Museo Sugbo

Museo Sugbo is housed at what was once called Carcel de Cebu, the provincial jail of Cebu.

Designed in 1869 by Domingo de Escondrillas, the lone architect in Cebu at the time, the Carcel de Cebu was originally proposed as the Carcel del Distrito, the main prison for the Visayas District. This accounts for its relatively large size at the time it was built. After a flurry of endorsements and independent review in Manila, the project was approved and construction commenced in 1870. It is believed that most of the coral stone blocks from the Parian Church, which was ordered closed by the Bishop after winning a long-drawn court case against its parishioners in the 1850s, were used to build part of the Carcel. After over twenty years of use, a renovation was ordered in 1892.

Records are not clear as to when the second storey of the main building was added. But the architectural design suggests this to be during the American colonial period.

The carcel de Cebu housed not only criminals in its 135-year history. During the early years of the American period, the Carcel served as a stable for horses competing in the Hippodromo nearby. But it was eventually used once again as a prison. After Liberation, all of the Cebuano collaborators and spies for the Japanese were incarcerated here.

The Carcel changed names twice, first during the American to the post-War periods when it was called the Cebu Provincial Jail. Between 1945 and 1976, the buildings on its frontage were used as Cebu City Jail. With the departure of the city jail, the Cebu Provincial Jail changed its names to the Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center (CPDRC).

The transfer of CPDRC to a more spacious and modern prison complex on December 27, 2004 has occasioned the conversion of Carcel de Cebu by Gov. Gwendolyn F. Garcia fittingly into Museo Sugbo, the repository of Cebuano heritage.