Revering our local heroes

Today is National Heroes Day but we do not only celebrate the courage of  heroes from Luzon as was the practice in the past. With the strong heritage movement in Cebu  province, local history has never been given so much attention.

Heritage advocates have been sharing their research while some teach local history in the context of  national history. With 18  museums in the city, these have  greatly helped history and culture teachers. Based on feedback from museum curators,  most visitors are high school and elementary students.

Books about Cebu’s culture, history and heritage have been published and are selling, although most buyers are interested individuals. Very few school libraries have copies of these books. This promising trend is capped by the Cebu Provincial Town History Project—a 55-volume set of the histories of the municipalities and the component cities of Cebu including the history of the province and the Capitol building. Started in 2008, the project is now only one chapter behind of the last volume being completed. Manuscripts of the completed town histories have been distributed to the different municipalities for them to review and give suggestions or make some corrections. Some of these manuscripts have been returned to the cluster editors for final editing. Within the last term of Gov. Gwen Garcia, these manuscripts will be published and will be used by high school students of the province as well as the general public.

I came to know about our local heroes from the writings of Dr. Resil Mojares, Dr. Michael Cullinane, and Dionisio Sy. I am very familiar with Leon Kilat because I am from Carcar where he was killed and the large house where the killing took place stands majestically at the heart of the town to remind Carcaranons of a turning point in the history of Cebu and the Philippine Revolution. Added knowledge of our local heroes took place in 1995-1998, the Centennial of the Philippine Revolution, when I participated in the series of local history conferences all over the country through the initiatives of the Philippine National Historical Society.

In 1998, the University of the Philippines commemorated the Philippine Revolution with a yearlong calendar of activities. Each UP campus hosted a lakbay-aral revisiting the trail used by  local revolutionaries and  leaders. For UP Visayas, the three campuses in Iloilo, Cebu and Tacloban had their share of the commemoration. As coordinator of the UP Cebu Centennial celebration, I organized a two-day lakbay-aral, which I called Subay-Kaagi. The first day had its opening at the Capitol Social Hall with descendants of revolutionaries gracing the Pambansang Awit and the itinerary was the city.  In the evening of the first day  participants from different schools in the Philippines were treated to a play by Vicente Sotto “Paghigugma sa Yutang Natawhan” at  Fort San Pedro. The second day was a tour round south of Cebu island.  We wanted to include Tuburan, the headquarters of Gen. Arcadio Maxilom but the roads were impassable.   History classes at that time had their hands full of writeups about the local Katipuneros and the Revolution. They learned about Leon Kilat, Arcadio Maxilom, Florencio Gonzales, Florencio Llamas, Candido and Tiburcio Padilla, Bonifacio Aranas, Juan Climaco, Alejo Miñoza, Jacinto Pacaña, Justo Cabajar, Enrique Lorega, Salomon Manalili, Pantaleon del Rosario and many lesser known heroes whom we only get to know through the streets named after them. Unfortunately, many of these streets are scenes of mugging, theft and other unpleasant activities.

This week has been a fulfilling week with an Academic Forum at the University of San Carlos on “Glocalization: Challenges to Heritage Preservation and Local History in the 21st Century” . Three  women  shared their work on heritage preservation and local history and elicited an animated open forum. Dr. Jocelyn Gerra, executive director of the Cultural Heritage Program of the Ramon Aboitiz Foundation Inc., drew out the challenges to Heritage and Local History in the 21st Century by discussing  the Gabii sa Kabilin held every end of May with 18 museums now participating. She stressed how the Gabii sa Kabilin has involved the surrounding barangays and how it is educating the barangays.

Dr. Erlinda K. Alburo, former director of the Cebuano Studies Center, presented a paper on “Glocalization and the Writing of Town History.” She  gave a brief preview of the town histories of the province, which have been completed (with only the last chapter of the last volume lacking). She shared the different themes that surfaced in the manuscripts such as developments of varying degrees in the municipalities, migration and diaspora, and the focus on tourism with  50 or more festivals in the municipalities.  Some towns changed the names of their festivals to give a more relevant touch.

Tourism in the province is more on the eco-cultural dimension and some municipalities showed their resourcefulness by honing their natural resources not only as a tourist attraction but also as a source of revenue for the community. She proudly declared that Cebu province is the first to have the histories of the towns, component cities , the province and the Capitol building written in one set. Other provinces, like Cavite,  tried to do the same  but was not successful.

As one of the cluster editors, I learned more about local heroes in the province and I could relate the events in the province and the city and the nation as a whole.

Architect Melva R. Java, director of the Conservation and Heritage Research Institute and Workshop of the University of San Carlos, expounded  on the importance of “The Greening of Historic Sites” with focus on our churches. She emphasized that simply cleaning the churches will help preserve them.

Complementing the forum was the opening of the exhibit on “Mga Bayani sa Sugbo: Cebu’s Contributions to Nation-building” at the Casa Gorordo Museum last Aug. 26 to celebrate National Heroes Day. The exhibit commemorates  famous and  the lesser-known individuals who  contributed to the making of both Cebuano society and culture and of the Filipino nation. It covers the achievements of these individuals from 1898 to the 1930s in various fields—from freedom fighting to civic works. The exhibit will run until October. Teachers, students and education officials as well as government officials should view this exhibit. Thank God there are still institutions and groups as well as individuals who keep the light of our struggle as a people alive.