Of pocket gardens, Magellan’s Cross and Jose Rizal at Plaza Sugbo

We continue the series on Philippine plazas and parks, flying from Batangas to Cebu, with a feature on Plaza Sugbo. The plaza is the civic space between the Cebu city hall and the Basilica Minore del Santo Niño complex. It is best known as the location of Magellan’s Cross, one of the must-see heritage landmarks in the city.

I first visited the cross and the Santo Niño when I was a boy of seven or eight years. I was born in Cebu but we moved to Manila before I was two years old. My first trip back to the Visayas was by boat. My folks would send us kids to the province for summer vacation, accompanied by our grandmother. I remember the dolphins and flying fish that we would spot on the slow journey over.

Upon arrival at the port, we normally travelled straight to Sibonga or Argao, my hometown, but there were times we would accompany our Lola Azon to the city. She would make it a point to visit the cathedral and her favorite patron, the Santo Niño.

My recollection of the cathedral and the cross of Magellan is muddled, but I do remember the sight and smell of the crowd at the plaza, and inside the church. Being kid-sized, I barely caught a glimpse of the cross through the mass of people.

I would be in my thirties before I would return to finally see the landmark wooden cross in its distinctive pavilion. This was in the late 1980s. By then I noted how blighted the plaza and its surrounding area had gotten; with people warning me about the dangers of downtown and the Carbon market nearby. I hardly remember the city hall across from the cathedral complex, surrounded, as it had become, with parked cars and the visual cacophony that envelopes many capitol city complexes.

Segue another three decades and I now visit Cebu more regularly because of work in and outside the city. I try to visit Fort San Pedro, its adjacent plaza (which I’ll feature next week), and the rest of Cebu’s downtown, every chance I get. I’m fascinated by the architectural and civic heritage still in the Queen City. A number of structures have been adaptively reused but I am concerned that the city has made little progress in putting these in a proper district-wide urban design context.

Both the Santo Niño plaza and the city hall plaza have been renovated several times since the 1950s. Fountains have disappeared (their statuary now scattered in gardens in the plaza). Dr. Jose Rizal was moved, apparently when the plaza was renamed for Rizal Plaza to Plaza Sugbo.

The last rounds of renovations for both have been quite extensive. The Santo Niño plaza had been converted into an open-air extension of the church to accommodate the large congregations, pilgrims and tourists. Plaza Sugbo was last renovated in 2008, with the two formerly separate sides of the city hall and the Santo Nino/Magellan’s Cross consolidated into one contiguous plaza.

The renovation had been fairly successful in its goal to create more space for the Magellan’s Cross pavilion. This space is adequately paved for pedestrian comfort. Vehicular access to the city hall’s lobby is still provided and has some parking allocated on both sides. The rest of the plaza is pedestrianized, although a curved strip is etched across the plaza to allow for emergency or VIP access.

There is some parking allocation for visitors along the edges but directional signage for tourists and visitors are lacking. The yellow-skirted candle vendors are still there along with enough watch-your-car boys, ambulant vendors or souvenirs, and beggars, to provide a formidable gauntlet to survive before one can reach the cross.

The gardens, paving, bollards and other landscape features from the 2008 makeover are starting to look a little worn. Maintenance could be improved. When I last visited, there were stacks of container vans parked in the middle of the plaza (something to do with storing ballots).

The larger context of the plaza, which is Cebu’s downtown, is still not friendly for tourists, or even regular residents. There is a lack of connection between Plaza Sugbo and the Seniors’ Park behind the city hall. There are also two heritage buildings behind city hall. The first, the Gotiaoco Building, is being turned into the Cebu Chinese Heritage Museum, but work seems to have stopped. Next door is the old Shamrock Hotel. Only the shell is intact. There is no physical  (pedestrian) or visual connection to the waterside, which seems to hold a small underdeveloped park; itself seemingly an isolated and unsafe place to visit.

I rate Plaza Sugbo a 7 out of 10. A good number of heritage buildings that surround and define the plaza are still extant and adaptively reused, but many are deteriorating or don’t relate to the plaza at all. The main elements of the plaza itself are also maintained but it is not up to par. I also do still have a preference for more traditional geometry over the more contemporary intervention introduced. The landscape architectural layout and planting design could also be improved, in addition to the provision of directional signage and some hardscape tweaks to add bike parking, laybys for taxis, and tourist drop-offs.

Save for the activity around the cathedral and the business that people have with city hall, the district still appears that it has been abandoned for uptown destinations. Cebu may yet show Manila how to conserve its heritage while encouraging urban life to come back to its heritage core.

Next week I will tackle Plaza Independencia beside the old Spanish fort, and also look at how Plaza Sugbo could be connected to this and other spaces via a more comprehensive redevelopment of the entire heritage district.

* * *

Feedback is welcome. Please email the writer at paulo.alcazaren@gmail.com.