SO OBVIOUS in its skyscrapers, glitzy malls and tony residential areas is the image of booming, progressive Makati, the country?s up-to-the-minute, undisputed center of business, political and social power.

The modern identity is so strong it overpowers the possibility of any Makati neighborhood having any heritage value that, surprising to many, is still found in forgotten Población, a quiet, middle-class residential area where traditional Filipino values are still practiced amidst low-key surroundings.

Población is what remains of old Makati, that little forgotten strip between Bel-Air Village and Pasig River which skyscrapers, glitzy malls and tony residential areas turn their backs on.

Its distinctive heritage, threatened by rapid development, has not yet been rediscovered and appreciated by local Población residents. But now Makati authorities are more than open to the possibility of recognizing and conserving the special heritage of the area.

To understand and appreciate this type of heritage, it is essential to let go stereotypes that insist on architectural heritage being monumental, grand and, above all, extraordinary monuments to the past.

Makati heritage is nothing like that. It has none of the drama and grandeur seen in Intramuros or Vigan.

Makati was never a monumental or grand town, but it does have outstanding heritage architecture: Sts. Peter and Paul Church; the modest former municipio now Museo ng Makati; some heritage houses built between the late 19th and early 20th centuries, particularly those owned by the Coronado-Guanio, Cu-Unjieng, Tolentino and Brillantes families.

Small-town ambience

The town started out as a humble rural outpost on the banks of the Pasig. Its core area, the old Población, continues to retain much of its small-town ambience till this day despite another part of the city striking it rich through commercial and real-estate development.

Regardless of its rich neighbor, the original Población remained a modest riverside town, keeping its middle-class ambience intact despite high-end, expensive development that just one generation ago swallowed up all the open rice fields surrounding it.

The homey ambience is the very core of Makati?s heritage, the unique quality that bestows Población its strong identity, heritage that uniquely combines middle-class residential homes from the postwar era to the 1970s with the simple, Filipino lifestyle that continues to be lived out each day in ?ordinary? surroundings, the type of ?living heritage? rapidly vanishing in urbanized Manila.

Ordinary, too, are the few unassuming wooden houses remaining in the narrow Población streets. Their wide overhangs, verandas and large windows so suited to the tropics to catch natural ventilation from what would have once been river-cooled breeze before the town grew, overpopulated and overbuilt.

Extraordinary is the quality of life enjoyed by residents of these neighborhoods. Unlike the isolationism in newer residential developments, neighbors still know each other and take time out to get together on the sidewalks or even socialize on the street. Here residents still walk to the store, market or school. The strong sense of community in Makati Población is admirable.

A factor that sets Makati apart from any other Philippine city is how it exists between two worlds.

Conserving the lifestyle

What Makati City authorities seek to conserve in Población is not only its heritage architecture (known as tangible heritage) but also the local lifestyle (known as intangible heritage).

It would be useless to conserve heritage architecture without conserving the lifestyle that takes place inside the architecture in the case of Población as it is a living community; not a dead one like Intramuros, which has hardly any official full-time resident while its heavy squatter population takes no interest in the area?s heritage significance.

Heritage conservation concerns not only architectural heritage but includes the lifestyle experience within the architecture and the surrounding neighborhood. Heritage is a total package that includes the tangibles and intangibles of an area.

The Makati City government and Población residents take an unorthodox view of heritage, wanting to make something out of the everyday and ?ordinary.?

One man?s trash, as it has been said, is another?s treasure. Makati has chosen to see treasure in what others usually consider heritage trash, the city committing to use it as a resource for community upliftment.

Rediscovered Población is the focus of the Makati government?s pioneering heritage program which aims to conserve the ?everyday? middle-class heritage as catalyst for future development.

City and barangay (village) officials have teamed up with Metropolis, an international organization of managers of major cities around the world complemented by a team of respected Philippine planners. Together they have begun drawing up a conservation plan for the Población area which uses heritage to stimulate economic growth for the residents while maintaining the existing ?ordinary? middle-class image of the area.

E-mail the author at pride.place@gmail.com