Asian Cultural Council: Taking care of the nation’s soul

There is something about dinners with the Asian Cultural Council that moves me.

For instance, I was touched and did become teary-eyed at ACC’s event last Nov. 12 at the Goldenberg Mansion. I realized I was in the company of men and women who take care of our nation’s soul.

That is what the ACC Philippines is doing, according to award-winning production designer Gino Gonzales, an ACC grantee in the 1990s, who delivered his speech amid tears. I cried a little too, while he narrated how the ACC was a life-changing experience and how it was Josie Cruz Natori who took a leap of faith by choosing him “even if she didn’t know me at all.” But more of his tearful speech later.

First, an introduction: The ACC began in 1963 when John D. Rockefeller established this body “to promote international dialogue, understanding and respect through cultural exchange activities in Asia and the United States, to create a more harmonious and peaceful world. This is accomplished through grants that support artists, scholars and art professionals.” In other words, cultural diplomacy.

ACC Philippines chairman Ernest Escaler opened last Tuesday’s program by saying that the ACC’s role is “primarily to invest in the development of Philippine art and culture by giving grants to promising Filipino artists in various fields who want to further hone their craft by doing studies in America.”

Escaler noted: ”No one embodies this mission of preserving and promoting Philippine art and culture more than our First Lady, Louise Araneta Marcos. Since 2022, LAM (as she is fondly called) has created a renaissance in Philippine art and culture which experienced a drought since 1986.”

First Lady LAM has developed and restored various heritage structures including Bahay Ugnayan, Teus Mansion, Laperal Mansion, and recently converted the Baguio Mansion House into People’s Park. She has been revitalizing not only the Pasig River but Intramuros as well. 

Escaler added that LAM has set up the yearly fair called Likha to promote indigenous weavers. She has established regular art and cultural programs at the Goldenberg Mansion. She has been very supportive of our regional cultural initiatives especially when our artists go abroad to show our heritage to the world.

It is fitting, then, for LAM to be ACC’s honorary chairperson—a position she gracefully accepted, with Maribel Ongpin as president, Malu Gamboa Lindo as treasurer, and Tess Rances as executive director.

Trustees headed by Natori are Isabel Wilson, Mercedes Zobel, Dr. Joven Cuanang, Anton Mendoza, Rajo Laurel and Ching Cruz who Escaler introduced as “our muse” amid applause.

Founding trustees of ACC Philippines 24 years ago included Natori, Wilson, Ongpin, Escaler, and Fernando Zobel.

In her speech, Natori pointed out that about 300 grants have been given to Filipinos since its global founding 61 years ago. Some 158 of these were granted since the ACC Philippines was established by her in 2000.

“Please take note that out of the 65 National Artists we have, nine are ACC grantees!” They are Jose Joya, Lucrecia Kasilag, Lamberto Avellana, Alejandro Roces, Francisco Feliciano, Jose Maceda, Kidlat Tahimik, Ramon Santos and Alice Reyes.

Natori declared that Global ACC has supported 6,000 grantees from 26 countries in 16 artistic disciplines. For 2025, ACC Philippines has given nine grants.

During the dinner, Natori acknowledged the presence of Sabin and Bettina Aboitiz, Piki and Monina Lopez, and Fernando and Catherine Zobel who were last year’s donors. Then thanked this year’s donors Charlie Gonzales, Jaime Ponce de Leon, Willie Keng, Congresswoman Len Alonte, Chole Cuenca Chua, and Kelly Prehn.

“I have always believed that the creativity of the Filipinos is our biggest asset and is our unique differentiation from the rest of the world,” Natori said in closing. 

Gino Gonzales: Scene Changer

Creativity, indeed, is the common asset of three ACC grantees who spoke during the program.

Gino Gonzales, renowned production designer (scenographer is a more apt word) who was recently given the Gawad CCP Award by the Cultural Center of the Philippines, told his story.

“After graduating in Communication Arts at the Ateneo University in 1995, I took an offer from my former professor Salvador ‘Badong’ Bernal to be his assistant. For his musicale, ‘Alikabok,’ I helped organize his costume shop in Cubao, coordinated with seamstresses, prop-makers and performers, purchased fabrics in Divisoria, and tidied things up after each day. 

“I also served as a buffer between Badong’s legendary temper and the rest of the world,” Gonzales quipped.

After two years of learning from Badong who later became our National Artist for Theater and Design, Gonzales applied at New York University’s Tisch School of the Arts for its master’s in fine arts program and a Fulbright scholarship. “I begged my parents who agreed to support me however they can, and I looked at my measly savings toiled from miserable fees from theater projects. The sum was still not enough for a three-year course, art materials and living expenses in New York City which was then the center of the universe.”

It was Tess Rances who advised Gonzales to apply for an ACC grant. “So in 1998, I was off to New York to fulfill a dream with the financial support of ACC. The people in ACC practically stood in as my foster family, ready to redeem me from impossible scenarios, including the time my campus housing reservation was cancelled… and the threat of living in the streets of New York was so real.”

The ACC also gave Gonzales opportunities to see opera, ballet and theater, which were not always accessible with a student budget. “It also created a network among grantees, which allowed me to meet other artists in Asia, later paving the way for me to work on so many productions in Singapore, Taiwan and Japan.”

Gonzales paused and recounted: “As I look back, I realize how truly blessed I was to be wholeheartedly supported in my dream, through the generosity of a person who didn’t know me at all. Maraming salamat, Josie Natori. None of this would have happened if you didn’t take a leap of faith. By helping me from 1998 to 2001, by extension… you continue to bless all the people who see my work onstage, in film and television. You bless all the museum visitors in Manila, Davao, Ormoc and Cebu who experience the exhibits I’ve designed. You bless all the students all over the country who sit in my classrooms and traveling workshops… the apprentices who learn this specialized discipline under my tutelage… all the young fashion designers learning the process of making a terno… and an entire nation that has rediscovered the terno through the efforts of programs like Ternocon. By helping one person, you’ve helped an entire community,” said Gonzales, looking teary-eyed in the direction of Natori.

“And to all potential donors, I urge you to take the risk. It’s quite understandable that funding for the arts falls behind the fight against hunger, the effort to save the environment, healthcare, housing and even sports,” Gonzales pleaded. “But we shouldn’t forget that we also need to care for our nation’s soul.”

Alice Reyes: Major Leap

Our National Artist for Dance began dancing her way to success in 1965 as an ACC grantee taking her master’s in fine arts, majoring in dancing. Alice Reyes received a $200 monthly allowance, with which “I looked forward to eating bagels with cream cheese on Sundays.”

In New York, Reyes felt fortunate to have studied under the great teacher Bessie Schonberg of Sarah Lawrence College after whom the prestigious Bessie Award for dancers is named.

“It was great to have teachers breaking boundaries of tradition. They opened the doors to students and dance aficionados and showed us past landscapes of choreography, brilliant production designs and fantastic dancing,” Reyes narrated. “All these inspired me to dig deeply in my folk dancing background and journey towards new directions.”

Reyes pointed out that “the ACC is a crucial conduit, where we learned the value of reaching out and sharing the knowledge we have learned, with students and teachers as well.

“ACC stands as a reminder of how art can unite us… and continues to empower students by letting them immerse themselves in new environments. ACC’s life-changing support enables us to produce works and inspire challenges to move us all.”

Carole Duque: A Sense Of Purpose

Carole Duque explained how being an ACC grant in 2019 changed her life. “I was able to work with the best minds at the Smithsonian Institution, interned at anthropology departments and saw over 70 museums in the US, gaining knowledge and ideas I had had no access to before.”

Duque said she came back to the Philippines bringing home inspirations and a sense of purpose. 

“The ACC opened doors and taught me new perspectives. It was an opportunity of a lifetime. It helped transform my career and possibly will also help effect changes in the local museum community.”

She now works as a curator at the National Museum.

The ACC Philippines dinner, hosted by the First Lady with Margarita Fores serving ingenious Filipino dishes, amid guitar music by Juan Miguel Lerma and musical numbers by soprano Rachelle Gerodias and baritone Byeong-In Park, was not just about breaking bread with like-minded persons. It was more about breaking boundaries, filling the mind with nobility of purpose, and finding better ways to take care of the nation’s soul.