(First of two parts)

My late dad was in the shipping industry, so he often visited El Puerto to have a word with his capitanes. As a dad's lad, I occasionally tagged along, curious on the vessels that plied the seas and beyond. Thus, I was familiar with the old Aduana, the storied Customs House, located near the Plaza Independencia in Cebu City, Cebu.

However, it was the building my siblings and I dreaded the most. On its second floor, we had our vaccines and inoculations necessary for the notorious yellow card — an internationally recognized quarantine document — to prove we had our injections to be able to travel then to foreign shores. These jabs were all accomplished sans specialized needles. Butterfly baby needles, where were you?

No matter the childhood nightmares, it was a stately grand building then and even today. The imposing structure was built by William Edward Parsons, a famed architect and city planner, admired for his landmark works in our islands during the American colonial period. He is credited for designing the Manila Hotel, the Philippine General Hospital and the Gabaldon-style school buildings. Closer to home, he designed the Cebu Provincial Capitol and the Cebu Normal School.

Little did we know that someday it would be a depository and showcase of priceless artifacts and obras of old masters, the home of the National Museum of the Philippines–Cebu, also known as the Central Visayas Regional Museum.

As a brief backgrounder, the building was originally established as the Cebu Customs House in 1910 to facilitate trade between the island of Cebu and neighboring communities. In 2004 and underutilized, it was transformed into the  Malacañang sa Sugbo during the term of former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. In October 2013, the historic edifice suffered damages and was rendered out-of-service due to a 7.1 magnitude earthquake, which even affected the centuries-old belfry of the Basilica Minore del Señor Santo Niño.

Luli Arroyo Bernas, then chairman of the Board of Trustees of the National Museum of the Philippines, toyed with the idea to have an NMP branch in Cebu, most specially when neighboring islands have made their mark. In December 2019, the Cebu Port Authority and NMP signed a usufruct agreement giving NMP the right to use the building as NMP-Cebu for 25 years. From 2020 to 2023, the building underwent rehabilitation and conversion as museum with funding support from the Tourism Infrastructure and Enterprise Zone Authority.