Behind the Walls: The spirited community of Intramuros and how they preserve its heritage and culture

Pedalino believes Intramuros, which he considers his second home, has improved significantly in the last few years since they started the night tours in 2017. 

“Cleanliness and street lighting were given priority. All of us from various groups would want to preserve it for the future generation,” he shared with Tatler.

Despite inevitable challenges in doing night tours, their passion for storytelling drives them to continue inviting more enthusiasts to visit Intramuros to gleam at night. “Love what you do, and it will love you back,” Pedalino quipped.

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In doing this story, I joined Pedalino and his friends at one of their night tours. Seeing Fort Santiago, the memorial monument for the Battle of Manila, and the then-newly opened Pasig River Esplanade with fresh eyes showed me the camaraderie and solidarity among these volunteer groups organising such tours. Whenever we stumble upon a different group, Pedalino and his peers aren’t shy about greeting one another, introducing each other to their respective participants, and even making some jokes, making the evening walk lighthearted and truly stress-relieving.

“Most of our friends leading these heritage conversation and awareness tours are mostly professionals who live and grow in and around Manila. They have seen how some of these key heritage sites, with their history, have been left deteriorating through the years,” Pedalino said, emphasising that raising such pressing matters and exchanging ideas for improvement is one of the primary goals of these tours. “The group makes it possible to exchange ideas, moral support, fact verification, and whatnot”.

This primarily led heritage conservation advocate Stephen Pamorada, a resident of San Nicolas, another culturally rich district in Manila, to work as an independent heritage consultant and an accredited community guide. In founding walking tours organiser The Heritage Collective, he spearheads experiences that invite the general public to engage in heritage conservation discussions.

San Nicolas is a part of Manila’s Chinatown, where a large concentration of Spanish-era heritage houses are situated. “Growing up, I would say that I’ve been surrounded by history, and that naturally nurtured my interest and passion in these matters,” Pamorada said.

As a heritage conservation advocate for about 10 years, Pamorada also part-times as a Department of Tourism-accredited community guide, focusing on Manila. He started The Heritage Collective in 2016, initially as a souvenir shop on Escolta Street. “We were part of the pioneering batch of tenants in HUB: Make Lab, a creative space-cum-incubation hub for entrepreneurs, located at the ground floor of the historic First United Building. It featured souvenir items from various consigning brands which are related to Filipino culture and heritage, like shirts, postcards, stickers, and the like,” Pamorada recalled.

The shop closed in 2021 because of the struggles in faring through the pandemic. Still, Pamorada retained the brand The Heritage Collective to become a consulting agency that initiates projects, ventures, and experiences for the love of Philippine heritage. One of its thrusts now is to invite the general public to take part in the bigger discussion of heritage conservation and appreciation in the city of Manila and beyond. Their tour packages include Escolta, San Nicolas, Tondo, Sampaloc, San Miguel, heritage cemeteries like Manila Chinese Cemetery, and regular Night at the Museum events in Binondo.

“That way, we could show that there is so much to see and discover in the colourful cultural life of this nation’s capital. It is important to bring the people on the ground so that as they experience these historic places, we could establish some ‘show of strength’ that there are like-minded individuals who care about these rather ‘not-yet-touristy’ sections, and such could impact the community, the local industries in the area, and decision-makers,” he explained.

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In 2022, The Heritage Collective has teamed up with other like-minded brands and tour companies like WanderManila, Don’t Skip Manila, AKIM/Manila Girls, and Renacimiento Manila to establish the “Nilad Community”, an umbrella group aiming to celebrate the history and heritage of the city of Manila through larger-scale creative and experiential events. Together, they dream of maximising the potential of Manila’s heritage tourism, so it is crucial for them not to see each other as competitors but as reliable partners streamlining efforts, networks, and logistics in staging informative, holistic, and entertaining Manila-based experiences for everybody.

Renacimiento Manila founder Diego Gabriel Torres, a Sociology graduate and tour guide, pursued this endeavour also because of the looming threat of deterioration of Manila’s built heritage. Focused on heritage structures, monuments and sites, Renacimiento Manila offers cultural talks and promotes awareness through various initiatives.

“I realised that there was a need to gather people from all walks of life to protect Manila’s heritage as well as promote it and create a future for the city centred on its unique assets—its heritage and cultural treasures,” Torres said.

Together with fellow Manila enthusiast Bea Dolores, they started Renacimiento Manila with a heritage walk highlighting the cultural treasures threatened by the proposed Pasig River Expressway.

“The main challenge we face in conducting heritage walk tours is that, in most cases, we create trails in areas that are not yet accustomed to tourists or visitors. We remedy this by consistently doing tours in these districts so that the people would no longer be strangers to our activities,” Torres shared, emphasising the importance of building connections and trust.

“What drives us to continue is the growing number of people joining the walks or reaching out to us for heritage concerns and local issues. Engaging them and empowering them, eventually creating local programmes and projects with them, is our goal, and this gives us strength. The heritage walks programme is, after all, part of our larger campaign, the ‘Save Manila’s Heritage’ campaign,” said Torres.

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WanderManila’s head tour guide and manager of creative event company Puesto, Benjamin Canapi, is also identifiable in Intramuros’s community. Working with other tourism and heritage conservation groups in the “Nilad Community,” they mount events, such as pop-ups and workshops, in addition to their usual tours.

Canapi started dabbling in tour-guiding in 2015 and began WanderManila as a website in 2016 to create online content for Metro Manila’s ‘best stuff’. Everything changed when he and his sister took over Celdran’s store in Intramuros after his passing in 2018. Since then, he used the WanderManila name for their tour-guiding initiatives.

Similar to the previous interviewees, Canapi concurred about the significant improvements seen in Intramuros since 2018, thanks to the initiatives of Celdran and their contemporaries, and IA’s efforts to make it easy for businesses and organisations to set up shows and organise events. Beyond Intramuros, Luneta Park has become safer and cleaner, while various civic organisations have started making efforts to promote other places like Binondo, San Nicolas, and Quiapo. “Heck, an art collective jumpstarted the Escolta revival, which drove people back,” Canapi said, recalling events that have happened all the way back to 2010.

“I’ve always felt that Manila was a diamond in the rough, that all it needed was a bit of a scrub to bring out its beauty. Granted, Manila needs more than a scrub, but you get what I mean,” he added.

Canapi believes that the Nilad Community is necessary as there is a large market that a handful of tour guides cannot service. “The current tourism scene needs more educated, capable, and engaging tour guides to tell their stories of Manila to the bigger market more than ever,” he said. After launching the Binondo Heritage Map, the Nilad Community is in talks to curate a community museum and tourism information centre.

Despite its apparent success in keeping heritage alive, Intramuros still needs to keep its areas clean and safe for tourists, as Canapi and his fellow advocates pointed out. There is also the need to make navigation easier, such as information centres, uniformed kiosks, and signage, which Intramuros already have. “But they can take it a step further with QR codes that lead to more historical information, audio or virtual tours, even archival pictures,” Canapi added. However, he acknowledged that all of these require bigger funds.

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Dynamism is one of the key things Canapi pointed out as missing in Intramuros’s heritage tourism. “Where are the culinary classes? Where are the cultural shows? It can’t just be Barbara’s and nowhere else. Where are the arts and crafts workshops, the kiddie tours, and the gourmand experiences? There is so much we can do!”

I agree with Canapi that Intramuros’s offerings do not compel local and foreign tourists to visit weekly or monthly. In writing the first half of this article, some places I identified as must-see and must-visit have been there for years and have established institutional reputations in Intramuros.

“Intramuros really needs new restaurants, museums, galleries, performance spaces, retail outlets, among others. It needs investors to come in and put up hostels, bed and breakfasts, as well as other auxiliary businesses,” Canapi expressed.

This led me to search for groups that find other means to engage with tourists, perhaps through sheer theatricality to elevate how historical information is disseminated in Intramuros. One of these is the Republica Filipina Reenactment Group (RFRG), co-founded by Joshua Matipo, which gives ‘living history’ performances, particularly of the Philippine Revolution from 1896 to 1898 and the Philippine-American War from 1899 to 1902.

“Intramuros has been a top destination in Metro Manila for the longest time, and what we did was just to infuse ‘living history’ in the area, so guests would have the feel of time travel whenever they encounter historical reenactors,” Matipo shared with Tatler.

Beginning with doing reenactments in UP Diliman and Fort Santiago, RFRG was later invited to perform the execution of the 13 martyrs in Cavite, the siege of Lipa in Batangas, the siege of Tayabas in Quezon, the execution of Dr Jose Rizal in Luneta, the 125th anniversary of the First Philippine Republic in Malolos, and the recent 79th anniversary of the liberation of Angeles in Angeles City.

As they find Intramuros one of the few remaining vestiges of the Philippines’ rich history and culture, Matipo and his colleagues aim to enrich the experience of visitors by sharing their passion for history. “Our members are very thorough, and their hard work and dedication is impeccable, they inspire others to learn more about the country’s history and the sacrifices made by those who came before us,” Matipo continued.

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This inspired Diego Magallona and his peers to start Historia Viviente Manila (H V Manila). Magallona graduated from UP Diliman in history in 2017 and has been an instructor for four years. He has also worked on several book projects focusing on Philippine war history. His first encounter with ‘living history’ was in 2015 as an undergraduate when the department invited reenactors from the Philippine Living History Society to one of their events. Satisfying his fascination over it, he joined RFRG in 2021 and later headed its research team. 

With his like-minded friends, they founded H V Manila in 2023, with a more focused scope, clear goals for the group, and consistent standards for research and training. “We understood that well-defined organisational structure, among other things, was difficult to ask of a larger group... so we started this new organisation to be able to more freely pursue and shape our vision of what living history and historical reenactment could be here at Intramuros and in other parts of Manila... Our hope is that through our events and activities, we can help the Filipino public reimagine our past as something relevant, colourful, and full of life—providing both reenactors and audiences a better understanding,” Magallona said.

Noticing a resurgence in tourism since the COVID lockdown restrictions were lifted, Magallona and his peers find many potentials in enriching the culture of living history in Intramuros. “Not only for military reenactments but in the reconstruction of civilian life as well,” he added.

Currently, H V Manila is focused on reconstructing accurate depictions of Philippine military history in the 1890s, the military drills, combat manoeuvres, different uniforms, equipment and weapons that existed within the Philippines during that time. A flagship project of the group in 2024 is the portrayal of the Batallón de Manila, a real unit of the Philippine Republican Army of 1898-1899, following the story of its soldiers across the battlefields of the Philippine-American War.

“To build a community with that level of care and dedication to history is the long-term vision of H V Manila,” Magallona said. “Beyond staging reenactments of historical events or demonstrations of military drills, we want to reconstruct and simulate what it was like to live in the Manila of centuries past. The Philippines is still a long way off from having living museums on the level of those in Europe or the USA, but I believe that given enough time, effort, and support, H V Manila and other cultural groups can help make it a reality in Intramuros,” he continued.

Meanwhile, IA partnered with the National Commission for Culture and the Arts and the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) in recent months to hold cultural performances inside Intramuros, ranging from traditional dances to adapted Italian opera. Hopefully, this will continue in the years to come.

The Luneta Art Fair will also be held from February 1 to 2. It will feature the works of emerging artists and creative groups rooted in Manila. Simultaneously, the CCP will have some of its participants at this year’s Pasinaya perform in select areas within Intramuros.

“It’s amazing to see so many groups of people with varying interests and from different walks of life coming together at Intramuros, whether for heritage tours, living history, restoration work, cultural performances, and everything in between. One big part of why this community has thrived is because the Intramuros Administration is accommodating to all of these groups and willing to support many cultural endeavours within the Walled City,” Magallona shared.

Intramuros is a massive part of who we are as a nation. The community hopes that Intramuros becomes a place that inspires us to live as Filipinos who are proud of and actively involved in preserving our heritage, encouraged to create new ways to express ourselves culturally.

Some of my respondents for this article raised the need for more spaces in Intramuros and Manila to be car-free, where pedestrians and cyclists can safely move, gather, work, and play, along with improvements to the city’s public transportation system.

More than just a historical site and tourist destination, Padilla finds Intramuros a testament to Filipino resilience and spirit. “Looking forward, we see Intramuros as a model of responsible and sustainable urban development, balancing heritage preservation with modern needs to ensure its legacy thrives for generations to come,” she said.

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