MANILA, Philippines ? In dropping composer Ramon Santos from the National Artist Awards roster to make way for a ?komiks? fictionist and slash-and-smash film director and her own adviser for culture and the arts, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has broken an unwritten rule: You may add but you cannot subtract.

It is a rule that has been observed since the end of the Marcos regime, which had issued Proclamation 1001 in 1972 to establish the National Artist Awards.

Back then, it was Imelda Marcos, styling herself as patroness of the arts, who chose the honorees, but with consultations with the artists and culture lovers, especially the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP), which administered the awards.

Since the creation of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA), the CCP has jointly administered the awards with it. Their respective boards, meeting jointly, select the National Artists from a short list drawn from a rigorous selection process that involves consultations with artists and culture workers and lovers.

Aside from Santos, three others had been voted by the NCCA and CCP earlier to this year to become National Artists: painter Federico Aguilar Alcuaz, the late Tagalog novelist Lazaro Francisco and the late filmmaker Manuel Conde.

Respecting process

All presidents since 1986 until Arroyo last week had respected the selection process while exercising their privilege to add to the NCCA-CCP list at least one name: Fidel Ramos created a new category, ?historical literature,? to add historian Carlos Quirino to the roster in 1997; and Estrada added composer Ernani Cuenco in 1999.

(Corazon C. Aquino, perhaps because ?culture is not a priority,? stuck close to the selection process, even naming those with the Marcos government, such as architect Leandro Locsin and composer Lucrecia Kasilag, as National Artists.)

Arroyo continued with the tradition set by Ramos and Estrada and exercised presidential privilege to name writer Alejandro Roces and visual artist Abdulmari Imao National Artists in 2003 and 2006.

But this year, she broke ground not only by dropping Santos from the NCCA-CCP list, but also by naming four out of presidential privilege: Aside from komiks writer and ?massacre? filmmaker Carlo J. Caparas and presidential adviser on arts and culture Cecile Guidote-Alvarez, she named fashion designer Pitoy Moreno and architect Francisco Mañosa.

Arroyo, therefore, reversed the process: Instead of adding one name to the legitimate four-name list, she dropped one from it and added four more by presidential fiat. Her act smacks of abuse of authority. To many artists, it?s a mockery of the awards.

It appears the President has broken other grounds as well. For instance, she set up her own selection process in Malacañang, perhaps to justify her arbitrary use of presidential privilege.

Last Friday, during the NCCA board meeting, it was revealed Malacañang had an ?honors committee,? apparently to screen those endorsed by the NCCA and CCP and assist further the President in naming the new National Artists.

Somebody thought: ?Who are the members of this committee? Are they artists? Are they honorable??

The setting up of a body with presidential appointees to serve in an advisory capacity over and above that set up by law is vintage Arroyo. A recent study by the Civil Service Commission lists Malacañang as the agency with the biggest number of undersecretaries, assistant secretaries, advisers, assistants and consultants in excess of caps set by law, and without civil service eligibility.

Attendant controversies

Although Malacañang claims the President?s advisers don?t receive salaries, estimate put the costs of Arroyo?s excess executives, and that of their staff, to about P122 million a year.

An online directory of personnel posted on Malacañang?s official website lists 34 presidential advisers, 34 presidential assistants, three special envoys and three consultants.

There?s a presidential adviser on education despite the Department of Education having already 11 undersecretaries and assistant secretaries (the legal ceiling is five). There?s even a presidential adviser on ?Muslim Royalty.?

And, of course, there?s the presidential adviser on culture and arts, whose husband, incidentally, is presidential adviser on environment.

We don?t know if the culture adviser heads or is a member of the ?honors committee,? but people have to worry more about the fact that it would soon be difficult to address her because of her many titles: Aside from being presidential adviser and NCCA official, she?s also National Artist.

It is easy to see that all the controversies that have time and again attended the proclamation of National Artists have something to do with the selection process. But then again, the problem may exactly be the process itself: It is much too given to politics and politicking. And to the grant of political spoils.

But, as one ?trapo? has said, ?politics is addition.? And a little subtraction.