HOW can the creative sectors influence big businesses and the government?

They have to transform the island into a dynamic and relevant circular economy, said Butch Carungay, European Chamber of Commerce in the Philippines Cebu Business Council chairman, during Friday’s launching of the Cebu Design Week.

Carungay said the catalyst for the creative sectors to achieve this goal is through the first Cebu Design Week (CDW).

The weeklong event scheduled for June aims to achieve this goal and sustain it through the collaboration of the different creative sectors in Cebu.

For decades, he said industries have been engaged in a “lateral economy” where products would be produced, consumed and then disposed off immediately.

Carungay said that in a circular economy, industries should maximize the yield of materials before they would be disposed.

“It is important to shift to a circular economy because the Philippines is the third highest polluter of our oceans,” he said.

Aside from that, the ECCP Cebu Business Council and other organizers of CDW aim to make a push for the province’s design sector in the international scene with the tagline as “Cebu of Asia.”

They pointed out how Cebu already has internationally-renowned talents in the creative scene but it is still more fruitful if all different industries work together to a bigger goal.

These sectors include furniture, fashion design, accessories, theater, music, architecture, interior design, animation, and visual arts among others.

A first step to this goal is to join and collaborate with other members of the creative sectors in the CDW, which is scheduled on June 16 to 22 and will feature a series of multi-format events.

“We feel that Cebu needs a platform for all of us to come together, and we’ve been longing for that. We realized that this is the right thing to do and this is the right time,” said Cristina Gaston, chairperson of the Cebu Furniture Industries Foundation (CFIF), which is one of the organizers of the event.

The Department of Trade and Industry in Central Visayas (DTI-7) is also one of the event’s organizers.

Carungay said that the event was scheduled in June because it is a “very exciting month” for Cebu.

June is Cebu Business Month and this coming June, the new P17.5 billion Terminal 2 of the Mactan Cebu International Airport (MCIA) will be opened already.

Aside from these, two more events are also scheduled on June: the first ever Spartan Race Philippines and the 4th Asia-Pacific Coral Reef Symposium. Both these events will be held in Cebu for the first time.

The CDW was launched last Friday at the Maya Mexican Restaurant with representatives from different industries, the academe and government.

This article was originally published in Cebu Daily News on April 9, 2018