What are we to do with heritage white elephants?
BOHOLANO home cooking is served under the painted dome of the Dauis convento.
By Augusto Villalon
Inquirer
Last updated 02:19am (Mla time) 08/20/2007
MANILA, Philippines -- Despite the growing campaign to save Philippine heritage, the honest truth is that a lot (or most) of the heritage structures we campaign to save are really white elephants.
What are we to do with those white elephants?
On the verge of becoming white elephants are our World Heritage-inscribed Rice Terraces of the Philippine Cordillera.
A site of incontestable beauty, the rice terraces are one of the few places on our planet where natural and cultural heritage combine to produce a landscape of such impact. Seeing the struggle for the place to keep up with the 21st century leads to the question, Is heritage enough?
Heritage might be enough for inanimate objects, stuff for display like empty architectural monuments or valuable objects locked up under glass in museums that are lifeless markers of the past.
A place like the rice terraces, unquestionably a marker of Philippine heritage, is far from being an inert monument to the past, enshrined in museum-like stillness.
For centuries the terraces’ traditional practices—cultural, religious, environmental, agricultural, hydrological and artistic—revolved around the rice- growing cycle, supporting the life of their inhabitants. Massive migration out of the terraces is proof that the traditional lifestyle has become extremely difficult to maintain today, leading to an endless search for solutions that will update the tough Cordillera lifestyle while maintaining cultural roots.
Unlike similar rice-growing mountain terraces in China that have long been abandoned, the terraces of the Philippine Cordillera aren’t relics. The terraces, however, search for ways to maintain their connection to human life.
Relics of the past deserve to continue living. Once it was thought that the best thing to do with an old Spanish colonial-era house was to turn it into a museum, so many houses stopped being homes and turned into excellent museums, each displaying exquisite collections of furniture and furnishings.
The museums as total nostalgia re-live past eras through collections of objects from a bygone era that make no connection to daily life today.
Bed-and-breakfast
There are heritage homes that now have recently learned to make use of their past as a resource to connect to their present. Owners develop their heritage homes as a resource not only to generate additional income to improve their way of living but also to provide financial means to continue conserving their heritage properties.
Through the bed-and-breakfast program, heritage houses continue to be used and be useful rather than stagnate into lifeless museum displays or fall into disrepair and decay.
Owners of a group of heritage homes in the historic town of Baclayon in Bohol have formed a bed-and-breakfast association, initially offering a total of over 20 rooms in neighboring houses. Converting unused bedrooms as guest lodgings uses heritage positively as an income-generating resource, as a source of pride and local identity, and, most important, keeps the heritage alive and up-to-date.
And as a tourism experience, the hospitality offered by the homeowners participating in the Baclayon bed-and-breakfast program brings travelers into personal contact with the gentle Boholano culture.
Heritage houses glow differently when occupied. Their glow becomes warmer when they continue usefulness, as lodging houses, schools, offices, or for whatever purpose. They also glow better because they are earning their keep.
Definitely with a glow that warms the heart is the Dauis convento in Bohol where, under a magnificently painted wooden cupola in the convento, a dinner of down-home Boholano cuisine is served by local youth trained as cooks and waiters.
They serve the regional Bisayá food of my youth on impeccable china and linen in unsurpassable convento surroundings, a great experience that combines tangible heritage (the splendid architecture of the convento) and intangible heritage (regional food, performances of traditional music).
Intangibles
The intangibles give life to heritage, connects heritage to people. Instead of the sites being lifeless and empty, think of the texture daily life adds to the rice terraces, the heritage houses of Baclayon, and the white elephant that would have been the Dauis convento.
In the three sites, heritage generates income through tourism, one of the more obvious uses for heritage-based resources.
The intangible, or the software, makes the heritage memorable. It is the stuff that makes for great tourism experiences.
It is the intangible that radiates life to a place, connects tourists to locals and their traditions.
The intangible is the “spirit of place†that makes the visitor part of the local life, even if just for a few hours or days.
Think of the rice terraces without inhabitants, the houses in Baclayon empty, the convento in Dauis continuing to decay.
Then see the benefits from judicious use of their heritage as resources for income-generation.
Heritage really should not produce more white elephants than we can handle. It should benefit people.
Baclayon bed-and-breakfast will be ready to receive visitors in the near future. Bookings are required at Dauis convento, call 0921-6643277 or (038) 502-2008.
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