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Cebu City

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Template:Infobox Philippine city The City of Cebu (Cebuano: Dakbayan sa Cebu; Filipino: Lungsod ng Cebu) is the provincial capital of Cebu in the Philippines and is the second most important metropolitan center in the country. The city lies on the eastern shore of the island of Cebu and is the first Spanish settlement in the country. It is the country's main domestic shipping hub and is home to more than 80% of the country's interisland shipping companies. Cebu is also the main hub, outside of the capital, of international flights into the country and is the most important center of commerce, trade, and industry in the Visayas and Mindanao, the southern parts of the country. It is because of this and other important aspects that Cebu City is dubbed the Queen City of the South. According to the official 2000 census, it has a population of 718,821 people in 147,600 households.

Cebu City is the center of a metropolitan area called Metro Cebu, which includes the cities of Mandaue, Lapu-Lapu, and Talisay. Metro Cebu has a total population of more than 2 million people. The Mactan-Cebu International Airport, located in Lapu-Lapu City is only a twenty-minute drive away from Cebu City. To the northeast of the city are Mandaue City and the town of Consolacion, to the west are Toledo City, the towns of Balamban, and Asturias, to the south are Talisay City and the town of Minglanilla. Across Mactan Strait to the east is Mactan Island where Lapu-Lapu City is located.

History

File:Magellan cross renovation02.jpg
Magellans Cross kiosk.
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The Heritage of Cebu Monument in Parian.

Cebu, or Sugbu, was already a prosperous settlement before it was colonized by Spain. It had trade relations with China and the other countries of Southeast Asia.

On April 7, 1521, Ferdinand Magellan landed in Cebu. He was welcomed by Rajah Humabon, who, together with his wife and about 800 natives, were baptized by the Spaniards on April 14, 1521 and are considered to be the first Filipino Catholics. Magellan, however, failed to successfully claim the Philippines for the crown of Spain, having been slain in neighboring Mactan Island on April 27, 1521 by the chieftain Lapu-lapu.

On April 27, 1565, Miguel López de Legazpi, with Augustinian Friar Andrés de Urdaneta, landed in Cebu. Legazpi renamed the city on January 1, 1571, from San Miguel to Villa del Santissimo Nombre de Jesus. During this six year period, Cebu City was the capital of the newly established Spanish colony.

See also: Manila Galleon

The province of Cebu was created under Act No. 2711 on March 10, 1917. It is the home province of Sergio Osmeña who succeeded Manuel L. Quezon as Commonwealth president during World War II.

In December 2006, Cebu City will co-host the ASEAN Summit along with neighboring Mandaue City and Lapu-Lapu City.

Geography

Cebu City has a land area of 291.2 km². Of this, 55.9 km² is classified as urban, while 235.2 km² is classified as rural. Its geographic coordinates are 10°17′0″N 123°54′0″E / 10.28333°N 123.90000°E / 10.28333; 123.90000. To the northeast of the city are Mandaue City and the town of Consolacion, to the west are Toledo City, the towns of Balamban, and Asturias, to the south are Talisay City and the town of Minglanilla. Across Mactan Strait to the east is Mactan Island where Lapu-Lapu City is located.

The city is politically subdivided into 80 barangays. These are grouped into two congressional districts, with 46 barangays in the northern district and 34 barangays in the southern district.

Culture

The city is an important cultural center in the Philippines. The city's most famous landmark is Magellan's Cross. This cross, now housed in a chapel, was supposedly planted by Ferdinand Magellan when he arrived in the Philippine Islands in 1521. It was encased in hollow tindalo wood in 1835 upon the order of the Augustinian Bishop Santos Gomez Marañon to prevent devotees from taking it home chip by chip. The same bishop restored the present template, or kiosk, located at the present Magellan street between City Hall and Colegio del Santo Niño. Revered by the Cebuanos, the Cross of Magellan is a symbol of the beginning of Christianity in the Philippines.

A few walks away from the Magellan's Cross is the Basilica Minore del Santo Niño, an Augustinian church which was elevated to the rank of minor basilica in 1965 during the 400th year celebrations of the Christianization of the Philippines held in Cebu. The church, which was the first to be established in the islands, is built of hewn stone and features the country's oldest relic, the image of the Santo Niño de Cebu.

Sinulog

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A 19th century map of old Cebu (downtown Cebu City).

Cebu City is also host to the popular Sinulog festival, held every third Sunday of January in honor of Santo Niño, the "Holy Child". The Sinulog is a dance ritual of pre-Spanish origin. The dancer moves two steps forward and one step backward to the rhythmic sound of drums. This movement resembles somewhat the current (sulog) of the river. Thus, the Cebuanos called it sinulog. The dance was meant to honor the anitos.

When the Spaniards arrived in Cebu, Magellan offered, as a baptismal gift, to Hara Amihan, wife of Rajah Humabon and later named Juana, the image of the Santo Niño. With Magellan gone, the natives likewise honored the Santo Niño with their sinulog. Because the Augustinian missionaries appreciated native culture, the sinulog was preserved but limited to honoring the Santo Niño. Once the Santo Niño church was built, the faithful started performing the sinulog in front of the church, the devotees offering candles and the dancers shouting "Pit Señor!"

During the annual feast of the Santo Niño, the basilica turns into a dancing hall after the solemn mass, with all the devotees executing the sinulog. The dance continues during the procession in front of the carroza which bears the statue along the streets of Cebu up to late evening.

In 1980, the city authorities of Cebu made the Sinulog part and parcel of the religious feast of the Santo Niños. A mardi-gras atmosphere was added, the innovation becoming more colorful each year. The religious and the earthy sometimes overlap each other but, as a whole, there is much fun for Cebuanos and tourists alike who find in the Santo Niño festival that part of every one's childhood that must stay like Santa Claus and halloween.

Arts and entertainment

Cebu City is renowned for giving birth to some of Asia's greatest entertainers like Pilita Corrales, Manilyn Reynes, Vina Morales and Lou Dayoc (an active local showbiz promoter and host). Most recently the city gained worldwide attention through ABS-CBN's facilities when one of its residents, 16-year old Kim Chiu,won the grand prize of the Philippines version of Endemol's Big Brother (Pinoy Big Brother.Keanna Reeves was also another winner in that show who is also from Cebu. Not to be outdone however is Raki Vega who won another ABS-CBN contest and is now an endorser of Cebuano products. The city also has its own orchestra, the Peace Philharmonic Orchestra, which was founded by international pianist Ingrid Sala Santamaria.

Also, the late reporter of GMA Network, Dan Campilan was born here. He was raised in Barangay Mabolo, Cebu City.

Most recently Emmilie Cuizon, a resident of Cebu City, has been recruited as the newest member of the SexBomb Girls, the largest and most famous girl band of the Philippines. Cebu City is also rich with talented bands and most notable of them all is Dice and K9 Mobstarr, a hip-hop band responsible for the now famous commercial song of Orange Brutus.

The city itself is also home to broadcasted variety shows Sabado na Gyud (ABS-CBN) and Oi (GMA Network), which continue to attract millions of televiewers across the entire Visayas and Mindanao.

There are currently three major local channels (Cebu-based) that features shows and documentaries relevant to the city and the province as well. They are Real Cebu TeleVision RCTV Channel 36 and Cebu Channel 28.

Sports

The city is widely considered as the mecca of sports in the entire Visayas. Placed in charge of the development of resident athletes is the Cebu City Sports Commission which was founded in 2001. The CCSC designates a special team for every sport, each one being called "Team Cebu City". The Philippine Sports Commission has its regional office located at the Abellana National High School/Cebu City Sports Center. Notable athletes from Cebu City include Richard Bitoon, Bowen Montecillo, Tito Sotto, and Loriz Echavez.

Nightlife

Cebu City's night life includes live bands, dance clubs, and karaoke bars (most commonly known as KTV's).

The calibre of Cebu's bands is generally considered to be exceptionally high, even though most of the musicians play by ear, never having learned how to read music.

Well-known restobars (restaurants/bars) include Ratsky's, Sinners and Saints, and Cafe Kahayag. Korean investment created two mammoth restobars, Sunflower and NASA (the latter located in neighboring Mandaue City).

For those that like to dance, the current popular clubs are VUDU, Loft, and Autoshop.

The restobars get going at about 9:00 PM, and tend to be packed on Friday and Saturday nights, while crowds are much thinner on weekdays. Partying goes on until about 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning.

Government

Main article: Barangays in Cebu City

Cebu City is a chartered city and thus is actually independent from Cebu Province. Registered voters of the city cannot vote for provincial candidates unlike its nearby counterparts (Mandaue, Lapu-Lapu, and Talisay cities) that form part of Metro Cebu. It is the capital of the province mainly because the provincial capitol is located in it. There were proposals however during the time of Governor Lito Osmeña to create an "administrative district" that would be independent from Cebu City. This would literally mean carving out Cebu City's Barangay Capitol where the provicial capitol and other provincial offices are located. The plan however didn't push through and was even followed by other proposals like the transfer of the capital to nearby Balamban town.

Cebu City is governed mainly by city hall, composed of one mayor, one vice-mayor and sixteen councilors (eight representing the north and eight representing the south). Each official is elected publicly to 3-year terms. The day to day administration of the city is handled by a city administrator.

Cebu City is politically subdivided into 80 barangays. The chief of the Association of Barangay Captains (ABC) also sits in the city council.

Economy

Cebu City
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The Cebu Business Park.

The local economy is mostly propped up by trade, services, and tourism. Small and medium enterprises, mostly driven by the natural enterpreneurial tendencies of its people, have played a great role in the economy. The city is also home to a number of national and international corporations some of which are homegrown. More than 80% of interisland vessels operating in the country are also based there. Recently, the entry of business process outsourcing (BPO) firms such as call centers have contributed much to the growth of the local economy. Such has made the city together with the nearby cities that form part of Metro Cebu as the country's second important economic center.

Cebu pulses around the old district popularly known as downtown area and is regarded as the main central business district. In the years that followed however, and with the city's growth and expansion, the concentration of businesses have expanded outside this area. In 1988, the Cebu Provincial Government sold a vast tract of land that was occupied by a golfcourse to a group of Manila-based businessmen, the Ayalas, who later developed it into what is now the Cebu Business Park, a neo-central business district. Just nearby is the Asiatown Information Technology (IT) Park, also by the Ayalas, which was once the old Lahug Airport and caters mostly to firms related to the information technology (IT) industry such as software development, telecommunication, call centers, among others.

Certain areas though still have to be addressed in order for the city and the rest of the island to sustain its growth in the coming years. The lack of space though has somewhat been taken cared of with the completion of the South Roads Properties (SRP), a 330-hectare reclamation area in the southern portion of the city. It was built by the city government through a loan and is envisioned to play a driving role in the economy especially that congestion, given the fact that most of the city's land area is mountainous, would definitely be an issue in the future.

Most businessmen have acknowledged that the city must work hard in attracting direct foreign investments especially for the SRP especially with the entry of China in the global playing field.

Infrastructure

Cebu City and the rest of the metro areas have all the necessary infrastructures sufficient enough for its pace of urbanization. The city is readily accessible by air via the Mactan-Cebu International Airport located in Lapu-Lapu City which has direct flights to Hong Kong, Singapore, Japan, Malaysia, Taiwan, Qatar, and South Korea. There are also direct transfer flights via the capital's NAIA that readily connects the city to other destinations in the world. The city mostly gets its power from an interconnection grid with the Leyte Geothermal Power Plant which also powers majority of the Visayas Islands. There are also coal-fired power plants though these have been controversial due to its impact to the environment. Another coal-fired power plant is nearing completion and is envisioned to make the city independent from the interconnection grid once completed. Distribution of electricity is provided by the Visayas Electric Company (VECO).

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Cebu International Port

The city is served by a domestic and international port which are handled by the Cebu Port Authority. Much of the city's waterfront is actually occupied by the port with around 3.5 kilometers of berthing space. The domestic port readily gives access to nearby islands and provinces. The city's central location makes it as an ideal transshipment hub. It is in fact home to more than 80% of the country's interisland vessels plying domestic routes mostly in the Visayas and Mindanao.

Telecommunication facilities, broadband and wireless internet connections are readily available and are provided by some of the country's largest telecommunication companies.

In the mid 1990s the Inayawan Sanitary Landfill was constructed to ease garbage disposal within the city. It is however nearing its lifespan although the Provincial Government is planning to build two sanitary landfills to serve both the northern and southern parts of Metro Cebu including Cebu City. In June 2005, the city fully implemented the segregation of wastes as mandated by law.

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Cebu City as captured from a moving ship.

Mass transportation throughout the city and the metropolis itself is provided by the popular Jeepneys. There were previous plans of setting up a mass railway system but it was deemed not feasible as of the moment due to the high construction cost that it will entail and the uncertainty of making the routes profitable. A metro bus system, however, was recently implemented.


IDEA analysis of AIM survey

Directly relating with the Asian Institute of Management (AIM) survey, the Institute for Development and Econometric Analysis Inc. (IDEA) analyzed that Cebu City's fast growth has resulted in an irony of sorts as the Queen City of the South slipped below the top five most competitive cities in the country last year, losing its former spot to Davao.

Veteran economist Cayetano Paderanga Jr., head of the team, stated that the city's ranking suggests that businessmen continues to have "anxieties" about "congestion in roads, water and others."

He also stated that concerned local governments must invest in needed infrastructure to address issues raised by the business sector.

Despite the setback however, Paderanga declares that "Cebu is still a fast growing city," and that its speedy growth led to economic development overtaking the city's infrastructure.

In the AIM survey, Davao replaced Cebu in the top five most competitive metro cities in the country. The other four are Las Piñas, Makati, Marikina and Muntinlupa. Cebu City finished last of 12 metro cities in terms of infrastructure but landed first of the same 12 cities surveyed in terms of linkages and accessibility [1].

Healthcare

There are currently four large, and privately owned, tertiary hospitals operating in the city that are modern and of international standards: Cebu Doctors' University Hospital, Chong Hua Hospital, Perpetual Soccour Hospital and Visayas Community Medical Center. Other tertiary hospitals can also be found within the metro area. There are three government hospitals, one run by the city, the other which is the biggest is run by the province, while the third which is a mother and child hospital is directly under the Department of Health. The city however just like any other in the country is rapidly experiencing a shortage of skilled nurses due to the high demand abroad where compensation is attractive. Most of the nurses already working in the hospitals have only a few years of training, some are even fresh graduates. Despite the fact that the country produces thousands of nurses annually, the turnover is still high with even some fresh graduates working for only an average of 1-2 years before going abroad. The government though has tried several ways to address this issue including requiring fresh graduates to serve in the country for a specified period of time before being allowed to work overseas.

Education

Cebu Normal University

Cebu City is the country's center of education outside of Metro Manila. It currently has nine large universities each with a number of campus branches throughout the metro, and more than a dozen other schools and colleges specializing in various courses such as Medicine, Engineering, Nautical courses, Nursing, Law, Computer and IT, etc.

Among these schools is the University of the Philippines Cebu College (U.P. Cebu) -- a branch of the University of the Philippines (U.P. System) which is generally acknowledged as the top university in the country. It is located in the Lahug district in Cebu City.

Its newest university, Cebu Doctors' University (formerly Cebu Doctors' College) was elevated to university status on November 2004. It is the first and only medical university in the Philippines and is currently constructing a nine-storey main building at the Cebu Boardwalk in nearby Mandaue City.

Many foreign students also come to Cebu City to study since education is relatively cheaper here. Most of them are Iranians and Nepalese who come to study dentistry and medicine. In recent years, many Koreans have come to Cebu to study English.

Cebu City has 68 public elementary schools, 23 national high schools and 28 night high schools. These night high schools are operated by the Cebu City Government. The City has a literacy rate of 97%.

Tourism

Tourism contributes a big chunk to the local economy. Inset shows Waterfront Cebu City Hotel and Convention Center which was constructed in time for the 1998 Asean Tourism Forum.

Tourism continues to contribute much to the local economy not just of the city itself but of the entire province and because of this the city hosted the 1998 ASEAN Tourism Forum (ATF). The city also hosted the East Asian Tourism Forum (EATOF) in August 2002 in which the province of Cebu is a member and signatory.

Early 2006, one of the island's famous landmark formally reopened under a new name, Marco Polo Plaza, after more than two years of closing its doors. The hotel complex was formerly occupied by Cebu Plaza which was the first deluxe hotel in the province. It opened in the early 80s and was viewed by some as a symbol of the province's economic growth.

There are a number of commercial establishments in the city, the most popular of which are the SM City and Ayala Center malls. There are also other smaller malls and stand alone department stores. Throughout the years however, the establishment of "strip malls" which offers some sort of a town center environment have become the trend.

Despite the presence of such establishments, the downtown area still remains the nerve of commercial activity in the city. The Basilica Minore del Santo Niño and the Metropolitan Cathedral are also located there.

Sister cities

Television Networks:

See also

References

Template:Indy Philippine cities

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