By Isabel T. Escoda
RECENTLY, I took a visiting friend, a foreign journalist, to Talisay because I’d heard of a monument there marking where the Americans had landed in 1945 as World War II was ending.
My friend had attended the 50th anniversary rites at Leyte in 1994 and had taken photos of the memorial showing Douglas MacArthur wading on shore to keep his “I shall return” pledge made when he had to flee to Australia as the Japanese juggernaut advanced from Luzon to the Visayas.
Since the Leyte monument is well known, I researched it and learned that the sculptor was Cebuano Anastacio Caedo who created that work in 1981 in time for the 37th anniversary rites of that momentous event. The statues, almost 10-feet tall, show not just MacArthur but President-in-exile Sergio Osmeña, Brig. Gen. Carlos Romulo and some American soldiers.
In Talisay, we found the monument on the beach in Tanke village. I’d seen my friend’s photos of the impressive monument in Leyte and expected to find something similarly inspiring in Talisay. What we saw on that beach was a total letdown.
Talisay’s monument does not replicate the figures in the one in Leyte since it was not MacArthur who landed there, but General William Arnold of the US 8th Army. There is a plaque set up by the National Historical Commission dated 2009 headed “Pagdaong sa Talisay” detailing the history of the place in Cebuano. The monument, life-sized figures of soldiers with nondescript faces, bear rifles. They look slapdash, like something children would make out of clay. The statues are mounted on cement pedestals inside an area surrounded by low pillars.
According to Cebuano historian Jobers Bernales, a controversy erupted when the statues were first unveiled because they were shown bearing armalites, which had still not been invented in World War II. Whether that error was corrected is anybody’s guess. We saw one statue’s broken arm lying on the sand among piles of rubbish, which included plastic bags and a pair of denim shorts. Vendors near the beach sell packets of snacks and drinks in plastic bottles, most of which lie with the debris around the statues.
The few monuments I’ve seen around Asia are beautifully maintained by natives and tourists alike. Why don’t Cebuanos have the same civic spirit? Why does Talisay Mayor Gerald Anthony Gullas Jr allow a historic site to get trashed? A recent photo of Vice Mayor Alan Bucao showed him shoving a symbolic shovel on the grounds where a Ford dealership will soon be built, indicating this is important for Talisay. Meanwhile a historic monument is neglected.
Local students probably don’t learn about our historic events and their teachers may not know or care to teach about them. With so many sources of information available these days, one wonders why such events seem to have faded from Filipinos’ memory. In Talisay it apparently faded long ago.