Young Roots

By April 10, 2016Archives, Opinion

Promoting Pangasinan’s treasures

Johanne R. Macob

By Johanne R. Macob

 

ON the 436th founding anniversary of our beloved province, the dream of establishing the Center for Pangasinan Studies (CPS) was realized, thanks to the initiative of the provincial government and the assistance of the University of the Philippines (UP), the Pangasinan Historical and Cultural Commission, and the five higher educational institutions (HEIs) in the province. Pangasinan, like Bulacan, Pampanga, and Cordillera, now has a permanent venue to further the research on the province’s local history and culture.

The CPS, located at the Bengson-Yuson ancestral house in Lingayen, keeps the documents and other artifacts on Pangasinan history, culture, and heritage. UP President Alfredo Pascual in his keynote speech during the commemorative program of the 436th Agew na Pangasinan, as delivered by Dr. Popoy De Vera, said Pangasinan has a lot to boast of, particularly its people, natural resources, and its role in the Philippine and world history. There’s a lot to love about Pangasinan that has to be promoted and the launching of the CPS last April 5 provides that opportunity.

Further studies on the local heritage are also eyed through the faculty and students of the five cooperating HEIs namely Colegio de Dagupan, Lyceum Northwestern University, University of Luzon, University of Pangasinan, and Virgen Milagros University Foundation. I hope students of these HEIs will develop serious interest in pursuing studies on Pangasinan. They have a big role to play in the maintenance and enhancement of the CPS.

The Cordillera Studies Center hosted by my alma mater, UP Baguio, has been getting a boost from the university’s College of Social Sciences through Cordillera-related subjects. Theses and other dissertations on Cordillera are being produced by the faculty and students of UPB regularly.

However, what I found ironic is the fact that the Pangasinan State University (PSU), is not involved in the undertaking. It was not one of the HEIs that signed the memorandum of agreement on the CPS project, despite the fact that PSU, according to its president, Dexter Buted, is not only the region’s biggest state university having the most number of campuses in the province- Lingayen, Binmaley, San Carlos City, Bayambang, Urdaneta City, Asingan, Sta. Maria, Infanta, and Alaminos City. PSU could definitely greatly boost center’s undertakings!

PSU’s participation, under the present administration, with its vision – to be an ASEAN premier state university by 2020 – can make a difference for the promotion of the Pangasinan language, ideology, history, and culture. Note that the ASEAN member-states themselves, in 2000, have inked the Declaration On Cultural Heritage, which is geared towards the “protection and promotion of ASEAN cultural heritage and cultural rights undertakings….”

Anyway, though I still personally do not know the reason behind the province’s state university’s exclusion from the CPS project, it is my fervent hope that the PSU students will still find ways to assist the CPS to help boost our beloved Pangasinan’s treasures, and we are one of these treasures.

(For your comments and reactions, please email to: punch.sunday@gmail.com)

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