Cecile Guidote-Alvarez breaks silence to 'accept and defer to SC decision' on National Artist honor

(Updated 2:07 p.m., 21 July 2013) Cecile Guidote-Alvarez, whose National Artist recognition was voided as a result of the high court's  ruling last Tuesday, issued a statement Friday to state her decision to “accept and defer to the decision of the Supreme Court."

Click here to read Guidote-Alvarez's full statement regarding the SC decision.

 

The Supreme Court invalidated former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's 2009 proclamation of four new National Artists—Guidote-Alvarez among them—due to "grave abuse of discretion."

 

At the time Arroyo named her a National Artist, Guidote-Alvarez was executive director of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA), one of two government bodies tasked by law to screen and nominate individuals to receive the National Artist honor.

 

Guidote-Alvarez said the SC decision “does not marginalize, negate or denigrate her lifelong service to the nation.”

 

She hit back at critics she did not identify in her statement. "Certainly, it hurts because there is an attempt to paint the awardees as 'guilty by association' under a politically charged climate,” Guidote-Alvarez said.

 

However she also stated via e-mail that she was shocked that "(National Artist Virgilio) Almario has been deceptively condemning me." 

 

Since the Supreme Court's decision was announced, one of the invalidated National Artists, film director Carlo J. Caparas, in an interview with dzBB, said that he and the other three were caught in a "political crossfire."  — VC/ELR, GMA News