... It is also evident that the inhabitants in the open site manufactured pottery of varied forms and types, such as cooking pots, jars, and dishes. Although the obsidian flakes and chips were found intermixed with the pottery materials, however, it does not necessarily mean that the bearers of obsidian materials were contemporaneous with the pottery making people; they could be older. Moreover, the great bulk of pottery shards collected from the open site could attest to the presence of a community, a settlement or village, not merely as a camping site as contended by a group who conducted an excavation in the open site two years ago .... [More]

The Huluga Site is located about 7 kilometers south of the city poblacion of Cagayan de Oro, in the sitio of Taguanao, barangay Indahag. By the term “Huluga Site” is meant the composite area comprised of two caves and an open site on the eastern bank of the Cagayan River just a little off the southern tip of Puntod Island. [More]

KATANGAHAN. Kabobohan. Kabalastugan. Katarantaduhan. What other adjectives can we use to describe what city hall did to the Huluga archaeological site? [More]

... Officials have denied to high heavens that no serious damage has been done by the access road of the Taguanao-Balulang Bridge when in fact, the access road in Taguanao literally sliced through the Open Site of the Huluga archeological complex ....[More]

MADAME President: If this were the war against Iraq, they would already have merited their terrorist labels from you. That would have been enough stimulus to get your anti-terrorism rhetorics and your popularity ratings soaring in the wind again. It might catch your fancy, Ms President, that there are other forms of terrorism today. One such is called cultural terrorism. [More]

President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's Speech at UNESCO
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, September 29, 2003

Photography of president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo by Andrew Wheeler of UNESCO.

Let me begin by thanking UNESCO for four recent gestures to promote my country's cultural heritage:

First, its assistance in preserving our thousands of years old Ifugao Rice Terraces in the Northern Philippines. Aside from their wondrous beauty, these Rice Terraces testify to our ancestors sophistication in the science of upland irrigation. [More]

Let me start this paragraph with a date: September 29, 2003. This is two months ago. It may look insignificant, but on this day, Philippine president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo went to Paris to attend the 32nd Session of the General Conference of UNESCO. [More]

I'M MAKING A SMALL SURVEY to understand what people think about ethical requirements in scientific work, particularly in archaeological research. Here is the situation: 1) Dr. Erlinda M. Burton, president of the Heritage Conservation Advocates (HCA), is an archaeologist who has done research in the archaeological site called Huluga in Cagayan de Oro City, Philippines since 1975. [More]

On Sept. 29, 2003, Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo concealed something of importance from UNESCO. She delivered a speech during the opening ceremony of The 32nd Session of the General Conference of UNESCO in Paris. She praised UNESCO's efforts in preserving Philippine cultural heritage. But the next day, her political ally, mayor Vicente Y. Emano, inaugurated a road-and-bridge project that destroyed a huge portion of Huluga.
[More]

The Ad Hoc Committee that studied the sale and transfer of city hall chaired by Councilor Juan Sia has recommended with finality the sale of the present Cagayan de Oro city hall complex, the city health office at the old cemetery and the city engineering office compound at Kauswagan. [More]

The National Historical Institute (NHI) is circumventing its own regulations when it declared president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo's house in Iligan City as a "national heritage site". First of all, former president Diosdado Macapagal never lived there. [More]

In a news reporting class in Silliman University, Dr. Crispin Maslog said that if you want to study a man, you take the contents of his wastebasket. [More]

Dear Mayor Jaraula: We are disappointed and angry to learn about the continuous quarrying in Huluga despite your promise to protect it. A week after our meeting in August, several people used spades, trucks and a backhoe to remove earth from Obsidian Hill. The backhoe is owned by NLVDC, a construction firm. [More]

See large photo (1,500 x 997 pixels).

I beg the indulgence of my friends Konsehal Alden Bacal and Commissioner Nanette Roa of the Historical and Cultural Commission. I fail to see the necessity, much less urgency, of an ordinance making "CdeO" the "official moniker" of Cagayan de Oro City. [More]

Dear Mayor Jaraula: Our client, the HERITAGE CONSERVATION ADVOCATES (HCA) has availed of all channels of communication to get the attention of the City government regarding the sad state of Huluga. All such efforts, however, has been unheeded. [More]

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It is not very common knowledge that at the time of the National Hero’s exile in Dapitan, his very presence there was felt quite palpably here in the town of what was then known as Cagayan de Misamis. From oral lore, we know that at least two residents of this town were brought to Dapitan for eye treatment. [More]

Oscar S. Moreno has personally chosen what is the most historically apt venue for the inaugural of a Cagayan de Oro city mayor.

The kiosko at Divisoria was known in the early days as the Tribuna, a forum for addressing big assemblies of the Cagayan citizenry. Its location at the center of the city is not unintended. As the heart of the 1901 Plaza Divisoria, it is also the city’s soul. Here lies the posterity of momentous events of the past that shaped the history and culture of the Cagayan de Oro people. [More]