TO SAFEGUARD cultural heritage and boost local tourism, the Cebu Provincial Government is ramping up its 2026 Cultural Mapping Program to support sustainable tourism development across component towns and cities.
The Provincial Tourism Office (PTO), in coordination with Museo Sugbo, aims to equip local tourism officers and community members with the skills necessary to identify, document, and preserve their heritage assets.
PTO head Rowena Montecillo said the program relies heavily on the proactive involvement of community stakeholders.
“The information gathered will help identify what a certain destination can offer culturally and tourism-wise,” Montecillo told SunStar Cebu on July 16, 2026.
“The office of Museo Sugbo and our tourism office cannot do it alone. It has to involve both the local government unit (LGU) and the private sector, because stories can be gathered better if the locals themselves are involved,” she added.
Montecillo said cultural mapping serves as a framework to anchor the upcoming 10-year Provincial Tourism Development Plan.
“Now, with the cultural mapping together with the Local Development Tourism Plan (LTDP) per municipality, we would want to come up with all of this because one deliverable that we have, especially next year, will be the Provincial Tourism Development Plan,” she said.
To support this vision, the Department of Tourism in Central Visayas (DOT 7), in partnership with the PTO, conducted a four-day workshop from July 13 to 16 for local tourism officers across the province.
The training focused on evidence-based and sustainable frameworks for local tourism planning within their respective LTDPs.
The Cultural Mapping Program encompasses documenting tangible and intangible heritage, as well as accounting for natural and human resources.
Academic collaboration
Montecillo said they are collaborating with top universities in Cebu to expedite data collection.
“We are sitting down with Cebu Normal University (CNU) and the University of San Jose-Recoletos (USJ-R), our academic partners, to assist us in gathering information. We are leveraging students and researchers because relying solely on tourism officers would take too long,” Montecillo said in mixed Cebuano and English.
“These institutions want to contribute to the province through research, while fielding their students, especially those in tourism, gives them valuable hands-on learning experience,” she added.
To formalize this partnership, USJ-R signed a Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with the PTO on Tuesday, July 21, to implement the Cebu Geographical Indication (GI) Culinary Research and Development Project.
The project aims to document, protect, and elevate Cebu’s food heritage through the country’s Geographical Indication System.
Hands-on workshops
The Cultural Mapping Program features a four-day training session designed to provide step-by-step guidance on accomplishing the Talapamana forms required by the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) for inclusion in the Philippine Registry of Cultural Property.
Program lead and Museo Sugbo curator Jobers Bersales stressed that the primary qualification for volunteers is a commitment to support efforts to nurture local history and boost tourism.
“We would like to train people who are passionate, concerned, committed, and know how to write or fill out the forms,” Bersales told SunStar Cebu on July 20.
“We are looking for up to 20 volunteers per locality who are willing to write. They can write in Tagalog, English, or Cebuano, since local languages are permitted by the NCCA, given that they are dedicated to the work.”
Bersales noted that workshops have already been successfully conducted in Carcar City, Badian, and Talisay City.
Cultural mapping workshops are currently underway in Bogo City, while the three island municipalities of Bantayan, Madridejos, and Santa Fe are slated to hold their sessions soon. (Veejay Catadman, UP Cebu intern)
