A Philippine Komix Kommission?

As someone who has been actively writing about komix, as someone who has read a lot of very inspired very intelligent theses on the history and contemporary situation and future of komix, I'd love it very much if this project sees the light of day, but on paper, it's all too perfect, too much of a good thing, and that's something we should always watch out for regardless if they're pushing our own advocacies.

Not to preempt anything, of course, but my issue with it is more on who's actually doing the archiving, the collecting, the historisising; will they be more for archival-educational purposes or for business purposes, or even for cultural whitewashing purposes.

Also, chances are Senator Lapid did not just spontaneously think of this concept in the middle of a sleepless night himself, or at the very least, you don't just up and set up a project as important and widescale and (let's admit it) financially rewarding as this without having a choice set of people to "suggest" for it. These things are usually lobbied endlessly, are backed by industry people who have vested interests in it. These things don't just happen out of the goodness of people's hearts, most especially not in politics, not even in that other state-sponsored arts commission, ie, the NCCA, its open secret in the arts world being that graft and corruption and good old politicking runs rampant in its halls, as publicised by the Caparas fiasco.

The wording of the document also has an air that it may become a regulatory, ie, censorship, board for komix, which might/can be seen as the commission's prerogative seeing as how it involves big money and they don't just give big money to just anyone, it has to be someone with a vision, a vision that likely corresponds with their own, and that line of thinking is basically the gateway for a furthering of the Padrino System, very much like in that other state-sponsored arts commission (read above).

I also think that the suggested composition of the Board of Directors is lopsided (albeit understandably so, as indicated in the paragraph above) towards more government people than komix people, and the slots that they do have for komix people are limited to two, one each for the academic/critical and the creative, and you don't even need to be too deep into the komix scene to know that there isn't even two consensuses (consensi?) of what komix should be, let alone what komix is. Again, it's all still very quite possibly exclusivist.

But all this is pessimistic conjecture right now, of course, just as murky as the optimistic ones (wherever they may be). What I really like about Senator Lapid's proposal, though, is its definition of "graphic novel," its definition being the single clearest and most inclusive definition I've ever read anywhere -

A graphic novel is a narrative work in which the story is conveyed to the reader using sequential art in either an experimental design or in a traditional comics format. The term is employed in a broad manner, encompassing nonfiction works and thematically linked short stories as well as fictional stories across a number of genres. These graphic novels are typically bound in longer and more durable formats using the same materials and methods as printed books. They they are generally sold in bookstores and specialty comic book shops rather than at newsstands. Such books have gained increasing acceptance as desirable materials for libraries which once ignored comic books.

- a definition I plan to keep for future use. Also: a funny typo (at least I'm assuming it's a typo) on page 8, on the qualifications for the Archive Administrator, the first being -

a. Must not be a Filipino citizen;

- again, I'm assuming it's a typo.

All in all, regardless of my pessimism, this is definitely a step towards something. I await its future development.