Gabii sa Kabilin: Cebu's annual museum tour

Way back in the mid-’80s when Cebu marketed or sold itself as “An Island in the Pacific” with the brave efforts of our good friend Mr. Anos Fonacier who originally built the Cebu Plaza Hotel (now called the Marco Polo Plaza Hotel) this opened the doors to Cebu’s Tourism Boom that begun with charter flights from Japan and later turned into direct regular flights from Narita to Cebu. This allowed Cebu to gain a reputation unheard of in the Philippines, which at that time, had a very poor international reputation under the Martial Law regime of the Marcos dictatorship.

This was because Cebu tourism flyers that were placed behind the headrest of Japanese taxicabs showed picturesque white sand beaches in Mactan and since then, a lot of Japanese (although admittedly, the Koreans have already overtaken the Japanese tourists in number) tourists have been to Cebu and back. Even better, when they returned to Cebu, they came to establish businesses in the Mactan Export Economic Zone (MEPZ). All this thanks to this very unique advertisement that captured the imagination of our foreign tourists. You can also say that the same thing happened with the Sinulog Festival that through the years has blossomed and has been dubbed the country’s biggest tourist attraction or Asia’s best festival!

Last Friday evening, The Ramon Aboitiz Foundation, Inc. (RAFI) together with nine museums in Cebu City held its 4th annual “Gabii sa Kabilin” (Night of Heritage) Museum tour, participated by the Casa Gorordo Museum, the Yap-Sandiego Ancestral House, the Cathedral Museum of Cebu, the University of Southern Philippines Foundation (USP) Rizal Museum, the Sacred Heart Parish, the Fort San Pedro, the Museo Sugbo (the old Provincial Jail), the Basilica del Sto. Niño Museum and biggest surprise of my life... the 1730 Jesuit House on Zulueta St.

I have to hand it to the Ramon Aboitiz Foundation (RAFI) for bringing all these museums together in a very unique annual event, where a hundred pesos will give you free snacks or food and a free ride to all the nine museums all in the evening where the heat isn’t so bad. This was the third time for me to join the Gabii sa Kabilin, but last Friday night was perhaps the most attended affair as even late in the evening, crowds of people with their families where there looking at the history of Cebu. This is something uniquely Cebuano because it is not done elsewhere in the Philippines.

I submit that the only time we go to museums is when we travel abroad and see the museums of other countries. But how many of us make an effort to see our history and culture depicted by our museums? But slowly, Cebuanos are learning to do this annual cultural tour so they can see how Filipinos used to live in the old days. Let’s hope they’ll do it in Manila soon.

I must confess that last Friday evening was the first time I went to the Museo Sugbo and I was pleasantly surprised that this edifice that used to be a horrible provincial jail has now become a great museum. I was amazed to see old Teatro Oriente flyers or advertisements that the Avila Family (we still operate the Oriente Theater in downtown Colon St.) doesn’t even have. Then there was this article that apparently showed that Dr. Jose Rizal did come to visit Cebu on his way from Dapitan to Manila during a brief stopover. Yes, there were lots of old newspapers, including The Freeman, Cebu’s oldest.

I was so engrossed in the Museo Sugbo that I missed the Santa Cruzan sa Parian 2010, done by Val Sandiego with the support of Joey Enario and Ms. Joy Uy of the Taytayan Group who held it at the Heritage Monument. The Sagalas were Ms. Sheila Colmenares, Christine Abalo, Monica Villarica, Bernadette Kawakami, Yulitde Amazona, Hana Momongan, Cookie Queblatin-Chan, my niece Alayne Cañizares and Congresswoman-elect Marguerite “Cutie” del Mar who told me that it was her second Santa Cruzan ever.

The biggest surprise of the evening was my unexpected visit to what I would dub “The Oldest House in Cebu”. Unexpected because my son JV parked the car along Zulueta St. As we were about to leave Parian, it was then that we noticed that the old hardware was a participant in the Gabii sa Kabilin. I grew up in Parian and I have never known or seen what I was told was the 1730 Jesuit House. This house is tucked well inside the Ho Tong Hardware warehouse. Very few Cebuanos know that this very antique residence existed at all (it was eventually bought by the Alvarez family). It was simply amazing to find a house in Cebu City that is even older than the United States of America!

If you ask me, the Gabii sa Kabilin will grow bigger and better in the years to come, just like the Sinulog. It also hopes to make visitors appreciate Cebuano history and culture. I even met National Historical Commission chair Ambeth Ocampo (we both share the same passion with history) who was with Mexican Ambassador Dr. Tomas Javier Calvillo Unna.

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