The Rizal Memorial Library and Museum (Cebu City)

The building was constructed before the war. It housed the Kempeitai or the Japanese Military Police during the Japanese occupation from 1942 to 1945.

Dra. Suga Sotto Yuvienco, the lone female member of the last pre-EDSA Cebu City Council, authored the ordinance renaming the building. Suga, the daughter of Don Vicente Yap Sotto, was also the author of the creation of the Cultural and Historical Affairs Commission (Ordinance 1098 enacted on March 30, 1981).

Three years after the creation of the CHAC, Dra. Suga sought the renaming of the building and added the word “museum”. This was how she explained her ordinance:

“Whereas, after the last World War, the Cebu City Public Library was housed in the Rizal Memorial Library Building along Osmeña Blvd, this city;

“Whereas in order to house the City Health Department in a single building, the said City Public Library was temporarily transferred to a smaller place whose location and situation was unfit for a library and which deprived it of its dignity and presentability as a necessary institution in a large community;

“Whereas, the City Assessor of Cebu has established the fact that the City of Cebu definitely owns the Rizal Memorial Building, and for this reason, the Cebu City Cultural and Historical Affairs Commission endeavored to have the Cebu City Public Library returned to its former place as a matter of propriety and fairness.

“Whereas, the City Mayor and the City Mayor and the Cebu City Cultural and Historical Affairs Commission considered it timely to establish a museum, using two floors of the building, in answer to the Cebuano’s cultural aspirations and to project their very rich cultural heritage.”

That is the wisdom why the Cebu City museum must be housed in that building. The mayor at that time was Atty. Ronald R. Duterte who signed the ordinance on July 20, 1984. The presiding officer (vice mayor) was Vicente A. Kintanar Jr.