Heritage mayhem in May

May is heritage month and my inbox is filled with news of heritage buildings demolished or about to be demolished. Worse, the prospective wrecker is a government agency or the property involved is government-owned.

With the passage of Republic Act No. 10066 or the National Cultural Heritage Act in March 2010, I had hoped that, by this time, there would be an easily accessible inventory of built cultural heritage covering structures all over the country and clearer procedures when dealing with property deemed as important cultural property for the purpose of protecting it against exportation, modification or demolition. These would include structures that are at least fifty years old and works by National Artists or national heroes. The persons who drafted the law must have thought that the threat of punishment with a fine of not less than P200,000 or imprisonment for not less than 10 years or both would deter persons from demolishing heritage structures. At the rate things are going, the law seems to have emboldened them as the provisions appear too vague to enforce.

The provision requiring owners of private cultural property to register these properties with the government upset a lot of people, especially art gallery owners and collectors of works by National Artists and works by Manlilikha ng Bayan. The provision on the compulsory repair order or an order requiring the owner of cultural property to fix the structure and failing to do so, to pay the government agency that does the repair has a lot of people complaining that the law violates their Constitutional right not to have private property taken from them without going through the requirements of the State’s exercise of eminent domain.

In the excitement of finally having a law with more teeth that cultural heritage advocates wished for since the Manila Jai-alai building and the Mehan Garden were ordered demolished by then Manila Mayor Lito Atienza, the message of why cultural heritage preservation is important has somehow disappeared. Instead of scaring people with the consequences of not complying with the law, there should be more effort applied to explaining how cultural heritage embodies stories on what it means to be Filipino and reminds us of Philippine history and how we got to where we are now.

By standing outside a municipio across the town church like the one found in Boljoon, for example, we can have a better understanding of how the Spanish colonial civil authorities interacted with the Catholic Church. When we read “Public office is a public trust” engraved on the façade of the Cebu City Hall or “The authority of the government emanates from the people” engraved on the façade of the Cebu Provincial Capitol, we remember the way our American colonizers tried to teach their brand of democracy to us. These principles continue to be reflected in our laws governing public office.  If the government employees occupying these buildings and the citizens they deal with paid more attention to, and internalized these ideals, I would imagine that we would all have a better grasp of what public service entails.  There might even be less people running for public office in 2013 who think that public office is a means to stroke their egos.

By this time next year, I hope I will be getting happier news about cultural heritage. I look forward to seeing these as the subject of future emails: “Local heritage incorporated in history lessons in all Philippine elementary schools,” “LGU officials complete cultural heritage training,” and “Heritage trees adopted by communities and protected by local ordinances.”

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