Fil-Am Dagupeño:”MacArthur landed in Dagupan”
A Filipino-American first cousin of House Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr. told the city council Monday that it was really in Dagupan City beach where General Douglas MacArthur landed on November 9, 1945 as the head of the Liberation Forces that freed Luzon from the Japanese invaders.
Dr. Guillermo de Venecia, an eye specialist who now lives in San Fabian, said he read a book, authored by war correspondent Carl Maidan who was in MacArthur’s party, where he wrote that MacArthur first came ashore by landing their barge approximately three kilometers south of San Fabian.
He said from Bonuan, MacArthur walked inland to Poblacion, Dagupan where he established his first command post on Luzon soil at the Home Economics building of West Central School.
De Venecia turned over an enlarged framed photo of the landing to the city council headed by Vice Mayor and presiding Officer Alvin Fernandez.
He also turned over a book that details the raid of a Japanese concentration camp where a number of American prisoners were detained, by American commandos in Cabanatuan.
The raid of that concentration camp, he said, was planned by MacArthur and his staff of generals right at the Home Economics building.
Another item he turned over was an enlarged oil painting of his own grandfather, Don Guillermo de Venecia, from whom Dr. de Venecia derived his name, who was mayor of Dagupan City in 1926 and built the existing city hall of Dagupan, then called “presidencia”.
De Venecia told newsmen that he was only 14 years old when the liberation forces landed in the shores of Bonuan and was among those who excitedly watched the American troops marched to the city.—LM
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