Alcaldes mayores of Cebu
The opening of the celebrations to mark the 443rd founding anniversary of the Province of Cebu and the production of a special feature on SugboTV got me thinking hard and fast about the problem of getting the exact names of the alcaldes mayores who served Cebu during the Spanish period.
To the unfamiliar, it was only in 1844 during the reorganization of geopolitical units in the Spanish colonies that the name “provincia” began to refer to what were once either “alcaldias” or “corregimientos” (both roughly translated to mean towns) and referring thereafter to larger and vaster areas or regions comprising numerous towns. But for the entire period of the Spanish period, the head of the provincia as much as the previous alcaldia was called the “alcalde mayor”. It roughly meant what we would now call “governor,” a word that refers to the ultimate elected provincial head following massive political redesigning made by our American colonial masters starting in 1901 when the last of the Katipunan generals finally gave up the struggle.
It is important to note, in fact, that for the early part of Spanish colonial history, specific to Cebu, we only know Miguel Lopez de Legazpi as having been afforded the title “Governor of Zubu and all other lands that he would conquer,” following his appointment to the position by the King Philip II of Spain in an edict dated 6 August 1569.
I can only recall up to the pre-martial law term of Gov. Osmundo Rama as the reason why the province marks its anniversary on the basis of this date. And, hence, the 443rd month-long anniversary festivities in August that began yesterday.
Yet very little has been written about the line of alcaldes mayores who ruled Cebu mostly from the confines of Fort San Pedro and, much later, the Casa de Gobierno across Plaza Independencia when it was constructed post-1850s.
There are a few who have managed to squeeze themselves into a few lines in historical accounts. Among them are Gen. Juan de Alcarazo who, in 1622, sent 50 Spanish soldiers and about a thousand Cebuanos and other Filipinos to quell a rebellion in Bohol. Another is Geb. Jose Lazaro Cairo (or Cayro) who brought over 2,000 Spanish and Filipino soldiers once again to Bohol on May 7, 1827 to quell the Francisco Dagohoy revolt. As history would show, he failed to quell the uprising which spread like wildfire in parts of Bohol. Then there is also Don Rafael Cervero de Valdez who presided over the creation of the town of Sinugboan (later Garcia-Hernandez), again in Bohol in 1854. Note that Bohol recurred as a common theme in these alcaldes mayores because it was for the most part under the alcaldia or provincial of Cebu during the Spanish period.
Then there are the more historically recognized ones like Gen. Manuel Romero, whose name is forever etched at the portal of Fort San Pedro, for having finished its conversion into a coral stone structure in 1833. There is also Gen. Inocencio Junquera (alcalde mayor of Cebu from 1893 to 1895), whose name was originally lent to Teatro Junquera, forerunner of Oriente Theater—a center of the performing arts in late Spanish-period Cebu, only to eventually give way today to a street more known at night for some unmentionable activities.
The last of these alcaldes mayores was the one who bombarded San Nicolas and Tuburan but spared Carcar at the height of the Katipunan revolt in Cebu in April 1898, Gen. Adolfo Montero. It was he who also led the sad Christmas Eve departure of all Spanish citizens of Cebu, following America’s purchase of the Philippines a few weeks earlier (Dec. 10, 1898 to be exact).
And now to wonder further about all the other alcaldes mayores that at times were the only Spaniards in the capital town of Cebu, along with a handful of other bureaucrats and friars.
