CCP | Cultural Center of the Philippines

The Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) plans and implements programs for the development and promotion of the arts—music, dance, theater, and the visual, literary, cinematic, and broadcast arts. Since 1969 when it was inaugurated, it has sponsored programs and activities such as festivals, exhibitions, competitions, and publications to preserve, promote, and enhance the artistic and cultural heritage of the Filipino people, and to develop audiences that will appreciate and support artistic and cultural work.

Sitting on a 60-hectare complex on Roxas Boulevard in Pasay City, the CCP is part of a vast network of arts and culture organizations that provide exchange opportunities between Filipino artists and artists from all over the world. This network also brings in performances and exhibitions that allow local audiences to experience arts and cultures from elsewhere.

The CCP is composed of several departments that promote arts education, direct outreach and exchange programs all over the country, mount productions and exhibitions, manage cultural holdings, and develop its assets. In its first two decades, the CCP focused on what were later perceived as elitist performing arts—ballet, opera, and similar shows—a bias that was shaped by its first board of trustees chair, then First Lady Imelda Romualdez Marcos. Following the successful EDSA revolt against Marcos and his martial rule and the subsequent change in the country’s leadership, the CCP expanded its scope to include literature, film, and broadcast arts, among others. It also reoriented its direction to emphasize original Filipino artistic and cultural expressions rooted in the Philippines, the sharing of art shows and performances with all kinds of audiences, and the participation of the regions in the definition of a national culture.