This historic city will soon take its cultural and heritage facelift to a higher notch as various projects are in the pipeline to bring back the city to the tourism limelight.

Mayor Crisostomo Garbo made this disclosure as the city celebrated its 309th founding anniversary on Tuesday.

“Our city is at the center of potential progress and we have to take this opportunity to our advantage. With the adjacent Clark Freeport Zone, we need to prepare our city for future development without sacrificing our identity as Mabalaqueños,” Garbo said in official social media account.

“We will start by safeguarding our historical edifices, the old town hall across our Church and the Gabaldon Hall in Poblacion, will be converted into a museum once the restoration and rehabilitation become complete,” he added.

Garbo said pavers and cobblestones will also cover the area to offer an ambience of heritage.

“The Mabalacat City Heritage District will be a compact walkable area for our people and our tourists, and a monument of our legacy and source of pride,” he said.

Meanwhile, Association of Tourism Officers of the Philippines (ATOP) national president and Mabalacat City tourism officer Arwin Paul Lingat said the city is undertaking a cultural mapping project with the University of Sto. Tomas (UST) Center for Conservation of Cultural Property and Environment in the Tropics (CCCPET) and the Department of Education (DepEd) Division of Mabalacat City.

“We are closely working with institutions to unearth cultural and heritage records about the city. Having a local museum and a recorded memory of the people through cultural mapping will be a good start for more future plans programs and activities,” Lingat said. (PNA)