Trip to Museo Sugbo

Cebu has been one of the Philippines’ very famous tourist spots for its cultural heritage. The Spanish era has left an imprint in Cebu that until now, many can still recall what happened during that time of the Spaniards in the Philippines. There have been quite a number of museums in Cebu also that keeps the remains of objects that were a part of the Spanish era and were preserved. One of Cebu’s very fine museums that I have visited during our field trip last year is the Museo Sugbo.

Museo Sugbo is also known as The Cebu Provincial Museum and it is found M.J. Cuenco Avenue. The museum is just near to Fort San Pedro and Plaza Independencia. The museum was designed by a Spanish architect living in Cebu named Domingdo de Escondrillas, who was also the architect of Sto. Tomas de Villanueva church in Cebu, during the year 1869.Much to my surprise, I found out that this was a former prison and the ones that were kept here like some Katipuneros and Japanese people during the late 1871. Before it became a museum, it was called Carcel de Cebu when translated to English it means Provincial Jail of Cebu. But before it was called as Carcel de Cebu, Carcel de Distrito meaning jail in the district of the Visayas was proposed. This was because of the very big space and the large construction that can fit a large number of people or prisoners during that time.

This also served as the prison where the famous YouTube sensation’s Cebu Dancing Inmates from the CPDRC (Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center) used to be kept at. But not much later, they were transferred to a much bigger prison space. Cebu City’s Governor Gwendolyn Garcia has made a move to turn the former prison to a museum which will showcase the things that were left behind or was part of the Spanish era.

My first visit to Museo Sugbo was during my third year in high school. It was our educational field trip around February 2010 and we also visited Fort San Pedro for it was a close distance to Museo Sugbo. My mind was filled with excitement that time since I did not know that there is actually a Museo Sugbo existing in Cebu. I have been to museums in the University of San Carlos (Main brance and Talamban branch) before and as far as I can remember, those were the museums I have been to. Thanks to our education field trip back in my grade school days.

When we arrived at our destination, we managed to grab some allowance for the entrance fee. It’s not that expensive anyway and since we were students on a trip, we had a discount. Outside from the gate, I can’t seem to stop looking at the front of the museum. It looked like an ancestral house but much bigger though. The design looked old and very much like the designs during the time of Jose Rizal, the national hero of the Philippines. It took us a while to get inside so while we were waiting, we busied ourselves roaming outside with our eyes searching for things that are remains of the Spanish era. 

We only saw a canyon sitting pretty outside. Though it was not that much of an eye-catching object but we still took photos with it. In fact, it was the only object in Museo Sugbo that we took so much photos with since the Museum doesn’t allow cameras inside. It was a fun moment taking turns in taking photos outside while still waiting. The canyon seemed like a celebrity that time because every one of us has a photo with it. 

Photo by Gene Rose Quiño-Quiñones

When the time came that we were finally able to go inside, we were astonished as to how big the place is. It was pretty spacious and very clean. The open space is so wide that I am pretty sure the Cebu Dancing Inmates can perfectly fit there. The first rooms we went to were the rooms in the ground floor. There were lots of different photos displayed in each room showcasing the old times in Cebu and other parts of the Philippines that were pretty much cultural and worth reminiscing. The photos were very old already that the people working in Museo Sugbo doubled the covering of it. We also got the chance to glance at the Philippine presidents’ old pictures and the projects they have done for the province of Cebu.

We have seen a lot of other things that were new to our eyes. They are not very much familiar and I was unable to take down notes for those since it was time to head to another room. The guide is quite fast in talking though, but the words coming out from him were pretty clear to understand and are accurate enough for gathering information.  

We then headed to another location wherein we saw the different things used by the Filipino people and other foreigners residing in Cebu during the old times. The money that was used by the Filipinos before were still preserved and the scratches were pretty evident in the money’s surface already. The coins had the prints of the animals like the Tamaraw and plants like the Coconut tree, each printed at the coin’s back. The prints also represent the amount of the coin. The paper money was wider compared to today’s present money and it looks very much like a play money because of its size.

There were also newspapers displayed, old ones probably. There were scratches on the sides like the money as well but to think that the newspapers were still in one piece and some text are still readable. There were also the kind of clothing worn during that era but there were not much of clothing displays at the room. The clothes still look fine and it seems that they are still available for wearing since it was not that torn but it would be a different atmosphere for people seeing someone wearing those styles as of today’s time. We can’t seem to see the baro’t saya and barong tagalog (national clothes of the Philippines) being worn nowadays, how much more those. A lot of things were displayed at the room that I can hardly recall but for sure, none of those things are available to be seen at present time around.

We, together with the Museo Sugbo’s tour guide, went to another room that was still filled with ancestral and cultural objects being displayed in the area. We actually came from upstairs and came down to check another room. The stairs leading to the room above were not the type of stair you see these days like with a defined look staircase. It was rough and rocky. I can imagine myself taking the stairs as if I was there during the Spanish era. I had fun going up and down despite the rough surface and the quite difficult to understand design of the stairs.

So when we were finally on the ground floor again, we went inside the rooms that were near the entrance gate and the guard at the middle who also serves as the cashier for the fees. The first room we went to was filled with statues of different saints. As far as I can remember, the tour guide said that the people before carried and kept this around. They (the saint statues) would serve as their guardians, keeping them safe during the war that was occurring that time and in any conditions either good or bad.

The room that we were in was a lot smaller than the rooms we have been to at the museum. It was not spacious enough and to think that there were a lot of statues displayed inside. I was again unable to take down notes since my schoolmates and other classmates were swarming around the tour guide. It was making me unable to hear what the tour guide was saying. Good thing that each statue has a short description.

Then we went to the room opposite to the room we were in. Still it was small and filled with statues and other antique things that were small displayed inside a glass. I did not enter the room anymore since a lot of students were inside and the space can’t seem to fit us all in one.

We, me and my classmates, just waited outside enjoying the breeze since it was a very sunny day that time. While we were waiting, we went around the very big open space in the museum. Despite the radiating heat of the sun, we took our time enjoying the beautiful scene before us: the museum itself.

It really is a beautiful museum even though the museum at that time was still in a progress of constructing new galleries. The beauty of it can’t be disregarded. It shows and reminds the people of the past. Good memories and some were not that quite good but everything I saw that day was priceless. Museo Sugbo is one beautiful museum filled with beautiful things to look at that can open the eyes and hearts of the Filipinos and other foreign visitors.

Sources: 

http://cebuheritage.com/heritage-of-cebu/govt-edifices/carcel-de-cebu-museu-sugbo/

http://www.markmaranga.com/museo-sugbo-the-cebu-provincial-museum/

my old notes during the february 2010 trip

1. Mark Twain, whose real name is Samuel L. Clemens, lived in Hartford for several years and wrote a classical American novel entitled Huckleberry Finn.
2. Mark Twain has a very elaborate and elegant house in an area called Nook Farm in Farmington Avenue and he was a neighbor of Harriet Beecher who wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin.
3. Windows and balcony overlook the porch of Mark Twain's home in which people say it reminded them of steamboat that Twain piloted in Mississippi in his youth.
4. In Hartford, Twain was one of the first three to own a telephone that was first used in nearby New Haven yet he never like this new gadget since there was no one to talk to.
5. The elaborate Paige setter was one of Mark Twain's inventions, in which he loved industrial designing, that lost fortune and was developed at the same time as the Linotype which was simpler and less expensive.
6. Since Mark Twain's daughter, Susy, died of spiral meningitis in Hartford, he never felt the same about the house and left it yet he returned once for Charles Dudley Warner's funeral, his friend.

Hostility to art

It never came to Plato's senses that artists can translate or explain such superb thoughts. He said that "finding a meaning" is a duty of philosophy. Artworks can deceive us from finding out what the real state of things are that's why they are prohibited from the society. Plato stated that the cosmos is arrange with the application of mathematics. Claiming that something should follow what Plato's example which has given a significance when it comes to art.

Plato: Beauty is an idea

Neither Plato nor Aristotle made a hypothesis about art, their thoughts still collided in which it connects to art. There are important things or facts to remember that are actually interposed by both philosophers. There are also important unlikeliness between the two. Like Plato's, "imitation should be more likely concerned with ideal forms" that runs the universe and creates harmony in the world.