On a personal level, there are material and non-material objects we inherited from our parents that we keep and appreciate because these have either social, economic, or sentimental values.
Examples of inheritance with intrinsic social and economic benefits are land, house, business, vehicle, and so on. Those objects with sentimental values are pictures, clothing, jewelry, song, and many others that are emotionally attached to the persons involved.
It is also true that socioeconomic and sentimental values are both present in the same object, and the more valuable these have become to the individuals concerned.
The same sentiment is correct at the community or societal level when there are material and nonmaterial objects that are culturally significant and reflective of the history, identity, aspirations, and struggle for survival of a particular group of people.
The latter would explain why the natural environment–abiotic and biotic–are also considered as part of heritage because it had provided the contexts or spaces and resources for certain types of struggle at a certain period in our history, which could be either economic or political.
But what is cultural heritage? According to the Cultural Mapping Toolkit published by the National Commission for Culture & the Arts as a guide for cultural mappers, cultural heritage means “the totality of cultural property preserved and developed through time and passed on to posterity.”
The definition suggests these were products of the past, at least 50 years old, which are still observed or experienced at present.
They are valuable because of their significance to the community, and are intended to be continually available to the future generations in their current forms or by any media.
Meanwhile, cultural property is broadly defined to include “all products of human creativity by which a people and a nation reveal their identity, including churches, mosques and other places of religious worship, school, and natural history specimens and sites, whether public or privately-owned, movable or immovable, and tangible or intangible.”
Included also are significant personalities in the public domain as well as cultural institutions that promote the appreciation and preservation of cultural heritage.
Thus, civic heritage and cultural programs are also among those to be mapped according to the guide.
Such a broad definition of cultural property suggests that it is a collection of the whole “way of life” of a particular group of people in a particular period and encompasses the material and non-material manifestations of the five major social institutions, which include the family, education, religion, economy, and politics.
The values of cultural heritage are the historical, scientific-technical, aesthetic, social, and spiritual significance of any cultural objects or natural resources found in a particular place and recognized by a significant number of people in a community.
The valuing of cultural heritage is more evident in the passing of national laws to protect, preserve, and conserve what is physically present and in the practices and memories of key informants.
These laws are Republic Act No. 10066 or the National Cultural Heritage Act of 2009, Republic Act No. 4846 or the Cultural Properties Protection and Preservation Act, and Presidential Decree No. 260 that declared national cultural treasures or as national shrines, monuments, and landmarks. These provide the legal bases for the conduct of cultural mapping like in Dumaguete.
Dumaguete City is fast growing because of its promotion as a university town, the best place where to retire, and a tourism hub or a getaway to other tourism destinations in the region.
Its rapid physical expansion toward the peripheries, coupled with intense intercultural interactions with the coming of more outsiders, may result in the alteration of many of its historical and culturally significant structures and sites to provide spaces for new buildings and infrastructures.
This is also cognizant of the possible impact of climate change as well as natural and human-induced disasters on the quality of cultural and natural heritage sites within the city. These have to be mapped now and documented for the young generation to know and cherish as heritage.
Thus, the current initiative of the City government coordinated by Tourism Officer Jacqueline Veloso-Antonio to train local cultural mappers with technical assistance from the NCCA, is an initial step to balancing cultural and economic growth in the city.
The participatory cultural mapping approach the NCCA trainors had employed, led by Dr. Earl Jude Paul Cleope, will not only provide a list or inventory of cultural properties found in the City.
The consolidated cultural picture it will paint will also reinforce the many cultural programs the city has already undertaken as well as define the gaps that it has to fill in.
More importantly, the cultural map that would be accessible to many will further enhance their sense of place of Dumaguete, including those not native here but have considered it as their home place. In the succeeding issues, I will explore place identity, dependence and attachment as components of sense of place relative to the significance of cultural and natural heritage.
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Author’s email: [email protected]
