DAVAO CITY—The National Museum of the Philippines (NMP) in Davao City is set to open this December 2024 according to Jeremy Barns, Director-General of the National Museum.
“We will be inaugurating it on November 29 so I think on December 2 Tuesday it will be opened,” Barns said at the sidelines of the 2024 Mindanao Art Fair opening ceremony in SM Lanang.
The P200-million durian-inspired five-story building located in Davao City’s Peoples Park will house artifacts and exhibits presenting the natural history, culture, arts and heritage of the Davao Region. The first four floors of the building will be the National Museum while the fifth floor was allocated to Museo Dabawenyo, the city government-run museum.
Barns said the National Museum in Davao City will be the 17th national museum outside of Metro Manila. It will be the fourth component museum in Mindanao..
“This museum will give focus to the Davao Region, Davao City and Davao Region and then to complement the existing museums in Butuan City, in Zamboanga City and Jolo,” Barns said.
Originally planned as the new site of the city government-run Museo Dabawenyo, as the original location of the city museum–the former Court of First Instance building along Magallanes Street was to be converted into the new City Engineer’s Office.
To realize the project it got an initial P100-million funding from the Office of the President. And in 2019 a Memorandum of Agreement and Usufruct agreement was signed between the National Museum and the local government of Davao City where the National Museum shoulders the expenses and operations of the museum.
On November 28, 2023, the National Museum accepted the building from the City Government after the signing of the Certificate of Turnover. This started the conversion of the facility into an NMP component museum.
The museum was originally eyed to be opened on August of 2024 during the Kadayawan Festival and postponed to October in time for the Museum and Galleries month.
Barns clarified that there were no delays as the opening of the museum had no definite date then.
“Wala naman talaga set date eh (there was no set date), now we finally had set a date (for the opening),” Barns said. (PIA/RGA)
