Iloilo eyes UNESCO’s ‘Creative City’ tag

By: Emme Rose Santiagudo

Iloilo City hopes to clinch the prestigious title as United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO’s) next “Creative City” given its rich culture, historic architectural structures, and unique food.

Mayor Jerry Treñas said he plans to embark on the new challenging journey to get more tourists to visit Iloilo City.

“Ma-identify kita and parehas lang ina sa aton Miagao Church nga UNESCO heritage. Ang tawo nagakadto da and if we will be identified by UNESCO, for our food, I don’t know if we will also be identified by architectural, probably we get to have more people visit Iloilo,” he said in an interview on Thursday.

Cebu City was recently named UNESCO Creative City for its focus on design.

In the whole country, only Cebu City and Baguio City have earned such citation.

Treñas said he already started initial preparations to determine the requirements for the UNESCO title.

“I have already started talking with my connections and I am leaving for Manila to meet with them over the weekend and talk about it. It’s going to be a long and tedious process medyo madugay-dugay ina. This will be another feather on the cap of Iloilo City. And I think everyone is working together to make sure that we achieve our goals,” he added.

Venus Navalta, CEO of IPG Mediabrands Philippines who visited the city on Thursday for an immersion activity, said Iloilo City can be the country’s first UNESCO Creative City under the food category.

“We think that food is particularly the plan that you should take on because there are many categories and when you enter this award winning there is a strategy to it so along with learning from other cities like Baguio and Cebu,” she said Thursday.

IPG will submit a proposal for the city’s branding.

“We hope that Iloilo will be the first one for the food category in the Philippines. Pampanga entered but they were not successful,” she furthered.

Navalta emphasized that bagging the Creative Cities title would entail a lot of partnerships from the local government and private sectors

“For you to be able to get that, it has to be alive, you will be given a certain number of years and they will observe you whether you are worthy of keeping it. There needs to be a lot of partnerships like the private sectors because pwede siyang mawala. We are happy that Cebu already achieved that,” she said.

The UNESCO Creative Cities Network aims to unify cities that are utilizing creativity as an effective instrument for sustainable urban development.