Interesting things to do/see in Manila

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’m going to be an intern with the German embassy in Manila for six weeks in March and April (which, incidentally, is a real cool thing to me, because I’m interested in international relations and international law and I hope to get insights there that both fascinate and help me in my law studies).
Then again, I’d also like to use this opportunity to experience something, so any advice from people who know the Philippines and can give me some advice on interesting things to do and see in spare time is very much appreciated. Manila, as far as I know (I’m going to read some introductory literature on the country) seems to be one of those colonial 16th/17th century port cities, so I guess there could be a historical city centre with landmarks worth to visit.
I don’t know which opportunites, both time and budget, I’m going to have to travel around, but I’ll try to, so any remarks on things to visit outside of the city itself are also very much appreciated, and so is advice on which things I should rather avoid and where one should be careful.

Thanks for any input!

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Manila does indeed have a historical city center: the walled city of Intramuros. You’ll have fun exploring the colonial architecture. A lot of it was destroyed during World War II, but quite a bit has been restored since. You can look at the tourism page for more information on what you can find there.

You’ll be going during one of the hottest parts of the year, so try to get out of the city if you can. There are a number of good beaches within a couple hour’s drive from the city. Off the top of my head, some other places worth visiting are:
[ul]
[li]Taal Volcano[/li][li]Banaue Rice Terraces[/li][li]El Nido, Palawan[/li][/ul]
These are in order of distance from Manila, where you can go on a day trip to Taal, while El Nido requires you to charter a 1.5-hour plane ride.

I’ll post more as time permits.