Twenty DOUS faculty and non-teaching staff learned to document tangible and intangible cultural property in the City of San Fernando, Bauang, and Bangar, La Union through a training on cultural mapping held last Feb. 11 to 14, 2020.  Cultural mapping is a grassroots-level participatory tool and technique used to document and preserve tangible and intangible cultural heritage in a locality.

          This is important as cultural heritage promotion and conservation is part of good governance as indicated in the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) Memorandum Circular No. 2019-44 released on March 15, 2019.  Moreover, conservation and preservation of cultural property and the creation of a cultural property inventory is a requirement of good governance as stipulated in Republic Act 11292, also known as “The Seal of Good Local Governance Act of 2019”.

          Mr. Arvin Villalon, a consultant of the National Commission on Culture and the Arts (NCCA), served as trainer and supervised the participants in their on-site mapping of tangible immovable heritage in the City of San Fernando, specifically the Christ the King College building, City plaza, Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and parola. 

In Bauang, with the assistance of its tourism officers, natural heritage sites, flora and fauna were mapped specifically in Lomboy grape farm, bakawan (mangrove), Mount Kabugbugan (also known as Mt. Puraw), and the Bauang river.  While in Bangar, intangible cultural heritage such as traditional craftsmanship (abel), performing arts (bukanegan), knowledge of the universe (traditional fishing), cuisine (bibingka), and oral tradition (dung-aw and pasyon) were mapped.

With the training, the participants were able to widen their knowledge on the legal bases of cultural mapping as part of development and grassroots cultural education, the role of LGUs in heritage conservation and promotion, and gained the basic skills of ethnographic research by using NCCA forms in documenting cultural heritage while going through the proper process of documentation. They can now be tapped to guide LGUs in the province to conduct cultural mapping in their localities. 

To date, DMMMSU, through its Open University System, is the first SUC in Region 1 to avail of the cultural mapping training.#Ces Myra Mabalot