Low-key Leyte Landing milestone

television commentator for the event along with Kathy San Gabriel. I remembered as a kid in the 1990s how the event was touted as the beginning of the liberation of the Philippines. Gen. Douglas MacArthur, “liberator of the Philippines,” kept his promise to our people to return.

In Europe and the United States, the milestone anniversaries of D-Day

- tions attended by world leaders. This should have been the case for the Leyte Landing which was followed by the Battle of Leyte Gulf, wherein 200,000 naval personnel were involved, including 209 American ships against 67 Japanese ships, which the

hailed as the largest naval battle in the history of the world.

Despite local preparations being made in Leyte, the nation seems to one of the biggest commemorations of his presidency, complete with a cinematic reenactment of the event. Unfortunately, organizers failed to take into account the fact that the actual landing happened at 1:30 in the afternoon, while the reenactment was at 10:00 in the morning, which was high tide. This made the American actor who played MacArthur literally dive to the beach, half of his body submerged. I remembered the

actor as saying, “I shall not return.”

Not many people may even be aware that just like the supposed

- lan in “Mazaua” — with contested sites in Limasawa, Leyte and Masao, Butuan — there is a similar annual debate among locals about the Leyte landings. Although the MacArthur Landing Memorial National Park with the famous gigantic statues and the national historical marker is in

beachhead of Leyte’s northeastern

be the actual site of the landing, the original Red Beach. In fact, there is a

Dr. Leoncio Yu, a retired boardcertified surgeon based in Illinois in the US, who claims to have vivid memories of the pre-invasion naval and aerial bombardments of his hometown Dulag on Oct. 18 to 20, 1944, wrote to me about how the bombing exacted a heavy toll on his town, with more than 10,000 rendered homeless and 900 civilians killed, including the town mayor and his six-year-old daughter. “Despite Dulag’s major role in the Allied liberation of Leyte, history has failed to recognize Dulag as the correct site of Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s return on

collected documents, newsreel footage and eyewitness accounts to prove his point. Those who are interested to know can consult his recently released book available at Amazon.

But beyond the controversy about the site is the shrinking relevance of the Landing in the historical conscious

veterans who could have reminded us

Landing have faded away? Could it be that people now see, based on historical records, past the crafted image of MacArthur’s megalomania and his heroic reputation has somehow become

as historians in recent years to shift the credit of liberating the Philippines from MacArthur and the Americans

- rillas have become successful? In fact, the Araw ng Kagitingan events focus

attention and focus in recent years. It geopolitical reality, and vice versa. while talking to Julie M. McCarthy, the Manila bureau chief of the

abandoning us in 1942, were the Americans still seen as liberators as

adulation received by MacArthur when he made a sentimental journey to the Philippines in 1961? I then

- tion with personalities made them put a face to the hope of liberation. MacArthur, and his statement “I shall return,” became the face of that hope, whether correctly or not. Thus, a more mature appraisal of history tells us that MacArthur and the Leyte Landing are still important because his image sustained many in the years before