Unesco sending marine experts to Tubbataha to assess damage

Tubbataha Reefs. YVETTE LEE/CONTRIBUTOR

MANILA, Philippines — The Paris-based United Nations Educational, Scientific and
Cultural Organization is sending a team of experts to Tubbataha Reef to assess the damage
wrought by the grounding of the USS Guardian, a US Navy minesweeper, in January.
This was confirmed to the Philippine Daily Inquirer on Monday by Cecile Guidote-Alvarez,
director of the Unesco Dream Center in Manila and wife of Heherson Alvarez, head of the
Climate Change Commission, an agency attached to the Office of the President.

Guidote-Alvarez said Unesco’s World Heritage Center was also organizing a “five-day
meeting of marine experts aimed at strengthening conservation and management practices at
Tubbataha Reef National Park.”
“The meeting will be held in Puerto Princesa City from May 20 to 24,” she said, quoting Dr.
Hubert Gijzen, director of the Unesco Regional Science Board for Asia and the Pacific and
Unesco representative to the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Timor Leste and Brunei.
Gijzen apparently responded to Heherzon Alvarez’s call for an “independent assessment” by
Unesco of the damage caused by the Guardian after it got stuck on the reef for over two
months.
Tubbataha Reef is located in the Sulu Sea 98 nautical miles southeast of Palawan.
Alvarez, a former senator, early this year said Unesco “would be in the best position to
estimate the required amount for the total recovery of the damaged reef and the amount of
work and time this will involve.”

Tubbataha Reef, declared a World Heritage Site by Unesco in December 1993, is home to
hundreds of species of marine life and serves as a rest area for birds and turtles, among other
animals.
The US Navy vessel, which was removed in late March, damaged more than 1,500 square
meters of the reef, according to the Philippine Coast Guard.
The Tubbataha Management Office (TMO), which operates the marine park, said it would
be involved in the damage assessment.
The US government has announced its commitment to rehabilitate the portion of the reef
that was damaged by the Guardian, but has kept its discussions with the Department of
Foreign Affairs confidential. It has not discussed the matter with the TMO
Culture and Identity
Culture is the values, beliefs, thinking patterns and behavior that are learned and shared and that is
characteristic of a group of people. It serves to give an identity to a group, ensures survival and
enhances the feeling of belonging. Identity is the definition of ones- self. It is a person’s frame of
reference by which he perceives himself. Identities are constructed by an integral connection of
language, social structures, gender orientation and cultural patterns. There is a complex relationship
between culture and identity.

Rawpixel/Dollar Photo Club

Cultural Identity
Cultural identity is self-identification, a sense of belonging to a group that reaffirms itself. It is the
extent to which one is a representative of a given culture behaviorally, communicatively,
psychologically and sociologically. It consists of values, meanings, customs and beliefs used to relate
to the world. It reflects the common historical experiences and shared cultural codes which give us as
one entity a stable, unchanging, continuing frame of reference and meaning. People’s judgments
about whether they or others belong to a cultural group can be influenced by physical appearance,
ancestral origin or personal behavior (dressing, speech, holidays, and celebrations). A historical event,
political conditions, who is present, situation/site of interaction and public discourse, also affects
cultural identity.

Cultural identity is dynamic and constantly evolving. It covers the entire life span of a human being
and changes every moment based on social context. Cultural identity is the constantly shifting
understanding of one’s identity in relation to others.
The courage that my mother had

The courage that my mother had

Went with her, and is with her still:
Rock from New England quarried;
Now granite in a granite hill.

The golden brooch my mother wore

She left behind for me to wear;
I have no thing I treasure more:
Yet, it is something I could spare.

Oh, if instead she’d left to me

The thing she took into the grave!—
That courage like a rock, which she
Has no more need of, and I have.