Facade of the National Historical Commission of the Philippines (Photo from the Facebook page of the NHCP)
MANILA, Philippines — The National Historical Commission of the Philippines (NHCP) is seeking to digitize its collections and documents.
NHCP and National Commission for Culture and the Arts chairperson Rene Escalante laid out this plan during Thursday’s Committee on Culture and the Arts hearing.
“What we’re going to do is we will come up with a platform wherein researchers need not to go to NHCP central office in order to access this,” Escalante said.
Escalante highlighted that this plan would be under the National Memory Project, a five-year program aiming to help researchers by collecting and digitizing archival documents.
The agency’s chairperson said that they were able to tie up with other countries and some universities for the archives.
He then added that the plan would help reduce foot traffic in their central office.
“I think by doing this we can decongest foot traffic and also in line with the restrictions of [Department of Health]. If we have these restrictions, I think we can also perform our mandate better,” Escalante said.
“We want also to digitize the collection of our museum so that [the Department of Education] and [the Commission on Higher Education] students need not go to our museums. All they have to do is to walk through our website and take a look,” he continued.
Aside from this, Escalante also noted that the project would cover even local networks, archives, and libraries in the country.
Escalante further said that NHCP’s museums would also be included in the plan.
Senate Pro Tempore Loren Legarda on the other hand argued that putting documents online won’t be difficult.
“The physical visits to museum is good, but in this virtual world, it should all be available online,” Legarda stressed.
The senator also added that every agency should make their documents available, visible, and understandable online.
Currently, NHCP is preparing to commemorate the 125th anniversary of the Philippine Revolution and the birth of the Philippine Republic slated to happen next year. — Christian Paul Dela Cruz, INQUIRER.net trainee