Finally a coffee table book: The war in Cebu

Today is the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, one of the most important doctrines of the Catholic Church. This was made into a doctrine during the Papacy of Pope Pius IX when he signed a Papal Bull affixing his signature in the official document in 1854. Who would know that four short years later in 1858 in a small town in Lourdes, France in the foothills of the Pyrenees, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared to a 14-year-old peasant girl by the name of Bernadette Soubirous. When she asked the beautiful lady what was her name, the apparition responded, “I am the Immaculate Conception.”

In 1862 Pope Pius IX authorized Bishop Bertrand-Severe Laurence to permit the veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Lourdes and in the year 1876 the same Pope granted a canonical Coronation to the image in the courtyard in front of the Basilica in Lourdes. I have been to Lourdes twice and every night they hold a procession in the Blessed Lady’s honor, which really gives you goose bumps because of its solemnity.

Today, Lourdes brings to France some six to nine million tourists annually because that small town has become a major pilgrimage site for Catholics and other Christian sects. Above all, Pope Pius IX was right in allowing the veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary because it was a heavenly confirmation that he did the right thing in proclaiming the dogma of the Immaculate Conception. Today is a Holiday of Obligation for all Catholics.

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Today is a red-letter day for me as it is the official book launching of the coffee table book entitled “War in Cebu” at the Ayala Activity Center at the Ayala Shopping Mall at 4 .m. today. A couple of years ago, my good friend and co-author Prof. Jobers “Jojo” Bersales who have a passion for history like me asked me if I could write a history of Cebu from the many books that I have read about World War II in Cebu. I took it as a golden opportunity to expand my horizons, after all we’ve been writing columns for nearly 30 years now.

Actually two years earlier, Prof. Jojo R. Bersales asked me to write the foreword for the book written by the late Mr. Jovito Abellana entitled, “My Moments of War to Remember By.” This book was written and compiled by the late Jovito Abellana who already died before it was published. It was one of the many books about life in Cebu during World War II from the perspective of a civilian living in the dark days of the Japanese occupation.

Prof. Jojo Bersales, one of the principal collaborators for this coffee table book already wrote other books, Pagsulay: Churches of Bohol; before and after the 2013 Earthquake. Then he and Mr. Carlos Apuhin of the Bank of the Philippine Islands both wrote the Anvil Award winning coffee table book entitled Salapi, The Numismatic Heritage of the Philippines in 2013. Who would believe that a coffee table book about the history of money would be awarded during the 50th Grand Anvil Awards last year?

In 2012 he also wrote the commemorative album Celebrating Milestones: 75 Years of the SVD Mission at USC. And in 2006 he co-authored with Dr. Resil Mojares and Mrs. Erlinda Alburo the book entitled University of San Carlos, A Commemorative History. Now he has asked me to collaborate with him in the making of the book The War in Cebu.

Another co-author is the eminent Dr. Resil Mojares, professor emeritus of the University of San Carlos and founding director of the Cebuano Studies Center and visiting professor of Kyoto University, University of Wisconsin-Madison, University of California-Los Angeles, University of Hawaii and the University of Singapore. Many of his books have received national recognition. Among them The War Against the Americans: Resistance and Collaboration in Cebu Province, Vicente Sotto: The Maverick Senator and the Aboitiz Family & Firm in the Philippines. One of my favorites is Theater in Society; Society in Theater: A Social History of a Cebuano Village 1840-1940 about the life in the town of Carcar where my grandfather Don Jose Avila grew up.

The other co-authors I haven’t really met them yet as they are all in the US. They are David Colamaria, an archivist for the United States Navy whose grandfather Edward Monahan served as 1st Sergeant for Company G of the 182nd Infantry Regiment during the Liberation of Cebu and David Taylor who is the official historian on World War II for the American Division Veterans Association, the unit that liberated Cebu in 1945.

The book The War in Cebu is the most comprehensive book on what happened in Cebu before the war began and during the Japanese occupation and the resistance movement and what happened during the Liberation of Cebu. The book also included an aerial map of Cebu, which the US Army Air Corps took over Cebu City during their bombing runs.

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