Manila Discovery Guide

Manila is the densest city on earth by some measures, and it takes a day or two to stop finding that overwhelming and start finding it interesting.

Intramuros, the walled Spanish city, is the reason to come: three kilometres of stone walls around a grid laid out in 1571, with Fort Santiago at the river mouth and San Agustin church, the oldest stone building in the Philippines and the only one in the district to survive 1945 intact.

The National Museum complex is free and genuinely good, holding Juan Luna’s vast Spoliarium and the Philippines’ archaeological collections.

And the city is a working introduction to a culture that is Southeast Asian, Spanish and American simultaneously, in a way nowhere else is — visible in the food, the churches, the language and the jeepneys.

Intramuros

Half a day at least. Walk the walls, visit Fort Santiago where Jose Rizal spent his last night before execution, and San Agustin church with its trompe-l’oeil ceiling and 1607 foundation. Casa Manila reconstructs a colonial merchant house. Bamboo bicycle tours cover it well.

The National Museum

Three free museums around Rizal Park: Fine Arts in the old legislative building, with Luna’s Spoliarium; Anthropology; and Natural History under a glass dome. Genuinely worth a full morning.

Rizal Park and Manila Bay

The monument and the execution site; the bay sunset from the Roxas Boulevard seawall, which is the city’s great free spectacle.

Binondo

The oldest Chinese quarter in the world, established in 1594, still a working commercial district and the best eating in the city.

Elsewhere

The American cemetery in Taguig, the Ayala Museum in Makati, and Quiapo church on a Friday.

The Philippines is the only country in Asia shaped by three centuries of Spanish rule and then half a century of American, and Manila is where that is most visible.

Three layers

Catholicism from Spain, the education system and popular culture from the United States, and an Austronesian base underneath both. The result is a culture that reads as familiar to Western visitors in ways that are misleading — the surface is Hispanic and American, the social structure is not.

Family and obligation

Extended family is the organising unit, and reciprocal obligation — utang na loob, the debt of the inside — structures relationships. Around a tenth of Filipinos work abroad and their remittances are a substantial part of the economy; the returning worker at the airport with enormous boxes is a defining national image.

Smooth relations

Direct confrontation is avoided, and disagreement is signalled indirectly. A yes may mean I have heard you.

Humour and music

Filipinos are famously funny and famously musical; karaoke is a national institution rather than a novelty.

Religion

Around 80 per cent Catholic and genuinely devout, alongside a significant Muslim minority.

Poverty here is severe and visible. Do not photograph people in informal settlements, and avoid the slum tours that have appeared around Tondo and the North Cemetery; where community-run alternatives exist, choose those, and consider giving through an established organisation instead.

Buy local. Weaving, basketry and the products of provincial cooperatives are sold in the museum shops and at markets, and the money reaches the makers.

Water and waste: Manila Bay and the Pasig are badly polluted, and the city has a serious plastic problem. Refuse single-use items, which are handed out constantly, and carry a bottle.

Heritage: Manila’s remaining pre-war buildings are being lost steadily to development. Visiting and paying for the ones that have been restored makes the case for the rest.

Tip properly — wages in service work are very low.

December to February is the season: the coolest and driest stretch, around 24 to 31°C with low humidity by local standards and clear skies. December is festive and January brings the Black Nazarene procession.

March to May is the hot dry season, and it is genuinely hot — 34°C and above with high humidity, peaking in April and May.

June to November is the wet season and the typhoon season. Rain comes in heavy afternoon bursts, and the city floods readily; July to September is the wettest and most storm-prone.

Holy Week in March or April empties the city as people return to their provinces, which makes it quiet and many things closed.

Christmas begins in September here, which is not a joke.

What a day costs, by how you travel

Relative cost across the city

Manila is inexpensive: street and canteen food costs very little, transport is cheap, and the national museums are free. The gap between the budget city and the business districts is unusually wide.