Editorial: Securing the history of Davao City

WHILE museums are a great place to store the history of a certain place, the archives and records of the city also play an important role in securing its history.

Davao City is currently in the process of constructing the City Archive and Records Center (Carc) building near the Davao City Overland and Transport Terminal and is expected to be completed by the third quarter of this year.

Carc head Anne Victoria Silvosa said old records of the city -- old maps, old letters, and resolutions and ordinances dating back to 1950s -- will be kept at the building.

"Students, scholars, interested persons can come to access these records, and the young people, will have better appreciation of what the city is like years ago," she said.

In the dictionary, archives are described as "a collection of historical documents or records providing information about a place, institution, or group of people."

Hence, the archiving of various documents of Davao City through the years is simply keeping intact the rich and vibrant detailed history of the city.

"We will have central repository of the city's past," Silvosa said.

The future generations who would want to take a look at Davao City's history in detail will simply make a formal request and visit the Carc.

To ensure that these important documents and records are truly secured, the city is also embarking on a project that will digitize these records. We hope that they would also make some of these records available and accessible online for researchers, young people, and curious minds.

While we delight in the infrastructure developments of the city, we should also delight on the progress it is making to archive various documents and records.

What the city is doing is not simply archiving documents and records, it is securing history for the future generations.