a hierarchical system dominated by the capital. By acknowledging local authority and cultural knowledge as foundational to national identity, such models provide a framework for rethinking how the Philippines might cultivate an inclusive and pluralistic approach to artistic recognition.

A Philippine cultural policy informed by regional ASEAN models would mandate regional representation on selection committees, implement quotas or other corrective measures, and fund sustained documentation, translation and archiving initiatives. Such reforms would create institutional pathways for regional artists to gain recognition without relocating or compromising their work, addressing structural inequities in access, visibility and institutional support.

These measures would also align with constitutional commitments to cultural diversity and regional development, while correcting historical imbalances produced by colonial and postcolonial centralization. By institutionalizing support for local languages, communities and knowledge systems, the state could begin to cultivate a more inclusive, pluralistic conception of national culture.

Importantly, recognition should not be treated as the sole measure of artistic worth. Many artists will continue to create regardless of state acknowledgment. Their value is intrinsic and relational, rooted in community, memory and ethical engagement, rather than conferred by titles, awards or centralized institutions.

State recognition does more than confer honor — it shapes curricula, archives and public memory. Exclusion from these narratives has generational consequences: What is not recognized risks being forgotten, and the contributions of entire communities may be rendered invisible in the national imagination. The stakes of recognition are therefore both historical and ethical.

It is not too late to act. Cultural workers, scholars, educators and media institutions must speak clearly and persistently about regional inequities and the structural barriers that limit recognition. By documenting, advocating and amplifying marginalized voices, they can challenge the concentration of cultural authority and expand the national narrative.

Government agencies, for their part, must move beyond ceremonial recognition and commit to structural support. Cultural policy should be consultative, data-informed and regionally grounded, providing sustained resources for documentation, archiving, translation and professional development. Only through these measures can recognition become equitable, meaningful and reflective of the Philippines’ rich, plural artistic landscape.

Families, schools and local governments also bear responsibility in sustaining artistic life. Valuing local artists nurtures continuity, strengthens cultural confidence and affirms the creative contributions of communities at the grassroots level. Recognition begins not only in the capital but in the places where art is lived, taught and shared.

The question is not only where our National Artists are, but who defines the nation in whose name they are honored. A nation that requires its artists to relocate in order to be seen is a nation unwilling to recognize itself fully. Recognizing regional artists does not dilute national culture; it enriches it, restoring complexity, honesty and care to the stories we tell about ourselves.

The work ahead is difficult but necessary. Cultural justice demands structural change, not symbolic gestures. If nation-building is to be taken seriously, culture must be treated as infrastructure, not ornament. This entails sustained funding, robust policy reform, transparent accountability and long-term institutional vision.

The regions have always been producing National Artists in practice, if not in name. What remains is the courage to recognize them. Only by affirming their work, histories and communities can national recognition begin to reflect the nation as it truly is — plural, vibrant and rooted in the lived realities of all its people.