Message of the PTCAO

Imagine a tourism festival without sounds and music. Would it have a celebratory feel? Visualize a theatre play or a movie without a musical score? Would it be as striking and enticing as the one integrated with music? What if our culture bears no music nor any song at all? Would it be complete? Life would be mundane without songs or music. Local songs and music make up also our cultural identity.

Culture plays an important role in tourism because any tourism activity will always be founded and grounded in culture. Tourism supports and promotes culture, and culture helps sustain tourism.
Like with any tourism product, there will be questions of sustainability for our cultural resources. How can we sustain them, moreover, preserve or safeguard them and keep them from vanishing in our life? Can our traditional and folk songs survive, much so compete with the modern and popular songs of this age?

Keeping our cultural heritage alive is not a question of competition but a matter of valuing. What should we value and how do we value them? Valuing is not commercializing per se. In the case of music, it should not be primarily commercialized, rather it should be prioritized to enrich how we live.

Music is not just a hobby or past time. For some people, music is their living. Like the musicians playing in operas, concerts or music lounges, or the traditional musikeros in the barrios who play during fiestas, music is their way to earn a living. For culture bearers like them, music is their soul and their way of life, thereby it must be safeguarded.

Pangasinan traditional songs and music is no different from the other songs from around the world. Like pop or ballad songs or the Indian raga music, Pangasinan music and traditional songs are also forms of expression. Thus, it is considered an international language, much like the Pangasinan folk music “Malinac Lay Labi” that is now popular among choral singers in the various regions around the world.

But the challenge still remains on how much we have preserved about our traditional music and folk songs? This challenge has prompted us to conduct this Music Geography Project to research and document our traditional and folk songs in Pangasinan because we know that there are many, but only a few are known due to lack of literature or researches about them. Once we have the music, we can teach them especially to our young generation. Learning music is not difficult when we put our heart and soul into it. Our traditional songs and music should be taught to the younger ones because this is our sound, this is our identity.

In the fast-paced world that we live in today, we should always keep in check our culture. We should not forget the traditions we have, but enrich them and pass them on to our children to ensure that our cultural identity remain in perpetuity. It is our moral and spiritual responsibility to preserve and safeguard our heritage…our tawir.

Maria Luisa Amor-Elduayan
Department Head, PTCAO