African Journal of Hospitality, Tourism and Leisure (Nov 2019)
A documentary film for Ilocano cultural preservation
Abstract
The Ilocos Region in the Philippines is a place like no other where its vast and rich history and diverse population come together in an astonishing display of culture, both in material and non-material culture. However unique and diverse the Ilokano culture is, the number of researches and studies that enrich the Ilokano culture is few. When the people are not educated about cultural traditions, handicrafts, and histories, they will be easily forgotten. It is within these considerations that this study was framed.This study intended to explore Ilokano cultural preservation. Specifically, it sought to look at how Ilokano culture is manifested through traditional games, food (chichacorn, empanada and calamay) and traditional crafts (inabel and burnay), traditions in marriages, death, and festivals, and tourism (Paoay Church and Calle Crisologo), and how the Ilokano people perceive the need to preserve their culture. The study was conducted in Ilocos Norte and Ilocos Sur, two of the many provinces of the region. The researcher identified key informants, and conducted interviewees with these professionals in the academe, historians, tourism officers, media practitioners, and cultural experts in the Ilokano culture. The study revealed that the Ilokano culture is the product of the Ilokano history, and Ilokano culture is evidently present through material and non-material manifestations in the games, food, traditional crafts, celebrations of festivals, traditions in marriage and death, and in historical places. The Ilokanos strongly agree in the preservation of their culture. However, people in Ilocos Sur are more passionate in cultural preservation than those in Ilocos Norte. The challenges identified by key informants in Ilokano cultural preservation are on the Westernized learnings and practices taught at home, non-integration of the Ilokano culture in the curriculum, the need for information literacy amongst the people, a need for mother-tongue language acquisition, resistance and passiveness from the younger generation, a need to see the significance of culture in people’s lives, a need to utilize media for educational culture-based purposes, and a need for reinforcement of policies in cultural preservation.
