Batanes to host National Museum branch

BASCO, Batanes, Philippines – A branch of the National Museum will soon rise in the 3.5-hectare former site of the old United States Coast Guard Station (USCG) in Barangay Imnajbu, 28 kilometers from here.

The museum, to be called the Batanes Branch Museum and Field Station of the National Museum of the Philippines, is the fruit of years of studies conducted by the National Museum.

Jeremy Barns, National Museum director, said, “Batanes is highly important to many of the Museum’s mandated areas of work, in cultural heritage and natural history.”

”It is not only clearly suitable, but also a priority for establishing a permanent presence of the National Museum by way of a branch museum and field station,” Barns added.

The ruins of the old USCG will be rehabilitated to provide exhibition, visitor and education spaces, apart from research facilities for the agency’s scientists and researchers to further extend the museum’s services to the province. It will also promote science, education and tourism.

 The site consists of six one-story reinforced concrete buildings that were abandoned by the Americans after the Vietnam War.

 An initial appropriation of P39 million is included in the proposed national budget of 2012  for the establishment of the museum.

 In a briefing before a select group of Ivatans last week, Barns cited the need to house and exhibit properly the considerable number of archeological and anthropological artifacts they have assembled in the course of their study in the province.

 Archeological artifacts include pottery dating from about 4,000 years ago, objects of Taiwan nephrite (jade), baked clay spindle whorls as old as 3,000 years and 2000 year-old burial jars.