It took an outsider, a non-Cebuano, to point out the need for a publication that contains the most important and crucial details about Cebu.
When University of San Carlos (USC) president Fr. Dionisio Miranda of the Society of Divine Word first arrived in Cebu in 2008, he looked for a place where he can have an overview about the city and province he will soon call “home.”
Much to his surprise, there was none.
He also searched for a material that has facts and information about Cebu.
Sadly, he did not find any.
This was the impetus that pushed Miranda, a native of Baguio City, to spearhead a project that encapsulates Cebu in one publication. It took a while for the project to come together, but in 2016, the first Cebu Almanac was born.
A project of this magnitude has never been done in the Philippines, but USC, an institution that espouses “education with a mission,” took on the task and published a 350-page book carrying statistical and quantitative reports divided into 11 sections, to include economy, health and healthcare education, nature and the environment, business and industry, infrastructure, tourism, history and culture, and politics and governance in Cebu.
Last July 25, it embarked in yet another project, the second publication dubbed as “The Cebu Almanac: The Reports,” which bridged the theoretical and quantitative reporting of the first book to analytical reports and updates of Cebu’s key areas of interest.
The presence of the two almanac books are important tools in promoting Cebu to investors, said Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCCI) President Melanie Ng.
“We are able to do this in Cebu because of the strong collaborative relationship between industry and academe. This is a crucial tool to invite prospective partners to invest in Cebu as we bring Cebu business to the next level,” said Ng.
CCCI is the business partner of the publication, while Cebu Daily News is its media partner.
Mission
Miranda said the publication of the almanac is in line with USC’s raison d’etre — “Education with a mission.”
“A school cannot be detached from the society in which it is embedded. Our primary task is to generate what is relevant and should be communicated to the community,” he said.
Despite the popularity of e-books and digital publications, Miranda said USC will continue to produce printed books.
“We operate under the basic idea that we generate knowledge to transform lives. Books is one of the primary vehicles for convergence of knowledge,” said Miranda, an author of several publications himself.
USC Press manager Jose Eleazar Bersales said the almanac “fuels a service that was long needed.”
“Taken from the experience of CCCI. … They did not have data about Cebu which they can present to investors. The almanac addressed that,” said Bersales.
Richard Jugar, USC director of Basic Education, said it is important for USC to share the results of its studies to the public.
Jugar, who wrote about “Year One of the Senior High School Program,” said the discussion of the K to 12 program has to be multi-faceted — involving the industry, academe and households — so we “can make decisions and merge transitions as we go about the implementation of the program.”
Challenges
Coming up with an almanac is no easy feat.
In the words of Miranda, “it does not rise out of magic.”
The challenges encountered on the data gathering phase is a glaring example of limited, if non-existent, information.
“Cebu is in the forefront of gathering and publishing data from different disciplines. We make assumptions that these data exist. This is the tragedy of Philippine publication. In most cases, those data do not exist. Some data are spurious, unreliable and manufactured,” said Miranda.
Socorro Gultiano, USC associate professor of the Department of Economics and Department of Anthropology, Sociology and History, said the challenge is not just about the lack of data but finding and getting data in all levels of aggregation.
“Seldom do you get new data every year. Some institutions do not update every year,” said Gultiano.
She co-authored “The Growth of Cebu’s Population: 2010 to 2015” with Francisco Largo, USC assistant professor of the Department of Economics.
Largo is also the project lead of Cebu Almanac.
With challenges come solutions, and this publication’s team of contributing writers found ways — and reliable data — to produce the second almanac that is relevant to Cebu’s growth.
“The researchers and writers of the almanac assembled together evidence-based data delivered by credible institutions whose methodologies can be defended,” said Miranda.