NCCA stops fencing of Baguio City Hall

CONSERVATORS are asking Baguio City officials to stop fencing and erecting a platform in front of City Hall, saying it would disturb the site’s historic landscape. VINCENT CABREZA/INQUIRER NORTHERN LUZON

BAGUIO CITY—The National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) has stopped the city government from fencing and improving the City Hall grounds due to complaints from conservators that the project would disturb the historic landscape.

NCCA Chair Felipe de Leon Jr. sent a cease-and-desist order on June 3, stopping the contractor from building the fence and putting up a small museum and an extended platform to serve as a view deck and stage.

Describing the grounds as a “presumed important cultural property,” De Leon said the order would stay until NCCA approves the city plans.

No objections

But on Monday, Maria Serena Diokno, chair of the National Historical Commission of the Philippines (NHCP), sent the city government a letter indicating that the agency “interposes no objections to these improvements.”

The letter said the NHCP had investigated the City Hall project in May following the complaints of the Baguio Heritage Foundation Inc. and was provided maps and details of the fencing project.

Mayor Mauricio Domogan, in a June 10 motion for reconsideration, said the city officials were “shocked and surprised” to receive a cease-and-desist order from the NCCA, given that NHCP was tasked with reviewing the project.

Domogan urged the NCCA to lift its order, saying it intervened in a matter already under NHCP jurisdiction since May.

Diokno earlier asked the city government to suspend the project and sent NHCP architect Veronica Dado to inspect the area.

‘Fence is acceptable’

“Upon ocular inspection and review of your development plans by our architects, the perimeter fence is acceptable because it is made of see-through grilles [that were put up] to secure the premises from vandals, intruders and looters,” according to the NHCP letter.

The extended platform, under which a small museum would be built, does not obstruct the prominence of the City Hall building, it added.

The city’s motion for reconsideration also said the NCCA had not declared the City Hall compound a heritage site so it should not interfere with its programs.

Unlike the presidential Mansion which received the status of a national historical landmark in 2009, the Baguio City Hall is a marked “historic structure” as stated in the website of the NHCP, Domogan said in the motion for reconsideration.

De Leon’s order refers to the City Hall facility as a Grade 3 cultural property to justify stopping all improvements, “inclusive of the construction of an enclosed fence and other infrastructures within and around the visible perimeter of the site of the built heritage or presumed important cultural property.”

The NCCA has three classifications for important cultural properties, with Grades 1 (national cultural treasure) and 2 (important cultural property) with the highest significance. Grade 3 “refers to all the other cultural properties outside Grade I and II that have been listed in the National Museum Registry of Cultural Property,” according to the NCCA website. Vincent Cabreza, Inquirer Northern Luzon