Pamana: World Heritage in the Philippines

The World Heritage Convention celebrates the interdependence of cultural and natural diversity, testaments of human skill and inspiration, and the wonders of nature’s gifts. The Philippines’ context embodies the confluence of cultural and natural patrimony considering its pre-colonial history, periods of colonization, its ethno-linguistic diversity, and its ecologically and biologically rich environs.

The UNESCO World Heritage Sites in the Philippines mirror this context, weaving together the stories of its peoples, landscapes, and seascapes. The Tubbataha Reefs Natural Park, Baroque Churches of the Philippines, Rice Terraces of the Philippine Cordilleras, Historic Town of Vigan, and the Puerto Princesa Subterranean River National Park would be featured in the exhibit. These sites offer an introspective lens to the products of the natural and geologic environmental processes, significant to the region’s earth history and testaments to the harmonious relationship between man and nature, seen from the country’s pre-colonial past. In the same wave, these sites also present a window to understanding the heritage of the Philippines as a product of its exchanges with other nations and cultures.
Finally, the exhibit will present challenges to conservation and how the the Philippines, along with the international community, resolves to continuously find sustainable means to conserve our heritage