Pari-an

Pari-an is one of the oldest and most historic places in the country and it's remained the most wonderful heritage in Cebu City since 1590.

Parian evolved into a distinct settlement around 1590 when Chinese traders and artisans came to reside on the north side of the Spanish settlement of Cebu which Miguel Lopez de Legazpi had founded in 1565. The Spanish settlement was the section of the port area them called ciudad. An  estuary (later called Parian estero) flowed on the north side of this settlement and on its opposite bank the Chinese built a community that came to be know as Parian (a word somewhat perplexing etymology but most probably derived from a Mexican word for market place).

Chinese traders participated in the lucrative galleon trade and somehow had to settle down in Cebu. In time, Parian evolved into a market and trading center. Our first first reference to it comes from Pedro Chirino, the famous chronicler who was Superior of the Jesuit residence in Cebu. Chirino recorded that the newly-arrived Jesuits preached in the “Chinese quarter of the city” which had “more than two hundred souls and only one Christian”

The Jesuits opened a free primary school ( the forerunner of the Colegio de San Ildefonso, later Colegio de San Carlos). Here also, the Chinese Christians built a church that was to become one of the most magnificent in the province.

Parian formally existed as a parish from 1614 to 1828. It was also a separate pueblo or municipal unti from 1755 to 1849. These facts indicate that the district had a corporate  character vis-à-vis the other districts of the Cebu port area, like the ciudad, San Nicolas and arrabales (suburbs) as the Ermita-Lutao area.

Through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, Parian changed its identity into a district of mestizo-sangleyes (Chinese mestizos). Then during the nineteenth century, the Chinese mestizos of Parian were the most active entrepreneurs of Agriculture and agents of commerce.

The rise to prosperity of the Chinese mestizos was displayed in their lifestyle. The large canteria y teja (stone and tile) residences in Parian served as headquarters in the management of their agricultural estates. Their children were trained in business and the social graces, went to San Carlos or Santo Tomas for their studies.

At the turn of the present century, Parian was the residential area of the city’s wealthiest families. The district had a large concentration of stone and wood housed and was a center of the social life of the Buena sociedad cebuana.  

The physical boundaries of Parian have fluctuated in its know history.  There was a time when its parochial limits stretched as far as north Talamban. And there were times when it was merely a barrio of several blocks. Through all this time, Pairan gravitated around a center constituted of the small, triangular Parian Plaza and adjoining it was the Parian church. In the succeeding years, this area remained a public place for it was variously the site of a schoolhouses, a firehouse and a local library.

The Parian of Cebu is one of several parian in the Philippines. And, in sense, parian itself is merely a touchstone for those old places out of which our collective life was shaped.

Plaza Independencia

Plaza Independencia  is formerly known as Plaza Libertad. It is now a favorite park where families can have picnics and where lovers meet. It is also the one of the tourist attraction in Cebu City and it's strategically located between Fort San Pedro and the building that used to be the Gobierno Provincial in the downtown area of Cebu.There is also a public skating rink and a kiosk at the center of the circular skating rink. An obelisk dedicated to the memory of Miguel Lopez de Legazpi ,the first Spanish governor-general of the Philippines, is planted at the very heart of the plaza.

Plaza Independencia is the most historically significant plaza in Cebu. Its land and age-old acacia trees are witness to the many phases and stories of Cebu’s rich history.
In the early 1600s, it was called Plaza de Armas. When it was widened later on and expanded to reach nearby properties of the Cathedral of Cebu, it was called Plaza Mayor. Later in the Spanish rule, it was further landscaped and developed and was christened Plaza Maria Cristina, in honor of the queen regent. During the American colonial period, its name was changed to Plaza Libertad, as the Americans asserted how they liberated Cebuanos from the Spanish rule. Later on it finally became known as Plaza Independencia.

Fort San Pedro

Fort San Pedro is a military defense structure, built by Spanish and indigenous Cebuano laborers under the command of Spanish conquistador, Miguel López de Legazpi and the Spanish Government in Cebu. It is located in the area now called Plaza Indepedencia, in the Pier Area of Cebu City, Philippines.

The smallest, oldest triangular bastion fort in the country was built in 1738 to repel Muslim raiders. In turn, it served as a stronghold for Filipino revolutionaries near the end of the 19'th Century. This served as the nucleus of the first Spanish settlement in the Philippines.

The fort is triangular in shape, with two sides facing the sea and the third side fronting the land. The two sides facing the sea were defended with artillery and the front with a strong palisade made of wood. The three bastions were named La Concepción (SW); Ignacio de Loyola (SE), and San Miguel (NE). It has a total inside area of 2,025 sq. metres. The walls are 20 feet (6.1 m) high, 8 feet (2.4 m) thick and the towers are 30 feet (9.1 m) high from the ground level. The circumference is 1,248 feet (380 m). The sides are of unequal lengths and the one fronting the city is where one may find entry into the Fort. Fourteen cannons were mounted in their emplacements most of which are still there today. Work first started on May 8, 1565 with Miguel Lopéz de Legazpi breaking ground.

Magellan's Cross

Magellan's Cross is a Christian cross planted by Portuguese, and Spanish explorers as ordered by Ferdinand Magellan upon arriving in Cebu in the Philippines on (depending on source) April 14 or 21, 1521. Magellan planted a cross to signify this important event about the propagation of the Roman Catholic faith in what is now Cebu, in central Philippines. The original cross is reputedly encased in another wooden cross for protection, as people started chipping it away in the belief that it had miraculous healing powers.

his prompted the government officials to encase it in tindalo wood and secured it inside a small chapel called "kiosk." Some say, however, that the original cross was actually destroyed. The Magellan cross displayed here is said to be a replica of such cross. It is housed in a small chapel located in front of the present city hall of Cebu, along Magallanes Street (named in honor of Magellan).

Sadly, Magellan met his death under the hands of another Visayan chief, Lapu-Lapu, when he went to the nearby island of Mactan. Mactan is also part of today's Metropolitan Cebu. There, both the statues of Magellan and Lapu-Lapu proudly stand to commemorate the tragic meeting of east and west in this part of the world.
It took another 45 years (1565) before Cebu was visited again by another European. Miguel Lopez de Legazpi, under orders from King Philip of Spain, came and made Cebu the first capital of the Spanish colony known as Las Islas Filipinas.

Santo Niño de Cebú

Santo Niño de Cebú ("Holy Child of Cebu") is a Roman Catholic figure of the Child Jesus highly similar to the Infant Jesus of Prague. Cebu City is thus known as the "Cradle of Christianity in The Far East". A few years ago I had the privilege of visiting the Basilica of San Agustin in Cebu in order to Venerate The Sacred Image of Santo Nino De Cebu. Through devotion to Santo Nino may the members of the Santo Nino De Cebu Association illuminate our City of San Francisco with the Light of the Peace and Love of the Christ Child".

History

In April 1521, Portuguese explorer Ferdinand Magellan, in the service of Charles I of Spain, arrived in Cebu during his voyage to find a westward route to the Indies. He persuaded Rajah Humabon and his wife Humamay, to pledge their allegiance with Spain. They were later baptized into the Catholic faith, taking the Christian names Carlos and Juana. Magellan presented the Santo Niño to the newly-baptized Queen Juana as a symbol of the alliance. To her husband Carlos, Magellan presented the bust of the "Ecce Homo", or the depiction of Christ before Pontius Pilate. He gave an image of Our Lady to the natives who were later baptized with their rulers. However, Magellan died later on April 27, 1521 in the battle that took place in Mactan, leaving the image behind. In its new environment, among sun-loving people, the image stopped being a Christian symbol. After some vain efforts on the part of the natives to destroy it, as legends say, it endured its new setting and prevailed to become a pagan idol. The Cebuano natives revered the Image of Santo Niño as Bathala. They most probably blessed the image with oil or offered sacrifices to the Santo Niño while invoking for His assistance in times of difficulties, reliefs in their necessities or consolations in their adversities.
Writer Nick Joaquin in his 1980 paper delivered before the Cebuanos, he talked about these years after the Magellan men left and before the next Spanish expedition came under Miguel Lopez de Legazpi – all 44 unaccounted years. Joaquin said that “during that strange interlude… the wondrous miracle happened: we accepted the Santo Niño as part of our land, part of our culture, part of our history. During those 44 years when the Cross had vanished from our land, the Sto. Niño kept us faithful to him”. It is such a symbol of Philippine history “because it came with Magellan, became a native pagan idol, was reestablished as a Christian icon by Legazpi, and has become so Filipino that native legends annul its European origin by declaring it to have arisen in this land and to have been of this land since time immemorial.

In those unaccounted years, the Image became part of Cebuano life. And this is probably why when asked about the Image, as it was found in 1565 by the Legazpi expedition in one of the village houses, the natives refused to relate it to the gift of Magellan. They said it was there at the beginning, since ancient times.
Writer Dr. Resil Mojares, also in a 1980 paper, said that the claim of the 1565 Cebuanos that the Image was native and ancient in the land was probably because they were afraid to admit that it was a Spanish property or else it would be taken away from them.
The natives’ version of the origin of the Santo Niño is in the “Agipo” (stump or driftwood) legend about magical driftwood caught in the fishhook of an ancient native fisherman. Everytime he throw it away, it reappeared until decided to keep it. Then, oi! The fish catch became so plentiful for the fisherman that day. The agipo, brought to the settlement, would later manifest its powers to the people – guard the people’s harvest, protect them from pestilence.
Writer Mojares says this legend of the magical driftwood would only be natural to the folk mind. “The folk mind cannot completely conceive of a God that is manufactured in a workshop somewhere in a country called Belgium but it can believe that a God can rise out of the sea and bring on the rains by being submerged again in it.”
Thus, the unaccounted 44 years of the stay of the Image in the hands of the natives is part of Philippine history. The Sto. Niño, as writer Joaquin put it, “connected, he linked, he joined together our pagan and our Christian culture; he belonging to both.”
Many years later in 1565, Juan de Camus, a mariner of the second generation of Spanish Colonial campaign under Don Miguel Lopez de Legazpi found inside a pine box an unscathed Image of the Santo Niño. The adorable image believed to be of Belgian origin stands roughly at 30.48cm tall, wearing a loose velvet vestment, a gilded neck chain and a woolen red hood. It is carved from wood and coated with paint. The image holds a golden ball, a replica of the world in the left hand, and the right hand is slightly raised as a gesture of blessing.

Deeply impressed by this discovery, Camus presented the Image to Legazpi and the Augustinian priests. They were so humbled by the significance of the finding of the image that in solemnity, the image was carried in a procession to a provisional chapel. Legazpi then ordered the creation of the Confraternity of the Santo Niño de Cebu with Fr. Andres de Urdaneta as its head. A devotee of the Child Jesus himself, Legazpi installed a festivity in commemoration of the finding of the Holy Image. Although the celebration still survives until today, Pope Innocent XIII moved the celebration to the Third Sunday of January so as not to conflict with the 40-day celebration of Easter.
Presently, the image is dressed like a royalty with its ornate decorations, including a sash adorned with old Castilian coins and a Toison de Oro (Golden Fleece) with a ram pendant reputedly given by King Charles III in the 17th century, the image now stands in grandeur that continues to captivate the hearts and souls of his fervent devotees.
Stories of the Miracles of the Señor Santo Niño spread like wildfire in the Seas, placing Cebu as the Cradle of the Santo Niño devotion in the Philippines. His devotion spanned to the nearby island-provinces of the Visayas, then advanced to the north to as far as the Ilocandia and reached down south in Mindanao.
The Basilica Minore del Santo Niño built on the very same spot where the image was found on April 28, 1565, housed the statuette of the Santo Niño. Originally made out of bamboo and mangrove palm, the Santo Niño Church developed into a fortress where ardent devotees from all walks converge for thanksgiving or supplication to the Child Jesus, whom they have venerated through the centuries. With the increasing number of devotees flocking the Church of Santo Niño, Pope Paul VI elevated its rank as minor basilica with all rights and privileges accruing to such conferment for the Quadricentennial celebration of Christianity in the Philippines.
Numerous miracles have been wrought by the power of the Santo Niño. It is said that a voluminous book is needed to contain all the attestations and testimonials of the goodness and mercy of the Infant Jesus of Cebu. Considered as the prime of all Christian relics in the Philippines, the image of the Infant Jesus continues to shine as the lodestar that attracts the hearts of the Filipino people.
Meanwhile, the Visayans continue to manifest affection with the Santo Niño, who, not only during his feast day, but all year round.

Cebu (Cebuano: Sugbo) is a province in the Philippines, consisting of Cebu Island and 167 surrounding islands.
Cebu  is also the first Spanish settlement in the country and the oldest city in the country.
Cebu is one of the most developed provinces in the Philippines, with Cebu City as the main center of commerce, trade, education and industry in the Visayas.
Cebu is also known as "Queen City of the South". It is one of the most popular destinations in all of the Philippines for foreign tourists.

The language spoken in Cebu City is Cebuano which is also known as "Bisaya".  The majority of its population are Roman Catholic, there are also some followers of Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism.