Revisiting lighthouses in Filipino Heritage Festival show
MANILA, Philippines - Manuel Noche, an architecture professor at the University of Santo Tomas, will mount a photo exhibit of lighthouses in Cagayan de Oro from May 11 to 17 as part of the annual Filipino Heritage Festival celebrated the entire month of May.
The exhibit hopes to draw more attention to the preservation of the lighthouses designed and built by Spanish engineers in the 19th and 20th centuries. By the end of the Spanish regime, the Spaniards had built 55 lighthouses; by 1926, during the American period, there were already 193, as well as buoys set in place.
“These imposing structures replicate the vast knowledge of the people who built them,” Noche says. “They transcend time and all kinds of structures.” He is the author of Lonely Sentinels of the Sea – The Spanish Colonial Lighthouses in the Philippines.
Filipino Heritage Festival executive director Anna Maria L. Harper, one of several original founders of the Heritage Conservation Society, has long advocated a bed-and-breakfast operation right inside the lighthouses. Such a tourist attraction would help support the maintenance of the sentinels.
The Filipino Heritage Festival is held yearly the entire month of May to pay tribute and remind us of our proud heritage. It is supported by the Department of Tourism, the National Commission for Culture and the Arts, and Security Bank Corporation.
For information, call 892-5865 or visit http://filheritagefest.fateback.com.
