The Mansion in Baguio City formally opened its doors to the public on Sunday after conducting exclusive private tours to students from nearby universities in August, according to Malacañang Social Secretary Bianca Zobel. The Mansion, the summer residence of Philippine presidents since the Commonwealth Period, is also referred to as Mansion House. The First Family has yet to schedule a vacation in the facility as it is still under renovation.
“The reason for this (opening to public) is that we have noticed that every day around 500 tourists are taking pictures outside Mansion House and on weekends, it reaches up to 2000. So, we would like to open the doors so that people can come and take pictures inside,” Zobel said. Zobel said they have also opened the Presidential Museum at Mansion House to encourage people to learn about the history of the place and the lives of past Philippine Presidents.
“This is also very important in unification, right? We need to know about our history and our culture so that we feel one,” she added. The Mansion is open to visitors from Tuesdays to Sundays, from 9 a.m.
to 5 p.m., accommodating 20 people per tour every 30 minutes.
“The rooms inside are small. The way you walk through, you might just bump into each other. So, that’s the reason we’re only doing 20 at once,” Zobel noted.
While walk-in tourists are welcomed, people are encouraged to book a tour through the Malacañang Heritage Tours’ website, Facebook, and Instagram pages. During the start of the Marcos administration in 2022, efforts to restore key locations in Malacañang, such as the Laperal House, Teus Mansion, the Goldenberg Mansion and Bahay Ugnayan have started with First Lady Liza Araneta-Marcos at the helm. Araneta-Marcos graced the opening of The Mansion yesterday.
“We have a long way to go. We’ve only started with the museum itself. We still have to do renovations on the roof and we wanted to also fix the gardens so that we can do walking tours in the future,” Zobel said.
Meanwhile, Erick Zerrudo, executive director of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts, said he is hopeful that more government properties will be repurposed for education and tourism purposes. “Now, we still haven’t sat down with the Malacañang team. But the formula basically is if there are still any edifices, facilities that have been left behind, we would really like to rehabilitate and refurbish them to something educational, touristic, that will also generate some sort of pride and sense of place for all the Filipinos,” he said.
Zerrudo is part of the team that formed the exhibits in the Mansion House as well as the Malacañang Heritage Museums. “The priority now that we see from Malacañang is that all the other facilities that have not really been maximized, we would like to operate that, come up with more educational, adaptive uses,” he said. “Who would have thought in our lifetime, we’d get to open The Mansion to the public? I think our generation really never had the luxury to visit The Mansion up close.
But this time, everybody is welcome,” he added..
