Philippine E-Journals

Adaptation of the Laws of the Indies Plan in Cebu Province

Kiyoko Yamaguchi

 

Abstract:

Philippine urban planning is said to have started with the arrival of the Spaniards, and the plans on Intramuros in Manila and the UNESCO World Heritage City of Vigan in Ilocos Sur are usually associated with the Spanish Laws of the Indies. One of the earliest studies on town center planning in the Philippines was The Philippine Plaza Complex by Donn V. Hart (1955); several conceptual maps drawn explained how the población space was used in the residents’ everyday life in the period from 1915-1935. Robert Reed’s Colonial Manila (1978) briefly introduces Cebu and Panay as port towns reached by the Spaniards before they established Intramuros. Fernando N. Zialcita and Martin I. Tinio, Jr. wrote in Philippine Ancestral Houses (1980, 26) that the gridiron “street plan and the plaza became conventions in the new cities that sprang up”; regional towns were also imagined to form “Hispanic town centers” with a stone church and plaza. Yet, aside from some historic provincial capital cities, little is known about smaller regional towns. How much of the Laws of the Indies’ ideal was realized? This paper examines the influence and local adaptations of the Laws of the Indies plan in the poblaciones of Cebu Province. Based on fieldwork conducted in 2002-2003, the author made maps of 43 poblaciones and clarified the street and block patterns as well as the location of the major public buildings.