Tourism has been a culprit to a large extent.

Let’s take a look at Baguio City for example. Tourists can now bring back to their homeland items as domestic as brooms bearing the name ‘Baguio City’ to remind them of the place. When they show friends what they brought back from their visit, those friends will unconsciously put a picture of a broom whenever thinking of Baguio City. In addition, when I went back to Philippines last 2006 for a visit, the mountainous area where the indigenous tribe can be found is now opened for public to roam freely. Many small enterprises have been set up as well selling their arts and crafts. I remember clearly a photo taking booth where you have to pay a small sum to put on their ethnic clothes and weapons, and take photos with the indigenous people. A way for them to earn income. Now traditional wear has been reduced to a form of interest for the tourists. If there were no tourists, such things would be kept to their proper uses and there would be no exploitation of traditions and cultures.

Another example is the Ati-Atihan Festival. As written by Roces, A. Roces, G. (2009), the festival has been so commercialized that it has attracted too many tourists to the extent that the festival is held on other than the original dates to accommodate the crowd. What I mean is that in addition to the one on the 3rd weekend of January to commemorate the arrival of Santo Niño, there would be smaller scale Ati-Atihan Festivals on later dates for those who missed out on the original, the main aim is to let tourists experience it instead. Therefore the tradition of the festival has been altered.

My last example would be cockfighting. A national sport shared amongst Filipino of different classes is now participated by people of different countries. Many of those people found out of this hobby whilst here in Philippines for leisure purposes hence tourism has indirectly played a part in commodifying the culture of the place.