MAGALANG, Pampanga – The Local Government Unit (LGU), in cooperation with the University of Sto.Tomas in Manila (UST), last week launched a heritage mapping project designed to record the built heritage and intangible heritage of the first-class town.
The Magalang LGU also tapped the Department of Education (DepEd) for the project, which started in January.
Some of the built heritage of Magalang are the Heliographic Towers in Barangay Sta. Cruz and San Isidro. They were recently declared as important cultural properties.
There are also old houses here built during the early 1900s.
“The project is necessary to continue the progress and development of Magalang,” said Mayor Malu Paras Lacson of the Magalang LGU.
“We must preserve and nurture our heritage and culture so that we can be assured of a bright future,” she added. The project is supported by Vice Mayor Norman Lacson.
Ryan Miranda, municipal tourism officer, said “we do this to identify the cultural assets of Magalang.”
“In as much as we want to form policies to protect them, we have to identify them first,” he added.
Eric Zerrudo, director of the UST Center for Conservation of Cultural Property and Environment in the Tropics, said some 100 public school teachers are tasked to the heritage mapping in all of the 27 barangays of the town. The municipal government and DepEd signed a memorandum of agreement (MOA) for the realization of the project.
Zerrudo was assigned by the UST to lecture the teachers on the proper way to do the heritage mapping.
Zerrudo said the teachers will have until March this year to complete the project.