Letter to The Editor: Pilgrimage at Museo Sugbo

My wife and I were part of the large crowd that attended the glitzy opening of Museo Sugbo which features an Art Gallery, a Media "Neuseum", Heritage Souvenirs and Coffee Shops.

It was a truly impressive affair with no less than the former First Lady and present Congresswoman Imelda R. Marcos as guest of honor.

But Lita and I had a special reason to take that opportunity to visit the former Cebu Provincial Jail. Few people probably know that we were separately confined there in 1944 as Japanese Kampeitai prisoners for guerilla involvement. We did not know each other then.

Lita, who was the lone occupant of a small cell in a separate building was fortunately released after a bombing raid in October. I managed to escape with five others (Melanio Fuentebella, Titing Dacayana, Abdon Del Mar, Florencio Ubas and Dominico Cuaco) at dawn of December 26, 1944 when we crawled through a machine gun emplacement carved at the left side of the prison wall leading towards the sea.

The Media "Neuseum" featuring the life size blown up picture of Atty. Antonio Abad Tormis is a fitting tribute to a crusading journalist who was murdered by a hired assassin after his series of editorial exposés mostly supported by official records gathered by my office as then vice mayor of this city.

Asst. Prosecutor Ben Mabanto's donation of a Japanese machine gun to the Heritage section made me wonder if that was not the same weapon planted before us Kampeitai prisoners who were lined up in front of the Cebu Normal School (which included Governor Hilario Abellana and his family, Rev. Father Bonk of USC, Mr. Alfonso Corominas, Novo Bono and others) right after the Japanese garrison at USC was flattened by the carpet bombing of US Air Fortress planes.

With the conversion of a former prison to a Museo Sugbu, Governor Gwen Garcia has indeed added another worthy cultural edifice to this premier province.