OVER THE WEEK a seminar-workshop on local history writing was held at the Naga College Foundation (NCF) campus, sponsored by the National Historical Institute (NHI) in cooperation with the NCF and the Local Government of Naga City. It is not surprising if the Naga College Foundation too willingly acceded to become the venue of the activity since for many years now the college has been into the development of culture, and research on local history. What is surprising is that the local government of Naga City was one of its sponsors.
What is surprising is that the local government of Naga is co-sponsoring a seminar on local history writing when the City Mayor himself admitted that culture and research on local history are not as weighty in his priorities as investments. After he was given the mandate for his current term he openly acknowledged that the development of local culture and research on history were his weakness. To make up for his inadequacies he then commissioned the Committee on Culture and the Arts of the Sanggunian Panlungsod to make local culture vibrant. The trouble is that this Committee was not appropriated the needed funding to make up for the Mayor’s inadequacies. The budget implemented by the local government of Naga for the current year speaks for itself --- for whether or not the Mayor is really into the development of local culture and research on history.
What is surprising is that the leadership in the local government of Naga has been into political patronage at the expense of cultural concerns for local history and research. The reason why the chairmanship of the Miss Bikolandia Beauty Search and Pageant was snatched away from the Sanggunian Panlungsod’s Committee on Culture and the Arts was clearly for political reasons, nor for merit. Last year the pageant had vestiges, if not outward manifestations, of local history and culture. But this thrust was taken against the committee at the instance of people who had little if nothing of local culture and history. This year the Mayor did not give the chair of the Sanggunian Committee on Culture and the Arts the charge to conduct the search. It was a chance for the City Mayor to have delivered another layer of development on local culture and history. He missed it.
What is surprising is that the local leadership of the City of Naga is now cramming for the election in 2010, just like any student who finds he has yet to write several research papers a couple of days before the final examinations. The final examination for the elective officials of the city of Naga is fast approaching. They are half way through their term and it is no surprise that attention for the development of local culture and history is coming fast and furious. The setting up of Spanish lampposts in the Central Business District I of the Ciudad de Caceres was recommended in a consultation meeting to which local historians were invited with the idea of bringing about a historic ambience in the area if only to meet the level of attraction the new SM Mall at the Central Business District II would engender. But what face-lifting did CBD I get? Lampposts designed for barbershops. How comfortable the Daughters of Charity of the Universidad de Sta. Isabel are with these barbershop lampposts just outside their historic building, we can only surmise. How would the sisters co-relate the two would be a stumper.
Cramming, the City Mayor is to set up a historical monument on the island beside the public market at the corner of General Luna Street and Padian Stret. It will be recalled that in 2004 a ground-breaking ceremony for the Plaza de Ciudad de Naga, part of the Charter Day celebration, was made on that same spot. It is now 2008. That island has not transfigured.
The development of local culture and research on the history of Naga is coming not only in trickles but in slow motion. Of course, that is not surprising.
