ILOILO City – The study of intangible cultural heritage must be integrated into school curriculums, a top university official said.
Otherwise, they “will be forgotten,” warned University of the Philippines Visayas chancellor Ricardo Babaran.
What are intangible cultural heritage? They include things that, unlike churches and other architecture, we do not normally see, said Babaran.
“These are the things that we hear, we sing, written and mentioned always by them, from earlier history, transferred from generation to generation,” he said.
Babara spoke at the recent “Pagtib-ong 2: The UP Visayas International Conference on Intangible Cultural Heritage” here.
Ultimately the conference was aimed at safeguarding intangible cultural heritage through research, documentation and education.
The event gathered around 50 delegates from the Philippines, Malaysia, India, Vietnam, Indonesia, United States, Korea, Papua New Guinea, and Cambodia.
Among them were scholars, artists and cultural workers. They participated in 50 parallel sessions, which included presentations of scholarly papers, researches and performances.
The UPV has been giving out information on intangible cultural heritage among its students, other schools and the communities, said Babaran.
Among their materials are the 13 volumes of the “Epics of Panay,” portions of which have been transformed into plays, he said.
“Some participants (of the play) are going to communities and trying to learn what IPs (indigenous peoples) are doing,” said the school official.
Moreover, the UPV links up with high schools and tertiary institutions in spreading awareness on the traditions and culture of people in Panay Island, Babaran added.
Meanwhile the National Commission for Culture and the Arts is preparing a forum to create a registry of funded researches and pinpoint neglected or over-researched areas in the study of intangible cultural heritage, said lawyer Anna Katarina Rodriguez, who represented NCCA chairman Virgilio Almario.
The forum shall also assign tasks to people or institutions to read and research on intangible cultural heritage, Rodriguez said. “We would like to see scholars and researchers put together a five-year research program.” (With Philippine News Agency/PN)
