Eastern Visayas State University

College of Architecture and Allied Discipline

Tacloban City
Academic Year 2022-2023

ARCH 312 RESEARCH

HISTORICAL PRESERVATION
R.A. 10066 NATIONAL CULTURAL HERITAGE ACT

Submitted By:
CARYLL LEIGH V. CHUA
BSARCH - 3A

Submitted To:
AR. BERNIE TUDIO
 Historical Preservation
R.A. 10066 National Cultural Heritage Act

The Historical Preservation (R.A. 10066 National Cultural Heritage Act aims to
protect, preserve, conserve, and promote the national cultural heritage, as well as its
properties, assets, histories, and the ethnicity of local communities. The Act defines six
categories of cultural properties: national cultural treasures, important cultural property,
world heritage sites, national historical shrine, national historical monument, and national
historical landmark. With that, to achieve their protection, conservation, and restoration, any
cultural sites designated as Important Cultural Properties will be able to receive government
financing. An immovable cultural property will be able to have an official heritage marker to
designate it as a significant cultural asset.

As a citizen of this country and as an architecture student, I believe that this law
nurtures the minds of the people, especially the young ones. It will enlighten them about our
history and help them appreciate more what we have that symbolizes us as Filipinos. Cultural
heritage is a legacy of material culture (such as buildings, monuments, landscapes, books,
works of art, and artifacts). It also includes living traditions or expressions of intangible
culture that have been passed down to us from our ancestors, such as oral traditions,
performing arts, social customs, rituals, and festivities; knowledge of nature and the cosmos;
or the know-how to make traditional crafts; as well as natural heritage (such as folklore,
traditions, language, and knowledge) (including culturally significant landscapes and
biodiversity). It means that every generation needs to protect, preserve, conserve, etc., our
history to light up the fire within us. We Filipinos are very talented and have our own
identity, which we should propagate in order to maintain our culture and not let it die down.
Yes, it is important because it has economic value now or in the future, but it is most
important because it evokes a specific emotion in us or gives us a sense of belonging to a
culture, tradition, or way of life.

As a student of architecture, the best way to preserve our cultural heritage is to be the
voice and share with others how important it is to learn all these things because they are our
treasure, and they are what made us who we are now. Most especially, our historical
buildings are important because they affect the way others portray us like for example, the
materials used, the architectural style, and characteristics of Filipino architecture. That is how
important they are because we can be identified through these buildings. It is something that
we need to cherish. And for me to be able to contribute to the preservation of these historical
buildings, appreciation must start with me. Everything that you appreciate gives you the
willingness to look out for it and handle it with the utmost care. Additionally, promoting
historical buildings through social media or by communicating personally with people is
another thing that I can do to help preserve them. With that, more people, especially my
generation, will have the knowledge of how important it is to us, and it will make them
appreciate and give more importance to these things.

Preservation or maintaining historic structures not only helps us Filipinos, but it also
helps our environment. Conserving heritage buildings reduces energy usage associated with
demolition, waste disposal, and new construction and promotes sustainable development by
conserving the embodied energy in the existing buildings. Climate change is one thing that
we should consider, especially since pollution is all around us, which is very alarming. What
a wonderful place it would have been if everyone cared and observed everything that was
going on around them.