Heads up, an important announcement from the Cultural Center of the Philippines:
The country's foremost arts and culture venue is closing down for three years starting 1 January 2023 for a major renovation and retrofitting, said its CCP president Margie Moran Floirendo on 1 September.
Floirendo was quoted during a Senate culture and sports committee hearing, in which she said they discovered a leak from the theater's roof when the CCP resumed operations after two years of closure due to the pandemic.
Hopefully renovation and retrofitting works will be done before 15 March 2025, she added.
At the Senate meeting, CCP chairperson Jaime Laya said management and staff will partially move out by November since the renovation will start in January.
He noted that since 2018, the Budget Department has been turning down the CCP's budget proposal.
But he also pointed out that its temporary closure is a blessing and an opportunity for them to reach out to provincial communities whose residents don't get to watch shows at the CCP.
Some P400 million from congressional funds unspent during the CCP's two-year closure will be used to lease offices and theaters during the renovation, said Laya.
The CCP, inaugurated in 1969, was a project of then first lady Imelda Marcos.
