Manobo Items in Sultan Kudarat Museum

You don’t have to come up here in Kulaman Plateau to see the traditional things used by the Dulangan Manobo people. The provincial museum, located in the plains of Isulan town, has such items. The display includes clothes, baskets, and musical instruments. Just a little caveat: If you’re used to going to museums, don’t be surprised with what you will see in our provincial museum, which also functions as the Provincial Tourism Office. The place doesn’t have the subdued look and feel of a standard museum. It is flashy and colorful instead. It seems to me that whoever designed the exhibits has seen a lot of beauty pageants and not a single museum.

The museum has a tall display case for each of the eleven municipalities of Sultan Kudarat Province, and each case has a mannequin or two wearing ethnic clothes. The cut of the clothes is modified, and the cloth is combined with modern materials, and I don’t know why. It’s possibly to make the clothes look “fashionable.” The tribal handicrafts, musical instruments, hunting equipment, and even archaeological artifacts are scattered around the feet of the mannequins like novelty items in a department store. They’re used as mere accessories instead of being highlighted individually. The place is for the eyes and not for the mind.

I can go on endlessly about how bad the provincial museum is, but I’ll focus instead on the good side of things. The place at least has a good collection now. When I visited it last year, it was almost empty. And of course, the province at least has a museum now. It didn’t have any even if it had existed since 1972. Despite my issues with how the place is set up, I still highly encourage you to visit the Sultan Kudarat Provincial Tourism Office and Museum. It’s a two-story small building at the back of the capitol. (Don’t enter the fenced-up capitol grounds. Take the road outside.) If you’re in my province and you want to see traditional Dulangan Manobo objects—and Kulaman Plateau burial jars—the museum is the most accessible site. You only have to ride a tricycle plus a jeepney, depending on where you are from. You don’t have to travel for hours.

The labels are so small, but thankfully, I don’t have to read them because I know the names of common Dulangan Manobo items. This is the bottom of the display case for the municipality of Senator Ninoy Aquino.

By turning ethnic clothes into evening gowns, the tourism officers of my province have created a showroom, not a museum. The display case on the left is for the municipality of Lebak. The one on the right is for Kalamansig.