Carcar: Heritage City of Cebu
A drive down the southeastern coast of Cebu offers relaxing views of mangrove beaches, arching roadside acacias and, most remarkably, beautiful colonial architecture...
Carcar City – the newest city in Cebu—is one of its oldest towns. This gateway to the south derived its name from tree-climbing ferns called “kabkab” that once marked the crossroad to other towns. Known for its booming shoe making industry (home to the uncredited largest shoe in the world) and mouth-watering delicacies like lechon baboy (roasted pig), chicharon (pork rind), bucarillo (sweet coconut) and ampao (rice bars), it also boasts of well-preserved historical buildings characterized by ornate woodwork. This “Heritage City of Cebu” has around 50 houses built during the mid 19th century to early 20th century, like the Balay nga Tisa (1859), Noel House and Don Mercado House.
Near the Greek – Tuscany styled Church of St. Catherine of Alexandria (1876) stand exquisite structures built in the 1920s during the American occupation: the filigreed Carcar Dispensary, recently converted into a city museum, and St. Catherine’s Academy. Beside the church is the convent, which is considered the oldest in Cebu. Further down the main road is an elegant rotunda, the bustling heart of the city which was also constructed in the 1920s.
Indeed, Carcar is home to so much history. Near the main road, a statue of a young man on a horse awaits. His name is Panteleon “Leon Kilat” Villegas (1873-1898), a Visayan revolutionary with legendary supernatural powers, who fought against Spanish rule during the Philippine Revolution. Poised for an attack against Spanish troops in Carcar, he was betrayed by his aide-de-camp who stabbed him to death at Sato Mansion, an ancestral home which also stands to this day. Leon Kilat died at the age of twenty four.
Located 40 kilometers south of Cebu City, Carcar City is accessible by bus. Catch a Ceres Bus (fare: P40, two hours) that leaves every 15 minutes at the Cebu South Bus Terminal along N. Bacalso Avenue (near Elizabeth Mall). The best time to visit the city is during the Kabkaban Festival every late November.
Carcar is also famous as Cebu’s shoe capital because of its long history as the province’s premier footwear manufacturer and for the popularity of its native delicacies.
One of the most famous Spanish period structures in Carcar is the Saint Catherine of Alexandria Parish Church. The Greek Orthodox style inspires the main facade of the parish church because the domes of the two bell towers are similar to the bell towers of churches of the Greek Orthodox religion.
The parish church’s ceiling has beautiful symmetrical drawings and decorations. The concrete fence surrounding the church plaza has statues of saints standing on top of each fence column.
During the American period from 1922 to 1938, the then Mayor Mariano Mercado built several notable public structures in Carcar, including the Carcar dispensary, the Rizal Monument, and the Carcar Rotunda. All of them are still standing until now. The Carcar dispensary is now a public museum.
Located in the Carcar Plaza is the Carcar rotunda, a gazebo like structure with intricate designs, stairways on four sides and two statues on top of its roof. During the last week of November, local and foreign tourists would flock to Carcar to watch the Kabkaban Festival, which is the town’s most famous yearly event.
Carcar’s most well known industry is the making of shoes and sandals. The industry started in the 17th century when sandals were the first footwear made and then leather shoes came later. The footwear industry reached its height in the 1960s.
Since the 1960s, many shoemakers have closed down due to problems like intense competition from other shoemakers in Cebu and from foreign shoe imports. However, through the resilience and determination of the remaining shoe making businesses, they continue to operate until now. You can buy shoes and sandals in stores strategically located all over the town.
Carcar’s most famous native delicacies are ampao, bucarillo, and chicharon. You can buy these delicious snacks from the vendors selling them at the town’s bus terminal. Many visitors to the town would also buy these snacks in bulk from the retail stores in Carcar and then the visitors would give them as gifts when they go home.
How to Get There
The Municipality of Carcar is located about 40 kilometers from the south of Cebu City. If you want to go to Carcar via public transportation, you can go to the Cebu South Bus Terminal located in N. Bacalso Avenue. In the bus terminal, you can either take a private van for hire or the public buses with regular trips to Carcar. The estimated travel time from Cebu City to Carcar is about one hour.
The famous Carcar City Products
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much Welcome
The Carcar Academy came into existence when Mr. Catalino T. Alfafara left a well-playing teaching job in Cebu City to handle the pioneer first year class of only 18 students. This small school grew steadily under the zealous founder. In the year 1933, Carcar Academy gained the government's seal of recognition after surmounting the multifarious problems & hardship which the founder & his cooperative fellow teachers had taken in stride.
The wild holocaust, the Second World War (1941-1945) forced the school to hibernate. Nothing was left of it but its name. However, the Carcar Academy rose & revived in 1946. In1948, a collage department opened which offered the Junior Normal Course (ETC). It also maintained a complete elementary training department.
In 1971, the school was declared "A1 School of the South" by then superintendent Apolinar Luz of the Bureau of private Schools.
School year 1974-1975 saw another breakthrough with a new administrator, Mr. Zacarias Ledesma. Expansion characterized Mr. Ledesma's administration. New concrete buildings, additional classrooms & facilities were constructed to accommodate the increasing enrollment, This Ministry of Education granted the opening of evening classes together with courses in tailoring, dressmaking, & steno-typing.
The school qualified as on of the recipients of a scholarship program through the Educational Service Contracting (ESC).
Mr. Zacarias Ledesma did his best in improving the school until 1993 when the Almighty granted him the eternal rest, he very well deserved after accomplishing a lifetime arduous task as educator.
The present director. Mr. Danilo A.Ledesma, is continuing the task of his late father.
For almost eight decades, Carcar Academy has served the community & with God's divine providence, will continue to serve with undying faith & limitless efforts.
Legend:
mS= mestizo Sangley (Chinese-descent)mE= mestizo Español (Spanish-descent)
Of all the towns in Cebu, Carcar may have the most number of families coming from different places to settle here. While 26 kilometers further down the road Argao, with the biggest land area, and the largest population, would have been the most enticing for prospective migrants in terms of arable land and size of market, but its distance from the city may have worked against it. I know we are working up our imagination here but maybe the settlers’ stamina could take them up only to the next biggest town, Carcar. Or maybe the old clans of Argao were far more entrenched so that the social dynamics of the town were more rigid, making living in the town not as convivial for outsiders—especially to ambitious out-of-towners. Or Carcar’s chicharron was just so other-worldly no sense going farther…
Anyway, early parish records of Carcar afford us a peek at the origins of families, so we can sort these immigrant Carcar families according to origin. Church records usually identified individuals asnatural y vecino de (native and resident of). You will meet a phrase like “naturales de San Nicolas, vecinos de este pueblo” to refer to, say, the parents of a bride or groom in a marriage, or of a child that was baptized.
Doing that, we find the two biggest groups to be from Bohol and Cebu City. The Boholanos arrived earlier, although we cannot tell if they arrived together a whole bunch of them, but we can determine a number of these families were in Carcar already around 1800. It is noteworthy, however, that their coming over to Carcar coincided somewhat with the period when the pursuit of the remaining Dagojoy rebels in Bohol was at its hottest. Meanwhile, the families from Cebu City probably started arriving in a stream around the 1830s, and there may also be significance to that, historians can always pull a rabbit from the hat.
Here are the groupings. I apologize to the many other families not finding their names on this list. In boldface are families that produced a chief executive (gobernadorcillo, presidente, etc., or mayor) of Carcar.
