by Ray Hope O. Bancolita and Resty S. Odon
According to old-timers, Bayambang used to have a Municipal Museum during the administration of Mayor Ricardo Camacho, and it was housed at the Vice Mayor's Office and curated by Mrs. Emma Mula, the designated Tourism Officer at the time, with assistance from PSU College Dean, Dr. Clarita Jimenez.
In the year 2016, there was a change of administration, and the museum collection was reportedly transferred under Mrs. Mula's care in her residence.
Under the leadership of the new mayor, Dr. Cezar T. Quiambao, a new Museum Office was informally created, headed by Mrs. Gloria de Vera-Valenzula, to oversee the collection of new artifacts sourced from Bayambangueños from all walks of life. Her collections were housed temporarily in the Municipal Library, from its old location in the Municipal Hall then to its new location in the repurposed NAWASA water reservoir at the back.
In 2019, after a failed initial attempt involving Barangay Secretaries, a culture mapping project was launched by the Tourism Office under Rafael L. Saygo, with the help of Mrs. De Vera-Valenzuela, who brought into the picture the Bayambang National High School students and teachers led by Christopher Gozum. The mapping project catalogued the cultural resources of the town of Bayambang and serve as the basis for the content and service offerings of a new, more permanent museum facility.
The accumulated outputs from the culture mapping activities were thoroughly validated by respected community members from the cross section of the town.
The actual construction of the museum building in the middle of the Municipal Plaza began only in 2021, but its completion was delayed by several factors: bidding, project funding, engineering problems, and the Covid-19 pandemic. The old building formerly occupied by the Office of Senior Citizen Affairs used to stand in its place and had to be demolished.
Meanwhile, a Museum Technical Working Group was created to slowly oversee the establishment of the facility and the process of deliberating on which artifacts to include for public display.
In 2022, the new Municipal Mayor, Mary Clare Judith Phyllis 'Niña' Jose-Quiambao, reconstituted the TWG, and it included the town's most respected retired academics, namely Dr. Clarita Jimenez, Dr. Annie Manalang, Prof. Januario Cuchapin, and Dr. Leticia Ursua, among others. A local architect, Marie Denise Ursua Abella, who's a graduate of Oxford University, was especially hired for this project to supervise the design, with her mother, Lily Luz U. Abella, supervising the project management side.
The museum team immediately set into motion the work of conceptualizing the main theme, major exhibits, and the careful selection of the most relevant artifacts. After finalizing all exhibits based on the chosen theme, the museum was inaugurated on October 11, 2022, and it was opened to LGU employees and select visitors.
On the 15th day of February, 2023, the museum officially opened its doors to the general public in order to serve as a show window of the town, highlighting who we are, where we came from, and what we want to be. The municipal museum building is called "Museum of Bayambang: Home of Innovation." Constructed as a modernized version of the bahay na bato heritage house that was typical during the Spanish colonial times, the museum houses five galleries. On the ground floor can be found the Culture Gallery, History Gallery, Education Gallery, and a cafe. A staircase leads to the Hall of Innovators on the left and the Agriculture Gallery on the right.
Why innovation? After studying the town’s cultural resources vis-a-vis its history and current status, the team found Bayambang to be a town of many things. Foremost, it is an agricultural town, specifically known as "the Onion Capital of Northern Luzon" and "the Corn Belt of Pangasinan." It is also famous for its delicious fish buro and freshwater fish, that is why the annual town fiesta is dubbed as the ‘Malangsi Fish-tival,’ malangsi meaning freshwater fish. Second, it is also a university town, because we have a big old university located here, established in 1922. Bayambang is also known as the home of the binasuan dance. The town also has a reputation of being a town of faith healers as well as devotees of the patron saint, San Vicente Ferrer. Lastly, it is an historic town, because it once served as the fifth capital of the First Philippine Republic, and also the place where local heroes staged the first revolts against the abuses of the Spanish colonizers in Pangasinan, among other interesting things.
Bayambang is quite a complex town – it is hard to describe it or summarize it in just one word or neat statement. But having considered all of those above-mentioned aspects of our town, it was noticed that one theme in our narrative keeps on repeating, and that is Bayambang is a town of heroes and revolutionaries as well as a town of leaders in their own fields – individuals with a pioneering spirit.
We realized that being freedom-loving revolutionaries, pioneers, spearheads, trailblazers, frontrunners, and innovators runs in our blood, that is why the team decided to put up the museum as a Museum of Innovation.
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