Rambling in Romblon

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THE National Commission for Culture and the Arts opened heritage month in Romblon last May 2012. Unlike other specially declared months, the NCCA ere made the opening celebratory and then began one year’s work documenting Romblon’s cultural heritage and assisting in the recognition of their sites.

Less than a year later, the Church of Romblon has been recognized as a national cultural treasure and the old municipal building, currently in use as a police station, the fort of San Andres, as Important Cultural Property.

These declarations give protection to the sites, as well as their due recognition in the pantheon of Philippine heritage. This now puts Romblon, formerly considered as the poor step sister of neighboring Boracay on the Philippine map for tourism destinations, and the province on the edge of what could be a gold mine.

Unlike, Boracay – the by now garish, Bad-Manila-style on the beach – Romblon’s delights are worthy of a closer look, and a more enlightened clientele.

It has separate fish, turtle, bird, and bat sanctuaries, crystal and prehistoric burial caves, isolated beaches, dive sites, and a Mangyan cultural community still devoted to its own way of life and resistant to the lure of the new, oftentimes destructive world, (spear fishing, anyone?) and . Really, its an embarrassment of riches.

Fortunately Romblon officials intend to do it right. Having undergone the requisite seminars for conservation of both cultural and natural environments, they are now ready to undertake studies for their tourism industry. It seems to be the start of exciting times for them.

But we must take care that this place doesn’t give in to the lure of the easy, but destructive ways of its neighbor, where property prices have led to the death of one of its Ati. Or that it transforms into the all-too easy tourist trap.

Oficials must be made aware of restrictions of its own carrying capacity and the limits of its sanitation, transportation and health services.

Otherwise it will be haunted by the effects currently hounding its neighbor, such as issues of e. coli proliferation, sanitation, waste disposal, the pressures of providing food, entertainment for so many guests, year round.

It must resist too, the gimmick based tourism that the department bearing that name is wont to do. After all, one does not go to Rome for a one shot thing, unless it’s the election of a Pope.

Tourists generally go for the Old World ways, its art, its architectures, its culture, attractions that stand on their own and continue to lure generations of travellers.

It must remember that it is as much its natural attractions that people want to see, so that to create activities or industries that destroy the very thing that makes them unique, is like a shot to the head.

They must also take care of their cultural heritage, resist the impulse to dress up ancient structures and learn the lesson of one church in the Visayas that had a retablo at least two hundred years old, still showing the traces of its colorful past.

The well-meaning parishioners decided that gold paint would enhance it. The use of heavy car paint led to its permanent destruction, the loss of its historicity. Thereafter, the church, then nominated as a national cultural treasure, was dropped from consideration and from recommendations for tourism.

Romblon is on the edge of a new world. It almost feels like the few seconds before the opening of a door. The rest of the country should see it, and all its joys, and see it now before the world discovers it and it changes forever.

By: Atty. Trixie Cruz-Angeles
(Source : PSSST! Centro)







To know more about Trixie Cruz Angeles, check out: I AM TRIXIE CRUZ