LA TRINIDAD, Benguet – The Department of Tourism Office – La Trinidad conducted a 3-day workshop on Cultural Mapping and Learning Activity attended by the Indigenous People Mandatory Representative (IPMR), sectors of academe, stakeholders, elders, and different organizations to come up with a cultural inventory of the La Trinidad cultural properties on June 7-9, 2022.
These objects made by human beings, typically an item of cultural or historical events while intangible cultures refer to the practices, expressions, knowledge, and skills that are recognized as part of cultural heritage.
Orientation and tasking were conducted on the first day of the workshop while the second day was a field activity focused on data gathering of cultural properties from the different barangays of La Trinidad which were compiled on the third day to come up with a cultural inventory.
Also on the second day activity, Municipal Tourism Action Officer Valdred Olsim instructed the participants and different organizations to interview the elders and to take photos of these cultural properties for proper documentation.
He added that this will start a cultural registration with the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) and in order to request funding for the preservation of the cultural items. The data collected will be the first to be registered under NCCA that is accessible to everyone and for the preparation of a mini-museum in La Trinidad Municipal-Tourism Center as well as for socio-economic development of the community.
According to the indigenous peoples representative of Barangay Lubas Richard Wacnisen, the purpose of this workshop will benefit the next generation in knowing the meaning and understanding the importance of the cultural properties.
“This is sacred for the present and future generation to know the meaning, basta saan lang maus-usar, saan lang basta basta maisusuot,” he said.
The compilation of data is expected to be a book, and it will be the first book to be published that will be part of the town’s heritage.
By Chienie Sarol
Photo by Armando M. Bolislis