MANILA, Philippines - Fernando Nakpil Zialcita, a true Manileño from Quiapo, heads the Cultural Heritage Studies Program at the Ateneo de Manila University while being deeply involved in Bahay Nakpil-Bautista, his family’s 1914 landmark house in the heart of Quiapo, now a museum and community center.

A respected authority in the study of Philippine culture, his two recently published books, “Quiapo: Heart of Manila” and “Authentic though Not Exotic,” are companion pieces that attempt to understand the casual, belittling Filipino regard toward the value of his culture and heritage.

In “Quiapo: Heart of Manila,” Zialcita looks at Philippine heritage from the perspective of an inner Manila resident who has devoted years of effort to the revitalization of the district of his birth.

Quiapo was a riverside suburb south of Manila (then confined mostly to Intramuros) in the 19th century that rose to prominence as the “city’s heartland in the 20th century,” always at the center of Manila activity.

Various writers bring out the uniqueness of Quiapo as an urban district and its transformation into what it is today. Still Manila’s central business area of crowded shopping areas and department stores, streets specializing in particular products (flowers, music, photography, optical goods, folk medicine, wedding supplies, dressmakers’ notions, and so much more) radiate from grand Quezon Boulevard and from Quiapo Church at Plaza Miranda.