National Artist for Literature Virgilio Almario has been elected the new chair of the National Com- mission for Culture and the Arts.
His election on Jan. 5 will go to Malacañang for confirmation and formal appointment by President Duterte.
NCCA chair is chosen and elected from the heads of the cultural agencies that sit on the NCCA board in an ex-officio capacity as well as the heads of the four Subcommisions – on Arts, on Culture and Heritage, Information and Dissemination, and Cultural Communities.
Almario, aka Rio Alma, is one of the country’s leading poets and writers in Filipino; he is a critic, scholar, literary historian and lexi- cographer. He was named National Artist in 1999.
