Del Mar’s stand on Lapu-Lapu statue’s transfer

CEBU, Philippines - As one of two legislators who urged the Office of the President in 2004 to grant the proposal to erect a statue of Lapu-Lapu at Rizal Park in Manila, may I request that the plan to transfer the existing Lapu-Lapu statue in Luneta to Barangay Punta Engaño in Lapu-Lapu City be deferred and studied further for these reasons:

(1) The original intention was to honor Lapu-Lapu, as the country’s first defender of our freedom, not just in Lapu-Lapu City but also in other places of the country — in this case, the premier park in the country, the Rizal Park — where tourists from all over the country and the rest of the world flock;

(2) Our request then, contained in a resolution in Congress, for the Rizal Park’s Agrifina Circle in Luneta as site of Lapu-Lapu’s statue was to expand the breadth and width of the honor accorded him by not just limiting it to Lapu-Lapu City but making it a national recognition as well;

(3) The grant of space at Rizal Park for Lapu-Lapu was a hard-earned concession, a public relations coup for the Cebuano hero and the province he represented, as it recognizes him as a national public figure in history; moving the statue from Manila would remove that highly visible symbol of recognition;

(4) Lapu-Lapu is already more than adequately honored and praised in Cebu: Lapu-Lapu City is named after him, a statue lords over the site of the Battle of Mactan at the Liberty Shrine, and an annual celebration of that battle has been a well-attended event by locals and visitors. If Lapu-Lapu City, however, still needs another statue of Lapu-Lapu at Datu Mangal area in Barangay Punta Engaño, it can raise funds for the statue without taking away Lapu-Lapu’s presence at the center of Metro Manila. But where would Lapu-Lapu be honored: its planned site, in a barangay in Mactan or at its present site, Rizal Park in Manila?

5) Acquisition of the statue now standing at Rizal Park, even if national agencies would pay for moving the statue, would be our loss, Lapu-Lapu’s and Cebu’s, as it would remove from the country’s principal showcase of tourism and history the symbol of Cebuano’s valor and heroism. We might gain a statue; we’d lose the opportunity for Lapu-Lapu’s and Cebu’s honor.

(6) In approving Rizal Park in Manila as site of the statue, the Office of the President considered Lapu-Lapu not only as a hero of Cebu but of the entire nation; must we shun that recognition almost a decade after it was accorded and revert to the old days when tribute to Lapu-Lapu was confined to Cebu? My request is to put off the transfer until the issue can be further discussed, especially among Cebuanos who should be affected most by what I believe is diminution of the hero’s stature.

Sgd.Rep. Raul V. Del Mar Cebu City - North District