National Museum, Cebu archdiocese to discuss terms of return of Boljoon church panels

The National Museum of the Philippines (NMP) is set to discuss with Cebu church officials the conditions that would be included in an agreement on the return of the panels of Boljoon church.

"The Board of Trustees of the National Museum of the Philippines, in its regular meeting held today in Manila, approved a set of recommendations with the objective of returning the Panels to the pulpit of Boljoon church subject to certain terms which are envisaged to form part of a comprehensive agreement between the NMP and the Archdiocese of Cebu," the NMP said in a statement.

The NMP added that this is done "in support of the Boljoon Church Complex as a National Cultural Treasure and candidate for UNESCO World Heritage Inscription."

National Museum Director-General Jeremy Barns was given the task to start discussing the issues with the Archdiocese of Cebu.

It can be recalled that Cebu Archbishop Jose Palma has requested for the return of the church panels that were a donation of private collectors.

"They are integral to the patrimony of the church as part of her missionary work and thus considered sacred. Their illegal removal constitutes a sacrilege. They should never have been treated, then or now, as mere artworks for exhibition in museums, much less for private appreciation by the collectors who purchased them. For these panels are considered in the ecclesial rite as tools of evangelization," he said.

"Given the foregoing, the Archdiocese of Cebu hereby asserts its ownership of these panels and requests their immediate return to Boljoon at the pulpit where they were surreptitiously removed," he added.

According to the NMP, the panels trace their original provenance from the pulpit of the Patrocinio de Maria Santissima Parish Church in Boljoon, Cebu.

Cebu Congressman Edsel Galeos has filed a bill at the House of Representatives urging the National Commission for the Culture and the Arts and the National Museum of the Philippines to return to Boljoon town four pulpit panels that were donated to the museum.

Galeos is representative of Cebu’s Second District where Boljoon is situated.

Boljoon Mayor Joie Genesse Derama and other town officials went to Manila to hand over his letter and Council resolution on the matter personally to the museum. — BAP, GMA Integrated News