ISSUES OF PRACTICE IN THE GLOBAL CONTEXT “License to Design: The Practice of Practice of Architecture in the Philippines.” The practice of these professions here is threatened to extinction by the continued bias of clients against them, the threat of illegal Filipino practitioners, the invasion of foreign consultants and the exodus of Filipino designers to better-paying jobs overseas. Helping me explain these issues on the show were two architects arch itects — Armando Alli of the Board of Architecture at the Professional Professional Regulation Commission, and Dean Danilo Silvestre of the Collegeof Architecture at the University of the Philippines in Diliman. Both are also practicing (registered and licensed) architects and environmental planners. The bias against local practitioner s apparently stems from the public’s misunderstanding of what architects and related design professionals do. Architecture is the art and science of designing buildings and building complexes com plexes to house and support the functions of clients and the public. As a service, it is like medicine and law where problems or needs are addressed in a timely and direct manner but with the additional facet of elegance, aesthetics and good taste. Many Filipino architects are treated like suppliers or contractors, valued only if fees charged are cheap and if they are willing to be constantly on call (unlike doctors or lawyers, clients refuse to pay architects based on time spent at endless meetings). It’s a matter of r espect, which makes it all the more aggravating for many locals practitioners as they witness a whole different attitude given by clients to foreign-schooled but unregistered or licensed practitioners or foreign consultants. Of late, a number of Filipino or Fil-American designers schooled or who have worked overseas have set up practices without the necessary licenses. Their success has been the product of good marketing skills, individual packaging (f oreign accents, fashionable dress sense, and conspicuous attendance in the cocktail circuit) as well as a competent portfolio of work overseas. It is no wonder then that local media find these personalities good copy. Nevertheless they have been found not to be in the roster of registered or licensed architects. The United Architects of the Philippines (UAP) has sent notices to editors in chief and writers of design magazines and broadsheets to desist from referring to these designers as “architects.” Similar incidents have been cited by the Philippine Association of Landscape Architects and the Philippine Institute of Interior Designers regarding personalities featured in newspapers and magazines and referred to as landscape architects or interior designers. All three professions are regulated by the government and require registration and licenses to practice. On the show, architect Alli explained that the Architecture Law RA9266 (there are similar ones for landscape architecture, interior design and environmental planning) protects the interest of the public and ensures legal accountability for malpractice or its results — collapsing buildings, landslides in housing sites, exploding utilities and the like.
More worrying for the UAP, PALA and PIID is the proliferation of foreign designers who are featured in numerous press releases and ads by real estate developers — complete with portraits and interviews as to how they have designed this or that new master planned community, world-class complexes or trend-setting landscapes and urban design. Alli explained that there are several requisites for foreigners to practice — proof that they offer expertise no Filipino professional can offer, reciprocity from the country they come from (meaning Filipinos could practice there), a permit from the PRC and a permit from the Department of Labor and Employment. It has been discovered that not one foreign consultant or firm has ever been given these permits. No country has reciprocity rights with the Philippines and Filipinos are recognized worldwide as technically excellent in design skills, which is why they are hired by topnotch firms worldwide. Dean Silvestre for his part explained the effects of globalization on the educational s ystem and the pressures on students that reflect in different directions they take — moving abroad versus establishing experience and practice in the Philippines. He believes that Filipino architects can excel here and compete with the best of the world as training and improved curricula can ensure their competence in a world soon without professional borders. My view, as I stated in the show is that “No one questions the necessity of regulating the practice of medicine or law. Local lawyers and doctors would raise hell if any foreign firm dares set up a local practice. No patient or client would go to these firms anyway unless they knew that these practitioners were licensed and liable under local law.” The situation with architecture is a bit different but malpractice in the art and science of designing buildings could lead, like bad medicine or lawyering, to loss of life or a sad existence in a structure that looks and feels like a prison. Filipino architects are considered world-class in every country except their own. Like many in other design professions they are driven overseas because they are unappreciated and underpaid yet they possess the technical expertise and capacity that could create all that public and private clients are planning to build in support of a booming economy without the recourse of foreign consultants. Architecture is a proud profession. Its practitioners have to be respected for them to be able to produce structures and settings that engender pride of place and a national identity. Philippine architecture is best created by Filipinos for Filipinos. If we aspire instead to live in simulations of other lands and cultures, then globalization will have shown its ugliest façade, an illusion of modernity that hides behind it a poverty of culture and purpose we can never escape from.
RESEARCH WORK IN PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE 03 (THE POLITICAL OF GLOBALIZATION AND THE OPEN PRACTICE OF ARCHITECTURE IN THE PHILIPPINES)
SUBMITTED BY: IRISH T. BALISI
SUBMITTED TO: ARCH. RAZEL TACAY
RESEARCH WORK IN PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE 03 (THE POLITICAL OF GLOBALIZATION AND THE OPEN PRACTICE OF ARCHITECTURE IN THE PHILIPPINES)
SUBMITTED BY: _____________________ _____________________ _____________________ _____________________ _____________________ _____________________ _____________________
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