Intramuros is the oldest district and historic core of Manila, the capital of the Philippines. Nicknamed the Walled City, the fortified Intramuros was the seat of government during the Spanish Colonial Period. Its name in Latin, intramuros, literally means "within the walls". Districts beyond the walls of Manila were referred to as extramuros, which means "outside the walls."

The city was located then along Manila Bay and south of the Pasig River entrance before 20th-century reclamations obscured the city from the bay. Guarding the city is Fort Santiago, a citadel located at the mouth of the river. Construction of its thick defensive walls were started by the Spaniards in the late 16th century to protect the seat of the Spanish government from foreign invasions (most notably British and Dutch) and raiding Chinese sea pirates.

In an October 2010 report titled Saving Our Vanishing Heritage, the Global Heritage Fund identified Intramuros along with Fort Santiago, as one of 12 worldwide sites "On the Verge" of irreparable loss and destruction, citing insufficient management and development pressures.

Charles P. "Carlos" Celdran (born November 10, 1972) is a Manila tour guide, cultural activist, and performing artist. Growing up in Dasmariñas Village, Makati, Philippines, he began his art career at age 14 as a cartoonist for a local Manila newspaper, enrolling at the Rhode Island School of Design in 1991, where he began working in performance art. After university, he moved to New York City, where he lived an openly bisexual lifestyle. It was there that he first witnessed the effect of HIV on the queer community, which eventually led to his reproductive health activism in the Philippines. He continued his career in the performing arts, interning as a production assistant with the Blue Man Group and later working for other performing arts groups as a set designer and/or director. By 2000, Celdran was working as an assistant directors of the Heritage Conservation Society, a non-profit organization working towards preserving historical architecture. There he gained experience in directing historical tours, which set the stage for the launch of his own tour company "Walk This Way" in 2002. In 2005 he became the owner/director of an art exhibition space called The Living Room.

José Protacio Rizal Mercado y Alonso Realonda (June 19, 1861 – December 30, 1896), was a Filipino polymath, patriot and the most prominent advocate for reform in the Philippines during the Spanish colonial era. He is regarded as the foremost Filipino patriot and is listed as one of the national heroes of the Philippines by the National Heroes Committee. His execution by the Spanish in 1896, a date marked annually as Rizal Day, a Philippine national holiday, was one of the causes of the Philippine Revolution.

Rizal was born to a rich family in Calamba, Laguna and was the seventh of eleven children. He attended the Ateneo Municipal de Manila, earning a Bachelor of Arts, and enrolled in medicine at the University of Santo Tomas. He continued his studies at the Universidad Central de Madrid in Madrid, Spain, earning the degree of Licentiate in Medicine. He also attended the University of Paris and earned a second doctorate at the University of Heidelberg.

Rizal was a polyglot conversant in twenty-two languages. He was a prolific poet, essayist, diarist, correspondent, and novelist whose most famous works were his two novels, Noli me Tangere and El filibusterismo. These social commentaries on Spanish rule formed the nucleus of literature that inspired peaceful reformists and armed revolutionaries alike.