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Parian in Cebu
MADRILENA DELA C ERNA
From the very beginning, the Spanish authorities believed that for political, administrative, and religious
reasons it was necessary to keep disparate ethnic groups segregated. In 1565, Legaspi had already put the
policy of ethnic segregation into effect when he divided the port area of C ebu into the poblacion de
naturales(which became the town of San Nicolas) and the poblacion de europeos (or what was referred to as the
ciudad of C ebu).
It was only around 1590 that a C hinese settlement came to be established in C ebu. This was located on
the Spanish city's north side and was connected to the sea by an estuary. Visiting C hinese traders had come to
C ebu before this time but it was only during the Spanish rule, and in the 1590s when C ebu briefly participated in
the galleon trade, that the C hinese district of Parian was founded and evolved into a market and trading center.
The district was under the charge of the Jesuits who baptized, taught reading, writing, arithmetic and
C hristian doctrine to the community of traders and artisans and their families. On October 22, 1614, the second
bishop of C ebu, Fr. Pedro de Arca, separated the port area into two parished: the parish for the C hristian
C hinese and Filipinos who lived in the areas bordering the ciudad. A third division was set aside for the local
people (naturales, indios) in San Nicolas. Parian remained a parish administered under the secular clergy until
1828 when the bishop of C ebu abolished and placed it under his jurisdiction.
During the commercial decline of C ebu in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the C hinese population
of C ebu dwindled, particularly with the expulsions done by Governor-General Simon de Anda in 1780.
By this
time, Parian had become a community of C hineses mestizos. At the same time, it became more of a suburban
residential district rather than a trading ghetto.
There was also an ecological reason for the change in the character of Parian, from a commercial to a
residential district. the small Parian river that ran through the district had begun to silt up and was no longer
navigable. When C hinese immigrants began to flow back into C ebu in the nineteenth century, they gravitated
towards the Ermita-Lutao area (now C arbon Market area), which was close to the shore, leaving Parian to
mestizo and indio residents.
By the middle of the nineteenth century the C hinese mestizos (and the C hinese) had become the most
dynamic commercial group in the city, while the native C ebuanos had become a "commercially anonymous
group."
Before 1860 the C ebu mestizos had a brokerage monopoly in their part of the Visayas. They owned
coastal vessels, collected goods in the provinces and forwarded them to Manila. They aggressively protected
this monopoly by urging restrictions on the activities of the C hinese in Manila and the provinces. When the
advent of foreign houses and the new cabecilla wholesale system broke this monopoly in the mid-nineteenth
century, the mestizos shifted their interests from commerce to agriculture. They farmed out to the countryside
and acquired estatesin places like Talamban, Talisay, Naga, and C arcar, and were in a position to accumulate
weath with the boom in cash crops in the late nineteenth century. This was the basis of Parian's reputation as
"the richest and most productive" district, the "center of commerce" in C ebu.
Through the years, when Parian enjoyed power and pestige, various controversies arose as to its civil and
ecclesianstical character and jurisdiction. In 1828 a conflict broke out between officials of the Parian and
ciudad concerning jurisiction ove the barrio of Zamboanguillo. At about the same time the officials of Parian and
the Augustinian order disputed claims over the Hacienda de Banilad.

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Sulyap Kultura
January 7, 1731 - Diego Silang who was the
leader of the Ilocos Revolt of 1762 was baptized
in what is now C aba, La Union.
Did you know?
The snake vertebrae worn by Bontoc women
about their hair is now and then boiled for curing
stomach ailments. It is also used for protection
against lightning and evil spirits
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As a civil body, Parian also had a problematic character. At the time the C ebu Ayuntamiento was dissolved
in 1755 because of the lack of Spanish residents in the city. the alcalde mayor of C ebu divided the city area
into three separate pueblos or municipal units: the C iudad, Parian, and Lutao. Parian then was a separate town
from 1755 to 1849.
Ecclesiastically, Parian existed as a parish separate from the ciudad as early as the start of the seventeenth
century. It was initially suppressed in 1830 and was reestablished in 1838. In 1849, the parish was abolished
and placed under the jurisdiction of the C athedral. As a parish, Parian continued to function with diminished
powers until the mid-1870s when the Parian church was finally demolished.
The parian elite responded to the Tagalog Rebellion of 1896 by donating money to the Spanish cause and
by either supporting or joining the voluntarious leales, the pro-Spanish local militia. It was traditionally-indio
dominated San Nicolas which was the seat of insurrectionary activity, and it was San Nicolas which supplied the
Revolution in C ebu with many of its leaders.
The C ebuano uprising of April 1898 was a dramatic event. The insurgents occupied the larger part of the
city as Spanish officials, soldiers, priests and residents withdrew to the safety of Fort San Pedro. Spanish
reinforcements drove the insurgents out of the city but during the fenzied Holy Week of 1898 there was much
destruction as the Spanish vessel Don Juan de Austria bombarded the city. Parian was razed to the ground.
In the half-decade of tensions that followed, some Parian residents sought refuge in less troubled zones.
Urbanization wrought ecological changes as the population filled out the port area and residential patterns
changed. In 1900, Parian was a much more compact, smaller district. Parian retained its identitiy well into the
twentieth century. In 1917, it was still referred to as an "aristocratic bario" where the wealthy families of the
city resided. However, in time it was to be absorbed into the larger area that was urban C ebu.

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About the Author:

Madrilena dela Cerna earned her PhD in History major in Philippine Studies at the University of the
Philippines. She is an Assistant Professor III at the Social Science Division of UP Cebu.

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