by Chrissy Grey Resaba

Cebu City has etched an indelible mark in the country and of the world for a lot of reasons. For more than five centuries, Cebu has been a center of culture and a model of resiliency. “Sinibuayng Hingpit” was the former name of the city during the pre-colonial times which means “to trade”; already inherent to the name that Cebu was a center of commerce. Also, Cebu had a very big role in Magellan-Elcano circumnavigation of the world which still has been argued that had not been Ferdinand Magellan got killed on the island of Mactan, the victorious fleet would not have happened that will push back the age of discovery for a couple of hundred years. Metro Cebu on the other hand, is the second-largest population in the country.

“Celebrate Cebu” is a tourism brand launched by the Cebu City Government as a declaration of pride, expression of delight, or even a sign of exasperation. One of the most celebrated and largest festivals in the world Sinulog attracts about two million people – enough reason why there are 101 ways to celebrate Cebu. The Mactan Cebu International Airport is already one of the most internationally awarded travel hubs in the region surpassing Changi Airport of Singapore. A lot of infrastructure projects are about to be realized as well that there will even have the first Skidmore Owings and Merill (SOM) in the Visayas. With nearly 20 sister cities’ agreement in place, Cebu has the most twin towns of any Philippine city and five of which are already within the UNESCO Creative Cities Network.

Cebu will further expand its reputation as the city is bidding itself to be enlisted in the UNESCO Creative City. UNESCO Creative City’s bid is a natural progression from the momentum sparked by Cebu Design Week and has already jumpstarted many new projects and collaborations even before the designation was attained. In recent years, the Cebu design community has been eclipsed by the boom in tourism, construction, and BPO-IT when in fact, the design is heavily embedded in these sectors. In 2018, CDW was launched to connect, create, and cultivate the numerous creative disciplines. To accelerate the action planning for the UNESCO bid, CDW talked to a lot of key stakeholders. The Creative Cebu bid team comprises a variety of individuals from the LGU, the Regional and the National government agencies, business support organizations, professionals, associations, academe, creative hubs, and design practitioners.

United Nations defines the creative industries along the lines of heritage, arts, media, and functional creations. The main bid components are divided into three parts: (1) inventory mapping because there is no such design-related maps in Cebu, (2) statistics, and (3) atlas. Due to the definition is so wide, it is very difficult to quantify hence, facing the biggest challenge: how to quantify the effect of creative economies in Cebu?

Four months is all it took to come up with the numbers. CDW theorized that seven percent of the total Cebuano economy is based on the creative industries and is even undervalued and a very conservative number. By October 31 of last year, a surprise shocked everyone from the team as Cebu has gotten the distinction of being a UNESCO Creative City. There are seven categories in the Creative Cities Network: crafts and folklore, film, gastronomy, literature, media arts, music, and design. The design category is considered as the hardest to achieve because it is most challenging to quantify. The short term benefits of becoming a creative city are: (1) it is the great rallying point for the community to just get around, (2) it inspires the next generation designers, (3) it drives incremental tourism investments, and (4) it reasserts Cebu’s branding as the leading design destination. The longer terms are: (1) it ignites unprecedented collaborations with local, regional, national, and international partners, (2) it relies big-ticket items that force multipliers for the economy and the community, (3) it cements Cebu’s global reputation, and (4) it solidifies the importance of design in Cebu’s inclusive and sustainable development that is inlined with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for 2030.

It is also imperative to change the common mindset of design as being purely aesthetic. Design is a creative solution to solve everyday problems hence, answering why design is important. Furthermore, it is important because the advancements of technology right now are changing so much, demographics are shifting, and consumer preferences are changing at a very fast pace. The competition is crazy for cities must level up to be able to compete with this global economy. There is a need to engage design practitioners at any level for an inclusive and sustainable city.

UNESCO has very strict guidelines when it comes to co-branding with its temple. Therefore, the team tweaks the Cebu’s branding that will be symmetrical with the temple and used the Pantone’s color of the year, Classic Blue, to signify when the bid has been done. The logo is based on the shape of Cebu City which is not very familiar with because people are more familiar with the island.

These are some several highlights that CDW is working on:

1. Museum of Design (MuDe)
Coming this September MuDe is not just any typical museum people know about. Aside from being a converging point or a showcase repository, it is an enabling point for creatives. There will also be a physical and virtual showcase, learning and working hub, and an inspiring venue and collaborative market space. MuDe will be at the Skypark of SM Seaside because of its big outdoor component.

2. Urban Acupuncture
Urban Acupuncture is an initiative that develops small projects or small pockets of beauty and scaling them all around the city to be able to achieve critical mass. Its first target will in Downtown Cebu and hopes to collaborate with Cebu City Tourism Commission while the Department of Tourism has expressed interest. TIEZA will be funding the project of revitalizing the Downtown with place markers starting from Fort San Pedro, Basilica Minore del Sto. Niño de Cebu, Cebu Metropolitan Cathedral, Parian, and Colon. Moreover, Malacañang sa Sugbo will be launched as a national museum by the year 2021.

3. Community-based initiative
Bringing all of the creative initiatives to the grassroots so it will not be perceived as elitist but rather a community-based. This is to transform the core of the city into something relevant and exciting by piloting to three communities along with three universities of Cebu: the University of San Carlos for Talamban, University of the Philippines – Cebu for Lahug, and Southwestern University PHINMA for Urgello. The reason why these universities are chosen because they are also in the process of completely changing their campuses by breaking the walls after they patterned it to the campus of Georgetown University in DC.

There will also be the utilization of community centers because they are very underutilized and placing the first design studio for kids that is hopefully be implemented by September.

People of Cebu are in high hopes of having Creative Cebu’s bid to UNESCO as the Creative City of Design come into fruition and none of these creative initiatives are made possible had it not been because of the private sector head for the Creative Cebu Grid, Butch Carungay.