The driving force behind the Philippine Creative Industries Development Act, Rep. Toff de Venecia sets the stage as he closes his final term. The political leader and theater impresario discusses creativity, politics, and what lies ahead.
We caught Toff de Venecia, three-term Representative of Pangasinan’s 4th District, backstage at the Spotlight Blackbox Theater, just moments before curtain call. He’s directing an adaptation of Next to Normal, the Pulitzer Prize-winning musical that explores themes such as grief in the family unit. A steadfast champion of the creative industries, he is the principal author of the Philippine Creative Industries Development Act (RA 11904).
The landmark legislation moves beyond rhetoric to establish concrete foundations for the sector’s growth. It mandates the annual measurement of the creative industries’ contribution to the economy, revealing their ₱1.72 trillion impact on GDP in 2023. Now in his final term in Congress, he reflects on his years in public service and looks ahead—both to the future of the creative sector and to his own next act.
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Paolo: What drew you to directing a production of Next to Normal?
Toff: I saw Next to Normal on Broadway in 2009 and I was so moved by it because of my own personal experience with grief and loss. So when my partners in Sandbox Collective, which is a theater company I co-founded back in 2014, suggested that we do Next to Normal, I was like, okay!
I’m grateful to them for their trust in me to do this material because it’s very heavy, sensitive, profound material. And I really wanted to do it justice. I think it is the most personal work I’ve ever done. I feel protective over it. It’s almost like I didn’t want to share it. I just wanted to hold onto it forever but that’s the point of doing theater. You have to share it.
Paolo: Well, you’ve been doing an amazing job balancing both your political work and your creative pursuits. How do the two interplay?
Toff: I think my work in politics neatly informs my work in the theater, and vice versa.
Paolo: Do you see directing as an escape or almost an extension of your work in politics?
Toff: It’s an extension. I would even say a confrontation. Maybe that’s too bold a word to use, but I think there’s a lot of things that I have to confront in my work in the theater with the ambiance of my work in government. I don’t think I’d be the lawmaker that I am if I wasn’t an artist and I wasn’t a creative first. And so a lot of the things that I fight for and champion are related to my work in the theater.
Paolo: Storytelling as you know, is a big underpinning for both politics and theater. How do you compare the two?
Toff: I think it’s very similar. There is a performativity to both.
Paolo: In politics, in a way, you’re almost directing and acting—crafting your legislation while also going out, speaking up, and really selling it to your colleagues and the public.
Toff: Yes, you really have to push for your ideas, especially if your ideas are a bit out there and progressive. It always brings me back to this whole creative economy experience and how a lot of people didn’t believe in it initially. It wasn’t a priority.
Paolo: I think you were probably one of the first lawmakers who pushed for the creative industry as a formal driver of GDP, not just something that we should honor because of its cultural and artistic value, but something that could create a lot of economic value too.
Toff: There have been bills filed before. As early as the 15th Congress. I guess they just never really prospered. It’s one thing to file a bill. It’s another thing to see it through to the end until it’s legislated and it’s signed by the President. That’s what we did. But those were difficult times. It was during the pandemic, and priorities were not the creative economy.
But if you look at the South Korean experience, they really leaned into the creative economy during a time of great financial collapse. It started in 1997 during the Asian financial crisis.
Paolo: And it was a coordinated effort by the government.
Toff: It was a coordinated effort. It was like, we’ve lost manufacturing, what are we going to do now? Let’s invest in our content because when Jurassic Park came out, it earned more at the box office than the sale of one million plus Hyundai cars.
Paolo: The power of content and, like you always say, soft power.
Toff: Yes. So Korea co-opted the Hollywood model. They learned from what the US had been doing, how they used Hollywood to exert their values and influence around the world. That’s why I think it’s so interesting how Korea was able to line up all the different facets that they had, and develop the infrastructure they needed, to accomplish what they’ve done so brilliantly today, the Hallyu phenomenon. The thing with us in the Philippines is that we have all these facets but they’re not aligned.
Paolo: Do you think, for the Philippines, it’s as easy as copy and paste? Can we do the same as Korea or are there local quirks we need to be considerate of when we develop our own content that hopefully goes global?
Toff: We have to first take stock. Because everybody has different narratives that they’re trying to push. Do we push forward heritage? Do we push forward contemporary culture? Or do we find a happy medium in both?
Paolo: It almost sounds like there needs to be a director.
Toff: Exactly. It almost seems like there needs to be somebody orchestrating all of this, as there are so many divergent efforts that are not being coordinated. The private sector is doing amazing, brilliant, and bold work that is getting acclaim abroad, whether it’s a Filipino national winning at Cannes [like Dolly de Leon], or a second-generation Filipino-American chef earning a Michelin star [like Tim Flores of Kasama in Chicago].
But all of this is happening with no plan in place. So we lose the benefits of soft power, like better diplomacy, increased tourism, and improving the impact of the country so that we are more attractive for business investment. It can even be a source of pride and transform how Filipinos are perceived.
Paolo: And how they view themselves.
Toff: And especially how they view themselves. So, yeah. It’s honestly frustrating. But I think we are at a point where there is interest and there are movements. You just have to align.
Paolo: Even the fact that the Hello, Love, Goodbye sequel was in the top 10 at the US box office was a huge win. And that was driven by our overseas Filipinos.
Toff: Since we’re talking about facets that are not aligned, a huge facet that we have are the two million Filipinos strategically situated around the world who can really lean into Filipino content and help push algorithms so Filipino songs are on Spotify charts and Filipino movies are on Netflix’s Top 10. We have that huge advantage, but they’re not being galvanized.
Paolo: Like with Crazy Rich Asians, and how Asian-American communities would book block screenings.
Toff: Yes, exactly. My gosh, after Crazy Rich Asians, tourism in Singapore tripled. Film tourism is huge. And yet, if you look at the budget of the Film Development Council for film incentives and film promotions, it’s so meager. So you need to be able to have that kind of openness to be able to explore new modalities because if we don’t change anything, nothing improves.
Paolo: With you reaching your term limit, I think it’s a real loss for the creative community to be losing such a passionate champion.
Toff: I think that’s why I resonated with this show so much. I learned that grief isn’t just about losing someone you love–it’s also about the end of a chapter. It’s about loss in all its forms.
Paolo: Well this isn’t necessarily the end of your political career. You could see it as an intermission.
Toff: So Hamilton was here last year, right? And there’s this one song that they sing toward the end that really hit me. There’s this line: “What is legacy but planting seeds in a garden that you will never see?” And it’s like, oh, wow. What we’re doing now is really for the future generation of creatives.
Paolo: So what are your plans after your term limit ends?
Toff: Well I’m crossing my fingers, but everybody knows that I want to study in London.
Paolo: We’re manifesting London.
Toff: If I don’t get in, I’m going to be a barista in London. [As an aside, looks like Toff won’t need to be a barista; he got into a school in London, as we learned shortly after this interview.] But yeah, I just really want to better myself. I need to build my capacity as a policymaker for the arts because I still have a lot of blind spots. While I know I have the instincts because of my background, I still don’t know a lot of the formal terms. I recently learned about creative placemaking, which is why an amazing economic, urban regenerative strategy. It is something that I’ve been doing in my district but I didn’t know what it was called. So there’s just a lot of those.
Paolo: What do you think of the power of words and terms? Why is it important to have proper phrases and jargon?
Toff: Because we are part of a global creative community. In terms of creating policy, we’re operating with a mobile mindset. So you have to be able to speak the language that your global cohort understands. If you share that jargon and creative language terminology, hopefully, that opens the door for collaboration, for investment, for all sorts of things.
Paolo: Now that you’re exiting Congress, what do you hope for with the future of Congresses?
Toff: I’m just happy that we were able to orchestrate a Committee on Creative Industry in the lower house. And these committees always have to be filled. So, hopefully, when the next batch of legislators submit their preferences for chairmanships, vice chairmanships, and memberships, we’ll see if anyone truly prioritizes the creative industry. I really hope the committee attracts representatives who are genuinely passionate. And I’ll always be around—London’s just a quick flight away!
This article originally appeared in our April 2025 issue.
Photography by Kim Santos of KLIQ, Inc.
Stylist Roko Arceo.
