Cebu bishop, gov to sue Nat’l Museum over unreturned church artifacts
CEBU CITY—Cebu Archbishop Jose Palma and Gov. Gwendolyn Garcia have joined hands to take legal action against the National Museum of the Philippines (NMP) for not promptly returning the four 19th-century pulpit panels that were taken from the church of Boljoon town in the 1980s and later donated to NMP by private collectors.
Palma has given the provincial government through Garcia the go-signal to file a case against the NMP, said Fr. Brian Brigoli, chair of the Cebu archdiocesan commission for cultural heritage of the church, at a press briefing at the governor’s office Monday.
Brigoli said the archdiocese also questioned the decision of NMP Director General Jeremy Barns to proceed with the “restoration” of the pulpit panels that belong to the Archdiocesan Shrine of Patrocinio de Maria Santisima in Boljoon without Palma’s approval.
He said NMP officials led by Barns met with Palma in May last year where it was agreed that both parties should sign an agreement that would contain the conditions set by the Archdiocese of Cebu before proceeding with the restoration.
It was also agreed that the restoration work would be done in Boljoon to allow, among others, the transfer of valuable restoration knowledge and practices to Cebu’s heritage enthusiasts and to ensure the panels that will be returned by the NMP are the originals and not duplicates.
This initial agreement was set aside when the NMP informed Palma that it is already doing the restoration works on the panels in an undisclosed location, Brigoli said.
Give them back or else . . .
The NMP also reportedly demanded that the fifth and remaining panel in Boljoon church be sent to the NMP supposedly to complete the restoration of the whole set.
This prompted Palma to issue a Special Power of Attorney in favor of Cebu province through Garcia to pursue legal actions against the NMP, Brigoli said.
Garcia, at the same briefing, warned the NMP to act accordingly especially now that she was authorized by the archdiocese to do whatever she deemed fit not only to recover the panels but to also hold the NMP accountable.
The NMP earlier received the four panels from private collectors Edwin and Aileen Bautista that were part of the pulpit of the Archdiocesan Shrine of Patrocinio de Maria Santisima, which had been were reported lost since the 1980s.
The panels feature carved images of St. Augustine of Hippo, spiritual father of the Augustinian Order that established the Boljoon parish church over 400 years ago; and of St. Leo the Great, St. Thomas of Villanueva, St. Ambrose of Milan, and St. Gregory the Great.
The historic Boljoon Church, home to the canonically crowned 400-year-old Patrocinio de Maria Santisima image, is an NMP-declared National Cultural Treasure and named a national hstorical landmark by the National Historical Commission of the Philippines.
