Establishing a Municipal Museum: Lessons Learned

Establishing a Municipal Museum: Lessons Learned

I was invited to this Municipal Museum event the other day, giving me the rare opportunity to go out of my comfort zone and visit the facility once again, which I and esteemed committee members helped organize.

The event brought back memories of how we came up with this museum concept after a long journey, because among the speakers was the OIC of National Museum Region I (Vigan City). Her name is Maria Lourdes I. Ingel.

There were so many lessons learned ever since the municipal museum's conception during the time of former mayor 'CTQ' through Ms. Gloria de Vera-Valenzuela.

1. Among these is that calling for donations in general terms would bring in donations of all kinds. The randomness of artifacts donated can easily overwhelm any museum team. Caring for and housing all those in one safe place was a big headache in the absence of an adequate space and appropriate personnel.

2. Not knowing any better, most people don't care about museums and everything associated with it--history, culture, heritage, arts, ethnic and cultural identity... Maybe it is necessary for local communities to lose and forget the wealth of cultural heritage they have in order to realize their priceless value.

3. There are people who know the value of cultural artifacts and refuse to just give them away, preferring instead to sell.

At least one person reportedly offered to sell a jaw-dropping collection of millions-worth of antiquities in this town (the far-off location was kept secret from me) but unfortunately mostly of foreign provenance and therefore have no significance to the town. This kind of collection, Ingel says, best left as a private collection.

Our team was fortunate, however, to find enough residents who knew of the priceless nature of the artifacts they hold yet chose to donate it anyway to our town without getting a single centavo in return!

And that is the reason why their names are engraved on the brass marker right beside the entrance of the museum without them demanding recognition.

4. At least one donor of an admittedly significant and therefore valuable WWII artifact was reportedly sore because he/she couldn't find it among the displays. Our reason is lack of space. We had to work around exhibition spaces with very limited legroom. We couldn't even properly display the numerous large framed photos of our town's fathers (political leaders)--a huge disappointment on our part because it was something so basic at the entrance of a municipal-level museum.

5. The biggest question we had to hurdle is about the narrative we had to choose and resulting theme gleaned from it. At the outset, we didn't want our museum to be an antiques store or junkshop, and we certainly didn't want to add to the kind of heritage museums that were already out there.

Studying the history of Bayambang, we thought of narrowing down the narrative to how the town chose to revolutionize things up and innovate in a lot of its ways through time, so we chose Innovation as our theme.

6. Running a museum is serious business, it turns out. It would require a professional curator with an SG-22 rank, Ingel points out!

Among the things a curator would have to deal with are deeds of donations, detailed inventories, catalogues, captions, lighting (strong light damages sensitive artifacts), temperature and humidity (fluctuations from the standard damages certain artifacts), restoration and repair -- all mentally challenging and highly technical territory. "It involves a lot of science," Ingel enthuses. To paraphrase her, "It is an endlessly fascinating aspect of museum work, because you can't help but be humble as you stumble into huge gaps in your knowledge."

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At this event, I am also reminded of the interesting details of our local history, thanks to one of our town's professional historians (one of only a handful), my former classmate in grade school, Dr. Rosabella A. Mendez. We talked anew about the enduring question marks hovering above currently available narratives for the longest time. Why Malunguey/Balunguey/Balonguey? Why culibangbang as the origin of Bayambang when it is an Ilocano word for butterfly? What exactly is that anuyais or anuyaw bird, a yellow bird species observed by the Dominican friars as pecking on the rice grains? Why were there Negritos present in the origin account? Where exactly is the original Telbang? Isn't Brgy. Hermoza/Hermosa and/or Brgy. Inirangan the original settlement? Etc. etc. So many unresolved issues, like a mental health sufferer.

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From the third speaker, Roland Gile Gregorio Jr. of NCCA, I also learned a lot of new things about the intricacies of cultural registration and cultural declarations -- complicated stuff I don't want to touch on at the moment. It requires an entirely separate discussion.

Sample questions from the floor: What does it take for a church to be declared a National Cultural Treasure or an Important or Significant Cultural Property? What can an ordinary youth do to help promote local heritage and culture? What if you found gold bars or Yamashita treasures within your property? (Stories like this abound in this town!) What does the law say about it? And so on and so forth.

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Sensing that our speakers were tired, I made it a point to suggest to cut short the discussion at around 3 PM or we would end up the open forum at night.