Trespass-less selfie
With a locked belfry preventing my plan to trespass and climb, I took a selfie with the 1875 Santuario Arquidiocesano de Santa Catalina de Alejandría de Cárcar (Archdiocesan Shrine of Saint Catherine of Alexandria), from the balcony of the 1937 Cárcar Dispensary / Cárcar City Museum in the Población Plaza of Cárcar City, Province of Cebú
The Cárcar Dispensary was initiated by Alcalde Municipal (mayor) Mariano A. Mercado (1877-1944), and completed in 1937. The Dispensary was built to serve as a puericulture (child care) center and clinic for women and children. During the construction of the Dispensary, the Cárcar Municipal Swimming Pool opened behind the center in 1931.
In World War II, the Dai-Nippon Teikoku Rikugun / Japanese Imperial Army (大日本帝國陸軍) took over the Dispensary, and used it as detention center, where members of captured local resistance fighters and supporters were held and tortured. After the war, the Dispensary was left to disrepair, sometimes used as storage house by the local government.
When Cárcar was declared as a city in 2007, Mayor Mário Patriciō Paraz Barcenas (born 1959) decided to have the Dispensary renovated and restored. And in 2008, the Cárcar Dispensary was reopened as the Cárcar City Museum.
This picture was taken circa 2026, during my regular explorations to document local historical landmarks and artworks around the Philippines.
