Baguio mapping done; 600 sites set for culture projects

By Gaby B. Keith

BAGUIO CITY – This summer capital’s cultural mapping project has been completed with over 600 objects, sites and buildings identified as "worthy" of cultural landscape, Donna Rillera-Tabangin, head of the City Planning and Development Office, said.
    Rillera-Tabangin announced the project's completion during the regular management committee meeting of local officials led by Mayor Benjamin Magalong on June 7.
    The National Commission for Culture and the Arts website defines cultural mapping as "an approach used to identify, record and use cultural resources and activities for building communities, where communities map what is important to them."
    Through the conduct of cultural mapping, the local government unit and other stakeholders can identify the distinct cultural resources of their community and at the same time properly record a heritage resource for future reference.
    After conducting a validation workshop recently with various stakeholders from the public and private sectors, Rillera-Tabangin said editing is currently being done on the project's first book containing 235 objects worthy of cultural mapping. The registry book will be finished in time for its launching on or before the September 1 Baguio Day celebration, she added. Rillera-Tabangin said she hopes that an additional budget will be allocated for the project so that more books can be published containing the rest of the more than 600 identified and validated objects, sites and buildings in the city. Several local councilors who joined the validation workshop found the cultural mapping project a "truly worthy undertaking" and promised the additional budget's approval, she added. Tabangin said six City Hall personnel have already completed a short course on heritage conservation specialization conducted by the University of Santo Tomas in Manila.