Fermin gomez paintings filipino

A friendly face and self-proclaimed history nerd, Dustin Ancheta begins his tour of the Philippines National Museum of Fine Arts by telling me that this is, alas, the least popular of all the tours he offers in his tour agency Manila for a Day.

And so we already have a story worth digging into.

Amongst the many different ways to learn about Manila, why is art the path least traveled—both by Filipinos and visitors? One would think that the name of the tour, National Treasures, should entice in itself!

Here are the treasured pieces of a nation—salvaged, preserved, and woven together to tell the grand narrative of a country which was once chained by 300 years of colonial rule, and bloodied by revolutions and wars.

And yet, there seems to be an unsettling silence surrounding the visual vestiges of this complicated past.

Before diving into the art on display, Dustin describes the space where we stand.

Known as the Old Legislative Buildi