Gotiaoco Bldg: Future home of the Chinese Heritage Museum

CEBU, Philippines - "Heritage preservation can be the platform for political recognition, a medium for intercultural dialogue, a means of ethical reflection, and the potential basis for ongoing local economic development in Cebu."

Ever wonder why Cebu does not have its own Binondo? It is because Cebu is one big Chinatown.

John Vincent "JV" Castro, director and chief curator of the Sugbu Chinese Heritage Museum, which will be housed at the restored Gotiaoco Building on M.C. Briones Street, this city, said that because the Chinese have contributed so much to Cebu's economic prosperity, it is but proper and fit to recognize these efforts through the establishment of a Chinese heritage center here.

It is the aim of the Sugbu Chinese Heritage Museum Foundation Inc. to display the socio-cultural heritage of the Chinese community in terms of its contribution to customs, language, economics, trade and industry, science and technology, arts and lifestyle, education, religion, civic outreach and to nation building.

In a lecture after the opening of The Fil-Chinese Heritage Exhibit at the Parkmall in Mandaue City to welcome the Year of the Water Snake last February 8, Castro described the SCHMFI as the "leading institution in the appreciation, preservation, and promotion of the Chinese-Cebuano heritage and culture."

"It values the Chinese legacy through research, curation, and exhibition; conserves the artifacts, documents, and other collections through new technologies and techniques; and enriches the community and the nation through educational programs," he said.

Immigration, social organization, economics, trade and industry; political orientation and culture and the arts will be the scope of the museum. Immigration will tackle on the history of early Chinese arrival in Cebu. Social organization is about the form along family name, province/village in China where these early Chinese settlers came from and their dialect.

How early the Chinese settlers prospered in Cebu and how they contributed to society and nation building will be under the header: Economics, Trade and Industry. Kuomintang, Mainland China, local/national politics will be dealt with under Political Orientation, while school, education, religion, and civic outreach, language, and art and science will form part of the Culture and the Arts scope.

Castro pointed to a restored Gotiaoco Building as the home of the Sugbu Chinese Heritage Museum, the building across the Cebu City Hall, which was named after Go Bon Tiao, who came to Cebu after the opening of its port to international trade in 1860. Go Bon Tiao was a penniless immigrant from Kei-tang, part of present-day Fujian Province in China. It was said that his coming to Cebu was precipitated not only by economic want like many of his countrymen, but also because he accidentally caused the death of a cousin.

Baptized into Roman Catholicism with the hieratic Chinese mestizo of the parian, Don Mariano Singson, as baptismal sponsor or padrino, Go Bon Tiao became known as Pedro Singson Gotiaoco.

Via City Resolution No. 12-4663-2012, the Gotiaoco Building was declared a local heritage site based on the fact that the said structure was built in 1914 and is one of Cebu's earliest commercial buildings, being part of Cebu's earlier wholesale business section, and is considered to have contributed to the city's economic growth. It was the first five-story building in Cebu (its bell tower included) and was the first to have an elevator.

A souvenir shop and a restaurant are part of the ground floor plan of the building's restoration. "It would be exciting for the restaurant to showcase, say, spices in the 1914. There would be plenty of things to look forward to," Castro said. The building's second floor will house galleries and an audio-visual room.

The heritage project is actually three-fold. Aside from the museum, there are also plans for a coffee table book on Sugbu Chinese culture and a documentary on the project.

When asked by the audience - Grade 7 students of the St. Theresa's College - on why there is a need to embark on the heritage preservation project, Castro explained that heritage preservation is not just a collection of inherited traditions, arts, objects, and culture. Preserving our heritage, he said, can deliver a full range of contemporary activities, meanings, and behaviors that we can draw from.

"It can shape the present and the future public opinion on certain historical accounts. What memories can we enjoy, regret or learn from," he added.

According to Castro, heritage preservation is a contemporary undertaking and not an ancient one. Because of its richness and significance, it allows the present generation to understand its socio-political underpinnings.

"It can be the platform for political recognition, a medium for intercultural dialogue, a means of ethical reflection, and the potential basis for ongoing local economic development in Cebu," he said.

The Sugbu Chinese Heritage Museum is a gift to the future generations by collecting, documenting, and sharing resources with historical significance to Cebu's early Chinese-Filipino communities.

"The Sugbu Chinese Heritage Museum wants to be relevant to the Cebuano youth," Castro said.

Currently, the Sugbu Chinese Heritage Museum is on its last phase of rehabilitation, according to its new executive director Lenlen Lim.

"We all know that it is an old structure hence all necessary means of structural integrity measures are being done. The Board [of Directors] has been consolidating plans for the museum contents while architectural plans are being revised accommodating the new developments especially from the output of the structural evaluations," she said.

No curation work is being done at present because the project is still in the process of finalizing research and construction. "The cost will be big as we want to provide the public with a contemporary museum that does not only showcase what was but rather an ongoing information hub of what the Cebuano Chinese is presently doing and contributing to the community.  More so, it is planned to be an 'active' type of museum where activities will be constantly made available," she added.

Lim clarified that although the public has varied opinions on the establishment of the museum, "these are normal reactions."

"This is not a museum of the Chinese community, but rather of the Cebuano as a people.  It is supported by the Cebu City Government, the National Museum of the Philippines, various private sectors and corporations and the Chinese community," she shared.