"Art saves culture through passing on tradition.

Art saves language, music, and craft; art

saves families and communities through economic and social development. And lastly, art saves
lives by providing employment and safe spaces for individuals around the world."
 
Cultural art is a national heritage that is essential to building the nation and ensuring
democracy. It reminds people of the origins, histories, struggles, and triumphs of the nation
and allows them to participate in the expression of the country’s nationhood. When the citizens
became conscious and proud of their cultural heritage, they became active agents in nation-
building.
 
Cultural art is something much greater than just the application of creative skills. It is
something more than just its aesthetics. It should not be limited to being aesthetically pleasing;
it should also awaken us. It is supposed to make us feel something. It should be capable of
serving as a unifying factor. It should have the ability to bring people of all nations and cultures
together. It should make the world go round.
 
There are various reasons for why one would travel—possibly for leisure and recreation,
among many others. However, for some people, it can serve as a means of escape. The hustle
and bustle of everyday life can be overwhelming at times, but traveling can help you reconnect
with yourself. Immersing yourself in another’s culture can be quite refreshing; besides all the
new things and learnings you could pick up from this one-of-a-kind experience, you’ll also be
able to experience what it’s like to see the world from a different and wider perspective. The
role of art in promoting tourism is very significant. In its very essence, it has the potential to
boost a certain region’s economy. It functions as an extension of their identity by showcasing
their esteemed culture. Thus, we have our very own Panay Bukidnon, which is the pride of
Region VI.

The Panay Bukidnon are the tumandok, the native or Indigenous dwellers of the more
interior portions of Panay Island, covering the interior barangays of the four provinces of Aklan,
Antique, Iloilo, and Capiz. They speak the same Kinaray-a language with very few semantical
differences, and are similar in their farming and hunting practices, in their spiritual beliefs and
binabaylan (shamanistic) practices, in their having a binukot (kept maiden) tradition, and in
their tradition of epic chanting. Every activity, whether in agriculture, fishing, hunting, and so
on, is influenced by the environmental spirits and deified umalagad (souls) of the departed
ancestors.

In Panay Bukidnon society, all members tend to care deeply about the welfare of one's
community. Community gathering strengthens group integration by requiring intensive
participation of non-family members in drinkfests, weddings, and religious celebrations. The
most striking feature of Panay Bukidnon culture is the persistence of ceremonies in every facet
of life. These ceremonies are associated with the belief that the relationships between the living
and the spirits of the dead continue, and that environmental spirits have influence over daily
affairs. Sacrifices are given to the spirits for their good graces. Because of the importance of
connecting to the unseen world to communicate with deceased ancestors, ceremonies and
rituals play an important role in day-to-day life for interacting with the unseen world.
 These mountain people are conservative in their ways and have retained many beliefs
and traditional practices. Community leadership among the mountain people is based on age,
relative wealth and knowledge of the traditional lore. Marriages are contracted by the parents,
often even before the children are born, the agreement being conditional upon the favorable
sex outcome of births. Panay Bukidnon culture is a warrior society, which we can find evidence
of in their epic story, in which men are always considered handsomely attired when adorned
with weapons. Historically, tattooing used to be a widespread practice and the prevalence of
"skin-painting" led early Spanish chroniclers to describe the Visayans as "Pintados."

Indeed, Panay Bukidnon’s culture and heritage proved that art has always been
regarded through the ages as an avenue for witnessing truth, beauty, and goodness. It is the
agent of the artist—the craftsman—the brilliant creator of beauty, enthralled by the vast
resources of creation, to which it gives form and meaning. Cultural art is a wide range of man's
activity, from expression down to creating things that are tangible or intangible. Artwork that is
visual in nature is one of the oldest, richest, most complex, and most popular forms of art that
is highly rooted in one’s culture. Man is the noblest fruit of the Creator; he uses something that
already exists in the visible world as a vast field in which human inventiveness might assert
itself.
 
Therefore, as a Social Studies major, we can help promote the cultural arts of Panay
Bukidnon by first and foremost immersing ourselves in them. It is of great importance that we
practice what we preach, and that is why I strongly believe that we can promote something
more effectively if we, ourselves, believe in it. By being open to experiencing another’s culture,
we can help uplift the locals and, at the same time, preserve their heritage. In this day and age,
we can make use of the many platforms available to us—like social media, for instance—to
advocate for others to also immerse themselves in that same experience, all while passing it on
to the rest of the world and future generations to experience it themselves. The rich and varied
compiled literature regarding the Panay Bukidnon should be published to promote its culture
and heritage and to preserve those manuscripts for the next generation. The compiled local and
indigenous literature should be used as instructional material in teaching subjects using the
mother tongue and in teaching social studies, Filipino, and literature subjects at the secondary
and tertiary level.