Taguig: Where Manila's Future Meets Its Past
Taguig emerged from rice paddies and river commerce to become the financial and cultural engine of Metro Manila. What began as a settlement of skilled rice threshers in the 1570s—their name, taga-giik, eventually becoming the city's own—has transformed into a place where gleaming towers rise above streets designed for walking, where you can ride a gondola past Italian architecture, and where a military reservation gave way to some of Southeast Asia's most ambitious urban development. The city stretches along the northwestern shore of Laguna de Bay, bordered by older Manila neighborhoods to the west and newer suburbs to the east. It's not a destination of ancient temples or colonial plazas, but rather a thoroughly contemporary city where the present is still being actively built.
Bonifacio Global City and the Walk Worth Taking
The heart of Taguig is Bonifacio Global City, the redeveloped core of what was once Fort Bonifacio. This 1990s-onward transformation created something that feels almost imported: wide, tree-lined avenues, contemporary architecture, rooftop bars overlooking the skyline, and—unusually for Manila—streets designed for people on foot rather than cars. The Metrobank Tower rises to 318 meters, the tallest building in the Philippines, its height a visible reminder of the city's financial importance.
Spend your afternoon on Bonifacio High Street, a three-block pedestrian shopping precinct that functions as both retail destination and public gathering space. It hosts contemporary art exhibitions in its central park and stays animated into the evening. From there, stroll down Forbestown Road, where greenery and mixed-use developments with alfresco restaurants line what many consider Manila's most pleasant street. Walk to Burgos Circle, a traffic roundabout transformed into a public park ringed by cafes and bars, with a bronze sculpture at its center titled "The Trees"—three interlocking forms that dominate the space. This is BGC at ground level: designed, manicured, and walkable in ways most of Metro Manila is not.
As evening approaches, head to one of BGC's rooftop bars and sky lounges for panoramic views of the district's skyline, or visit Serendra, a mixed-use development on 11th Avenue that connects Bonifacio High Street to Market! Market! and offers alfresco dining among contemporary architecture. The Fort Strip, located at 28th Street and 7th Avenue, concentrates restaurants, bars, and clubs in a single building.
McKinley Hill and the Manufactured Spectacle
Just south of BGC lies McKinley Hill, an upscale residential and business area centered on the Venice Grand Canal Mall—one of Taguig's most unusual attractions. Opened in 2015, this shopping destination spans over 50,000 square meters and features an indoor replica of Venice's Grand Canal, complete with a scaled version of the Rialto Bridge and actual gondola rides at a fraction of what they cost in Italy. The atmosphere comes alive in the evening, particularly around the restaurants and cafes that surround the fake waterway. If you're skeptical about manufactured tourism, the Venice Grand Canal announces itself honestly; if you appreciate the audacity of moving Venice to the Philippines, the experience is oddly charming.
Next to the Venice complex lies Tuscany Private Estates, a neoclassical mixed-use development with its own collection of alfresco restaurants and cafes. The neighborhood's name—Tuscany alongside Venice, with Florence planned nearby—suggests a particular vision of European leisure transplanted to Metro Manila.
Museums and Deeper Exploration
The Mind Museum, located in JY Campos Park in BGC, is the Philippines' leading science museum. It opened in 2012 and houses five main galleries—Universe, Life, Earth, Technology, and Mind—filled with interactive exhibitions and live demonstrations. It's designed for hands-on exploration rather than passive viewing, making it useful whether you're traveling with children or simply curious about how contemporary museums function. Hours run Tuesday to Sunday, 9 AM to 6 PM.
The Manila American Cemetery and Memorial sits within Taguig's boundaries and warrants a visit for its historical significance and scale. The largest American World War II cemetery in the world, it contains 17,206 graves of U.S. soldiers who died fighting Japanese forces in the Pacific. Beyond the graves themselves, the site includes a chapel, monuments, sculpted gardens, and a museum displaying 25 mosaic maps depicting U.S. battles throughout the Pacific theater. It's open daily from 9 AM to 5 PM except Christmas and New Year; bring a photo ID. Entrance is free.
Elsewhere in Taguig, the Saint Anne Parish Church in the Sta. Ana neighborhood dates to 1587 and was built in Baroque style. The old cemetery contains the Simborio, a dome-shaped funerary chapel constructed in the 1700s. This is Taguig before the financial district—a reminder that the city predates its current incarnation by centuries.
The Libingan ng mga Bayani (Heroes' Cemetery) on Bayani Road serves as a burial ground for Filipino soldiers who died in World War II and for national heroes and former presidents including Elpidio Quirino, Carlos P. Garcia, Diosdado Macapagal, and Ferdinand Marcos. The cemetery contains several monuments, including the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and memorials to Korean and Vietnamese soldiers who died in the Philippines.
Where to Shop and Eat
BGC and McKinley Hill function as gastronomic zones where restaurants scatter across mixed-use developments, shopping malls, and streetside locations. Many restaurants are expensive by Filipino standards, but affordability exists if you know where to look. The Fiesta Market and Mercado Centrale in the larger shopping complexes offer street food at lower prices, as do Filipino fast-food and casual dining chains throughout the area.
Market! Market! deserves its own mention as a shopping and dining experience distinct from the luxury retail that characterizes much of BGC. This large mall combines regular shops with "air-conditioned street shopping"—a hybrid format offering bargains and local goods. Its external Fiesta Market section contains an open-air food court and a small amusement park, making it a place where the artifice drops away and something closer to actual street commerce occurs.
SM Aura Premier, opened in 2013, represents the opposite end of the spectrum: high-end shopping and dining in a curved L-shaped building that itself becomes a sight. Uptown Bonifacio, at 36th Street and 9th Avenue, forms a mixed-use complex with corporate towers and a dancing fountain on its fourth floor worth checking out. Fully Booked's flagship store on Bonifacio High Street spans four floors of books, magazines, and art supplies, with most inventory in English.
For galleries and contemporary art, visit MO_Space on Bonifacio High Street (daily 11 AM–8 PM) or scatter hitam in the South of Market section (Tuesday–Saturday, noon–7 PM). The BGC Arts Center on 26th Street hosts concerts and cultural events. Street art and open-air installations scattered throughout the district provide informal visual interest beyond the commercial spaces.
When to Visit and How the City Changes
November through February offers cooler, more comfortable weather, making outdoor walking and alfresco dining genuinely pleasant rather than an endurance test. This period is ideal for exploring BGC's streets on foot or sitting at Burgos Circle with a drink. Weekdays tend to be less crowded than weekends, giving you breathing room to move through the shopping precincts and parks. The Christmas holiday season brings festive decorations and special events, transforming the commercial spaces into something more celebratory than usual.
BGC comes alive differently at different times: day reveals the architecture and street art; evening fills the rooftop bars and alfresco restaurants; night transforms it into a nightlife destination with clubs concentrated in The Fort Strip and scattered throughout the district. McKinley Hill's Venice Grand Canal genuinely becomes a different experience in the evening when the surrounding restaurants fill with people and the fake canal's theatrical quality becomes the point rather than an embarrassment.
Start Exploring
Taguig won't offer you the colonial grandeur of Intramuros or the bohemian neighborhoods of other Manila districts. What it offers instead is a vision of how a major Asian city can be rebuilt: walkable, designed, genuinely pleasant to move through, and without pretense about what it is. Come to see how a military reservation becomes a financial center, to walk streets actually meant for pedestrians, to ride a gondola past the Rialto Bridge if you're amused by the absurdity, or to stand on a rooftop and look out at a skyline still being written. Taguig is the Philippines' future becoming visible, brick by brick and tower by tower.