The origins of almost the entire Philippine collection at the UBC Museum of Anthropology go back partly to a family’s interest in treasure hunting.

The donor, who will be feted on May 24, recalls that one of his earliest memories as a young boy in the Philippines was about his parents searching for buried riches.

“We never found any,” Miguel Tecson said, laughing, in a phone interview with the Straight, “but my father was always digging around and collecting things.”

Although his parents weren’t able to unearth any ancient treasures, their pastime sowed in him an enchantment about things from the past.

Decades later, Tecson, by then a Vancouver-based psychiatrist, and his wife, Julia, began assembling rare finds during their trips back to the Philippines.

In 1987, the Tecsons gave the UBC Museum of Anthropology the single biggest collection of artifacts from the Philippines.

Also known as the Tecson collection, the set has over 350 pieces of ceramics, pottery, carvings, and other artifacts dating back hundreds of years. Most were made in the Philippines, and a number were traded into the country from other places in Asia. They’re in permanent exhibition, and can also be viewed online. Many were part of shows mounted by the museum.

The collection includes images of rice granary gods—known as bulul—from the indigenous tribes of northern Philippines. There are highly-ornate swords of wavy blades from the southern region in the country, called kris.

Now retired, Tecson related that from the start his and his late wife’s collection wasn’t meant as one of private showpieces.

“This was a study collection,” Tecson said, explaining that he also gathered the literature available on almost all of the pieces, which he also donated to the museum.

When the Tecsons were still residing in the University Endowment Lands, students would come to study their collection.

“What we really wanted was for it to go to a museum where it will be available for research,” the now downtown resident said.

One of Carol Mayer’s first duties as a new hire at the museum was to go over to the Tecson residence to see the collection.

Not long after the collection was donated by the Tecsons, she made a successful application with the federal government to have it recognized as a cultural property of Canada.

“His collection was declared a cultural property of Canada, which means it’s accepted as a Canadian treasure,” Mayer explained in a phone interview with the Straight.

Even though they came from the Philippines, the head of the museum’s curatorial department noted that the collection is “recognized as being an important part of Canadian heritage”.

Mayer recalled one of the reasons why Tecson wanted the museum to have the collection.

“He felt very strongly that, you know, people who immigrate into Canada and also children born of Filipino parents [in Canada] should have a place where they could go and actually see their own history, if you will, and reconnect,” she said.

Mayer and Moya Waters, associate museum director, will present a plaque to Tecson on May 24 at an invitation-only celebration organized by the Philippine consulate general in Vancouver, in collaboration with the museum and the Vancouver Asian Heritage Society.

Initiated by retired UBC professor Aprodicio Laquian, and Vancouver-based journalist Mel Tobias, the event will be held at the museum’s community lounge. Speakers include Philippine consul general Neil Ferrer, Vancouver mayor Gregor Robertson, and Jason Kenney, minister of national defence and also minister for multiculturalism.