Reviving a national heritage

The Christmas lights are being switched on; Yuletide has to be the prettiest period in Metro Manila. As darkness descends, at least the lights hide the pollution and squalor and can even make the perennial traffic jams bearable.

They should have invited Pope Francis to visit a week or two earlier, so he can enjoy the holiday spirit in the Philippine capital. Not that he’s here to have fun; the main purpose of the visit is to pray in Tacloban for the victims of Super Typhoon Yolanda and other disasters in the Visayas. But it will be good to also have the popular pontiff see the brighter side of the Philippines.

These days traffic jams have become even more abominable, and not just because of the simultaneous road improvements and other infrastructure projects being rushed for next year’s summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum. Along Roxas Boulevard and other thoroughfares that the pope is expected to take, traffic islands are being torn down, rebuilt and spruced up, eating into the lanes that vehicles can use.

Pope Francis isn’t coming here as a tourist, but he can enjoy visiting several churches in Manila. Maybe he can drop in on the oldest stone church in the Philippines, the San Agustin Church, just a short walk from the Manila Cathedral where he will celebrate mass.

Visitors always ask for must-see destinations in the Philippine capital. Unless the visitor is into shopping malls or slum tourism like author Dan Brown, who visited the charcoal-making communities of Manila for his novel Inferno, there’s not much to recommend – except several churches and Intramuros. 

Manila’s Walled City could have competed with the charm of the old cities of Europe, but much of Intramuros was razed during World War II. Still, with proper restoration, Intramuros can be developed into Metro Manila’s top tourism draw.

The government can take inspiration from Vigan, whose preservation of old buildings and culture earned for it a designation as a Unesco World Heritage Site.

*   *   *

Intramuros can use better marketing as a tourist spot, with tourism receipts used for restoration and preservation activities. But its administration needs to work on its marketing.

You can have a pictorial in Intramuros, for example, only if you have several thousand bucks. The Intramuros Administration wanted the payment for a photo shoot to promote the Walled City as a tourist destination. That’s right – the IA was the one charging a fee for its own promotion, take it or leave it. The amount was so prohibitive the photo shoot was scrapped.

I’ve heard similar complaints from amateur photographers who bring like-minded enthusiasts from other countries to Manila’s Walled City.

In the age of travel blogs, those foreign visitors can be among the best tourism ambassadors for the countries they visit, making up for the limited marketing budget of the Department of Tourism. The visitors may even be willing to pay for photo access to special areas in Intramuros. But the stories I’ve heard are all about unreasonably steep fees.

I can understand the need of the IA to raise its own revenue if only for maintenance expenses and to preserve the little that’s left of Old Manila. But fees for photo shoots can be limited to enclosed areas such as Fort Santiago, while open spaces can be allotted for free public use, with guards posted mainly to prevent vandalism, littering and petty crimes.

This is the case in Vigan, which has become one of the country’s most photographed and popular tourist destinations.

This is also the case in some of the world’s most visited cities. In these places, there are spots where anyone can take photos of the sights to his heart’s content. Fees are charged only if visitors want to climb the Eiffel Tower, for example, or enter Rome’s Catacombs.

In the case of Intramuros, even newlyweds who want the historic walls as backdrop for their wedding photo must pay a hefty amount for it.

Wedding tourism is big business for the leisure travel industry. In India, extended families book tour packages, either within the country or overseas, for wedding receptions. In many city squares around the world, you see newlyweds posing for photos. Unless the city government or park administrator provides special facilities, such as a horse-drawn carriage or other props, the photo opportunity is usually free.

Perhaps the IA likens Intramuros to China’s Great Wall, where there is an entrance fee. But the section of the Great Wall developed for tourism is more of a themed attraction, with only souvenir shops nearby.

In contrast, Manila’s Walled City is a public area, surrounded by offices and several schools. The narrow streets, whose cobblestones were destroyed during the war except for a short strip running alongside San Agustin, are chockfull of tricycles and pedicabs, and lined with shanties and turo-turo that reek of rotting food because they don’t have running water.

A small park with an intriguing story about star-crossed lovers – something that would have been developed as a come-on in a tourism-savvy city such as New Orleans – sits near a slum enclave.

Manila is getting a facelift for Pope Francis, and will get a further makeover for APEC in November 2015.

Intramuros should be included in the facelift, as a springboard for sustained urban renewal. The Walled City is a national heritage that deserves to be revived and preserved.