THE Benguet capital town seeks to retrace its history.

Last week, a history conference tackled the Indigenous Peoples (IPs) of the Valley, the people’s history of Benguet and story behind the name La Trinidad.

Municipal Tourism Officer Valred Olsim said they are eyeing to revive the team of the municipality comprised of employees to trace.

“The conference is one step into forming the history of La Trinidad,” said Olsim.

La Trinidad, originally called Benguet from the local term “Benget” which refers to two version as to its origin, one referring to the stench of the swamp area and the other referring to a native head gear.

During the event, the municipal council said the moves appropriate amount for the history of La Trinidad is being done.

Former National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP) commissioner and Professor Zenaida Brigida Hamada-Pawid, an advocate of IPs rights and guest speaker, urged the local officials and constituents of the municipality to draw its origins through composite history.

“Whoever tells his story that is the history, can be biased, but if there are three histories then you triangulate and find the truth, Trinidad was known as ‘Kabisera’, the capital of Luzon. It is here in Trinidad people of the province of Benguet took a stand against the Spaniards, all the municipalities, they came here to help defend Pico (now the central barangay of La Trinidad) from the incursion of the Spaniards,” Pawid said.

As the history of IPs made verbal and not written, Pawid urged the council to have a socio-economic and cultural history, to bring the colleges to take care of the history of La Trinidad.

IP Mandatory Representative Pendon Thompson said the IPs before had their own government in the customary way.

“The Ibalois are not Pagans, they are jut pre-Christians because they are doing their customary laws through the spirit of God through Kabunyan,” cited by Thompson deriving a commentary from the writer of the Ibaloi dictionary.

Thompson added they must tap historians and IP elders to retrace, file and keep records to be incorporated for the history of La Trinidad.

“With the Indigenous People's Rights Act (IPRA), let us all try to convene all our knowledge and see to be written which we will all adopt in our history,” Thompson said.

There had been several records and books including the expedition of Lieutenant Colonel Guilermo de Galvey in 1829 where the name La Trinidad was named after his wife Dona Trinidad, but military records in Madrid show he is unmarried.