Manila to help preserve world famous Banaue rice terraces

Responding to calls from civic groups, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo yesterday said that the government would help in the preservation of the world famous Banaue rice terraces in northern Ifugao province.

"I am very happy that we are going to be preserving the Ifugao rice terraces," said Arroyo, speaking at the two-day Culture and Arts Conference 2002 yesterday in Manila.

The president asked the officers and members of the National Commission on Culture and Arts (NCCA) and other artists present during the conference to support Ifugao Governor Teodoro Baguilat Jr.

"Let's empower the people of Ifugao to preserve their cultural heritage," she said, calling on Ifugao local officials to do their share in preserving what had been considered by the Unesco as a World Heritage Site.

The famous terraces were carved from the mountains of the Cordillera mountain range, some 260km north of the capital, Manila, by Ifugao tribesmen more than 1,000 years ago. Over the centuries, generations of Ifugao have laid stone after stone constructing dikes to hold back soil washed off the mountainsides creating what appeared to be 'Stairways to the Heavens'.

The Banaue rice terraces is also one of the major tourist attractions in the country and, unfortunately, the arrival of visitors to the highlands had also been a cause for the deterioration of the dike's condition.

Farmers who used to maintain the dikes instead sold products to visiting tourists, and civic organisations aiming to preserve the man-made wonder had called on the attention of the national government to help resolve this issue.

The president recalled that when she was still vice-president, there was an Ifugao Rice Terraces Task Force that was organised to handle the preservation of the terraces.