Reclaiming our piece of history
By Rex Catubig
THERE are no road markers to lead visitors to the site. The site, in fact, is hardly known in the vicinity.
The name Villa Milagrosa no longer rings a bell, nor does Seaside, precursors to the present Tondaligan.
Resolute, one finds the way through some remembered route much like a canine sniffing for clues. One makes a left turn after a waiting shed, through a narrow gravelly path that seems to hit a dead end.
It’s the rusty gate of the Villa Milagrosa, the festive beach resort of our youth, and one right away imagines the laughter of people within, only to be met with the eerie solitude of empty buildings and a forlorn landscape. Sadly, the gate to the once festive resort is closed forever and seals off the memories it harbored.
One walks along the fenced perimeter towards the beach, and the lonely figure of a man perched on a concrete pedestal stands tall from behind tall cogon grass. It is what remains of the monument of Gen Douglas McArthur commemorating his famous landing in Lingayen Gulf. Oddly enough, the marker of this historic event lies several meters away, walled inside a private compound. One has to go past the security dispatch of the neighboring gated community to steal a glimpse of the memorial.
As dusk falls, one leaves the place saddened and perplexed. It is yet another instance where the legacy of the proud past is desecrated and abandoned to the mercy of the elements. Despite the vain claim of being a progressive people, we continually leave detritus of our cultural ignorance. I hope that the stink in its wake will not escape the notice of perfumed noses.
It has not. Years hence, when Mayor Belen Fernandez regained the Mayor’s office after a hiatus of three years, she started envisioning her previous plan to relocate the Landing memorial from its present location off a private property to a more accessible and appropriate site on Tondaligan.
While plans were afoot, a webinar was held in January 2024 conducted by the provincial government to discuss the Lingayen landing of Gen. MacArthur. The resource speaker was James Zobel, a historian and Archivist of the MacArthur Memorial in Norfolk, Va., USA.
This was the unlikely pin that unexpectedly blasted the old claim and exposed a whole new view of the MacArthur landing. Without mincing words, Jame Zobel categorically stated that MacArthur landed in Bonuan Blue Beach of Dagupan City, which is along the Lingayen Gulf.
This in turn, prompted a flurry of correspondence and coordination through Mike Villareal, Vice President of Phil Veterans Bank and a WWII enthusiast, who acted as the moderator of the webinar forum. It was the jumpstart to reconfirm and reinforce Bonuan Blue Beach’s claim to fame.
Coincidentally, at around this time, Sen Grace Poe came into the picture as the sponsor and proponent for the funding of the MacArthur Memorial. This laudable gesture is a god send as it was learned and revealed later, that without her realizing it, the Senator’s grandfather, Fernando Poe, Sr, was a Bataan War veteran. This serendipitous aligning of intent tied up everything neatly and placed the undertaking in the proper perspective—imbuing the event with historic as well as a personal viewpoint.
And on February 24th , a twin-billed event will be held to honor and perpetuate the memory of the good General and pay homage to his heroic act of liberating Luzon and the rest of the country. More importantly, to reconfirm and reinforce the historic fact that his Lingayen Gulf landing, actually took place in Bonuan Blue Beach.
After all the political rigmarole, the memorial that was once a monument of neglect, will transform and evolve into a monument of magnificent love.
All because a lady mayor, who knew nothing of war, save the war waged by her political detractors, found in her heart a gnawing passion to memorialize the foot waves of a war’s surge to victory on the coast of her beloved city. An event, long ago, that happened way before she became a naughty romantic glint in her father’s eyes, and a shy, modest glimmer in her mother’s—from whose blessed union she derived her unli-love.
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