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Post by VeeVee on Jun 4, 2009 15:49:35 GMT -5
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Post by insurrectomad on Jul 5, 2009 7:56:04 GMT -5
I am more familiar with the way the English Heritage & Britain's National Trust operate in maintaining their properties. Both have a membership society of supporters, with strong marketing management. Much maintenance is provided by the society of volunteers. The problem here is that the native Filipino has very little interest or knowledge of their hist., monuments, and heritage. Demos against such things as turning Corregidor into a casino, I fear just would not materialize in the Phils. or be propelled by students. British TV has national competition each year, to find the most deserving historic site or monument for funding by the National Lottery. DVD's of the prog. and of each site are also sold to visitors. Corregidor could maintain an artist workshop for example. The Phil. Armed Forces appear to have little or no interest in giving any support to the nation's battlesites or military artifacts. The Mt. Samit shrine tells one that. It is managed a woman delegated by the Army, & the place is crumbling & falling apart. In Angeles City, I took part this year in the reenactment of the Independence Day speech that was given by Pres. Gen. Aguinaldo from the balcony of Pamituan House in 1898. The house is now occupied by the Phil. Nat. Bank's offices. No further maintenance has been undertaken since 1998! It looked splendid then, but now the roof leaks and has damaged some of the fine molded ceilings. The roof is covered in rust, and I did not see anyone representing the bank at the luncheon after the reenactment event. All these concerns I did broach with the Director of Angeles Tourism, & will be speaking with him again soon. Clark Airfield Park, Expo Center & Bayan Native Village complex are all getting a major spruce-up at this moment in readiness for a large event next year. My suggestion of staging a reenactment/ living hist. event, depicting The Phil/AM War, P.Scouts 1942, & Airmen at Clark etc was warmly received. Using Clark's location for TV/filming of it's historic connections, interested the tourist director. Still not one of my many student aged nephews or nieces has any inclination to join the local reenactment group I'm trying to create. They just politely smile and hug their senile old uncle who has this Americano fixation on their country's musty, dusty distant past! None of them even bothered to see the film Balar! The likes of Corregidor, can't be maintained by foreign tourists & history buffs alone & unless Filipinos take more interest, it will be swallowed by the jungle!
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Post by oklahoma on Jul 5, 2009 9:33:35 GMT -5
i say again, it was a shame that upon the granting of independence to the philippines that the US Park Service, etc wasnt given permission to maintain corregidor and the other manila bay installations plus Mt Samat and any other Bataan sites. the Philippine government would have retained full sovereignty, but the administration of these historic places would have been the responsibility of the same good folks who oversee gettysburg, shiloh, mount rushmore, etc. as you said, it will be a crying shame to see corregidor, especially, fall into complete disrepair and taken over by the jungle. oh well, i am too old to see it happen i suppose, but the thought still disturbs me big time.
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