Cebu

The Ayala Center is a huge almost cavernous shopping mall with a center foyer for escalators going up 4 floors where the cinema is and from the ground floor where the children’s playground is located. Most of its patrons appear to be young; and maybe college types who park in the cafes like BOS Coffee and Figaro with their laptops.The local tourist apparently patronize either MacDo, Chowking, Jollibee which are a chain found all over the Philippines.  Cities proudly proclaim these as a marker of progress. Quest International, where I’ve booked,  is a 3-star hotel of 28 floors patronized largely by Koreans, mostly young couples, some families, and girl buddies. The other ostensibly couples are the white dude and a local woman – most are very young in their mid twenties or so, plain-looking but slender waisted. The men, probably American are in their forties or older. The number  of  White-male/Filipina couples are fairly large to be that obvious. The other observable occurrence is that families are rare, i.e. with children. There are a few teenagers or early twenties female Korean tourists. 
Like most of the Philippines the Cebu population is young, even the college students. The uniformed USC coeds look like HS kids! These is apparently what Ayala Malls are marketing to, although the high-end stores, H&M, etc. are not exactly teeming with customers. At the National Book Store, young women cluster around the romance novels section, apparently reading from a sequel or something similar.   Cebu is also known for guitars. I went to look for some famous Cebu guitars but the ones sold at the music store are made in China! 

It’s not hard to place Cebu City,  in this case Mandaue City, which is the urban/business area (compared to the resort areas of Mactan). Some tourist spots are well-kept but a few meters away, the old and shabby homes crowd out the narrow side streets; sidewalks are potholed, and generally just a notch up from being seedy. It has the look of Manila’s Binondo in the 60-70s. Traffic is horrible and while not comparable to EDSA, it has the makings of it in the next 3-5 years unless the city government rationalizes a transportation plan. Cebu could very well use an elevated tram system that takes people to the various satellite cities and to the airport. The riding public does appear to be well-behaved. At the other end of the mall is the PUV terminal where stretch-jeepneys line up for passengers headed home to areas like Lahug and other outlying suburbs (the suburb does not seem to be different from the city center). On a Monday night around 7pm,  the passengers line up 3-people deep in a remarkably orderly fashion, even in a slight drizzle, for a ride home.

Iloilo

Contrast this to Iloilo. City planning in Iloilo is apparently aggressive and forward looking, my car driver attributes this to the politician, Senator Drilon. The rivers have been provided cobbled-walk promenades and the water itself is clean to fish from. The old airport which sat in the middle of city before it was demolished was transferred further out. The former runway was added to the street grid and business offices built over it, creating a wide business zone, like where Seda Hotel is, which sits on  a the former sugar processing center. I felt safe in Iloilo, but not the same in Cebu. Iloilo City people appear more laid back, polite and cosmopolitan,  and for some, apparently earn enough to patronize the many restaurants that ring the city. They say it will take you more than a month to try each restaurant one at a time. 

It still has shabby holdovers, like the public market (shades of old Quiapo Central Market) but some food stalls outside the perimeter have  made a name for themselves with their specialities, like the original batsoy (pig skin rind soaked in vinegar, garlic, and soy sauce)  and a coffee dive name Madge which is patronized by hip and cool clients. They claim Starbucks does not even come close.  Historically, this two cities have been hailed as queen cities of the Visayas. For the 21st century, I have my bets on Iloilo.