1st Southeast Asia's mining heritage hub opens

CEBU, Philippines —  The first mining heritage center in Southeast Asia will be inaugurated today.

The Carmen Copper Heritage Center located in Toledo City opens its doors to relive the glorious beginning of mining in the city, celebrate the present and bring hope for the future.

The heritage center will be composed of three large galleries which comprise the main exhibition halls, the Institutional History Gallery, the Art and Changing Exhibitions Gallery and the Copper Science Gallery.

Dr. Jose Eleazar R. Bersales, consultant to the CCHC, said this is the reason why it is not just a museum but a heritage center.

He said that at the Copper Science Gallery, visitors will see the science involved in extracting and producing copper.

The heritage center serves as the repository of memories, both past and the present, of the men and women behind Atlas Consolidated Mining and Development Corporation and its subsidiary, the Carmen Copper Corporation.

The heritage center occupies two buildings repurposed into exhibition galleries, merged together by an outdoor exhibition showcasing some of heavy and massive equipment used in the extraction of copper.

There are also two dioramas at the Science Gallery which provide an accurate but scaled version of the mine which depicts the mine site as it looks today.

In a statement, it said that CCHC traces the colorful journey of ACMDC from its beginning as a small mine in 1953 to what it is today. — MBG (FREEMAN)