A. Paulita Roa “If we are to have an adequate perception of our place as human beings in the modern world, the past matters. It is where we have come from and it has determined what we are.”--Colin Renfrew and Paul Bahn 2008 LAST Monday (Feb. 22, 2016), there were two articles in the Lifestyle Section of the Philippine Daily Inquirer that caught my attention and turned my sunny day to a gloomy one. The first was about the construction of a seven-story parking lot that is right across the Banaue Terraces. This ugly concrete building will definitely mar the view of the rice terraces that were declared National Treasures in 1973  and 1978 through Presidential Decrees 2606 and 1505, respectively. Furthermore, two of the five rice terraces clusters in Banaue, namely Bagaan and Batad, were included in the Unesco Heritage List in 1995. The other article was about a Catholic parish priest of Barangay Araguel in President Roxas town who defied his bishop and the National Museum of the Philippines when he continued the construction of a concrete chapel right on a known archaeological site. I hear alarm bells ringing when I read this for it is telling me that my beloved Philippines is losing its cultural resources and even damaging the integrity of its cultural landscapes and structures faster than we can save them.That people who are supposed to be the cultural stakeholders of a town, city and province are at times the first to initiate the removal  or destruction or even the selling of these priceless resources. Here in Cagayan de Oro, the city’s Historical and Cultural Commission through its chair, Lourdes La Vina, sent a resolution to Msgr. Antonio Ledesma late last year, urging him to stop the removal of the stained glass windows located on the left wing of the St. Agustine Cathedral. These were all eventually removed and replaced with big doors to perhaps facilitate an easy entry and exit points for thousands of church goers that hear mass on Sundays and holidays. In that resolution, the Commission informed Msgr. Ledesma that these stained glass windows that depicted the life and ministry of Jesus Christ were sent as gifts from the Mesdames of the Sacred Heart in New York to the late Msgr. James T.G. Hayes to adorn the church that he was constructing at that time in the late 1940s, for the old one was heavily damaged by American bombs a few months before World War II ended. That these priceless stained glass windows are part of the city’s cultural treasures and are presumed to be over a century old. They are also one of the top local tourist attractions because of its beauty and exquisite workmanship. Around the 1970s, the right wing of the Cathedral underwent expansion and two of the stained glass windows--the Agony in the Garden and Jesus calming the storm--were removed and given to the parish church in El Salvador city. These are now permanently installed in the recently constructed Our Lady of Snows Church there. It does not belong there at all. We do not know the fate of the panels that were removed late last year for the Commission has yet to receive a reply from the office of Msgr. Ledesma. It is our hope and prayer that these will not be given to other churches since they are gifts to the Kagay-anon parishoners more than 60 years ago through Msgr. Hayes who was a native New Yorker. Our country has not reached the stage when the conservation of our tangible and intangible cultural resources is one public duty that should be strongly enforced by our government. Most of our local government officials and cultural stakeholders are dolefully ignorant about Republic Act 10066, known as the National Cultural Heritage Act of 2009. It is a legislation on  the conservation of our cultural heritage as well as to promote cultural enrichment. They should get to know it well. Lastly, I would love to hear from the five presidential candidates about their cultural agenda--that is, if they have any.