Backing Filipino Creatives

Talent is not the scarce thing in the Philippines. Access is.

A Filipino illustrator can be as good as anyone working anywhere and still never reach a buyer, because the platforms that connect artists to collectors carry entry costs - and those costs land hardest on the artists who can least absorb them. Skill doesn't get you past that. Money does.

APLFI's answer has been to pay the entry fee.

It started with scholarships. Apl funded places in a creative entrepreneurship program in Manila. One graduate, AJ Dimarucot, went on to design for Nike, Adidas, and major sports leagues. He now runs the First Mint Fund - doing for other Filipino artists what the scholarship did for him.

The Fund is deliberately narrow. It's for Southeast Asian artists who have never published digital work before. It covers the cost of getting that first piece online, and the artist keeps all the proceeds. The foundation takes nothing. A one-time push over a threshold, not an ongoing claim on someone's career.

Sevi Agregado shows what that threshold is worth. Diagnosed with autism at two, he started art therapy at five - his parents enrolled him in art class, gymnastics, and football, and art was the only one he wanted to keep doing. Painting sharpened his focus, patience, and verbal communication. He was already an artist. What he didn't have was a way to reach anyone outside his family's Facebook page. NFT Captains

The Fund covered his first publication, financed by proceeds from Apl's own art sale. In June 2022 his painting "Sevi's Colorful Lion" went up on the billboards in Times Square during NFT.NYC - and his work has been featured there every year since. The Straits Times and Vogue Singapore both took notice. He remains the youngest known Filipino artist working in the space. Proceeds from his sales fund his continued therapy.

Supporting this work means paying the entry fee for someone who can already do the work. The talent is there. It always was.