OPPOSITION to the planned demolition of the old Patria de Cebu building to give way to the construction of a 14-story commercial building in the 6,670-square-meter property across the street fronting the Cebu Metropolitan Cathedral made me recall the Heritage of Cebu Monument done by the late Eduardo Castrillo, the renowned Filipino sculptor, in the ‘90s.
I was a reporter of The Freeman then and somebody informed us that artifacts were found when Castrillo and his people dug the area where the foundation of the structure was to be built. I was interested in the story because I had previously covered the anthropological survey done by a team from the University of the Philippines in Poro town in Camotes.
I rushed to the site and went inside the fenced area and found there broken pieces of what looked like Ming dynasty porcelain. I proceeded to talk with Castrillo, who was nearby in an old house the lower floor of which he transformed into a working area. When I asked him about the artifacts, he glared at me and refused to comment on the matter. I wrote the story nevertheless.
I actually got Castrillo’s message. He had a timetable for his work and was apparently worried that the report that there are buried artifacts in the Heritage of Cebu Monument construction site could upset his schedule. Heritage conservationists could call for a stop to the work to give way to an archaeological dig to spare whatever artifacts are buried there.
The same thing happened during the construction of the tunnel portion of the Cebu South Coastal Road. The digging included the vicinity of Plaza Independencia and, if I remember it right, there were reports of artifacts found in the dug area. Nothing much came out of that story in much the same way that there was not much reaction to my story about the artifacts in the Heritage of Cebu Monument site in Parian. Heritage preservation is of less importance to us than government projects.
Which brings me back to what happened after that anthropological survey in Poro. The team from UP did a preliminary dig in Maktang, the village some people there said was the original site of the clash between Lapulapu and Ferdinand Magellan.
Bones and some artifacts were dug. One of the sites the team was interested in was the complex of caves farther away in Cantaw-ang. The team wanted to make it an on-site museum after an archaeological dig would be conducted. When the team returned months later after getting funding for the proposal, the insides of the caves were already mined for stones sold to a plant in Leyte. The site was destroyed.
That was when the tourism potentials of the nearby San Francisco town was not yet realized. Now, with tourists flocking to the Camotes group of islands, Poro town is in need of come-on for the tourists. The museum that was supposed to be set up in the poblacion of Poro and the on site museum in Cantaw-ang would have been that. Government officials there at that time failed in this regard.
Missed chances. Sayang.