Amid all the talk of Korean culture imports and “K-drama”, Albay 2nd district Rep. Joey Salceda thinks that the best solution to keeping the local creative industry afloat is to copy South Korea’s creative strategies.
This, after Senator Jinggoy Estrada bared that he had considered a ban on K-dramas, a statement he later recanted and clarified.
READ: https://mb.com.ph/2022/10/19/frustrated-estrada-clarifies-he-doesnt-want-to-ban-k-dramas/
“It’s not just that K-drama and K-pop in general is good. It’s that investing in K-culture was one of the best economic recovery strategies ever devised by any in country in modern history. After the Asian Financial Crisis (AFC) of 1997, Korea decided that its cultural exports were a way to earn dollars and achieve economic success. They were exceptionally correct,” Salceda said in a statement on Friday, Oct. 21.
“Instead of banning K-pop and K-drama, let’s copy the economic strategies that led to its rise," he noted.
Salceda clarified that the Philippines’ content “can and should be original. But our economic strategies don’t have to be.”
The House Ways and Means Committee chairman then offered five creative “interventions” to bolster the local industry:
“First, we need a strong intellectual property framework, especially for digital content....block pirated content online faster and more effectively.
“Second, we need fair taxation between local and imported creative content. Many digital creative companies don’t pay Value-Added Tax . Local streaming services and local creatives do.
“Third, we need to reinvest revenues from digital services VAT and other creatives-related content towards investments in local creatives. Korea invested heavily in a creative industry fund post-AFC...This year, they announced a $3.7 billion fund for film, TV, art, and other cultural projects...one of the largest creative investment programs anywhere in the world.
“Fourth, creatives require creative freedom. Korea’s top grossing international film, Parasite, was a critique of Korean society. As a society, as a government, as a body-politic, we cannot be too onion-skinned. For a start, we may need to rethink our censorship laws and to broaden creative license.
“Fifth, creatives require highly technical training. Institutions of learning such as the Philippine High School for the Arts, the Special Programs for the Arts of our various national high schools, and our college artistic programs need to expand to modern, digital creatives, such as animation and filmmaking,” Salceda explained.
Salceda further encouraged local creative groups to enter cultural exchanges with international companies, something he says Korea–especially the K-Pop industry–does often.