BAGUIO CITY – The city government documented three hundred twenty seven natural and cultural resources, including significant personalities in the city’s history, over the past several years.
Rosella Campti-Bahni, Gender and Development (GAD) Specialist of the City Planning and Development Office, said that the documentation was a product of the inventory of the city’s natural and cultural heritage resources, both tangible and intangible, through the cultural mapping project in the city government.
She admitted that the challenge people now face is how officials and employees of the government are using their limited resources and mandates to respond to the challenge of raising awareness among the people’s consciousness, respect, and love for the legacies of Filipino cultural history, specifically, how are people preserving legacies, building futures to empower communities through heritage.
Proclamation No. 439 declared May as the celebration of the National Heritage Month which is in recognition of the need to create among the people a consciousness, respect and love for the legacies of Filipino cultural history.
Earlier, the National Commission on Culture and the Arts (NCCA) adopted the theme of the celebration of National Heritage Month this year as ‘Preserving Legacies, Building Futures: Empowering Communities through Heritage’ that highlights the role of heritage in connecting and empowering future generations by aggressively promoting appreciation of heritage conservation through capacity-building initiatives.
Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) Memorandum Circular No. 2025-009 reminds local governments to observe the celebration of the National Heritage month this May and encouraged people to reflect and take action towards raising consciousness, respect and love for the legacies for Filipino cultural history.
She challenged the people to reflect on what is relevant, significant and meaningful to the community 115 years after Baguio was established as the second chartered city in the country, thus, they should start thinking on what is relevant, significant and meaningful about their respective barangays, the city, among others, as these are the questions that they need to ask themselves to discover the values, the events, beliefs and practices that define the city’s identity that comprise the souls of their community.
She stipulated that cultures are the souls of the communities, without which the communities are just shells or spaces disconnected to the lives of the inhabitants. By Dexter A. See
