Gwendolyn Garcia 鈥擯hoto from Gov. Gwen Garcia FB page
CEBU CITY鈥擳he Cebu provincial government has appealed for the return of four 19th century pulpit panels to a Catholic church in the southern town of Boljoon that were earlier donated to the National Museum of the Philippines (NMP) by private collectors.
The panels, which were part of the pulpit of the town鈥檚 Archdiocesan Shrine of Patrocinio de Maria Santisima, feature carved images of Saint Augustine of Hippo, spiritual father of the Augustinian Order that established the parish over 400 years ago.
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Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia on Friday emphasized the significance of preserving parts of Cebuano culture and heritage and asked Prof. Jose Eleazar Bersales, the province鈥檚 consultant for heritage and museums, to look into how they could formally request the NMP to return the panels to Cebu.
鈥淵ou know the pulpit [in Boljoon church] has been restored, but we could see there are indeed four empty spaces which correspond to these four panels,鈥� Garcia was quoted in Sugbo 黑料社, the official news portal of the Cebu provincial government.
One goal
鈥淚 hope that we can鈥攖he National Museum and the provincial government of Cebu鈥攃ome to an agreement here because after all, we have just one goal: to preserve, and more so to nurture and cherish these irreplaceable treasures of our Cebuano past,鈥� she added.
Last Thursday, the NMP received the four historic pulpit panels from collectors Edwin and Aileen Bautista.
In a Facebook post entitled 鈥淎 gift to the nation,鈥� the NMP thanked the Bautista couple for their 鈥済enerous donations鈥� of the panels that traced its original provenance from the pulpit of the Patrocinio de Maria Santisima Parish Church in Boljoon, which is home to the canonically crowned 400-year-old image of its patron, the Patrocinio de Maria Santisima.
It has yet to be established how the panels reached the hands of the Bautista couple. 鈥擭ESTLE SEMILLA INQ