As museums around the world mark International Museum Day on May 18, the Philippines is seeing renewed momentum in cultural infrastructure, with new museums and heritage spaces opening across the country in recent years. The expansion reflects growing efforts to…
National Heritage Month celebration in the Philippines often turns attention to churches, ancestral houses, and historical monuments; but this year, one exhibition at the National Museum of Fine Arts is revisiting a different chapter of the country’s cultural memory—the sleek,…
Before he became a National Artist for Architecture, Francisco “Bobby” Mañosa was designing toys—and, for a time, quietly shaping a generation of Filipino childhood. In the early 1960s, long before landmarks like the Coconut Palace or the EDSA Shrine defined…
For centuries, the Pacific Ocean was not a barrier but a bridge—linking continents, cultures, and economies long before the modern idea of globalization took hold. At the center of that vast exchange stood Manila, where ships crossed between Asia and…
Adobo is the kind of dish that seems universally understood—until it is defined. In the Oxford English Dictionary, it resists a single identity. Added in 2007, the entry splits the word into two distinct meanings: a Filipino vinegar-based stew on…
Diplomacy took a quieter form on April 18 at Space at One Ayala, where Japanese Ambassador to the Philippines Endo Kazuya and his wife, Endo Akiko, attended “Thread of Dreams”, a fashion show marking the 70th anniversary of the normalization…
Seventy works drawn from one of the most influential private collections of Asian art in the United States are now on view in New York, as the Asia Society marks its 70th anniversary with Buddha and Shiva, Lotus and Dragon:…
April in the Philippines is not only the peak of summer—it is also Filipino Food Month, a nationwide tribute to the country’s culinary heritage that this year carries a distinctly regional flavor. With the 2026 theme “Connected by Taste: The…
A vow destined for Manila took root in Naga, where the Church of Nuestra Señora de Peña de Francia—known as the Our Lady of Peñafrancia Parish Church—now stands. What was planned to rise along the Pasig River instead shaped a…
As Maundy Thursday unfolds across the Philippines—when churches fill for the Last Supper Mass and families begin their Visita Iglesia rounds—the call to pause takes on new meaning in an age of constant notifications. This Holy Week, the Catholic Bishops’…
