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.

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.