This Friday in San Fernando, Pampanga, the Heritage Conservation Society is holding a conference on the care and use of built heritage.  It’s an uphill fight.  High repair cost, houses too huge for today’s lifestyle, a deteriorating neighborhood, ownership by siblings and cousins with pressing cash needs — fate demolition for many an old building.

The Singsons of Vigan show how old structures can gain economic vigor as inns, restaurants, shops. Visitors arrive and spend, thus creating jobs for hotel, restaurant and museum workers, tour guides, handicraft and souvenir makers; performers; conservation craftsmen.  Business improves, tax receipts and property values rise.

Venice, Florence, Toledo and any number of places in Europe, Singapore’s Chinatown, New Orleans’ French Quarter, all conserve tangible heritage while making money for all concerned.

A historic district need not be grand.  Barrio Sta. Cruz in Seville has modest houses and narrow alleys.

The Confucius Temple area in Nanjing is small and most buildings not that old.  St. Augustine in Florida has a small fort and one main street with maybe two dozen small buildings.  Many are early 20th century houses with shops inside.  A few are internally connected, the equivalent of an SM Kultura Filipina spread out over small buildings.  The González-Alvarez House (Florida’s oldest), is nothing compared with Casa Manila or Museo de la Salle.  It’s atmosphere that attracts some two million visitors to St. Augustine each year.

Our Vigan, Taal and Silay City are obvious heritage destinations.  Others are less evident.  Makati población is post-1945 but Mayor Jejomar Binay has rightly identified its cultural potential.  Quiapo and Sta. Ana still retain some of their old ambiance.  Muelle de Binondo and its empty buildings is a miniature Shanghai Bund.

A local government unit (LGU) permit is needed to demolish, build or renovate.  With zoning and building authority, an LGU also controls building plans, setbacks and building use.  It can see to the preservation of an old building or district if it so decides.

LGU incentives are limited to little more than reduced property assessments and discounts on permits and taxes.  These are not enough.  Incentives should also be given to business establishments (whether property owners or lessees) within a heritage district.  Giving businesses an income tax holiday, duty-free importation of capital equipment and other incentives similar to those granted by the Philippine Export Zone Authority (PEZA) to locators in economic processing zones, would encourage businesses to locate there, boost adaptive reuse and hence the conservation and growth of the designated historic or heritage areas.

Even without strict conservation laws, it seems entirely possible for an LGU to establish a historic district with strict zoning, demolition and construction rules, and grant local tax incentives.  PEZA may also be convinced to declare the designated historic district as an economic zone, thereby entitling locators (even merely lessees) to meaningful incentives.  National public works, tourism and cultural agencies could chip in to ensure adequate streets, sidewalks, street lighting and parking; drainage and sewage; publicity; security.

Nothing is impossible if everybody join hands.

Comments are cordially invited, addressed to walalang@mb.com.ph.