MacArthur’s Bonuan landing reenacted in Dagupan
‘Gen. Douglas MacArthur’ wades through the Blue Beach in Bonuan. (Punchphoto by Butch Uka)
THE landing of General Douglas MacArthur in the Bonuan shoreline on January 9, 1945 was reenacted 79 years later with a tall student from the University of Luzon playing the role of the American general, sporting the khaki uniform with a Pershing cap and his signature dark sun glasses and corn-cob pipe.
Mark Joseph Mendoza, as General Mac Arthur, was with another man in khaki outfit, also wearing dark sunglasses tall enough to be mistaken to be representing General Carlos P. Romulo.
Both were surrounded by tall and burly Naval ROTC cadets, who served as their security escorts in that landing minus their automatic rifles.
Upon reaching the stage at the new MacArthur Park in Bonuan, Tondaligan, “General MacArthur” shouted, “I have returned” and was met with claps from the appreciative audience.
The added feature in the commemoration of the January 9, 1945 landing of the Liberation Forces led by General MacArthur in Bonuan was introduced by veteran stage director and PUNCH columnist Rex Catubig, who penned the lyrics of the Dagupan Hymn.
Instead of the usual wreath-laying and speeches by old timers and veterans who claimed to be living witnesses to the landing of General Douglas Mac Arthur in Bonuan, Dionisio Bolor, a retired police officer and president of the Dagupan City Police Retirees Association, presented old pictures showing American soldiers landing in Dagupan on January 9, 1945 as proof that General Mac Arthur landed in Dagupan.
Bolor also asked Mayor Belen Fernandez to cause the transfer of the monument of General Mac Arthur installed by the Philippine Veterans Association on a private lot owned by the heirs of the late Major Moises Maramba, a World War II veteran on his property, also located near the shores of Bonuan. (Leonardo Micua)
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