Sunday, January 4, 2009 [ sunstar.com.ph ]
BAGUIO CITY -- The Department of Tourism (DOT) has urged the local government of Sagada in Mountain Province to pass ordinances that would protect and preserve the town's cultural heritage and tourism sites.
DOT Regional Director Purificacion Molintas said the passage of preservation measures would be the town's best defense against the degradation of the locality's tourism sites.
The advice came following a tour by President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and the First Family to Sagada's burial caves with local officials. The local government admitted that the site is subject to degradation.
According to reports, Arroyo was told that the Lumiang Burial Cave, a native burial ground and one of the tourism spots in the municipality, is faced with problems on man-made destruction.
Molintas said the concern could be addressed by the passage of an ordinance to preserve and protect the burial site.
The Burial Cave originally has 400 coffins but was reduced to around 200 due to robbery.
Arroyo dropped by Sagada during her working holiday visits to the region. The First Family toured the burial grounds as part of the President's cultural learning sortie.
The DOT is proposing the conduct of carbon dating on the skeletal remains at the Lumiang Caves, an initiative the agency wants to pursue with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) to determine how old the burial grounds are.
Molintas also wants the Municipal Government to impose and efficiently collect the green fees from the tourists and use these for tourism-oriented programs, such as the put up of sanitary and garbage facilities.
Green fees are charges collected from visitors who frequent an area considered a tourism spot.
Earlier, talks were made to preserve other tourist attractions in Mountain Province and nearby provinces.
US Ambassador Kristie Kenney earlier spoke at an annual training conference and workshop in Ifugao in a bid to help the local government conserve and protect cultural heritage sites like the Banaue rice terraces.
The conference was designed to increase public awareness on cultural sites as a means of sustainable, community-based tourism that benefits local residents. It was also one of four projects in the Philippines being supported by the US government, through the US Ambassador's Fund for Cultural Preservation.
Other projects included the protection of the prehistoric archeological site at the Balobok Rock Shelter in Tawi-Tawi, restoration of the Legarda Elementary School in Manila, restoration of four mural paintings of Carlos "Botong" Francisco at the Philippine General Hospital, and the preservation of the San Vicente Church in Dupax, Nueva Vizcaya. (Jane Cadalig/Sun.Star Baguio/Sunnex)
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