Pulpit panels to be returned to Boljoon church next year

CEBU, Philippines — National Museum of the Philippines (NMP) executive director Jeremy Barns assured Cebu Governor Gwendolyn Garcia that the four pulpits of Boljoon Church will be returned in 2025 as restoration will begin by October of this year.

"I know the governor is frustrated,” said Barns in an interview after the contract signing between the NMP and Aboitiz InfraCapital GMR Megawide Cebu Airport Corporation last Friday, August 22, 2024 on the art installation of national artist, Kidlat Tahimik at the Terminal 2 of Mactan Cebu International Airport.

Barns said that he already hired a restoration team, which will begin the work next month.

He stressed that that restoration will run for 12 weeks.

Barns added that he also asked from the national government P30 million for the restoration project, which includes the “kumbento” and the roof, in order to secure the four pulpits.

He assured that once the restoration is done, then the pulpits will be returned to Boljoon with a “grand homecoming.”

“We will see maybe sa fiesta nila, it will be a grand event,” Barns added.

In her recent State of the Province Address, Garcia noted that under heritage preservation, they have achieved much by coming together as one province and one people to demand and to take back what is rightfully due to the Cebuanos.

“When the issue of ownership of the four antique pulpit panels stolen from the Boljoon Church first came to public light, we were among the first and strongest voices, in various letters to the National Museum of the Philippines, and meetings with the Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Mr. Andoni Aboitiz, calling for their return to Boljoon and the Boljoanons. As a result, they will soon be returned to Boljoon, preserving an integral and indispensable part of the Shrine of Patrocinio de Maria Santisima, a national cultural treasure,” Garcia said during her speech.

“As a result, a few months ago they came up with an announcement that they would be returning those panels. But its been over three months, I wonder if that statement was true,” the governor remarked.

At any rate, she added, “we do hope that they will stand by their word that these panels be returned to the Shrine of Patrocinio de Maria Santisima church, considered a national cultural treasure."

"If these objects that have been taken from the church have not been freed from religious connotations, especially if they had been in fact stolen with no consent whatsoever from the Archdiocese of Cebu, everyday possession of these panels, for those who continue to possess these panels will constituent a sacrilegious offense. It’s been months and sacrilegious offenses are piling up,” she said. — (FREEMAN)