LINGAYEN VS. LEYTE: Tourism War Looms on MacArthur Park

 By Mortz C. Ortigoza

Foreign and local tourists will soon converge and relish the embellished tourism sites of capital town’s Lingayen in Pangasinan after her mayor - an Ex- Police General and a former Congressman - wanted to add another attraction: The zealous construction of a  MacArthur Landing Memorial Park.

Here’s my reaction at the social media’s Facebook after reading the post there of Mayor Leopoldo Bataoil:

'Build a mammoth bronze statues on a shallow man made pool depicting MacArthur and his entourage on a shrine sir much better than the one in Palo, Leyte - the first landing of the Yanks' Naval Armada from the Marianas and other Pacific islands".

Lingayen was the second landing of "Dug-out Doug" after his escape from the clutches of the superior Jap soldiers through a PT Boat bound to Mindanao and his eventual B-17 Flying Fortress Bomber - a pair - ride to Australia three years earlier.

AMERICAN CAESAR. Former Australian sailor David Henry Mattiske visits the MacArthur's Landing Memorial in Palo, Leyte. Those in the giant statues are American  Supreme Commander  Five-Star General Douglas MacArthur (2nd from left front row), Philippine Commonwealth President Sergio Osmena, Lieutenant General Richard Sutherland, Philippine Brigadier General Carlos P. Romulo, Major General Courtney Whitney, Sergeant Francisco Salveron, and CBS Radio’s Correspondent William J. Dunn. (Photo Credit: ABSCBN.Com)

I even posted my “selfie’ in the wee hour of July after I sneaked-in through the intercession of Boyd Ugbana my ten-wheeler truck driver - at the MacArthur Landing Memorial National Park in Leyte after I "absconded" Mindanao - damn not in a sub but in a lorry - from my four months lock down last year due to the dreaded phantom pandemic.

The pipe chomping Ray Ban’s Aviator sunglasses sporting American Caesar’s Supreme Commander of the Allied Power Five-Star General Douglas MacArthur waded knee deep the Red Beach there for dramatic entrance that will be an iconic photo not only for posterity but for perpetuity for the future lovers of history. He was with Philippine Commonwealth President Sergio Osmena (who succeeded President Manuel Quezon who died of tuberculosis in the U.S), Lieutenant General Richard Sutherland, ‘Dwarf’, Bright, Scintillating Writer Flip’s Brigadier General Carlos P. Romulo (who married a pretty Yank journalist Beth Day), Major GeneraL Courtney Whitney, Sergeant Francisco Salveron, and CBS Radio’s correspondent William J. Dunn.

Another iconic photo of Dug-Out Doug and entourage was taken in the Blue Beach Landing in Pangasinan after the General and entourage disembarked from his mother ship’s the U.S.S Boise and trotted the shore of Lingayen.

To those who love “selfie” and posted their photos at Facebook, here’s what Life Magazine Photographer Carl Mydans who accompanied MacArthur in the Lingayen Landing: “No one I have ever known in public life had a better understanding of the drama and power of a picture”.

What more son of a gun if Bataoil could accomplish those more than life size statues of Dug-Out Doug et alia. The Pinoy retired Police General has a better understanding too of the power of a park and on snaring the unwitting tourists to spend their dough in Pangasinan instead of Leyte.

“Thanks Mortz! The MacArthur Landing Monument in Palo, Leyte is far. It takes a plane and bus ride to go there. While this one in Lingayen is just nearby Manila and Baguio. Our town has great potential for growth being so rich in culture and history with this McArthur in 1945 and Limahong in 1574, being a capital town and government center and as an educational center where a former President (another tobacco chomping West Pointer like MacArthur’s General Fidel “Tabako” Ramos - MCO) studied, among others,” retorted by the still ramrod Two-Star General after I told him I’m going to write a blog/column this Holy Week about his plan. Bataoil became a member of the Philippine Constabulary Ranger after he graduated in 1976 at the Philippine Military Academy in Baguio City.

U.S. warships faced an onslaught of suicide Japanese Kamikaze Pilots and their planes with bombs and gasoline off Luzon during the second great American amphibious landing at Lingayen Gulf, Pangasinan in the Philippines during World War - II. (Photo Credit: USNI.ORG)

MacArthur, the son of General Arthur MacArthur the former Military Governor General of the Philippines, left the United States Military Academy in October 1922 and sailed to the Philippines with Louise – a socialite and multi-millionaire heiress - and her two children, Walter and Louise, to assume command of the Military District of Manila. It was rumored that MacArthur’s senior officer General John J. "Blackjack" Pershing   courted Louise but failed to win her heart. He threatened the duo if they get married he would exile them to the tropical backward Philippine Islands. Of course Pershing denied it as "all damn poppycock”.

Pershing – the guy who saved France in World War-1 – I wrote in my blog General Who Saved France Had War Exploits in Mindanao before is a soldier’s soldier by famous Generals with surnames Eisenhower, Bradley, Patton, and MacArthur.

Pershing (USMA Class 1886) wrote in his autobiography that in the Muslim Wars in Jolo Sulu against the intrepid Tausogs, he ordered cadavers to publicly buried in the same grave with a dead pig. It was not pleasant to have to take such measures but the prospect of going to hell instead of heaven sometimes deterred the would-be assassins' Jurumentados to wreck havoc to the lives and limbs of the colonizers. The General, who was earlier an instructor of the West Point, was  contemptuously called Nigger Jack by cadets because of his strictness.

Just like Nigger Jack and Jurumentados’ Bane’s Pershing, Bataoil fought too the brave Maguindanaons' Moro rebelsand the hit- and-run Commie's guerrillas  when he was assigned in my province Cotabato and the nearby Maguindanao and Agusan Provinces.

To those who are still ignorant how significant these two landings in Leyte and Lingayen play a role in the lives of our ascendants and those who were born in 1944. The 203,608 liberation forces in the Lingayen landing – more than the G.Is brought by Dwight D. Eisenhower in Normandy Landing to flush out the Germans in France and invade Germany - became the saviors of the beleaguered Pinoy civilians against the 17,000 brutal Japanese Navy who mass raped our women, bayoneted to death our babies, and massacred 100, 000 Filipinos trapped in the City of Manila.

Of course, history buff worth their salts know that the Leyte Landing overshadowed the Lingayen Landing because the former hosted the largest naval battle of World War II based on the gross tonnage sunk of Japanese ships.

 Salamabit, since time immemorial I was engrossed wide eyed reading those iconic battles in Hitler’s three million Nazi soldiers’ invasion force in Operation Barbarossa against the Soviet Union, General George Patton’s Operation Husky the invasion of Sicily, Italy, the urban warfare’s Battle of Stalingrad, and Nazi Field Marshall Erwin "Desert Fox" Rommel versus British Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery and American Swashbuckling Lt.General Patton’s tank battles in Africa but just learned later that there is BIG than Normandy Landing of the G.Is (government issues) and the allied soldiers like the Brits - the Biggest Naval Warfare in History (probably the American and the Chinese Navies are studying today) and the renowned Crossing of the “T” naval shoot out between the good and the bad guys all ensued at the Leyte Gulf and the Strait of Surigao -where I passed by last year in a ferry boat.

HISTORIC STRAIT. The sea at my back (photo taken in July 5, 2020 in Lipata Port Surigao City) is the historic Strait of Surigao where great battle of war ships between the liberating U.S forces and the Imperial Japanese Navy ensued.

Leyte Landing became historical when Japanese Imperial Navy’s Vice Admiral Shōji Nishimura "Southern Force" consisted of the old battleships Yamashiro and Fusō, the heavy cruiser Mogami, and four destroyers, Shigure, Michishio, Asagumo and Yamagumo left Brunei after at 15:00 on October 22, 1944, turning eastward into the Sulu Sea and then northeasterly past the southern tip of Negros Island into the Mindanao Sea. The Vice Admiral then proceeded northeastward with Mindanao Island to starboard and into the south entrance to the Surigao Strait, intending to exit the north entrance of the Strait into Leyte Gulf, where he would add his firepower to that of Vice Admiral Takeo Kurita  of the Central Force who sneaked in at the San Bernardino Strait (Geez I’ve been there too after I left by ferry, an old U.S landing ship, the port of Allen in Samar for my four hours night trip to Matnog Port at Sorsogon City in Luzon) after the bulk of the U.S Navy guarding the Strait left after they were deceived by another big Japanese carrier fleet coming from the Pacific to Leyte – but it was a fluke as it carried only miniscule number of Mitsubishi Zero fighter planes.

As the Japanese Southern Force approached the Surigao Strait, it ran into a deadly trap set by the U.S. 7th Fleet Support Force. Rear Admiral Jesse Oldendorf had a substantial force comprising six battleships, eight heavy and light cruisers, 28 destroyers and 39 torpedo boats or PT boats.

Nishimura's ships, according to Wikipedia, passed unscathed through the gauntlet of PT boats. However, their luck ran out a short time later, as they were subjected to devastating torpedo attacks from the American destroyers deployed on both sides of their axis of advance. At about 03:00, both Japanese battleships were hit by torpedoes. Yamashiro was able to steam on, but Fusō was torpedoed by USS Melvin and fell out of formation, sinking forty minutes later. Two of Nishimura's four destroyers were sunk; the destroyer Asagumo was hit and forced to retire, but later sank.

The Battle of Surigao Strait was also the last battle in which one force in this case, the U.S. Navy was able to "cross the T" of its opponent. Crossing the T  is a classic naval warfare tactic used from the late 19th to mid 20th centuries, in which a line of warships cross in front of a line of enemy ships, allowing the crossing line to bring all their guns to bear while receiving fire from only the forward guns of the enemy.

The MacArthur War Memorial is located in the municipality of Palo and is one of the region's major tourists’ draws. It was declared a national park on July 12, 1977 through Letter of Instructions No. 572 signed by President Ferdinand E. Marcos. Leyte is the province of Super Maam La Imeldific thus the Memorial, the Palo's regional government center near the memorial, I saw too there a museum adjacent to the site which contains historic photographs and other memorabilia of Dug-Out Doug including a copy of his speech upon landing and a bronze cast of his footprints, and near the park is the Daniel Z. Romouldez Airport – Former House Speaker and first cousin of La Imelda. Those sites and giant government infrastructures like the more than two kilometers San Juanico Bridge that connects Leyte to Samar are examples of ‘what we in power for juggernaut can do” to one of the poorest provinces in the country.

The seven double-life-sized bronze statues depicting MacArthur and his entourage during the historic A-Day Landing was captured in the iconic photo by Gaetano Faillace. The statues were carefully designed by sculptor Anastacio Caedo and inaugurated during the 37th anniversary of A-Day in 1981. The shrine’s spot was where MacArthur fulfilled his promise of "I shall return" after the Yanks were beaten black and blues three years earlier by the Nippon’s armies.

“Very good insan. That is historical and very nice move to bolster tourism in Pangasinan. If our historians knew the place of the first Catholic celebrated mass in 1521 (in Bolinao, Pangasinan), the more they know this (MacArthur) landing less than 100 years ago,” former National Irrigation Administration Regional Director John Celeste – who just like Congressman Boying Celeste called me “cousin or insan” because of my mother’s maiden’s surname “Celeste”. John used to be assigned in Region 11 whose NIA’s office is based in Davao City and told me there when I dropped by that countless of proud Celestes visited him at his office near the City Hall of Sarah Duterte.

SENTIMENTAL VISIT. Iconic retired U.S General Douglas MacArthur - accompanied by his wife Jean - returned in July 3, 1961 to the Philippines on a ten-day sentimental journey to the scenes of some of his famous battles like in Lingayen, Pangasinan. An estimated two million Filipinos turned out to greet their World War II liberator in Manila.

Photo credit: LIFE Photo Archives (photo enhancement by Pilipinas Retrostalgia)

“Isa yan sa pinakamagandang gagawin ni Mayor Pol, Walang nakaisip niyan na Mayor since the beginning of making Lingayen a historic site,” commented by former Lingayen’s outspoken Councilor, Pastor, Singer, Professor, and Political Consultants to some Hizzoners in Pangasinan Arnel Montemayor.

U.S based political anal-list, er, analyst Silvester Rayos, Jr, butted in my conversation with General Bataoil who cited that there were many conflicting claims that MacArthur landed in Luzon through the towns of Lingayen, Dagupan, and San Fabian.

“Researchers should go to the US Navy archives of World War II in Pangasinan kuno tan cuanda, sabi sabi at maraming sightings. McArthur is Prima Donna, he will land first in a visible and historic landmark which is the Capitol not in obscure nipa palm forest in Dagupan,” sez by Silver who was thinking about the dispute since time immemorial with the political brass of Dagupan City’s local government unit and politicians from the administrations of Mayors Opring Manaois and Belen Fernandez that MacArthur was seen walked the shore with his entourage in the Blue Beach in Barangay Bonuan Gueset in Dagupan City.

How can you argue with a historical buff and a passionate dude like Silvester. I instead jested that my grandma or lola was the labandera (laundry lady) and later became the jowa of Big Mac. “Look at my photos at Facebook almost all of them I posed with a pipe just like my grand dad Dug-Out Doug,”I told him.

Bataoil told Rayos, a son of Lingayen, too, that Agriculture Minister Condring Estrella said that Life Magazine’s photographer Carl Mydans who joined the wading in the shore that MacArthur in his 1961 sentimental journey in the Philippines told the Cabinet Minister from Rosales, Pangasinan that “it was near the American inspired provincial capitol”.

“Initially, I relied on the statement of the late Minister Conrado Estrella which he revealed in his talk with Gen Douglas MacArthur during his return to Lingayen. When asked where exactly did he land. Minister Estrella said, McArthur asked where was the Capitol, and then pointed towards an area at vicinity of Urduja (the residence of the Governor of Pangasinan a spit distance to the Capitol Building – MCO)”. But indeed, the logbook entries from the US National Archives are hard evidence that cannot be disputed.”

The Mayor added that historical researcher Belle Arcinue, the wife of Sual town former Mayor Bing Arcinue – a friend and a scion of Lingayen, too – told him that the legendary U.S Five – Star General landed either in the stretches of the present local government units of Sual, Labrador,Lingayen, Binmaley, Dagupan, San Fabian, or Agoo – designated by the American armed forces as Blue Beach.

“I am fortunate to have exchanged thoughts with Mrs Arabelle Arcinue who researched on this matter. She said, the Allied Forces landed in Lingayen Gulf, from Sual to Agoo. But the question is where exactly did MacArthur land initially?” Bataoil said.

The General-Mayor, who was my boss at the Tactics in PMA when I worked there in the late of 1980s, told me he will seek the approval of Pangasinan Governor Amado Espino, III and the members of the Sangguniang Panlalawigan (legislature), and other government offices like the Departments of the Environment and Natural Resources, Tourism, and the Public Works & Highway.

Just like when he sought the approval of these departments when he embarked on the P2.5 billion world class highway and bridges he interceded when he was a nine years Congressman. He told me in my previous interview at his office it is a four-lane road with biking and jogging lanes six-kilometer by-pass highway that will connect Lingayen, Pangasinan to Dagupan City.

Retired Police General Sonny Verzosa, the PMYer scion of the Capital Town’s former Hizzoner, joined the passionate discussion on my Facebook's board.

“Sir when my dad was the Mayor he invited to Lingayen the American photographer (Life Magazine’s photographer Mydans - MCO) who took the monumental picture of the Lingayen Gulf Landing. This was during the time when my dad and mayor Manaois of Dagupan City was hotly contesting the exact landing site of McArthur. He presented to my dad the picture where McArthur and his staff were wading through the shore and enfaced on it his dedication ‘To Mayor Verzosa, photo I took right at the back of the capitol’. I gave the original copy to the secretariat of the Gulf Landing Celebration then chaired by Sir Espines (moniker of former nine years’ Governor Amado T. Espino, Jr – another PMYer - MCO) and I think it is one of those photos on display at the Veterans Park”.

So there we are. Let’s just wait for the completion of the giant statues of those famous public figures trotting the knee deep shore of Lingayen town before they annihilated to smithereens those 17,000 evil Japanese naval soldiers under that barbaric Rear Admiral Sanji Iwabuchi in Manila – the second worst devastated city after Stalingrad in that Great World War-II. That dog Iwabuchi - who did not heed Army General Tomoyuki Yamashita to flee to the Cordillera - did not wait to be killed by those Lingayen hailed Yanks, he committed suicide out of shame he could not defend the Capital to the superior U.S military juggernauts.

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