Let’s face it. The Philippine legislation does not touch base on archaeology as often as other stuff, we seldom see these words together. 

That drove Atty. Kathleen Tantuico to launch her book titled "Archaeology and the Law: Legal Awareness and Advocacy in Philippine Archaeology," last 22 May at University of the Philippines-Diliman. 

The publication contains a comprehensive compilation of archaeological laws in the Philippines, and the first to apply a socio-legal methodology to measure legal awareness among archaeologists, with the goal of advocating for stronger legal safeguards for archaeological resources.

“The aim was to first identify all the national, international, and global laws that are relevant to the practice of archaeology in the Philippines and the second was to measure the level of awareness of those laws of Philippine archaeologists,” Tantuico told DAILY TRIBUNE. 

“I would say that my goal was to give legislators no excuse, to compile the laws for them, to compile the relevant provisions, so that they would have no excuse to say that there's no laws protecting archaeological sites and cultural heritage,” she added. 

She also mentioned the infamous case of the condominium-slash-photobomber behind Jose Rizal’s statue at Luneta Park in Manila as one of the matters heavily discussed in her work. 

The process

Tantuico shared that she quit her full-time job and took her six months to complete the book as her Master of Arts thesis for the University of the Philippines School of Archaeology (UPSA) during Academic Year 2022–2023.  

The United Kingdom-based lawyer described the process to be a “difficult” one and was slow at first as she revealed that she talked to more than 10 people for face-to-face interviews and that includes government offices such as  National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA),  the National Museum of the Philippines, Department of Foreign Affairs (DFA), and Maritime Affairs.  

She also recalled using CDAsia, the database of laws, to identify laws relevant to archaeology. 

Prior to all of these, Tantuico is a graduate of Bachelor of Arts in Social Sciences, with a specialization in Cultural Heritage with a minor in History from the Ateneo de Manila University and obtained her Juris Doctor from UP afterwards. 

Recently, she completed her Master of Laws on International Law with Law and Society from the University of Kent, where she graduated with honors and was recognized with the Best LLM Dissertation Award. 

According to Tantuico, there are a lot of reasons why archaeology is seldom connected with the Philippines' justice system. 

“I would say, in a developing country like the Philippines, especially now, they're prioritizing pressing social and political issues. But then when it comes to heritage, that's the first thing that cuts the budget,” she expressed. 

“I would think that legislators would prioritize basic needs, basically. But I would argue that cultural heritage or the right to culture is a basic need because it gives people identity and a sense of purpose,” she continued.

DivinaLaw Founder and DAILY TRIBUNE columnist Dean Nilo Divina was also present in the book launch and signing event to show his support to Tantuico who previously worked for the country’s leading law firm.
Published under CentralBooks, the book is now available through the publisher’s site.