THE NEED FOR CULTURAL MAPPING IN THE BARANGAYS

Cultural mapping is the identification and protection of cultural properties in a given place. It’s more than the inventory of ancestral houses, artifacts, religious icons, works of art and other cultural properties. It includes the commitment and passion to conserve them. Cultural mapping goes hand in hand with heritage conservation. Education is vital in this kind of endeavor. The people, especially those in the barangays must be informed well so that appreciation can come in. There can only be effective and meaningful conservation of cultural properties if the stakeholders learn to give importance to their heritage.

Speaking of heritage, which has been defined as Legacy of the Past, Vigan’s thrust nowadays through the cultural mapping project is to expand the concept of heritage conservation. At present, the City has embarked a cultural mapping project to identify and have an inventory of all our cultural properties, be it

BUILT Heritage- such as the ancestral houses of Vigan;

INTANGIBLE Heritage – such as our songs, dances, cuisines, customs, traditions and practices;

MOVABLE Heritage – such as paintings, statues, jewelries, relics, and the like;

NATURAL Heritage - such as our centuries-old trees, rivers, natural parks, and the vista of the mountains and the seas.

As a World heritage site, it is now a must for us to be comprehensive in approach when it comes to conservation. Conserving our heritage is preserving our civilization. Through Cultural Mapping , we can tell the world that as Bigueños and Filipinos, we have an identity to be proud of. We can only achieve this with the committed involvement of the barangays. There is a felt need to conduct cultural mapping in the barangay level.