Heritage Conservation Society

As our organization marks our 25th year, we celebrate the wins of our heritage queens raising our conservation advocacy through various international platforms!

We congratulate our Miss Supranational - Philippines Alethea Ambrosio for being crowned Miss Supranational Asia & Oceania at the recently held Miss Supranational pageant at Malopolska, Poland!

Thank you always to the Miss Universe Philippines and The Miss Philippines organizations for our steemeed partnership with your candidates choosing to advocate Philippine Heritage Conservation!

Mabuhay Pilipinas! 🇵🇭

Congratulations to the First United Building community for winning the Malasakit, Red, & Gold awards of the Department of Trade & Industry’s Good Design Awards Philippines 2024! The programs set by the FUBC owners & staff, the community of artists, designers, business owners such as in the HUB: Make Lab are great embodiments of what entails design excellence in the Philippines.

We believe that heritage sites have great potential in being incubator spaces for creative industries to thrive and exhibit economic potential for SMEs. The First United Building has been home to the Heritage Conservation Society, among other heritage-centered organizations, for many years. It is our great privilege to be able to support in this endeavor applying for this award: alongside the owners, the Sylianteng family & the community that keep the building running, as this is a prime example of how we can activate our built heritage in reaching sustainable development goals. This is a huge recognition and well-deserved for these stakeholders. We hope that this is a catalyst for more positive change within our heritage districts.

Article photos courtesy of Kanto & Philippine Star

Read more about the Good Design Awards here: https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2024/06/30/2366705/escoltas-first-united-building-wins-highest-prize-2024-good-design-award-philippines?

Baguio 1934-2024. Burnham Park originally had less tree cover since it was only a few decades then, while the surrounding hills were lush with pine trees. Today it is the opposite. What else has changed in the last 90 years? What lessons should we learn from Baguio aside from the great fact that the city's central park still exists?

To all member applicants, please be advised that we will be processing the proofs of payment through our page. Thank you! 🙏

The Heritage Conservation Society had another event last May 18th, the talk on “Communicating Heritage Conservation” at the National Museum of the Philippines. The forum was moderated by Keith Reburiano of National Museum, secretariat to HCS, with National Museum Director General, Jeremy Barns, delivering the welcoming remarks.

Participating panelists were Dr. Ivan Henares (Chairperson), Ar. Gio Abcede (President), and Mr. Ivan Man Dy (Advisor) of HCS. We had a lively discussion on best practices in the role of organizations, social media channels, news outlets, and the like, with those present from National Museum and talk attendees. We look forward to having further collaboration with in the future.

🤝 That’s a wrap for Members Night!

Last May 18, we gathered our members once again for a night of camaraderie and sharing, at the First United Building ‘s FIRST Coworking Community space.

Our Head of Membership Jake Advincula (.sariwa) talked about his journey of marketing heritage as part of HCS. We the awarded our outgoing intern batch with certificates as tokens of their hard work.

The Board also shared updates on the org’s activities, such as the Luzon Cultural Heritage Tour hosted for and its engagement with .

Bonus, we had some new faces show up! Any good event starts with a getting-to-know 🙋🏼‍♀️

See you at the next event! To join, sign up for HCS membership here: tinyurl.com/JoinHCS2024

28 May 2024. We are very happy to support the Province of Negros Occidental’s Heritage Conservation initiatives.

In our valued advocacy partnership with the Miss Universe organization and a great gift as we celebrate our 25th anniversary, The Heritage Conservation Society gives its warmest congratulations to Ms. Chelsea Manalo for becoming our Miss Universe Philippines 2024! Thank you for being one of the candidates who've worked with us and pushed for heritage conservation!

We look forward to you still championing our Filipino heritage advocacy to the world stage. Mabuhay, Chelsea! Our heritage hearts are full!

We thank the following partners who've helped us showcase our advocacy:

Quiapo Church
Bahay Nakpil-Bautista -Tahanan ng mga Katipunero
First United Building
Escuela Taller de Filipinas Foundation, Inc.
Provincial Government of Bulacan

𝗨𝗣𝗖𝗢𝗠𝗜𝗡𝗚 𝗘𝗩𝗘𝗡𝗧 | Dr. Fatima Nicetas R. Alonzo, Professor and Dean of the UNP College of Architecture, will speak to an international audience about Vigan's heritagization and its impacts to local development.

The MA and PhD programs in Architectural Heritage, Creative Industries, and Tourism Management of the Faculty of Architecture, Silpakorn University, Thailand will host her on May 20, 2024. Her talk is titled "The Contribution of Cultural Heritage to Sustainable Development: The Vigan Experience." Dr. Alonzo's groundbreaking work on Vigan heritage was the blueprint of the city in its application as World Heritage Site, as certified by the UNESCO in 1999.

Her talk is part of the Heritage, Creative Industries and Tourism Lecture Series of Silpakorn University. Previous lecturers were Dr. Antonello Alici (Universiti Politecnica delle Marche, Italy) on architectural museums and archives and Dr. William Chapman (University of Hawai'i at Manoa) on the potentials for recovery and rebuilding of Lahaina of Maui, Hawaii.

You may also join Dr. Alonzo's talk via Zoom. Please register in advance: https://bit.ly/4dL9GbA.
Meeting ID: 931 0758 3156
Passcode: 1234

See you there!

📣 Calling all HCS members! 📣

As we’ve announced through our group threads, we’ll be having our Members’ Night this evening at First Coworking space in the First United Building, from 6 pm - 8 pm, coinciding with the concurrent festivities of Hola Escolta!

Get updates on our latest projects & listen to presentations from our Head of Membership, Jake Advincula, and our outgoing batch of interns. If you haven’t registered already, or are a prospective newcomer to the group, we still have a handful of slots available so please confirm your attendance and send us a message. See you there!

✍🏼 Sign up here: https://lu.ma/k8m4ns0s

Last week, the Heritage Conservation Society was invited to participate in the Heritage-Based Stakeholders workshop for the Manila CLUP2035 Workshop, hosted by the City Planning & Development Office of Manila (CPDO-MNL). Present were HCS Trustees, Ar. Gio Abcede & Engr. Jero Galler-Pascual, HCS Advisors, Ar. Dominic Galicia & Mr. Ivan Man Dy, alongside our long-time mentor Dr. Butch Zialcita, frequent collaborator, Ms. Claire Vitug, & the Manila City Planning and Development Coordinator, EnP. Ar. Danilo Lacuña, Jr.

WEBINAR UPDATE: Our Google Meet room is now full. You can access the webinar thru our Youtube Livestream: https://www.youtube.com/live/YzsLMcco8sY?si=KxnYduVmnH24mI6Y

📣The 2025 Call for Proposals is now open!

📆Deadline of submission of proposals is on 31 August 2024.

📌To learn more about the priority projects for 2025, scan the QR Code or visit https://ncca.gov.ph/ncca-competitive-grants-program/.

As the agency mandated to administer the National Endowment Fund for Culture and the Arts (NEFCA), NCCA is authorized to give grants to artists and cultural groups that contribute significantly to the Filipino’s cultural legacy as a means to extend artistic achievement. NCCA grants financial support to projects directed for the development, protection, preservation, and dissemination of Philippine arts and culture.

Check the list of projects and submit your proposals to:

Program Management Division (PMD)
National Commission for Culture and the Arts
Room 5B, Fifth Floor, NCCA Building
633 General Luna Street, Intramuros 1002 Manila, Philippines
Telephone Nos: (02) 8527-5535 (Trunk Line) locals 524, 541, and 507
E-mail: [email protected]

Reposting from the National Museum of the Philippines:

This coming International Museum Day and in conjunction with National Heritage Month, the National Museum of the Philippines—in partnership with the Heritage Conservation Society—introduces “Communicating Heritage Conservation!”

This roundtable discussion aims to examine how the public can effectively communicate the value and significance of heritage conservation, especially in this Fourth Industrial Revolution era.

Our panelists include:

- Dr. Ivan Anthony S. Henares, Secretary-General of the Philippine National Commission for UNESCO;
- Ar. Giuseppe Luigi H. Abcede, President of the Heritage Conservation Society; and
- Mr. Ivan Man Dy, Founder of Old Manila Walks

Join us at the NMP Auditorium, National Museum of Fine Arts on Saturday, 18 May 2024, 2:30 PM!

Register now through this link: https://bit.ly/3UW9FKK

See you there!

Join us for an engaging talk on "A Tale of Two Rivers" with Paulo Alcazaren, streaming live on our page this Saturday at 9 AM. Don't miss out!

Paulo Alcazaren, a registered and licensed Landscape Architect and Environmental Planner, has been principal planner, urban designer or landscape architect in charge of close to 250 projects in 14 countries and is currently head of PGAA Creative Design, Manila. He is the recipient of several awards for urban design and landscape architecture from the Philippines, Singapore and Malaysia. In 2016, he won the CCP Gawad para sa Sining award for architecture. His advocacies are in Heritage Conservation, walkable cities and the recovery of parks, plazas and open civic space.

Heritage Conservation: Preserving Our Past For The Future” is presented by the Museum Foundation of the Philippines in partnership with the National Museum of the Philippines.

The Heritage Conservation Society will be at the National Museum of the Philippines this International Museum Day for a panel on Communicating Heritage Conservation, represented by Dr. Ivan Henares (HCS Chairperson), Ar. Gio Abcede (HCS President), & Mr. Ivan Man Dy (HCS Advisor & founder of Old Manila Walks). We hope to see you there!

📣📣📣 CALL FOR PARTICIPANTS!!!

This coming International Museum Day and in conjunction with National Heritage Month, the National Museum of the Philippines—in partnership with the Heritage Conservation Society—introduces “Communicating Heritage Conservation!”

This roundtable discussion aims to examine how the public can effectively communicate the value and significance of heritage conservation, especially in this Fourth Industrial Revolution era.

Our panelists include:

- Dr. Ivan Anthony S. Henares, Secretary-General of the Philippine National Commission for UNESCO;
- Ar. Giuseppe Luigi H. Abcede, President of the Heritage Conservation Society; and
- Mr. Ivan Man Dy, Founder of Old Manila Walks

Join us at the NMP Auditorium, National Museum of Fine Arts on Saturday, 18 May 2024, 2:30 PM!

Register now through this link: https://bit.ly/3UW9FKK

See you there!

The Lawton-Sta Monica bridge f(rom Pasig to Makati/Taguig?) has a weird interrupted sidewalk. The bridge is one of 19 bridges over the 27-kilometer Pasig River. Only one is pedestrian, while all the rest, like this bridge, is unfriendly to pedestrians and bikes. Paris has 37 bridges over the 13 km Siene (half the Pasig). All are pedestrian and bike friendly (six are dedicated for pedestrians only). The Singapore River has seventeen bridges but it is only 3 km long (six are pedestrian). Why are MetroManila's bridges biased against people and bikes?

This morning over the Pasig River near C-5. Where are the ferries? A hundred years ago you could ride an electric tranvia from Intramuros to Pasig, or take a steamboat ride to Pasig and onwards to Laguna's many lakeside towns. Where are our sustainable modes of transportation now? With an esplanade on both sides of the river you could get anywhere East-West faster than any transport today. Should not the DPWH and DOTr focus on mobility instead of just building more roads for cars?

For Arch. Dominic Galicia, architecture not only links the past to the present - it also embodies values such as kindness and hospitality.

Watch his video on our latest blog post:

Beyond aesthetics, architecture can be an instrument of compassion During the HCS General Assembly last August 5, 2023, Arch. Dominic Galicia gave a presentation on four particular cities he visited in June and July of 2023, titled A Tale of Four Cities. Below is a video recording of the Zoom session.

Sunday evening esquisse (quick design exercise): National Artist Jose Zaragoza's landmark Commercial Bank and Trust building (now BPI) at the corner of Yuchengco St and Escolta was completed in 1969. Its strong modernist geometry had always dominated that section of historic Escolta and also could be seen from the Muelle de la Banco Nacional on the Pasig. Today Zaragoza's masterpiece has been obscured by neglect, blighted by cables and posts and its facade ruined by the building of a Barangay Hall. A Pasig River Ferry terminal completes the injustice by marring the view from the Pasig. The law states all works of Nacional Artists should be conserved. With the ferry terminals undergoing a renovation (by the MMDA), Manila could share in the renovation to incorporate the barangay hall atop the terminal thus freeing the space on Yuchengco St for conversion into pedestrian-friendly plazoleta (small plaza). This would allow the Zaragoza building to be seen and appreciated again and also help connect the Escolta to the existing Yuchengco Plaza (actually an esplanade built recently). The whole length of the Muelle de la Banco Nacional (the old name of the 'plaza') could be expanded in width by a means of a small cantilever over the river and by restricting vehicular traffic. What do you think?

The old Insular Life building sits at the corner of Plaza Moraga and Plaza Cervantes (yes, these spaces were real plazas a hundred years ago). Since Insular Life moved to Makati in the 1960s (and to Alabang in the 1990s) the landmark building had been 'modernized,' and renovated a number of times/ It lost its corner tower in the 1960s (the eagle atop now resides in the Insular Life building in Alabang). Now it apparently is rotting fro the inside, and its days appear numbered. Originally designed by Andres Luna de San Pedro, the son of Juan Luna, it was completed in 1930 and was the tallest building in Manila until the 1950s. Most likely it will be replaced by a skyscraper. The lot beside it is already vacant. I do not recall what stood there but Plaza Cervantes was the Ayala Avenue of old Manila. All the banks had their headquarters there. We cannot stop the loss of this building but the HSBC, El Hogar and old FNCB building are still there. The Chinabank building, FNCB and HSBC buildings have been adaptively reused, which is wonderful. The Uy Chaco Building is also still there. We should at least save all these and ditto with the two plazas - Cervantes and Moraga (both of which are essentially parking spaces). Surely we can find better ways of using these spaces by partially pedestrianizing the two and improving the urban design of the district. What do you think?

The opportunity to make Metro Manila a better place for people can be had along the 27 kilometers of the Pasig River. Imagine a linear park on both sides ...thats a total length of over fifty kilometers, with a total possible area greater than Rizal Park. This section shows the view of the river from above Sta Ana Manila. The Manila Boat Club sits below, while The Circuit Makati can be seen on the south bank. Everyone would benefit from the access to greenery, views of the river, recreational amenities, better mobility and connectivity between the two banks, and to a ferry system than can take thousands up and down the storied Pasig. Don't we deserve a river and river esplanade we can be visit for free and feel proud of? What do you think?