heritage

can’t see how our so-called heritage advocates will instill in people the values of heritage and preservation when just in our trumpeted heritage town of carcar, the 1964 municipal building façade was done over – entirely – in order to “appear” old by simulating facets of the dispensary which was only about 25 years older. and not only the old municipal building but every public edifice is being made over to look like the dispensary, there a falseness in all that.

And the church retablo was “restored” to supposedly its original look but now can only manage to look, very pretty, but very 2014. No discernible art here, much less sacred art, just vanity. it now looks like every retablo in cebu made over during the period, certainly not a 150-year-old one.

But not to worry. In 50 or more years, these revisions will have become the people’s heritage — unless some new officials of that future time will have altered them to stamp their own names. Along that score, 200 years hence heritage conservationist would be hard-pressed looking for some liturgical or cultural meaning in the retablo decors of 2014. That’s how easily officials can tear down an actual heritage object right there before them — to make way for their illusion of it.