Press News

This August 2020, each ASEAN Member State (AMS) will celebrate ASEAN Month. In the Philippines, the annual “Sama-Sama ASEAN” public day celebrations held at the Luneta will be migrating online via the Sama-Sama ASEAN: We Are One (Webinar Series on ASEAN Awareness and Identity) to be led by the ASEAN Committee on Culture and Information (COCI), Philippines.

​The webinars will feature presentations on how the ASEAN region is coping with the pandemic and feature the best practices of the AMS. It will be held every Thursday in August from 10:00 am to 12:00 noon, and will be simultaneously livestreamed via Facebook page of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA), the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP), the Presidential Communications Operations Office (PCOO), Philippine Information Agency (PIA), the People’s Television Network (PTV) and the Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA).

​As members of the ASEAN-COCI Subcommittee on Culture, the NCCA and the CCP have teamed up with the rest of the focal agencies on culture from the AMS to present a project that also celebrates the 2020 Year of ASEAN Identity. Dubbed “Creative ASEAN Campaign to Break the Chain”, the project is a compilation of video performances of traditional/folk/classical dances from the AMS which were especially re-choreographed to campaign for the practice of health and safety protocols like hand washing, wearing of face masks, and social distancing. The individual presentations of the AMS will be featured as a cultural component of the webinar sessions that will commence on 06 August, while the omnibus campaign will be launched on 13 August from 10:00 am to 12:00 noon during the webinar session on “Building Cultural Solidarity and Voices of Resilience Amid the Pandemic.”

​The virtual sessions will be held via Zoom, with the access link and password to the video conference shared one day before each webinar session. A pre-registration will be required to join the video conference/webinars. This multi-sectoral celebration of the ASEAN Month is being presented by the member agencies of the ASEAN-COCI PH (NCCA, CCP, PCOO, PIA and PTV 4).

​For questions on the Sama-Sama ASEAN: We Are One (Webinar Series on ASEAN Awareness and Identity), contact Ms. Rulet Salgado of the International Affairs Section of the NCCA through telephone, 8527-2192 loc 632. For further queries on this press release, please contact Mr. Rene S. Napeñas, Head of the NCCA Public Affairs and Information Office through telephone, 8527-2192 loc 625 or email your questions to ncca.paio@gmail.com.