Malacañang Museum

PAHAYAG: Ang aming mga museo ay magiging sarado ng ika-1 ng Nobiyembre 2023. Sarado po ito para sa lahat ng walk-in at guided tour. Ngunit, bukas naman po ito ng ika-31 ng Oktubre at ika-2 ng Nobiyembre. Maraming salamat.

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ANNOUNCEMENT: Our museums will be closed on November 1, 2023. There will be no walk-in visits nor guided tours. We will instead be open on October 31 and November 2. Thank you very much.

💡 To find out more about tours and the Heritage Mansions, visit museums.gov.ph/heritage-tours/ or call +632 8249 8310 loc. 8281

Happy Museum & Galleries Month! Keep up with our posts and announcements as we celebrate this month by liking our new official page, Malacañang Heritage Tours and following us on Instagram 😁

See you on your next visit! 🌟

Good day! We are open for guided tours and walk-in visitors. Kindly check the link below for our new page and the available time slots for walk-ins and guided tours. For proper tour coordination and to request a tour, please contact us through our number at 82498310 local 8281 or through our email at [email protected]. Museum operations is from Tuesday to Sunday, 8:00 am to 5:00 pm. Our tour officers will assist you with all tour-related concerns including scheduling/booking tours, available tour dates and time slots, guidelines and other important details.

To provide greater accessibility for our visitors, tours are no longer held in Kalayaan Hall. At the moment, two new museums cater to the public- Bahay Ugnayan, a museum dedicated to our current president and Teus Mansion, a museum dedicated to our former presidents. Please be informed that the maximum number of guests allowed is 25 persons at a time and we do not provide shuttle service for walk-in visitors. Thank you very much.

https://www.facebook.com/malacanangheritagetours

President Aquino’s amnesty proclamation was issued more than two weeks after the peace talks between the government and the communist rebels collapsed. The president hoped that the amnesty program would “reunite families, bind up the broken-hearted, and heal the wounds of our nation.” The National Reconciliation and Development Program was tasked to establish centers nationwide to provide the amnestied rebels the means and training to “resume productive roles in society.” A week before the issuance of the proclamation, another amnesty proposal, mostly drafted by military officers, was submitted to the Palace, but it was deemed too cumbersome and very similar to the one offered by former president Ferdinand E. Marcos. Only a few of those who applied for that program availed of its benefits. The present program was drafted by several government agencies, and all agencies of the government were to be involved in its implementation. The Bayanihan Centers were to be supervised by the departments of Defense and Social Welfare, with the former verifying if the surrenderees were indeed authentic rebels.

The Commonwealth of the Philippines, established on November 15, 1935 with Manuel L. Quezon as president, was forced to leave its seat in Manila for Corregidor in December 1941 due to the impending arrival of the Imperial Japanese Forces. The seat of government was transferred to Washington, D. C. at the invitation of the president of the United States and with the sanction of the National Assembly on May 13, 1942. The government-in-exile was able to substantially achieve the following objectives: (1) to maintain the interest of the American people in the redemption of the Philippines as a sacred obligation which had been assumed by the United States; (2) to speed up the preparation of the necessary men, materials and plans for the reconquest of the Philippines; (3) to accelerate the advent of our independence; (4) to obtain adequate guarantees of the permanence of our political independence; and (5) to work for our economic rehabilitation and stability as the material foundation of our independent structure. While in exile, Pres. Quezon succumbed to tuberculosis and was succeeded by Sergio Osmeña as president. It was Pres. Osmeña who accompanied the liberation forces, led by Gen. Douglas MacArthur, as they landed in Leyte on October 20, 1944. With the liberation of Manila from the Japanese forces, Malacañan Palace was recaptured and the civil government was reestablished on this date.

The Orden de Isabela la Catolica was created in 1815 by King Ferdinand VII of Spain in honor of Queen Isabella I, and is granted to persons and institutions in recognition of extraordinary services to Spain or the promotion of international relations and cooperation with other nations. It was reorganized by royal decree on July 26, 1847, with the name “Royal Order of Isabella the Catholic,” with the award reserved to reward exclusively the services rendered in the overseas territories. It was extinguished by the decree of March 29, 1873, due to its incompatibility with the republican government, but was reestablished two years later by King Alfonso XII. The award survived the abolition of all orders under the Ministry of State under the Provisional Government of the Republic in 1931, and in 1938, Generalissimo Francisco Franco restored the order to reward meritorious services rendered to the country by nationals and foreigners. President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo is the latest Philippine chief executive to be admitted to the order, when she was awarded the Collar of the Order in 2007.

On February 21, 2001, during the celebration of the Council on Philippine Affairs which honored key players of People Power II, President Arroyo revealed for the first time that she had been talking with five different groups within the Armed Forces of the Philippines as early as January 2000 at the outbreak of the BW insider trading scandal, which implicated then-president Joseph Ejercito Estrada. This led former senator Rene A. V. Saguisag, a lawyer of former president Joseph Ejercito Estrada, to call on Executive Secretary Renato de Villa to investigate President Arroyo and the officers concerned. In a one-page letter dated February 24, 2001, the lawyer said that, with her disclosure, she had admitted to plotting against Pres. Estrada. Saguisag urged the Executive Secretary to “kindly start court martial proceedings, if warranted, before things get out of hand.” He continued: “We may now have the most undisciplined, unprofessional and ambitious military organization in the whole world, very different from what you had wanted to have when you were still in it,” in reference to de Villa’s military background. The Executive Secretary rejected Saguisag’s appeal.

Inauguration of President Corazon Aquino in 1986. Photo: Malacañan Palace Archives

The second comprehensive government reorganization espoused a development-oriented structure, with the promotion of simplicity, economy, and efficiency in the government to enable it to pursue programs consistent with national goals for accelerated socio-economic development and to improve the service in the transaction of public business as objectives. On September 9, 1968, Republic Act No. 5435, which set forth the principles and mechanisms for the proposed government reorganization, was approved. The original deadline for the nine-member Commission on Reorganization to submit to the president an integrated reorganization plan was moved from December 31, 1969 to December 31, 1970 with the approval of Republic Act No. 6076. The president, in turn, must submit the plan to Congress within forty days after the opening of the next regular session, which was extended to a hundred calendar days after the opening of the second regular session of the Seventh Congress through the enactment of Republic Act No. 6172. On December 29, 1970, President Marcos created the Presidential Commission to Review and Revise the Integrated Reorganization Plan to make changes and refinements in the said plan; to prepare the final draft of the reorganization plan for submission to Congress; to provide congressional members with the necessary assistance in the presentation of the plan for consideration by Congress; and to undertake informational activities to ensure wider understanding and support of the reorganizational proposals. The original term of the members of the commission was extended from March 31, 1971 to June 30, 1971 through the issuance of Executive Order No. 308, s. 1971. On March 3, 1972, the president submitted to Congress the Integrated Reorganization Plan for its consideration. However, Congress was not able to complete its deliberation on the plan due to the imposition of martial law on September 21, 1972. Using his decree-making powers, Pres. Marcos ordered the implementation of the reorganization plan through Presidential Decree No. 1 issued on September 24, 1972.

The Malolos Constitution of 1899 decreed that all parcels of land, buildings, and other properties that religious orders used to own in the archipelago had been restored to the Philippine state as of May 24, 1898 when the Dictatorial Government of Cavite was established. However, the subsequent occupation of the country by the Americans meant that the question of the friar lands—as these estates were known—would be the concern of the new conquerors. The religious corporations, of which the Dominicans, Augustinians, and Recollects were the largest, would not voluntarily sell these lands, and they guaranteed that no one would be able to buy or rent them by imposing prohibitive amounts on them. The sale of these lands to the government would have widespread economic effects, since it meant that Filipinos would then be able to use them for agricultural purposes and that taxes could finally be levied on the holdings, since church properties are not taxable. Governor General William Howard Taft initiated negotiations with the Holy See for the sale of these lands. Before the Second World War, court actions were instituted for the acquisition by the government of the titles to some of these properties, based on the view that the Catholic Church failed to comply with the terms of the grants upon which the lands in former times were entrusted to the Church and its orders. During the administration of President Roxas, eight estates were purchased by the government: Dinalupihan (Bataan); Nuestra Señora de Guia (Manila); Ana Sarmiento (Manila); Tambobong (Rizal); Baclaran (Rizal); La Faja del Mar (Rizal); Loñgos (Rizal); and parish properties in Polo, Bulacan. This purchase marked the final disposition of all estates owned by the Archdiocese of Manila. In exchange, the funds used for the purchase of the said estates were to be used for the rehabilitation of the Monte de Piedad and the Philippine Trust Company.

Alfredo Montelibano was born in 1905 to Alejandro and Liceria Montelibano in Silay City. He graduated from the University of the Philippines. In 1938, he was elected as the first mayor of Bacolod. During the war, he escaped capture by the Japanese by hiding in the mountains and served as military governor of the Free Negros Islands Government until 1945, when he was appointed to the cabinet of President Sergio Osmeña as Secretary of National Defense. He was appointed as chairman of the Import Control Commission in 1950, administrator of the Office of Economic Coordination from 1954 to 1955, chairman of the National Economic Council from 1955 to 1956, and chairman and general manager of the Rice and Corn Administration from 1968 to 1971. He was likewise an industrialist, serving as president of the Planters Products, Inc., Chamber of Agriculture and Natural Resources of the Philippines, board chairman of the Philippine Commercial and Industrial Bank, Pacwood, Inc., Rizal Youth Development Foundation, Inc., and Meralco Securities Corporation. He advocated giving the working man a share in the profits of management and contributed to strengthening the socio-economic foundation of the country. He died on August 19, 1989.