History of Cebu Interesting Story

[le@ndro]

---

nindot ni nga thread TS da daghan ato ni e saka

[crossramz]

can't help butlaugh pagka kita nako sa pics sa sanciangko street.. featured kaau ang sogo.. ahahaha.. I bet ang nag kuha sa pix ato kay nag lodging sa citiview pension house kay same angle kaau last time nag stay ko didto.. ahaha

[Engineering]

Some people are noted for their significant works. They are one of the factors in which a city may develop or not. And the only way to thank them is to give honor to their names.

Contemporary streets are named after people who played significant roles in the society after the Spanish regime and the Japaneses and American Occupation. These includes politicians, writers, aristocrats and many others who have greatly contributed to Cebu and the nation as well.



Buenaventura Rodriguez known as B. RODRIGUEZ STREET

This is a 0.842 – kilometer street which stretches across the Guadalupe River from Fuente Osmeña to V. Rama. He was born in Bogo, Cebu and studied at the Colegio de San Carlos, popularly known today as the University of San Carlos. He continued his studies at the Ateneo de Manila University where he developed his interest for the theater arts and dramatic arts.

He was known to have produced Visayan masterpieces,in the field of arts, such as the “Salisang”. He was also involved on plays and in newspaper writing.

As a politician, Rodriguez served at the Cebu Provincial Board (1921-1925). He was also a representative of the Cebu City 1st District (1925-1929) and 2nd District. He became the Provincial Governor of Cebu from 1936 – 1940.

He was remembered not only as a politician but also as a person who possessed the charisma that emanates from the goodness of his spirit.



Honorable Andres Borromeo known as BORROMEO STREET

He is known as the "The Fighting Judge", was a pure Cebuano native. He finished his secondary education and graduated in the college of San Carlos. He took up law in the Escuela de Derecho de Manila. He started his job in 1903.

Andres Borromeo was appointed Fiscal of Bohol in 1906, and also the Provincial Fiscal of Cebu in 1908. He was first a judge of the court in Surigao and Agusan, from 1914 up to his death in 1923. He was shot in the back by the infamous bandit Ronquillo while he was spending his vacation with his brother who was the Chief of the Street Service in Manila, Jose Borromeo.

In memory of this brave judge, one of the streets in Cebu City was named after him. A. Borromeo Street starts from Sancianko Street and ends at Magallanes Street. It passes through J. Climaco, Colon, L. Kilat, Carmelo and Nueva.



Dr. Nicolas G. Escario known as ESCARIO STREET

It is a1.007-kilometer Street named after Dr. Nicolas G. Escario, which played as a mayor and at the same time, as a doctor, when he ministered the city's health harrowed by war.

Escario proved himself adept at keeping situations at bay, when he was the mayor of Cebu City after the liberation period. An example of what he did was when the city ran short of funds for the salaries of its employees. Averting for further problems at the City Hall, he had use personal funds to add on the necessary amount to pay the employees, an act nearly extinct nowadays.

Because of her intergrity in performing his duties, he was appointed leader of the Provincial Board of Cebu province and then later elected as representative of the 7th district of Cebu for two successive terms.

He was also concerned with education when he founded a technical school now known as the Cebu Institute of Technology (CIT)and this gave a head start to the students in the Visayas and Mindanao.

Now, Escario would have walked with garlands of wild orchids or Waling-waling, the former identity of the street renamed after him on July 1960 by virtue of Ordinance no. 295.



Fructuoso Ramos known as RAMOS STREET

He who occupied Cebu City’s chief executive office from 1912 to 1922. He was born in the city of Cebu in the barrio of Sangi (present-day Lincoln Street) on January 21, 1869. His parents were Juan Ramos and Rosa Rodis. He completed his primary education in Colegio de San Carlos. Because of poverty he was not able to continue his studies but instead worked as a clerk in the municipal hall of Cebu.

He started his political career as a councilor of Cebu’s municipality and later on as vice-mayor of Vicente Teves. He became the mayor of Cebu City in 1912 and continued to serve the position until 1922. He was again reelected to the same position in 1931 to 1937 because of the people’s trust and confidence in his ability to manage the municipality of Cebu. He retired from politics several years before World War II due to old age

A street was named after him in recognition of his dedication as a mayor of the city and for his strength in character and integrity. He earned the distinction of being given this honor while he was alive.

[IMG]http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_eOQA8UzOj50/TRb_kJXk0wI/AAAAAAAAE7A/WW--v7rhBZk*******IMG0784A.jpg[/IMG]

Mariano J. Cuenco known as M.J. CUENCO

This 2.026-kilometer avenue established by the Americans. This is previously known as Calle Enrile in honor of the 45th Spanish governor who ruled the Philippines from 1830 to 1835. It was then changed into M.J. Cuenco on April 2, 1964, through the Ordinance no. 463. The street was then named after Mariano J. Cuenco, who contributed to attain nation’s democracy during those times.

Its starting point is corner M. Borces Avenue and end on the Port of Cebu. Some government agencies are loacted in this street like COA ( Commission on Audit) , NSO (National Statistics Office), among others. Some establishments were also being put up.



Don Pedro Cui known as P. CUI STREET

Don Pedro Cui,is a millionaire and philathropist responsible for the construction of Hospicio de San Jose. Located in Barili, Cebu, it is a place where people can spend the remaining years of their lives.



Sergio Osmeña Sr known as PRES. OSMENA BOULEVARD

This boulevard was named after Sergio Osmeña Sr., a true-blue cebuano. Born early in the American regime, he became one of the developers of his homeland, Cebu City. He became a lawyer in1903 and was appointed as an acting governor of his province. It was then that he started making improvements for Cebu.

This boulevard was previously named after Calle Rey Felipe, a patriot painter in the Philippine Revolution against Spain. This was renamed Calle Juan Luna who ws known for his Spolarium. During Osmena's reign as elected governorr, he widened the road to 20 meters wide twice that of Calle Magallanes.

President Osmeña retired to his home in Jones Avenue on 1946 and there was a move by Cebu officials to change Jones Avenue to Osmeña Avenue in honor to him. But Don Sergio humbly turned down the offer.

It took 15 years after the death of Don Sergio in 1961, to finally name this avenue in honor of his name and lifetime service to the Cebuano people.



Don Vicente Rama known as V.RAMA STREET

No other street in Cebu City is far more spectacular during the yuletide season than V. Rama. This street formerly known as Calamba, the well-known hometown of the Philippine's national hero, was named after Don Vicente Rama through Ordinance No. 275.


The street runs through a 3.050 - kilometer stretch, from the intersection of Paulino Sanchez and T. Abella streets north west of it en route to the historical Tres de Abril, and finally at the point where Katipunan and the Guadalupe road meet.

Don Vicente Rama became an exemplary public servant in his term as city mayor, assembly man and as a senator. Not only that, he was a family man and a father of 13 children. He had contributed in many ways to his Cebuano constituents. But he an dlife and memory will always be remembered not just a politician but as the Father of Cebu for having authored our city's charter.

whew! now I know.

[Engineering]

@le@ndro #51: Thanks sir.. Hehe
@gmaroxram #52: hahaha.. grabeh gi estimate gyud nimo sir.

[Engineering]

If i miss something just tell me. Im going to research about it.



The Tartanilla, as what they call it in Cebu. Karatela in Manila and Calesa in Iloilo. Each driven by a horse but variant of the carriage.

Descending from that Duljo-bound curb off the main road people call Jai-Alai, one can sense a stink strange enough for a new comer. This is however familiar to an old Cebuano. This is the horse dung, strewn on the constricted landscape of Duljo, coming from the queue of tartanillas awaiting their daily luck in commuters.

The tartanilla used to ply the busier arteries of Sancianko, Leon Kilat, Tres de Abril, that long stretch of N. Bacalso avenue and V. Rama. While there were those who were constantly irked by their presence, none could have thought there would be time they'd be swept out of the city's more conspicuous landscape. The kutseros' (coachmen) were not too keen back then on how to go about the unhygenic ways of how their horses dispose of their wastes. Not even considering the stink.

This however gave birth to the recognition to the making of tartanillas, a full-blown ndustry by the "Companieas de los Tranyias de Filipinas", a joint corporation of Spaniards and Filipinos, was aimed at mass producing as a means of transportation.

The Tartanilla mad of light construcion material, having a capacity of ten passengers and drawn by four horses and was then considered for the growing population in urban Manila. What was then considered was the archaic "carromata", a cart drawn by carabao (water buffalo), could no longer catch up with the fast-paced lifestyle of the Manileños.

The Tratanilla was however exclusive to the elite. But upon the creation of the Companias, 8,000 tartanillas were released to the major road of Calle Nueva on that fateful day of December 26, 1885. Thus a progressive company that shared ownership of the prominent Filipino and Spanish businessmen.

The scarcity of horses led the way to the creation of a new form, a 4-seater tartanilla driven by a single horse.

The tartanilla owners adorned it. The embellished tartanilla was also symbolic of the social status of the owners.

Nindota gud.. wala pay Pollution, pero social.. hehe

[Engineering]

Downtown Cebu, with all its colorful commercial establishments and heavy traffic , may not look like it but once was an old ciudad, site of the oldest Spanish settlement in the country. This 150-hectare urban sprawl contains within it many of our country’s first and oldest.

Roughly, downtown Cebu encompasses barangays Day-as, San Antonio, Kamagayan, Parian, Kalubihan, San Roque, Santo Niño and half of Ermita. Historic buildings and landmarks like the Basilica Minore del Santo Niño, Cebu City Hall, Fort San Pedro and Magellan’s Cross from its very heart.

Built in 1565, the Basilica is the country’s oldest church while Fort San Pedro, is the oldest and smallest fortress.

Casa Gorordo, the residence of Cebu’s first Filipino bishop; University of San Carlos, the Philippines oldest school; and Colon, the country’s oldest street are found downtown.

Other recognized historic streets and sites within the area include D. Jakosalem St. (formerly Calle Norte America), M.J. Cuenco (formerly Calle Martires), P. Burgos St., Magallanes St., Vision Theater, Bureau of Customs building, Prudential Bank, and the Metro Cebu Water District building.

It is sad to note that many of these historic buildings are in a sorry state. Vision Theater, the only remaining 1900s building of neo-classical design and the first built with reinforced steel and concrete, is classified as a first class historic resource. Today, however, it is run-down and hardly recognizable.

Colon Street was completely devastated by bombings from returning American forces in World War II. It is already asphalted and shows no evidence of old Spanish style buildings. So is P. Burgos. It is no longer lined by the people’s sense of past.

[Engineering]

Cebu's Old Power Company

One could say that Albert Bryan, R.R. Landon, Martin Levering and A.A. Addenbrook literally lit up Cebu in 1905 when they pooled their money and brains together that February to found then Bryan and Landon Electric.

They began with some P250, 000 and built a powerhouse beside the former Warwick Barracks (now Carbon) at the Ermita Beach District. With only one generator connected to a single-cylinder Corliss Steam Engine with only 350 horsepower, they started servicing a very limited clientele within the Municipio de Cebu.

Hijos de F. Escaño, Inc. of Malitbog, Leyte headed by the late Dr. Mamerto Escaño bought R.R. Landon’s controlling interest in the power company and took over operations. It was then that the power company was renamed Visayan Electric Company, S.A.

In 1928, the then American governor general Henry Stimson signed an act extending the power company’s franchise to include Mandaue, Consolacion, Liloan, Compostela, Talisay, Minglanilla, San Fernando and Naga.

With the increasing demand for electricity in Cebu, the power company kept up and by 1941 it could produce 20 times more power than during its initial operation.

Retreating American forces during the Japanese Occupation blew up VECO’s crucial generating units and the end of the war damaged almost all of the company’s transmission and distribution facilities.

Now I know.

[Engineering]

Parian in Cebu, Navel of a Region

Parian is one of the oldest and most historic places in the country. It started as a small community of Chinese traders in the sixteenth century, grew into the residential headquarters of the most dynamic entrepreneurs of Cebu and became the genteel district where resided the wealthiest families of the city.

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.

[Engineering]

San Nicolas, a Place in History

On September 10, 1574, San Nicholas was founded as a parish. Placed under the patronage of San Nicolas Tolentino, it had for its parish priest the Augustinian Alonso Serano.

Is San Nicolas “the first and oldest town of the Philippines,” as some of its residents claim? The sought-for distinction is rather arbitrary. What, after all, is a town or pueblo? It is a loose category that privileges Western (Spanish) acts of occupation since; after all, the archipelago already had several important population centers long before the Spanish coming.

San Nicholas itself existed as a community before the Spaniards came. Its old name is Tiwi (after a species of tree that grew in its riverbanks and shores). Others say it is Sawang (a place name that survives to this day and originally referred to “a place where people congregate”). Still, others say it is Sugbo (which, etymologically, means “to wade or enter into the waters”).

Whatever may be the case, San Nicolas was an important pre-Spanish settlement. In the early colonial period, it was referred to as “the native town”, to distinguish it from Ciudad de Cebu, which was originally reserved for Spaniards. In the late nineteenth century, it was referred to as :Tondo of Cebu” – an honorific, since it referred to how San Nicolas was the seal of the anti-Spanish revolution in Cebu.

wew! Now I know..

[Engineering]

First Medical Education

A decade after the turn of the 19th century, Don Matias Aznar II a Caviteño, met and fell in love with a Cebuana from Carcar, Doña Anunciacion Barcenilla, while both were studying pharmacy in Manila.

Shortly after their graduation, they got married and settled in Cebu to practice their profession. Both established a pharmacy in Carcar, with the help of Doña Anunciacion's parents in 1920.

Named after Carcar's patron saint Sta. Catalina, Botica Catalina flourished and grew into a chain of pharmacies before the war, with Farmacia Anun and Paz Pharmacy getting popular in Cebu City.

This also led to the setting up of Aznar laboratories that manufactured and distributed herbal-based medicines such as the highly popular children's vitamin Tiki-tiki and Castoria.

During the war outbreak, the Aznars flew to Cavite and a few friends gave them an idea to set up a school.

Right after the war, the Aznars moved back to Cebu. Their residence at Urgello St. was spared from the wartime destruction as some of the houses the family owned and were renting out. This then served as the first "school buildings" and classrooms of what would officially become as Southwestern College.

South Western University (SWU) is the first medical school that opened outside Manila after the war.

Ohh I've been there