Sure, let's erect a freedom monument, but...!

With the death of former Pres. Corazon “Tita Cory” Aquino, the whole nation is now on official mourning for 10 days. But my advice to the children of Tita Cory is that they should exercise their true Christian faith by accepting the condolences and sympathy of Pres. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. Sen. Benigno “Nonoy” Aquino III and Kris Aquino already sent a message that they are not keen on seeing the President. Why? Because Nonoy is with the opposition?

Sen. Nonoy and Kris should be advised that even if they dislike Pres. Arroyo, they must learn to respect the Office of the President that she holds. Whether they like it or not, the President represents the Filipino people, which means the people who voted for her and those who did not vote for her. If the Aquino children shun the President of this country, then they have made a political circus out of their mother’s demise. Tita Cory has gone to the great beyond, therefore, she’s out of politics for good!

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Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña plans to build a Freedom Monument to honor the late Sen. Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr. and his wife, former Pres. Corazon “Tita” Cory Aquino because Cebu City has no such monument, much less a street named after Ninoy, whom we consider a true martyr of this country. I fully concur with this plan by hizzoner, however, before we spend money to erect monuments to honor those who have fought and cherished our democratic ideals, there are people whom we have sorely forgotten to remember.

First, Cebu City no longer has a street named after our national hero, Dr. Jose Rizal because during the Marcos years, when my law professor, Atty. Valentin “Billy” Legazpi got elected as an Assemblyman, he enacted a local law renaming the Dr. Jose Rizal Ave. to Natalio “Talyux” Bacalso Ave. I’m sure that by now, Cebuanos know where Natalio Bacalso Ave. is, but don’t even remember who he was. I wasn’t a journalist when that switcheroo happened, but I did tell Atty. Legazpi that they did a grievous error in replacing the street named after our national hero.

This is not to say that Talyux shouldn’t have been honored with a street named after him. Back then we still had a lot of unnamed streets or streets named after flowers, which would have been just right. But no one complained and the error continues to this day. Incidentally, Talyux is buried at the CemPark, just behind my father’s tomb.

When the Heritage Monument was built at the Parian by Ed Castrillo, because we allowed a Tagalog to build this monument during the time of Mayor Alvin Garcia, the sculptor forgot to put the statue of Pantaleon Villegas a.k.a. Leon Kilat, although we have honored him with a street, including a street to commemorate the Tres de Abril uprising. I would like to believe that this historical incident should have been immortalized in a monument; after all, it was the only time that the Katipuneros ever captured a city. Indeed, Cebu City was under the hands of the Katipuneros for four days.

Finally, there’s a man whom we have completely forgotten, who was then the Island of Cebu’s acknowledge leader during World War II at the height of the Japanese occupation. I’m referring to Col. James Cushing. Gen. Douglas MacArthur has a beautiful monument along Red Beach in Tacloban City, which is now a major tourist attraction, but we have none for Col. Cushing and his Cebuano guerrillas?

Cebuano Guerrillas are credited by the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) of the United States for having captured the highest ranking Naval officer in World War II, when they captured Admiral Shigeru Fukudome, Chief of Staff of Adm. Mineichi Koga who took over the Combined Naval Fleet from Adm. Isoroku Yamamoto, the Architect of Pearl Harbor. You can read this story in the book entitled “Koga Papers” written by my uncle, Col. Manuel F. Segura as a first hand account on this incident. Another book on this is entitled “The Rescue” by Steven Smith, where he quotes heavily from Col. Segura’s book.

During the darkest time for Cebu, Col. Cushing took on the leadership vacuum and built his headquarters in the mountain fastness of Tabunan called the Cebu Area Command. They acted as a legitimate government and fought a guerrilla war against our Japanese occupiers. Alas, their bravery has become lost to a new generation of Filipinos who believe that World War II just happened too long ago in history. What makes it even worse is the fact that their exploits are not written in our history books. Thank God for Col. Segura’s book, the exploits of our guerrilla are forever immortalized. So we should erect a monument for those who fought the Japs for our freedom.