On July 24, 1899, Juan Clímaco and Arcadio Maxílom, chafing at the diminution of their influence in public affairs, suddenly disappeared into the interior and met at Pardo, where the military revolutionary centre was established. Aguinaldoʼs emissary, Pantaleon E. del Rosario, Melquiades Lasala, a Cebuáno of Bogó (known as Dading), Andrés Jayme, Lorega, and an Ilocano named Mateo Luga who had served in the Spanish army, led contingents under the supreme command of the insurgent General Arcadio Maxilom. In the interior they established a fairly well-organized military government. The Island was divided into districts; there was little interference with personal liberty; taxes for the maintenance of the struggle were collected in the form of contribution according to the means of the donor; agriculture was not altogether abandoned, and for over two years the insurgents held out against American rule. The brain of the movement was centred in Juan Clímaco, whilst Mateo Luga exhibited the best fighting qualities. In the meantime American troops were drafted to the coast towns of Tubúran, Bogó, Cármen, etc. There were several severe engagements with slaughter on both sides, notably at Monte Súdlon and Compostela. Five white men joined the insurgent leader Luga, one being an English mercenary trooper, two sailors, and two soldiers; the last two were given up at the close of hostilities; one of them was pardoned, and the other was executed in the cotta for rape committed at Mandaue.
The co-existence of an American military administration in Cebú City conducting a war throughout the Island, and a Philippine provincial government with nominal administrative powers over the same region, but in strong sympathy with the insurgent cause, was no longer compatible. Moreover, outside the city the provincial government was unable to enforce its decrees amongst the people, who recognized solely the martial-law of the insurgents to whom they had to pay taxes. The Americans therefore abolished the provincial council, which was not grieved at its dissolution, because it was already accused by the people of being pro-American. Philippine views of the situation were expressed in a newspaper, El Nuevo Dia, founded by a lawyer, Rafael Palma, and edited conjointly by Jayme Veyra (afterwards a candidate for the Leyte Island governorship) and an intelligent young lawyer, Sergio Osmeña, already mentioned at p. [521]. This organ, the type and style of which favourably compared with any journal ever produced in these Islands, passed through many vicissitudes; it was alternately suppressed and revived, whilst its editors were threatened with imprisonment in the cotta and deportation to Guam. Meanwhile the Americans made strenuous efforts to secure the co-operation of the Filipinos in municipal administration, but the people refused to vote. Leading citizens, cited to appear before the American authorities, persistently declined to take any part in a dual régime. The electors were then ordered, under penalties, to attend the polling, but out of the hundreds who responded to the call only about 60 could be coerced into voting. Finally a packed municipal council was formed, but one of its members, a man hitherto highly respected by all, was assassinated, and his colleagues went in fear of their lives.
The war in Panay Island having terminated on February 2, 1901, by the general surrender at Jaro (vide p. [518]), General Hughes went to Sámar Island, where he failed to restore peace, and thence he proceeded to Cebú in the month of August at the head of 2,000 troops. A vigorous policy of devastation was adopted. Towns, villages and crops were laid waste; Pardo, the insurgent military centre, was totally destroyed; peaceful natives who had compulsorily paid tribute to the insurgents at whose mercy they were obliged to live, were treated as enemies; their homes and means of livelihood were demolished, and little distinction was made between the warrior and the victim of the war. Desolation stared the people in the face, and within a few weeks the native provincial governor proposed that terms of peace should be discussed. The insurgent chief Lorega surrendered on October 22; Mateo Luga and Arcadio Maxílom submitted five days afterwards and at the end of the month a general cessation of hostilities followed. A neutral zone was agreed upon, extending from Mandaue to Sógod, and there the three peace commissioners on behalf of the Americans, namely Miguel Logarta, Pedro Rodriguez, and Arsenio Clímaco met the insurgent chiefs Juan Clímaco and Arcadio Maxilom. As a result, peace was signed, and the document includes the following significant words, viz.: “putting the Philippine people in a condition to prove their aptitude for self-government as the basis of a future independent life.” The signatories of this document on the part of the Filipinos were Pantaleon E. del Rosario, Melquiades Lasala and Andrés Jayme. After the peace, Mateo Luga and P. E. del Rosario accepted employment under the Americans, the former as Inspector of Constabulary and the latter as Sheriff of Cebú. A few months later, the Americans, acting on information received, proceeded to Tubúran on the government launch Philadelphia, arrested Arcadio Maxílom and his two brothers, and seized the arms which they had secreted on their property. On the launch, one of the Maxíloms unsuccessfully attempted to murder the Americans and was immediately executed, whilst Arcadio and his other brother jumped overboard; but Arcadio being unable to swim, was picked up, brought to trial at Cebú, and acquitted. Thus ended the career of General Arcadio Maxílom, whom in 1904 I found living in retirement, almost a hermitʼs life, broken in spirit and body and worried by numerous lawsuits pending against him.
On April 17,1901, Governor W. H. Taft went to Cebú accompanied by a Filipino, H. Pardo de Tavera, whose views were diametrically opposed to those of the Cebuáno majority. Governor Taft established civil government there, although the law of habeas corpus had to be suspended because the war was still raging throughout the Island outside the capital. The provincial government as established by Governor Taft comprises a provincial board composed of three members, namely the Philippine Provincial Governor, the American Supervisor, and the American Treasurer: hence the Americans are in permanent majority and practically rule the Island. The executive of this body is the provincial governor and his staff. The first provincial governor appointed by Governor Taft was Julio Llorente, who resigned the magistracy in Manila and returned to Cebú to take up his new office until the elections took place in January, 1902, when, by popular vote, Juan Clímaco, the ex-insurgent chief, became provincial governor, and on the expiration of his term in January, 1904, he was re-elected for another two years.
There is no noteworthy change in the aspect of Cebú since the American occupation. It is a regularly-built city, with hundreds of good houses, many relatively imposing public buildings, monuments, churches, and interesting edifices. It is a cathedral city and bishopʼs see, full of historical remininscences, and has still a very pleasant appearance, notwithstanding its partial destruction and the many remaining ruins caused by the bombardment by the Spanish warship Don Juan de Austria in April 1838, (vide p. [403]). Of special interest are the Cathedral, the Church of Santo Nino, or the “Holy Child of Cebú” (vide p. [183]), the Chapels of the Paul Fathers and of the Jesuits, and the Cotta de San Pedro (fortress). Also, just outside the city proper is the Church of San Nicolás. Up to about the year 1876 the Jesuits had a fine church of their own, but the friars, jealous of its having become the most popular place of worship, caused it to be destroyed. Until a few years ago the quarter known as the, Parian was the flourishing centre of the half-caste traders. There was also a busy street of Chinese general shops and native ready-made clothiers in the Lutao district, a thoroughfare which ran along the seashore from the south of the city proper towards San Nicolás; it was completely destroyed by the bombardment of 1898, and many of the shopkeepers have erected new premises in the principal shopping street, called Calle de la Infanta. Again, in 1905, a disastrous fire in the business quarter of the city caused damage to the estimated extent of $500,000 gold.
There is a little colony of foreign merchants in Cebú, which formerly ranked as the third port of the Archipelago, but now stands second in importance to Manila (vide Trade Statistics, Chap. [xxxi].). Several vice-consulates are established here, and in Spanish times it was the residence of the military governor of Visayas as well as of the governor of the Island and his staff of officials. In 1886 a Supreme Court was inaugurated in Cebú. This city, which was the capital of the Colony from 1565 to 1571, had a municipality up to the time of Gov.-General Pedro de Arándia (1754–59). It was then abolished because there was only one Spaniard capable of being a city councillor. One alderman who had served—Juan Sebastian de Espina—could neither read nor write, and the mayor himself had been deprived of office for having tried to extort money from a Chinaman by putting his head in the stocks. By Royal Order dated June 7, 1889, and put into force by the Gov.-Generalʼs Decree of January 31, 1890, the municipality was re-established. The president was the governor of the Island, supported by an Alcalde and 13 officials. For the government of the Island under the Spanish regime, vide Chap. [xiii].
The municipality at present existing is that established by the Taft Commission. The Press, in the days of the Spaniards, was poorly represented by a little news-sheet, styled the Boletin de Cebú. There are now two periodicals of little or no interest.
There are two large cemeteries at Guadalupe and Mabolo. In 1887 a shooting-butts was established at the end of the Guadalupe road, and the annual pony-races take place in January. On the Mabolo road there is a Leper Hospital, and the ruins of a partly well-built jail which was never completed.
Cebú is a port of entry open to foreign trade, with a Custom-house established since the year 1863. The channel for vessels is marked by buoys, and there are two lighthouses at the north and two at the south entrance to the port. The environs are pretty, with Magtan Island (on which Maghallanes was killed) in front and a range of hills in the background. There are excellent roads for riding and driving a few miles out of the city. The climate is very healthy for Europeans; the low ranges of mountains running north to south of the Island are sparsely wooded, some being quite bare of trees, and the atmosphere is comparatively dry. The cactus is very common all over the Island, and miles of it are seen growing in the hedges. About an hour and a halfʼs drive from Cebú City there is the little town of Naga, the environs of which are extremely pretty. From the top of Makdoc Mountain, at the back of the town, there is a splendid view of the Pandan Valley.
The Cebuános are the most sociable of the Visaya population, whilst the women are the best-looking of all the Filipinas of pure Oriental descent.