PLAZA Independencia has always been a place to visit for the feel of nature it provides: tall trees and green lawns. Now, it has flowering plants in a section called “Memory Lane” by Cebu’s Parks and Playgrounds chairman Librado Macaraya. The place is half the section of the plaza, with the plaza fountain, fronting Fort San Pedro.
Macaraya, more familiarly known as Doc Ado, also calls it “Little Sirao.” So people who want to see the flowers in Sirao but do not have the time or the resources to go there, can also find themselves in a flower garden in downtown Cebu. The perimeter fence is lined by plants with orange flowers. There are plots of petunias with pink and purple flowers, a ‘birthday cake’ with pink flowers, zinnias with red, yellow and pink blooms, sunny sunflowers, yellow cosmos, purple Singaporean bougainvillea, red santans, yellow dang-dang, yellow and red miniature roses, yellow and pink bandera Espanola, red and yellow celosia, and red Bangkok kalachuchi.
The flower garden plots are sectioned by pathways with comfortable park benches. Here, one can also find the Filipino-Japanese War Memorial. But Doc Ado was not thinking of the memories of war when he thought of putting up this flower garden in the plaza, but of the senior or almost senior citizens who may have patronized the place in yesteryear and who, “visiting it now makes them remember the nice things that happened in the past.”
Indeed, it is a very comfortable place for reminiscing because there are enough park benches and the old trees are still there, giving the place a sheltered atmosphere and with occasional birdsong, a place for truly remembering and appreciating the bounty of nature.
Memory Lane is now officially open and welcomes visitors to appreciate nature’s beauty, to reminisce and to make new memories.