A Museum for Sibugay: Also Protecting the Legacy of the YES Team Before It Fades

Daphne Santuyo

In a province as young yet rich in identity as Zamboanga Sibugay, the call to establish a museum is more than a cultural project. It is a race against time. Each year, each month, and each passing day bring us closer to losing the very people who carry the authentic stories of how our province came to be. And with the recent passing of Vicente “Dodong” Matugas, a passionate and devoted member of the YES Team, one more voice, one irreplaceable voice has fallen silent.

Nong Dodong Matugas was more than a supporter of the creation of Zamboanga Sibugay. He was a believer, a storyteller, and a defender of truth. He carried within him memories that no book could fully capture. He knew by heart stories of the struggle, the dreams, the negotiations, the sacrifices, and the spirit that built our province. His absence now leaves not only grief but a growing urgency, because every time we lose someone like Nong Dodong, we lose a piece of our history.

This urgency is amplified by a sobering reality. Most of the remaining living members of the YES Team are elderly now. Well, that doesn’t include me and my friend Councilor Alberto “Jong” Alcoriza, Jr. who is the current president of the Yes Team. Our memories, sharpened by experience but fragile with age, contain details of our history that will vanish when we can no longer tell them. Our stories are precious, and we are running out of time.

This is why a museum is not only important but desperately needed now.

A museum in Zamboanga Sibugay would protect the artifacts, culture, and traditions that shape our identity. Yet its role goes far deeper. It would safeguard the real story of how the province was created, told not through assumptions or edited recollections, but through preserved documents, artifacts, and firsthand accounts of those who built it.

And I say this openly; I am biased because I am part of the YES Team. But that bias comes from seeing firsthand, from standing beside people like Nong Dodong and the rest of the Team, how much heart, courage, and determination went into forming Zamboanga Sibugay. These are not stories that can be easily retold by those who were not there. They are fragile histories that depend on the memories of people we are losing far too quickly.

Today, only a few members of the YES Team remain alive. Most have passed on, and those who remain are advanced in age. Nong Dodong’s passing is yet another reminder that time is not waiting for us. Every loss and every aging voice makes the creation of a museum more urgent, because each storyteller we lose takes with them a chapter of our origin that can never again be told with the same authenticity.

And this raises a crucial question for our future: What happens when leaders change?

Without a museum grounding our identity in truth, future leaders could reshape our history according to their preferences. Thankfully, our current governor, herself one of the creators of Zamboanga Sibugay, deeply understands and respects our beginnings. She would never allow what she helped build to be distorted. But administrations will eventually change. The leaders of tomorrow may not have the same respect for the past.

A museum, which again thanks to Gov. Ann Hofer is currently in the making, becomes our safeguard. A protector against the rewriting of history. A permanent keeper of truth.

It would stand as:

• A cultural archive, honoring the traditions of Sibugaynons
• A historical guardian, preserving artifacts and firsthand accounts
• A storyteller, recounting the real birth of the province
• A shield, ensuring history cannot be altered by politics
• A tribute, immortalizing pioneers like Vicente “Dodong” Matugas

Nong Dodong’s absence leaves a silence we cannot afford to ignore. And with most of the surviving YES Team members now in the twilight of their lives, the urgency has never been clearer. Our stories, like those of many others we have already lost, deserve a home, a place where future generations can hear them, feel them, and understand the depth of love and labor that built their province.

History does not preserve itself. We must do it.

As another voice falls silent with Nong Dodong’s passing, we are reminded that the window of opportunity is rapidly closing. Thankfully, the work to build a museum for Zamboanga Sibugay is now underway, just in time to save the stories that remain, to protect the memories that are slipping away, and to guard the truth before it drifts beyond our reach forever.