Legarda stresses importance in protecting cultural heritage

Senator Loren Legarda underscored the importance of valuing and protecting cultural heritage through integration in policy and education as she led the launch of two books—“Panagway: The Ati in the Narratives and the Archives,” and “Badbad: Untangling Archived Knowledges on Panay Bukidnon Life and Culture,” at the University of the Philippines (UP) Visayas campus in Iloilo City on August 9, 2025.

“When we honor indigenous knowledge, we do not simply gain historical insight; we recover wisdom about how to care for the land, how to build community, how to live with balance and dignity,” Legarda said.

“These lifeways, refined across centuries of adaptation, carry the seeds of our collective future if we have the humility to listen,” she continued.

The publication of the two books was supported by the four-term senator, who seeks to quench a thirst of knowledge regarding the indigenous groups.

Legarda also lamented that there is a scarcity of ethnographic literature on the Ati due to systematic neglect, while the slow erosion of Panay Bukidnon language and ritual is caused by poor political choices.

“Panagwa,” written by Frances Anthea R. Redison, Kyla Agnes L. Ramirez, and Theodore Ricardo R. Bautista, documents the history, culture, and experiences of the Ati people of Panay Island.

It further provides insight into how the Ati have been viewed and documented historically, as well as their current realities, such as their efforts to sustain traditions, confront socio-economic challenges, and assert their identity amid external pressures and marginalization.

Meanwhile, “Badbad,” penned by Prof. Jose Taton Jr. and Josie Jane T. Tambirao, is an ethnographic encyclopedia on the Panay Bukidnon—compiling facts, traditions, rituals, and narratives, gathered and verified from dispersed archives, manuscripts, and media, into a single, accessible resource.

“Badbad” also details the Panay Bukidnon’s epic stories (like the Suguidanon/Hinilawod), traditional dance (binanog), music, rituals, embroidery (panubok), and the community’s deep connection to nature and ancestral wisdom.

“These books, Panagway and Badbad, while products of research and institutional collaboration, are also testaments to a people who have long walked these lands, long before our republic bore a name, yet who, for centuries, have been written out, written over, or written thin—exoticized in textbooks, misunderstood in policy, or omitted from the narratives we teach and celebrate,” explained Legarda.

“To return them to the center of our national story is not only a scholarly obligation but a moral necessity. And it is an act I have long committed to throughout my four terms in the Senate, and as a cultural worker and advocate.”

Legarda, an advocate of history and culture in the Senate, has long supported ethnographic work in Panay and Guimaras, in collaboration with UP Visayas.

Among the previous works that were supported by Legarda include From Seas to the Mountains in 2016, and Pagdahu ka Surundon in 2024, as well as the cultural mapping of Antique, Panay, and Guimaras. (30)