Treasured Masterpiece

 "Welcome to the Museum of Philippines' Treasures!"

      This ends Pres. Buenaflor's speech in today's opening of the museum, the first after decades of continuous focus of the country in advancement together with the world's most progressive countries. This is also my first time entering a modern museum because all of the past built museums were taken down due to loss of demand by the countrymen. Although they are still intact physically, but they only serve as archives, a storage for those things that Filipinos doesn't really care by now because of the convenience the technological advancement brought. But in this newly built modern museum, they transferred some of the pieces of fossils and such, and the twist is they've made it more advanced to acquire tourists. Excellent idea, though.

     "Section 10-A, get ready your AECONS, the students will be the first one to enter," Ms. Cabrera stated to our group in this fieldtrip. The AECONS—short for AI Energy Conservation Portable Smart Watch—is the new cashless and paperless transaction in the country. It looks just like a simple watch, but it is already a substitute for identification cards, credit/debit cards, paper bills and coins, mobile phone, and even for pen and paper. Once we enter, there are stations in the gate wherein we will scan our AECONS and our names will be automatically registered in the database. It is also applicable in paying bills and such. Suddenly, Martin brought me out of my reverie by tapping my watch.

    "Take out your holographic notepad dear, we have a concept paper after this trip." Oh shoot, I almost forgot. I immediately tap some buttons in my AECONS producing the holographic pad and pen that I'm going to need in this trip. I badly need to have a great quality paper since this will help me to ace from my failing grade last semester. Nevertheless, I got Martin as my groupmate, who’s so addicted in this lame culture and such. Speaking of—

     "This is such a haven, Dana! Look at those fossils of the Tabon Man, the silicon life-like statue of Bonifacio, and those enormous model of the Balangay! Why did they take so long in building this museum?" uhh, he goes again with that archeologic mouth of his.

     "Why can't you just be quiet? I'm taking down notes, can't you see?"

     Good thing he didn't talk after that but the amaze in his face is still evident with all these creepy manequins and bones everywhere. On the other hand, the lecture of the curator was quite good to impress me in the culture of the Philippines.

       "Sir, I have a question," a visitor raised her hand. Mr. Ocampo, the curator, gladly accepted the invitation.

       "As what you have said, Philippines' culture has a mix of all those the colonizers have because they influence us during the colonization period, right? Then it means that Filipinos are adaptive in nature, we can easily adapt in any change that will come. But why does we can't adapt in this technological change while still retaining our own culture?"

      "That's an interesting question I'm afraid I'll not be able to fully explained since this is an example of a collective society movement in which indirectly, all the people were executing an action or idea altogether. This altering to innovation-focus community is what the society nonverbally agreed to be that's why there were no longer people going to the museums starting years ago. It's a sort of sociology to be honest and maybe you should reserve that question to some social scientist. Still, thank you for the effort."

       After those mind-blowing exchange between them, I became interested on how the society changed gradually up to the status quo.

     "Hey geek boy, I have a question. Why did you become so fond of these things that aren't really a trend nowadays? I mean, yes, it is included in our lessons but only for the general concept but you dig deeper to these stuffs."

       "Dana, my answer for that is the name of this museum itself. They are the treasures of the country—"

      "Treasures? How can you earn money with those exotic things?" I cut him off.

       "Treasures doesn't always equate to money. Some of them are priceless, just like these 'stuffs' that you are talking about. Who owns them? We. Us. The Filipinos, the Philippines. Unfortunately, we didn't take good care of them because we became so much blind in others' shine."

        Those conversation left me into a dilemma all throughout the trip in the different rooms of the museum. How ironic that I entered in this building uninterested, but will surely came out full of questions in my head because of the conversations the curator and the tourist had, and also the ones that Martin have said to me.

       "Hey Dana Chantelle, focus your thoughts in this because we are now proceeding in the very special room of this tour." Martin excitedly reminded me but before I ask a question, we already pass through the arc defining why this room is special.

    "The Philippines' most treasured masterpiece..." I whispered.

    "Do you have a clue what is it?"

     "Do you think I'm invested for so long in this concept to have a clue?" I asked him back.

    "How about if I tell you what is our country's most treasured masterpiece?" He replied, ignoring my not-so-good question.

      Before Martin finished his cliff-hanger question, the curator already opened the lights making everyone's eyes as wide as this thousand-meter museum.

    "The Philippines' most treasured masterpiece..." Martin murmured to my ear.

    "is ironically, the one we didn't value the most out of all our treasures; the Filipino alphabet together with the baybayin writing system."