Cebu’s Warwick Barracks, Colonized Twice: First by US troops, now by private interests
Marjuice Destinado and Jea Nicole Jacot
Colonization is not always carried by guns. In Cebu, it first arrived draped in the rhetoric of civilization, and returned later in the language of progress.
The first came in 1899, with American occupation redefining land, labor, and life through force and policy. The second came in 2022, not with soldiers, but with permits and demolition notices — displacing market vendors through economic and spatial exclusion.
Both dispossessions claimed to bring order. Both justified removal in the name of improvement. And both were rooted in the same colonial logic: empty the space, overwrite its story, and replace survival with profit.
In Cebu, colonization didn’t just happen twice — it lingered. Morphing into zoning maps and redevelopment plans, it returned wearing a different face but with the same intent: to claim what was already claimed, to own what was already lived in.
From American outpost to Cebu’s trading lifeline
Established in 1899 during the American occupation, Warwick Barracks — originally called the Post of Cebu — was set up to house American troops during the Philippine-American War.
It was renamed Camp Warwick in 1904 to honor Captain Oliver Warwick, who died fighting Filipino revolutionaries in Iloilo. A year later, it became Warwick Barracks, which remained an active US military post until the Americans began phasing out their presence. Eventually, the site was turned over to the local government.
By the late 20th century, the site had transformed into part of Cebu’s Carbon Market, where informal vendors and cooperatives turned the former military garrison into a dense and vibrant center of trade.
But their presence went beyond economics — it was an act of reclamation. In occupying the remnants of the empire, vendors reimagined the space not as a vestige of foreign control but as a living commons. What was once a site of command was slowly redefined by the rhythms of everyday life: daily acts of labor and resistance that redefined the terrain from a site of command to a site of community.
That a space once built for control by American troops is now a profit site for a Filipino corporation raises unsettling questions. What is the difference between foreign and domestic colonizers when both displace the poor in the name of order and progress? What once enforced empire now enforces capital.
The contradiction lies in a continuity — where power changes hands but not structure, and those who had reclaimed the space must once again fight for the right to remain.
This is the logic of neoliberal urbanism, where cities are remade not for those who live in them but for those who can afford to buy them.
2022 demolition behind closed gates
In early 2022, over a century after its founding, Warwick Barracks underwent another form of takeover — this time through demolition.
As part of the Carbon Market Modernization Project, the Cebu City Government and Megawide Construction Corporation began Phase 1 by clearing areas within the historic market complex, including Warwick Barracks, to make way for a privatized commercial district.
Originally scheduled for December 2021, the demolition was briefly delayed by Typhoon Odette — but by January 28, 2022, just weeks after the disaster, 700 “validated vendors” were relocated to an interim market in Unit II. For some, the storm became a convenient smokescreen for accelerated clearing. In the language of “recovery,” public space was emptied, making room for profit.
The demolition, initially set for December 2021, was delayed by Typhoon Odette but resumed by January 28, 2022, when 700 "validated vendors" were moved to the interim market in Unit II.
Although city officials insisted no vendors would be displaced, on the ground, the story was different. Vendors reported smaller stall spaces, higher rent, and a lack of real consultation.
“Maawa sana sila sa amin. 8,000 kami dito na nangangailangan at sa Carbon Market lang kami kumikita (They should have pity on us. There are 8,000 of us here who have needs and we only make our living from Carbon Market),” said 51-year-old vendor Arlynn Subing-subing, as quoted by Rappler.
Authorities claimed the interim market was equipped with restrooms and utilities, but vendors said the transfer offered them little choice.
By July 19, 2022, demolition operations escalated with the closure of Freedom Park, enforced under Market Authority Resolution 17-2022, and clearing activities extended to Modules 2 and 3 of the market complex.
According to Erwin Goc-ong, president of the Cebu Market Vendors Multipurpose Cooperative, over 5,000 vendors, including stall owners and sidewalk sellers — were affected. He warned that many vendors faced shrinking profits, possible displacement, and loss of livelihood, with some forced to consider alternative jobs.
The promised modern market came at the cost of their survival.
In the interim market, some stalls shrank to as little as four square meters, compared to the original 10 square meters in the old locations. Despite the government’s assurance that every vendor would be accommodated, Goc-ong confirmed that not all would be given space — with at least 20 vendors in Unit II alone left without stalls.
Fears of rising stall rental rates fueled concerns that vendors would have to raise their prices, pushing the burden onto consumers. Even worse, vendors claimed they were transferring out of fear and desperation, not genuine support.
The city’s push for “modernization” also drew condemnation from religious leaders, echoing a long tradition of Church solidarity with workers and vendors who stood at the crossroads of faith and social justice.
On July 18, 2022, a solidarity mass held for the vendors was disrupted by loud music reportedly played by clearing personnel — a move denounced by Fr. Nazario Ace Vocales of the Archdiocese of Cebu as “gross disrespect.”
He called the demolition “insensitive and unreasonable,” warning that it strips vendors of the little they have after years of pandemic hardship.
"It is not enough for them that they are implementing an insensitive and unreasonable directive in demolishing the stalls of our Carbon market vendors who have been burdened by the hardships of the pandemic and of the recent economic dislocations we are all experiencing,” he said, as reported by SunStar Cebu. “They take delight in the suffering of their fellow Cebuanos as they endure the pain and suffering of losing the humble stalls which is the source of the daily livelihood which they and their families rely on.”
While then-mayor Michael Rama insisted the project had gone through proper meetings and that delays would damage Cebu’s image to investors, Goc-ong countered: “The end does not justify the means.” He argued that while vendors support modernization, they oppose privatization — a line repeatedly blurred in city government statements.
Even Cebu City police were drawn into the tension, denying that they disrupted the mass and claiming their presence was merely to maintain peace. But by then, 80 vendors had already lost their stalls, and tensions at Freedom Park continued to rise.
The rise and fall of “The Barracks”
In place of the original market grew “The Barracks,” a hawker-style food and retail strip launched by Megawide’s subsidiary, Cebu2World (C2W).
Styled after Singapore’s hawker centers, it was designed with gleaming stalls, native products, and curated food offerings but also with rental rates of up to P40,000 per month, pricing out many of the original vendors.
C2W reported that 80% of the 300 stalls were leased out, mostly by food vendors transferred from the Puso Village project. While some “native” sellers reportedly still pay public market rates (as low as P8.50 per square meter daily), others, especially food sellers, shoulder commercial fees reaching P25,000–P30,000 per month. The average stall size? Four square meters.
Though marketed as modern and “inclusive”, The Barracks became a symbol of exclusion. What was once public and grassroots-driven had become privatized and curated — a form of gentrification where spaces are redesigned for profit, not for the people who built them.
In a twist of irony, The Barracks is now closed for further development.
Vendors still locked out
Despite promises from city officials, displaced vendors from the original Warwick Barracks and Freedom Park remain excluded. The promise of “no displacement” has unraveled as hundreds continue to operate outside formal structures or have been entirely pushed out of the Carbon district.
Megawide’s redevelopment of the Carbon Market is part of an P8-billion, 50-year joint venture that includes both public market infrastructure and commercial projects like Puso Village — designed more for tourists than long-time residents. The transformation is branded as “progress,” yet it has gutted a local economy built over generations.
Symbol of displacement
The Warwick Barracks was once a symbol of American military occupation, a post built to assert control over a colonized people. Today, it stands as another kind of monument — this time to economic displacement. What was once a garrison for imperial troops became a commons reclaimed by vendors, only to be razed again for commercial profit.
Its destruction, along with the eviction of those who sustained the market for generations, signals more than redevelopment. It is urban cleansing in the language of progress — where memory is paved over with polished tiles and where the poor are made to vanish from the spaces they built.
Warwick Barracks has been colonized twice — first by soldiers, then by developers. Its latest chapter is not a break from history, but its continuation. What has changed is not the nature of power, but its uniform. And if we are to believe the rhetoric of inclusive growth, then we must ask: growth for whom, inclusion on whose terms, and at whose expense?
With The Barracks closed once again — not for war, but for further profit-making — the question remains: Who gets to claim Cebu’s most historic spaces? And who is written out of them?