This morning our photography club decide to do a trip of Manila Intrumuros to capture the wonderful old buildings and roads, thus helping our own learning on the subject of photography and indirectly promote one of Manilas proud tourist destination. So we woke up early on the Saturday morning and rushed to the parking of San Agustin Church to start our quest.
We started off from the front of the church and wanted to start with our primary objective for the day, Case de Manila, a beautifully preserved showcase of Fil-Spanish way of life and history. Started well with us taking a few photos of the road outside and then came this ‘tahoe-seller’, (bean curd with sweet tasting additives) and we had a nice round of warm tahoe breakfast. Then the trouble started.
There was this lady guard pointing some of the guard dressed in traditional ‘guardia civil’ uniform from a century ago towards us. In the beginning I though may be some of our people by mistake dropped there plastic glass after having Tahoe, and I tried looking and finding if we did something in that order; but no, they came towards us and told us that we can not take photo here without permit. Hum…. That got my attention, I tried to clarify if there is a mistake and they think we are making some kind of commercial project or documentary movie etc, I tried explaining that we are just photography enthusiasts and touring the fort city like any other tourists capturing the great views. That sort of made sense to that guard and he said, ah ok, then its fine and left.
Soon we were at the courtyard of the ‘case de manila’ a wonderfully preserved tourist venue, some how that lady guard was over eager and started to call all other guards and again came to announce that we can not take pictures and should go back apply officially and come back with a permit. We tried explaining the same thing to her and other guards again but it did not seem to work. They were determined to spoil our day on the name of following rules. The guards were respectful but insistent that we need to have a permit; on that I requested to verify why do they want permit that would take may be a few hours if not a day, while we are just a regular tourists and taking photos like anybody else and same as what I have done few times before without any issue from any one. There ridiculous explanation was because we seem to be carrying expensive looking camera and tripods we must be making something commercial and should get permission to enter. I thought it’s a matter of just clarifying it and requested to talk to their supervisor to clarify the matter, in this process after spending about 30 minutes and meeting there supervisor and another engineer, and trying in vain to explain this out was finally suggested to take this up with the Administrator of Intramuros. So Dead end, our day was wasted and I believe a bad example for tourism set, unintentionally implemented by the tourism promotion authority.
After being consultant for some time with the Philippines Tourism Authority and also consulting in development of Resort and Tourism for some years before starting off in the IT industry that I am now; this came as a very interesting contradiction to what I believe the Tourism ministry want to achieve, and in general how things are done in this friendly and democratic country. This got me thinking; Can’t help but remember the stories what happened in China after the earthquake earlier this year when bringing in cameras were prohibited for tourist, for some reason.
So let me put the missing piece of notice board for Intramuros Tourist spots:
“Prohibited to take photos if you are local tourist with nice camera and tripods without formal permissions from the authorities.”
Please keep in mind before you plan on visiting.