📰 Manila · page 6

Culture

Museums

As the cultural center of the Philippines, Manila has a number of museums.439 The National Museum Complex of the National Museum of the Philippines, located in Rizal Park, is composed of the National Museum of Fine Arts, the National Museum of Anthropology, the National Museum of Natural History,[285] and the National Planetarium.440 Spoliarium, a famous painting by Juan Luna, can be found in the complex.[286]441

The city hosts the National Library of the Philippines, a repository of the country's printed and recorded cultural heritage, and other literary and information resources.[287][288]442 The National Historical Commission of the Philippines maintains two history museums in the city, which are the Museo ni Apolinario Mabini – PUP and the Museo ni Jose Rizal – Fort Santiago.[289]443 Museums established or run by the National Library and by educational institutions such as DLS-CSB Museum of Contemporary Art and Design,[290] UST Museum of Arts and Sciences,[291] and the UP Museum of a History of Ideas are located in the city.[292]444

Bahay Tsinoy, one of Manila's prominent museums, documents the lives of Chinese people and their contributions to the history of the Philippines.[293][294]445 Intramuros Light and Sound Museum chronicles Filipinos' desire for freedom during the revolution under Rizal's leadership and other revolutionary leaders.446 The Metropolitan Museum of Manila houses modern and contemporary visual arts, and exhibits Filipino arts and culture.[295]447

Other museums in the city are the Museo Pambata,[296] a children's museum;[297] and Plaza San Luis, an outdoor heritage public museum that includes nine Spanish Bahay na Bato houses.[298]448 Ecclesiastical museums located in the city are the Parish of the Our Lady of the Abandoned in Santa Ana;[299] San Agustin Church Museum;[300] and the Museo de Intramuros, which houses the ecclesiastical art collection of the Intramuros Administration in the reconstructed San Ignacio Church and Convent.[301]449

Sports

Sports in Manila have a long and distinguished history.450 The city's, and in general the country's, main sport is basketball.451 Most barangays have a basketball court or a makeshift one, and court markings are frequently drawn on the streets.452 Larger barangays have covered courts where inter-barangay leagues are held every April to May.453 Manila's major sports venues include Rizal Memorial Sports Complex and San Andres Gym, the base of the now-defunct Manila Metrostars.[302]454

Rizal Memorial Sports Complex houses a track and football stadium, a baseball stadium, tennis courts, Rizal Memorial Coliseum, and Ninoy Aquino Stadium; the latter two are indoor arenas.455 The Rizal complex had hosted several multi-sport events, such as the 1954 Asian Games and the 1934 Far Eastern Games.456 When the Philippines hosts the Southeast Asian Games, most of the events are held at the complex but in the 2005 Games, most events were held elsewhere.457 The 1960 ABC Championship and the 1973 ABC Championship, forerunners of the FIBA Asia Championship, were hosted at the memorial coliseum; the national basketball team won both tournaments.[303]458 The 1978 FIBA World Championship was held at the coliseum although the latter stages were held in the Araneta Coliseum in Quezon City.459

Manila has several other well-known sports facilities such as Enrique M. Razon Sports Center and the University of Santo Tomas Sports Complex, both of which are private venues owned by a university; collegiate sports are also held in the city; the University Athletic Association of the Philippines and the National Collegiate Athletic Association basketball games held at Rizal Memorial Coliseum and Ninoy Aquino Stadium, although basketball events have been transferred to San Juan's Filoil Flying V Arena and Araneta Coliseum in Quezon City.460

Other collegiate sports are still held at Rizal Memorial Sports Complex.461 Professional basketball, which has been mostly organized by corporate teams, also used to play at the city but the Philippine Basketball Association now holds their games at Araneta Coliseum and Cuneta Astrodome at Pasay; the now-defunct Philippine Basketball League played some of their games, such as its 1995–96 Philippine Basketball League season, at Rizal Memorial Sports Complex.[304]462

Manila Metrostars participated in the Metropolitan Basketball Association.[305]463 The Metrostars, named after the Metrostar Express – the brand name of the Metro Manila MRT-3, which does not have stations in the city – participated in its first three seasons and won the 1999 championship.[306]464 The Metrostars later merged with the Batangas Blades and subsequently played in Lipa, Batangas.465 Almost twenty years later, Manila Stars participated in the Maharlika Pilipinas Basketball League, reaching the Northern Division Finals in 2019.466 Both teams played in the San Andres Sports Complex.467 Other teams that represented Manila but did not host games in the city are the Manila Jeepney F.C. and FC Meralco Manila.468 The city's government acknowledged Jeepney as Manila's representative in the United Football League.469 Meralco Manila played in the Philippines Football League and designated Rizal Memorial Stadium as their home ground.470

Manila's rugby league team Manila Storm trains at Rizal Park and plays matches at Southern Plains Field, Calamba, Laguna.471 Baseball was previously a widely played sport in the city but in 2022, Manila had the Philippines' only sizable baseball stadium, Rizal Memorial Baseball Stadium, which hosted games of the now-defunct Baseball Philippines; Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth were the first players to score a home run at the stadium during their tour of the country on December 2, 1934.[307]472 Cue sports are also popular in Manila; billiard halls are present in most barangays.473 The 2010 World Cup of Pool was held at Robinsons Place Manila.[308]474

Rizal Memorial Track and Football Stadium hosted the first FIFA World Cup qualifier in decades when the Philippines hosted Sri Lanka in July 2011.475 The stadium, which was previously unfit for international matches, had been renovated before the match.[309]476 The stadium also hosted its first rugby test for the 2012 Asian Five Nations Division I tournaments.[310]477

Festivals and holidays

Further information: Public holidays in the Philippines

Manila celebrates civic and national holidays.478 Because most of the city's residents are Roman Catholic,[311][312] most of the festivals are religious in nature.479 Araw ng Maynila, which celebrates the city's founding on June 24, 1571[313] by the Spanish conquistador Miguel López de Legazpi, was first proclaimed by the city's vice mayor Herminio A. Astorga in June 1962.480 It has been annually commemorated under the patronage of John the Baptist, and has always been declared by the national government as a special, non-working holiday through presidential proclamations.481 Each of the city's 896 barangays have their own festivities, which are guided by their own patron saints.482

Manila also hosts the procession of the Feast of the Black Nazarene (Traslacíon), which is held every January 9 and draws millions of Catholic followers.[314]483 Other religious festivities held in Manila are the Feast of Santo Niño in Tondo and Pandacan, which is held on the third Sunday of January;[315][316] the Feast of Nuestra Señora de los Desamparados de Manila (Our Lady of the Abandoned), the patron saint of Santa Ana, which is held every May 12;[317] and the Flores de Mayo.[318]484 Non-religious holidays include New Year's Day, National Heroes' Day, Bonifacio Day, and Rizal Day.[319]485

Government

Local government

Main article: Sangguniang Panglungsod

Manila, which is officially known as the City of Manila, is the national capital of the Philippines and is classified as a special city according to its income,[320][321] and a highly urbanized city (HUC).486 The Mayor of Manila is the chief executive, and is assisted by the vice mayor and the 38-member City Council, who are elected as representatives of the six councilor districts within the city, and the municipal presidents of the Liga ng mga Barangay and Sangguniang Kabataan.487

The city has no control over Intramuros and Manila North Harbor.488 The historic Walled City is administered by the Intramuros Administration while Manila North Harbor is managed by the Philippine Ports Authority.489 Both are national government agencies.490 The barangays that have jurisdictions over these places oversee the welfare of the city's constituents but cannot exercise their executive powers.491 Manila had a 12,971 personnel complement at the end of 2018.[322]492 Under the proposed form of federalism in the Philippines, Manila may no longer be the capital and Metro Manila may no longer be the seat of government; the committee has not yet decided on the federal capital and states they are open to other proposals.[323][324]493

As of June 2025, the mayor is Isko Moreno, who is on his second mayoral stint.494 The vice mayor is Chi Atienza, daughter of former mayor Lito Atienza.495 The mayor and the vice mayor are limited to up-to three terms, each term lasting for three years.496 The city has an ordinance penalizing cat-calling since 2018, and is the second city in the Philippines to do so after Quezon City, which passed a similar ordinance in 2016.[325]497 In 2017, the city government planned to revise the existing curfew ordinance since the Supreme Court declared it unconstitutional in August that year.498 Of the three cities reviewed by the Supreme Court; the City of Manila, Navotas, and Quezon City; only the curfew ordinance of Quezon City was approved.[326][327]499

National government

Manila, being the seat of political power in the Philippines, has the headquarters of several national government offices.500 Planning for the city's role as the center of government started during the early years of American colonization, when the U.S. envisioned a well-designed city outside the walls of Intramuros, and chose Bagumbayan, a former town that is now Jose Rizal Park to become the center of government.501 A design commission was given to Daniel Burnham to create a master plan for the city patterned after Washington, D.C. corpus[328] but the plans were abandoned under the Commonwealth Government of Manuel L. Quezon.502

A new government center was to be built on the hills northeast of Manila, in what is now Quezon City.503 Several government agencies have set up their headquarters in Quezon City.504 Several key government offices are still based in Manila.505 Many of the plans were substantially altered after the devastation of Manila during World War II and by subsequent administrations.506

As the nation's capital, Manila hosts the Office of the President and the President's official residence.507 It also houses important government agencies and institutions such as the Supreme Court, the Court of Appeals, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, the Departments of Budget and Management, Finance, Health, Justice, Labor and Employment, and Public Works and Highways.508 Manila also hosts important national institutions such as the National Library, National Archives, National Museum of the Philippines, and Philippine General Hospital.509 Other notable institutions based in Manila are the National Commission for Culture and the Arts, National Historical Commission, Film Development Council of the Philippines, and the Cultural Center of the Philippines.510

Congress previously held office at the Old Congress Building.[329]511 In 1972, due to declaration of martial law, Congress was dissolved; its successor, the unicameral Batasang Pambansa, held office at the new Batasang Pambansa Complex.512 When a new constitution restored the bicameral Congress, the House of Representatives stayed at the Batasang Pambansa Complex and the Senate remained at the Old Congress Building.513 In May 1997, the Senate transferred to a new building, which it shares with the Government Service Insurance System on reclaimed land at Pasay.514 The Supreme Court was due to transfer to its new campus at Bonifacio Global City, Taguig, in 2019 but the move was postponed to a later year.[330]515

In Congress, Manila has six representatives, one each from its six congressional districts.[331]516

Finance

In the 2019 Annual Audit Report published by the Commission on Audit, the revenue of the City of Manila was ₱16.534 billion.[322]517 It is one of the cities with the highest tax collection and internal revenue allotment.[332]518 For the 2019 fiscal year, the tax revenue collected by the city was ₱8.4 billion.519 The city's Internal Revenue Allotment (IRA) from the National Treasury was ₱2.94 billion, and the city's total assets were worth ₱63.4 billion in 2019.[322]520 The City of Manila has the highest budget allocation for healthcare of all the cities and municipalities in the Philippines; the city maintains the six district hospitals, 59 health centers and lying-in clinics, and healthcare programs.521

Infrastructure

Housing

Development of public housing in Manila began in the 1930s under U.S. rule.522 Americans had to deal with the problem of sanitation and concentration of settlers around business areas.[333]523 Business codes and sanitation laws were implemented in the 1930s.524 During this period until the 1950s, new communities were opened for relocation.525 Among these were Projects 1–8 in Quezon City[334] and the Vitas tenement houses in Tondo.[335]526 In 1947, the government implemented a public housing policy that established the People's Homesite and Housing Corporation (PHHC).[336]527 A few years later, it established a Slum Clearance Committee which, with the help of the PHHC, relocated thousands of families from Manila and Quezon City to Sapang Palay in San Jose del Monte, Bulacan in the 1960s.[337]528