Wednesday, June 18, 2008 Speak out: Not the Compania Maritima building By Gavin Sanson Bagares Kaguikan Sa Parian Foundation Inc., Cebu City
SUN.STARr Cebu's front-page story last June 16, 2008 on the planned rehabilitation of the so-called "Compania Maritima
Building" into a maritime museum is welcome news.
However, the news story got a major fact wrong.
The said edifice constructed on reclaimed land was actually the Shamrock Building that housed the Shamrock Hotel (no connection to the otap enterprise).
Compania Maritima was a building occupant.
Unfortunately for Shamrock Hotel, it was the Compania Maritima’s name that survived well into the post-war period and the one that caught on.
Shamrock Hotel was one of the earliest hotels in the area (along with an Hotel San Marcos in the neighborhood) and a forgotten reminder that professional hostelry in the city of Cebu is at least a hundred years old.
