Revisiting National Museum Part 1 (Museum of the Filipino People)

Hooray travel buddies! I'm back! So for today I want to share with you another side trip that I had for this week. Last Wednesday, February 24, 2016 our class was required to attend the successful screening of our documentary films at The National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) building located inside Intramuros and I was pleased to visit again its great fortress. 

Today's destination can't be found inside the "Walled City", so want to know where we'll be heading? Scroll down now to start our expedition!  

So after the event, we ate our lunch. Then, me together with some of my friends decided to visit the National Museum of the Philippines, since it’s only stone’s throw away from Intramuros. Yeah! that's the place we'll be exploring today. So continue scrolling down to know more about it. You want more? I'll give you more!

Like Intramuros, our chosen place for expedition has gone through many things and has been already there for a long period of time, since October 29, 1901 and served as an insular Museum of Ethnology. So if you want to know more about its historical background, just check the picture down below. 

National Museum of the Philippines is one of the best and ideal places  when it comes to  rediscovering cultural and historical treasures of our country. Various artifacts were exhibited to different galleries of the museum.

This time we visited the museum not just because it is required  by a professor for the sake of our grades, but because of the eagerness we have in our hearts and so I could have something to post on my blog..hahaha..just joking! No, really we are very excited to visit again the National Museum and rediscover many things for the sake of being natural-born Filipinos. 

But before we could enter the National Museum, let us first settle our entrance fees! So for Adults you should pay 150 pesos while Senior Citizens with ID will  only pay for 120 pesos and for Students with ID you could tour around for only 50 pesos. But if you want to go there for FREE, yes! yes! yes! you've read it right! You can explore around the museum for FREE! You should visit the museum during Sundays! (Now it give us more reasons to love Sundays!)

So National Museum is open through Tuesdays to Sundays from 10:00 am till 5:00 pm. I suggest you should go there as early as 10:00 am so you could have a lot of time checking those artifacts and artworks.

I actually visited the Museum of the Filipino People for the fifth time and my second time around in the National Art Gallery. Okay so let us now start rediscovering the National Museum of the Philippines! Wohoo! Later on you'll see my favorite parts of the museum and also the artworks and artifacts that caught my attention.

Museum of the Filipino People

Let us first explore the Museum of the Filipino People or Museo ng Lahing Pilipino. Back when I was a kid, I remembered that this place was always part of the itinerary for our field trip. I went there for the first time when I was a third grader and since I was a kid, I was mesmerized by the things that I saw, but I only appreciate it because it's the first time that I encountered it.

But now that I visited it again for the fifth time, I had so many realizations and discoveries. First it showed me how very rich the culture and traditions of the Filipinos are. Second, it exposed the creative minds of many Filipinos from the different parts of our country. Third, there are so many stories to be told from the history of anything that can be seen inside the museum and a lot more of realizations and discoveries within the galleries of the museum. So you better check it out and see for yourself.

So for the first gallery, you could explore the San Diego Exhibit where you'll find the things that was retrieved and recovered from the wrecked ship of San Diego. You could check some of the photos of the exhibited artifacts down below.



Cannons used in the battleship



Jars used for food and water storage

Blue and white porcelain plates

Kaban ng Lahi Gallery

                                     There's also the Kaban ng Lahi exhibit, where you can find archaeological treasures discovered from the different places around the Philippines. Also, the traditional practices of early Filipinos when it comes to burial was featured in this gallery. Here are some of the unearthed artifacts.

Linnaeus and the LInneans Gallery

There's also the Linnaeus and the Linneans Gallery where you could find preserved organisms such as plants and animals. Also, there's a copy of Carl Linnaeus book about Taxonomy, since his the Father of it and we know that he became famous in classifying and naming organisms. And with that I just want to say thank you Carl for enlightening us.

Garing

An exhibition of ivory trade that happened  in the Philippines entitled "Garing" was also featured inside the museum where you can see real ivory from the trunk of an elephant and other things made of ivory like necklace and other accessories.



Lantaka of War and Peace Exhibition

Another exhibition called "Lantaka of War and Peace" was presented where different sizes of  cannons used during the war were displayed.

Baybayin Gallery

If you want to discover the ancient and traditional scripts of the Philippines you should visit the gallery called "Baybayin" where you'll see different writing systems made by the various ethno linguistic groups.

Hibla ng Lahing Filipino

You can also visit the gallery of "Hibla ng Lahing Filipino" where it exhibits different kinds of textiles made by various groups in the Philippines. Also, beautiful weaves and clothing were displayed, where it shows how creative the hands of Filipinos are when it comes to creating hand-woven fabrics.

Bangsamoro Art Gallery

So we also visit the gallery that features the life of the Lumad people, an ethnic group that can be found in the southern part of the Philippines. Their traditions and culture was presented in this exhibition and I was fascinated that their rich and original way of life is well-preserved.

I was also very happy to see a portion of the Berlin Wall. Imagine all the way from Germany, there's a part of the wall that can be seen inside the museum. According to  German Parliamentary State Secretary Brigitte Zypries, “The piece of wall is a sign that democracy, freedom and peace prevail over dictatorship. It is a token of friendship between Berlin and Manila.” We actually received the 22nd section of the Berlin Wall out of 40 sections last October 7, 2015.

Aside from the Berlin Wall I also didn't expect to see a dodo bird that was already preserved. I just can't imagine that I saw an extinct specie where the last dodo bird was killed in 1681.

 

  

Okay so there you go, our expedition inside the Museum of the Filipino People, if you haven't visited the building I think you better go there for you to experience and see for yourself the wonderful things presented inside the museum. And for our journey inside the National Art Gallery, let's go to the part 2 of Revisiting the National Museum :)