LUBANG, OCCIDENTAL MINDORO — A cultural tradition carried for generations through music, movement and memory is now the subject of an urgent documentation drive as the local government of Lubang moves to preserve the story of Balsehan ng Lubang before vital pieces of its history disappear with its oldest cultural bearers.
The Lubang Municipal Tourism Office and the Municipal Tourism, Culture and the Arts Council have begun gathering photographs, recordings, costumes, musical instruments, documents and firsthand accounts connected to Balsehan, a traditional cultural practice closely associated with the town’s Mayohan Festival.
The effort goes beyond recording the steps of a dance.
Local cultural officials say Balsehan represents generations of Lubang’s music, faith, customs and collective memory — yet significant portions of its history have apparently never been systematically written down.
That is now creating a race against time.
Much of what is known about the tradition remains with senior residents, former dancers, musicians, choreographers, trainers and other cultural practitioners whose memories could help researchers reconstruct when Balsehan began, how it developed and how its performance changed through the decades.
Researchers Turn to Barangay Elders for Answers
The documentation team conducted interviews in Barangay Maliig on Aug. 31, gathering stories, personal experiences and community knowledge that could provide clues about Balsehan’s beginnings and evolution.
Maliig is one of Lubang’s 16 barangays and had a population of 2,492 in the 2024 Census of Population, according to the Philippine Statistics Authority. Lubang as a whole had 18,761 residents in the same census.
Researchers are particularly interested in materials that may have survived in family collections rather than formal archives.
These include old photographs, home videos, audio recordings, musical instruments, costumes, festival programs, newspaper clippings and memorabilia connected with Balsehan and the Mayohan celebration.
Information about former performers and cultural workers is equally important because oral testimony may fill gaps that photographs and written records cannot.
The Lubang tourism office said firsthand recollections could help create a more accurate, community-based history of the tradition.
Why Documenting Balsehan Matters
The project also fits into a much larger national effort to safeguard traditions that exist not simply as physical objects but as knowledge passed from one generation to another.
Under the National Cultural Heritage Act of 2009, Republic Act No. 10066, Philippine law recognizes “intangible cultural heritage” as practices, expressions, knowledge and skills that communities regard as part of their cultural heritage.
That definition specifically covers performing arts, social practices, rituals and festive events — categories potentially relevant to traditions such as Balsehan. The law also directs local government units to document traditional and contemporary arts and their makers and provides for a national inventory of intangible cultural heritage.
The National Commission for Culture and the Arts maintains the Talapamana ng Pilipinas or Philippine Registry of Heritage, a centralized repository of information about culturally significant properties and traditions submitted for documentation around the country. As of its June 2026 update, the registry reported submissions from more than 1,400 local government units and thousands of registered cultural properties.
There is no basis yet to say that Balsehan itself has received a national heritage designation, and the Lubang documentation project should not be confused with such recognition.
But creating a reliable record is an important first step in safeguarding any tradition whose history has largely survived through oral memory.
When Cultural Memory Lives Mainly in People
UNESCO has previously highlighted community-based documentation in the Philippines as an effective way of protecting intangible cultural heritage.
In one Philippine example involving the Subanen community in Mindanao, elders worked with younger community members to record traditional knowledge that had largely been transmitted orally. UNESCO noted that such documentation can help prevent knowledge from disappearing as older cultural bearers pass away and younger generations become increasingly disconnected from traditional practices.
Lubang’s Balsehan project faces a similar fundamental challenge: once an undocumented memory disappears, historians cannot simply recreate it.
A photograph may reveal costumes.
A recording may preserve music.
But only the people who danced, played, taught and witnessed Balsehan decades ago may be able to explain why particular movements were performed, how the music changed, who introduced specific practices and what those traditions meant to the community at the time.
That makes the testimony being collected today potentially as valuable as the physical memorabilia.
Residents Asked to Open Their Family Archives
Lubang officials are now appealing especially to senior citizens, former Balsehan dancers, musicians, choreographers, trainers and longtime residents to participate.
Families who possess old photographs, recordings, documents or memorabilia related to Balsehan or the Mayohan Festival may temporarily submit the materials for documentation rather than permanently surrendering the originals, according to the tourism office.
Residents who want to contribute information or historical material may coordinate with the Lubang Tourism, Culture and Arts Office through the contact channels announced by the local government.
The outcome could eventually produce something Lubang has never fully possessed before: a more systematic account of where Balsehan came from, who kept it alive and how generations transformed it.
For now, however, researchers are still searching.
And somewhere inside Lubang’s old photo albums, forgotten recordings and the memories of its oldest residents may be the missing pieces that finally reveal the full story of Balsehan ng Lubang.
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