Museo Kordilyera

Museo Kordilyera Now Open In Baguio City

Museo Kordilyera, the first ethnographic museum in the northern part of the Philippines, is now open to the public. The museum opened after several Cordilleran rituals last January 31. Located inside the University of the Philippines-Baguio campus, the museum hosts exemplars of Cordillera’s material culture such as artifacts and traditional ethnic attire.

Museo Kordilyera: A Collaborative Effort

Aside from cultural artifacts, the museum also features exhibits that showcase the rich cultural heritage of the region. The museum houses contributions from the collections of BenCab Museum, UP Baguio Library and Archives, the Saint Louis University Museum and the Diocese of Baguio Museum and Archives.

Among the inaugural exhibits include “Batok-Tattoos,” a closer study of the tattoo in Cordilleran culture based on an anthropological research by Dr. Analyn Salvador-Amores. Another is an extensive collection of photographs from Sagada, Mountain Province by Roland Rabang. The third exhibit is the works of late anthropologist Jules de Raedt who studied the Buayas of Kalinga.

Museo Kordilyera: Promoting Cultural Understanding And Appreciation

According to the museum’s Facebook page, its mission is to “cultivate an understanding of and respect for the identity and culture of the indigenous peoples of the Cordillera and Northern Luzon as an integral part of the evolving Filipino culture.” With its current range of exhibits and its future ones, this will be quite an achievement since it is the only museum dedicated to ethnography in northern Philippines.

The museum is already open to the public, from Tuesdays to Sundays, from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. In celebration of Arts Month, entrance fees for non-UP adults will be PhP 40 each, while non-UP students need to pay PhP 20. Senior Citizen and persons with disabilities with IDs get the standard 20% discount. UP students, faculty, administrative staff and alumni with valid IDs enter for free.

Group tours can be arranged by appointment through the following numbers: 0919-324-7743 (Smart) and 0956-280-7065 (Globe). The museum also has a Facebook page where one can make inquiries.