HOW MANY Filipinos visit museums? Or do they think museums are just for tourists?
Museums are vessels of important historical knowledge and cultural heritage and they showcase the invaluable Filipino talent. We should all take time to make regular visits to them. Frequent visits can further enrich our understanding of our rich culture and history.
Our National Museum organizes lectures and workshops that help us better understand and appreciate our heritage. This will also help strengthen national identity and pride. Here’s a good news: the National Museum opened a satellite office in Jaro, Iloilo City last year – at the once Jaro Municipal Hall, designed by renowned architect Juan M. Arellano and now considered an important cultural property. Then recently the century-old Iloilo provincial jail was turned over to the National Museum and would become a regional museum. These developments should stir the interest of more Ilonggos to visit museums.
We have a very rich heritage, so rich that we have a lot to learn and understand about the practices, traditions, and ways of living of our ancestors. We have to embrace the culture that is unique to us, so we can have a better understanding of our roots and of who we are. Our museums will help us learn about these things.
Sen. Loren Legarda, a patron of Philippine culture and arts, has proposed the creation of folk art museums in every region in the country through Senate Bill No. 420. These regional museums will feature traditional folk arts collection aside from the local archeological finds, objects of art, and other local cultural treasures, and will lead the conservation, preservation and promotion of the cultural heritage of the Schools of Living Traditions found within their localities.
These regional museums showcasing traditional folk arts could somehow start a cultural revolution through an immersion in the Philippine arts from the ordinary folks of old. These museums could also help develop craftsmanship and industry, national identity and pride, and will help unite Filipinos.
