‘Museyo’ yearbook examines museums today

The National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) releases Museyo 2023: The Philippine Museums Yearbook, which features museum works after the lockdowns and restrictions because of the pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19), particularly covering the years 2022 and 2023.

With the theme, “Conquering the Unknown: Museums after the Covid Lockdown,” the yearbook was launched on 30 October as highlight of the closing ceremony of NCCA’s celebration of Museums and Galleries Month, held at the Manila Metropolitan Theater.

A project of NCCA’s National Committee on Museums (NCOM), Museyo was first published in 2022, the first of its kind in the Philippines. The first issue tackles various museum events during the pandemic lockdowns in 2020 and 2021, while the second talks about the activities, important narratives, and best practices undertaken by various museums all over the country through physical and online modalities, with articles from museum workers, administrators and curators.

The Museyo 2023 editorial team is lead NCOM head Jose Eleazar Bersales serving as editor in chief with Amado R. Alvarez as publication director and Perfecto T. Martin as managing editor.

In the book, Bersales aptly describes that this latest issue is “a must-have inasmuch as its contents are very substantive, very timely and extremely illuminating.”

He said, “The stories and articles here will leave the reader not with a mere skirting of the surface, as it were, but deep realizations even as we endeavor to deliver the very essence of museums as venues that inspire and educate” through “well-researched and accurate interpretations of the objects.”

The first part carries various articles on the activities of government museums which include the National Museum of the Philippines (NMP), National Historical Commission of the Philippines (NHCP), Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, Mindanao State University-Iligan Institute of Technology, Laguna, Iloilo City in Iloilo and Pangasinan.

These essays are authored by museum and cultural workers including Maricyn A. De Los Santos (“Community Building Through Museums: Engaging Communities Towards Post-Pandemic Healing and Recovery,” about NMP), Bryan Anthony Paraiso (“Sustaining Heritage: History Museums as Community Guardians,” about NHCP), Sarah Jane Estubo (“History, Faith, and Innovation: MLILN’S Community-Centric Approach in Reshaping the Museum Experience,” about NHCP’s Nagcarlan museum’s community-based approach), Cecille Gelicame and Betarice Belen-Ferrer (“Bracing the Impulses of Digitalization,” about BSP’s push for digitalization), Emerito Batara (“Notes on A Natural Science Museum,” about MSU-IIT Natural Science Museum and its project, Mobile Museum Boxes), Bryan Jayson Borja (“Lenses and Experiences of Curators,” about a curator’s take on heritage conservation on museums), Irene Magallon and Rose Moscardon (“Bunyág: Revamping the Three Museums Identity Through the Lens of Redevelopment,” about Iloilo museums redevelopment), and Roel Hoang Manipon (“Banáan: Pangasinan’s First Provincial Museum,” about the newly-opened museum of the province).

Aside from these, there are also essays written about and papers presented at Plotting Points 2022: Philippine Museums Congress, held from 17 to 19 October 2022 at the Ayala Museum in Makati City, including those about important Philippine collections in museums overseas. These serve as the second part and the bulk of the yearbook.

The features include a presentation by Jim Ross, Collections manager at the Museum of Anthropological Archaeology, University of Michigan (UM); an essay about the Dean C. Worcester photographic collection in the United States, presented by Ricardo Punzalan of the UM School of Information; “Reconnect/Recollect: Reparative Connections to Philippine Collections at the University of Michigan” by Deirdre de la Cruz, also of UM; and “Mapping as Re-Membering: An Introduction to the Mapping Philippine Material Culture Project” by Cristina Juan of the School of Oriental and African Studies of the University of London.

Also included are topics on museum education written by non-government organization Teach for the Philippines members and Analyn Salvador-Amores of the University of the Philippines Baguio.

Likewise part of the museum congress, which are also included in the volume, are works of other museum workers such as Gio Alampay, on children’s museum; Patrick Flores, on University of the Philippines’ Jorge B. Vargas Museum and Filipiniana Research Center; Victoria Herrera, on the International Council of Museums; and Lawrence Salazar on NCCA NCoM.

To echo what Bersales noted, this latest issue of the yearbook is indeed inspiring. It is likewise very informative and paints exciting prospects on the future of Philippine museums.