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BY MAE SINGUAY
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Monday, December 19, 2016
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BACOLOD City – Anyone guilty of defacing memorials in this capital city will be fined or imprisoned or both.
The Sangguniang Panlungsod recently approved the Memorial Protection Ordinance.
Councilor Renecito Novero, the author, said the local law “[prohibits] any person from performing any act of covering, damaging and defacing any memorial with historical or cultural significance.”
“Memorials” refer to “anything officially placed or displayed in public or government buildings, edifices, structures, or plazas to help people remember some person or event of historical or cultural significance.”
Anyone violating it will face a criminal charge — and an administrative one, too, if they are a government official or employee.
A fine of P5,000 or a one-year imprisonment will be imposed on first offense, and both the fine and the jail term on second and succeeding offenses.
Memorials “teach us about history and culture, and promote respect for those who lived in different times and societies,” said Novero.
They also “cultivate pride of our heritage, making us unique from the rest of the world,” the councilor said.
The ordinance was approved on Dec. 14.
Two days later, Mayor Evelio Leonardia presented during a program at the Bacolod City Government Center examples of “defaced” memorials, on which plants and inappropriate inscriptions, among others, were placed.
Leonardia specifically pointed to a photo gallery of government officials at city hall. The words “This building was constructed by Hilmarc’s Construction” were inscribed under the mayor’s photo.
He said the local government now has a measure that will secure memorials “for the sake of truth, for the sake of history.”
But he stressed the ordinance is “prospective,” meaning it will not apply to those who committed the offense before it was passed./PN
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