The City council, during last Monday’s regular session, approved on first reading Baguio City’s one percent for art measure.
Under the proposed ordinance authored by Vice Mayor Faustino A. Olowan and Councilors Leandro B. Yangot, Jr. and Vladimir Cayabas, the purpose of the measure is to guarantee the allocation of 1 percent of the approved budget of the contract for government projects or contract cost for privately owned infrastructure within the city to be used for sit-specific public art, integrating therein the craft and folk arts of the city, infrastructure projects within the city.
Further, the ordinance shall cover government projects, privately-owned infrastructure within the central business district and privately-owned infrastructure projects for commercial use outside the central business district.
The ordinance stipulated that the local legislative body shall be responsible for administering the implementation of the measure including the establishment of policies and guidelines in the designation of appropriate craft and folk art to be integrated in the infrastructure project, all with consideration to the structural integrity of the art and the structure of the project.
Further, the body has the sole authority to exclude certain projects from consideration as ineligible projects or to limit the percentage of construction cost appropriated for art work on an eligible project on a case by case basis.
According to the ordinance, the local legislative body has the responsibility to monitor ongoing projects with the assistance of the concerned offices or persons with regards to the implementation of the measure.
The ordinance added that the council will also spearhead the conduct of researches in relation to the design of the site-specific art to be implemented with the assistance of craft and folk-art artists of the city.
Earlier, Baguio was designated as a Creative City for Crafts and Folk Arts by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) on October 31, 2017. It is the first city in the country to be part of the UNESCO Creative Cities Network that have identified creativity as a strategic factor for sustainable urban development.
The ordinance claimed that the crafts and folk arts emphasizes on the Cordillera weaves, wood carving and bamboo craft, silver and metal crafts, traditional tattoo, visual arts, literary arts, and cultural and performing arts.
In order to immerse the various crafts and folk arts within the landscape of the city, the council emphasized the need to integrate the art itself within the façade of the city public sites that includes city buildings, libraries, recreation buildings, fire stations and other city-owned infrastructures.
Moreover, the ordinance pointed out that construction or major renovation projects of the city shall include site-specific public art in the amount of up to 1 percent of the approved budget of the construction of each project.
