History council plans 50 markers for entire province

The Negros Occidental Historical Council, Inc. (NOHCI) under the newly installed Chairmanship of Solomon Locsin, last December 9, 2022, final meeting for the year, disclosed plans for 2023 to declare 50 local historical sites and to be mounted with historical markers located within the province including Bacolod City.

Locsin said that declaring sites with historical markers will be coordinated with the host Local Government Unit (LGU) obliging them to protect, preserve and educate their people on the importance of said “historically declared” sites.

He added, among the sites to be historically declared are the Old Catholic Churches of which the Holy See requires them to protect and preserve their structures in the first place.

Locsin also said that the NOHCI will prepare activities for National Heritage Month in May 2023 and History Month in August 2023 with the intention of making history relevant and popular.

The meeting held at the historic Jose Gaston Ancestral Mansion in the middle of Hacienda Santa Rosalia in Manapla, Negros Occidental, was attended by the NOHCI Board of Directors, now led by Locsin as Chairman, Fylgia Hofilena as Board Secretary and Monsgr. Guillermo Gaston as soon-to-be Chairman Emeritus.

Said meeting officially welcomed also two new members of the Board of Directors, former Bacolod Councilor Wilson Gamboa, Jr. who, among others, principally authored the landmark ordinances about Tangible and Intangible Heritage for Bacolod City and professional historical-genealogy researcher Ramon Conlu, Jr.

In the words of the late Roque Hofilena, who had served as NOHCI Executive Director for 20 years, NOHCI was originally created by the Provincial Government under the provincial Board Resolution no. 33 dated January 15, 1971, and the NOHCI founder was the late Governor Alfredo Montelibano, Jr.

According to him, the Mission of the NOHCI, from its birth until the present, is to assist the Provincial Government to promote the values of history, culture, and the arts, with a focus on the local perspectives and its main programs, were to conduct continuing research, documentation, publication, and dissemination of relevant history, culture and the arts for the benefit of the people of Negros Occidental.

The NOHCI was affiliated with the National Historical Institute on September 10, 1972, and the other members of its Board of Directors are Luis Antonio Valderrama, Mary Ann Maganti, this writer, Detailed Governor Staff Vanessa Lacson and volunteers Barbara Hofilena and Grace Mendoza.* (Gil Alfredo B. Severino)