Aside from its hospitable and beautiful people, the Philippines is also blessed with rich, diverse, and multifaceted natural, cultural, and built heritage.
We are known for over 100 ethnolinguistic groups spread across the archipelago. Each group has distinct and unique traditions, languages, music, dance, clothing, dishes, craftsmanship, rituals, poetry, and oral histories that have existed for hundreds or thousands of years.
We are known for our colorful, vibrant, and crowd-drawing festivals celebrated in almost every corner of our community, even in geographically isolated areas. These festivals celebrate various aspects of local culture and history that often date back to prehistoric times and are strongly connected to the spiritual and natural world.
We have UNESCO World Heritage sites, such as the Vigan City colonial-era houses, Baroque Churches of the Philippines, Banaue Rice Terraces, and Tubbataha Natural Reef, among others.
Our rich heritage, however, is facing various risks due to neglect and decay, rapid urbanization, infrastructure development, and land-use changes, and lack of awareness and education on their importance.
To address these risks, Republic Act No. 10066, also known as the National Cultural Heritage Act of 2009, was passed into law to protect, preserve, conserve, and promote the nation's cultural heritage, its properties, and histories. The law also aims "to strengthen people's awareness of Filipino heritage, to instill pride in our Filipino identity, and to stimulate cultural consciousness, appreciation, and pride."
However, the discourse on heritage conservation is now compelled to also recognize the emerging risks posed by the global climate crisis to Philippine cultural heritage sites and their associated ecosystems.
We experienced the past several years the regular occurrence of extreme weather events such as floods, droughts, tropical storms, and wildfires, which might cause significant damage to our historic structures, including buildings, monuments, biodiversity, and archeological sites.
The changes in temperature, precipitation patterns, and sea level rise due to climate change are also projected to result in the loss of cultural landscapes, such as coastlines, wetlands, and agricultural landscapes. The long-term effects could be the irreversible disappearance of traditional land use practices, cultural traditions, and indigenous knowledge.
The loss of biodiversity due to the climate crisis also impacts cultural practices and traditional ecological knowledge. This will eventually lead to the loss of species and habitats, which are culturally significant because they relate and connect us to the natural world.
Communities are displaced in a deepening climate crisis since they are affected by rising sea levels, floods, and droughts. This will lead to communities disconnected from their sacred place, pride of place, communities, and ancestral lands.
The economic impacts of the climate crisis and its destruction of our natural and cultural heritage are bleeding billions. Once ignored or left unnoticed, the significant economic effects on heritage sites, lost tourism revenue, and increased maintenance and preservation costs will continue until we can no longer afford to preserve them.
We cannot monetize the contribution and benefit of our connections to the past. Our heritage contributes to the identity and sense of community and instills pride of place among our people. Once they are gone, they are gone forever and this can have profound socio-economic and cultural implications for our communities and future generations.
Preserving heritage, therefore, entails deploying climate change adaptation (resilience building) and mitigation (emissions reduction) solutions to our communities. This requires the crucial participation of ethnic and indigenous communities, who are also at the forefront of intensifying climate change impacts.
We cannot afford to lose our heritage because detachment from our pride of place is the biggest catastrophe.
