Today, June 30, the country marks Philippine–Spanish Friendship Day, a commemoration of compassion, mutual respect, and an extraordinary chapter in shared history. The law behind this annual event—Republic Act No. 9187, authored by the late senator Edgardo J. Angara—was inspired by a wartime episode that quietly transformed enmity into empathy: the Siege of Baler, a […]

While South Korea turned long-term cultural investment into global soft power, the Philippines failed to match vision with infrastructure. In the late 1980s, as French cinema sparked late-night conversations among young artists in Seoul, a similar scene was unfolding in Manila. The Goethe-Institut was hosting film workshops that captured the social and political turbulence of […]

She was once a mystery—just a gaze, a dress, and a silence that lingered for over a century. Now, Juan Luna’s Una Bulaqueña, the so-called “Mona Lisa of the Philippines,” steps onto the global stage as it goes on view this week at the Louvre Abu Dhabi. The portrait, a luminous rendering of a Filipina […]

The National Museum of the Philippines has received a remarkable donation: 17 ancient earthenware pots, dating back 1,500 to 2,000 years, repatriated from Australia after more than five decades in private care. In a handover ceremony held on May 30 at the Philippine Consulate in Sydney, the collection—believed to have been excavated from sites in […]

Long before recorded history, a small island in the Philippine archipelago was already buzzing with maritime innovation. On the rugged shores of Mindoro, 35,000 years ago, early humans were not merely surviving—they were navigating open seas, forging tools from giant clamshells, and connecting with distant cultures across a vast oceanic frontier. In an astonishing reappraisal […]

Few art forms are as symbolic of the Filipino spirit as paghahabi—weaving. It is an act of preservation and creation, a living archive of culture, identity, and dreams. At Expo 2025 Osaka, that symbolism took center stage in Hinabing Hiraya (Woven Imagination), a three-part cultural performance that stitched together the nation’s past, present, and aspirations […]

The National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) is leading this year’s National Heritage Month (NHM) with a renewed focus on community engagement, sustainability, and the digitization of cultural records. Anchored on the theme “Preserving Legacies, Building Futures: Empowering Communities through Heritage,” the celebration highlights heritage not as a relic of the past but […]

The Philippines officially unveiled its pavilion at World Expo 2025 in Osaka on Sunday, presenting an immersive cultural showcase centered on the theme: “Nature, Culture, and Community: Woven Together for a Better Future”. Dubbed simply “Woven,” the pavilion draws on the country’s rich tradition of weaving as both metaphor and method, blending indigenous craftsmanship with […]