Nueva Vizcaya Gears Up Cultural Mapping

The Provincial Tourism Office (PTO) here is conducting a series of cultural mapping in various municipalities to gather more historical and cultural resources for its nature and culture – based tourism promotion, development and preservation.

Marichelle Costales, Supervising Tourism Operations officer said cultural mapping is now 100 percent completed in Sta. Fe town and 60 percent completed in Bayombong town.

“The towns of Ambaguio, Dupax del Sur and Dupax del Norte are now on deck for our cultural mapping in partnership with local government units concerned,” she said.

Costales said the research – based project aims to gather additional heritage and cultural stories of structures and its environmental importance.

She added that they have initially identified the remaining six historical and cultural Stations of the Cross in barangays Dopaj and Domang in Dupax del Sur towns including other cultural and historical houses in other towns.

Costales said the inventory of culture and heritage will serve as basis for further cultural development and preservation projects that will be implemented by the provincial government and Municipal Local Government Units.

According to Costales, Governor Carlos Padilla in a meeting with members of the Nueva Vizcaya Historical Society(NVHS) encouraged writers in the province to write more cultural and historical documents to further enrich the history, culture and heritage of the province.

Cultural mapping, also known as cultural resource mapping or cultural landscape mapping, is the label organizations and people concerned about safeguarding cultural diversity given to a wide range of research techniques and tools used to “map” distinct peoples’ tangible and intangible cultural assets within local landscapes around the world.

Cultural mapping is also used to describe the use of research methods, tools, and techniques to identify, describe, portray, promote, and plan future use of particular regions’ or cities’ combined cultural assets and resources. (MDCT/BME/PIA 2-Nueva Vizcaya)