Pangasinan war vets’ ordeal immortalized in a song

LINGAYEN, Pangasinan — Fifty-eight years after Gen. Douglas MacArthur landed in Lingayen Gulf, the historic event was immortalized in a song written by a war veteran and his wife.

The song, tentatively entitled Panaon na Giyera (War Time), was sung for the first time before hundreds of war veterans and their families here the other day during the commemoration of the event at the Veteran’s Park.

Nena Castro, 48, sang the song as her husband Pedro, 78, who belonged to the "Aguilar Post" during the Second World War, accompanied her on the guitar. The couple hail from Salomague Sur in Aguilar town.

"We were then part of the last call supposed to proceed to Bataan but the plan didn’t materialize because our ride was already bombed by the Japanese forces. We scampered for our safety and lost track of our colleagues," Pedro narrated to The STAR.

He said his post commander, Domingo Repancol, asked him and his wife to write the lyrics of the song for the celebration of their town fiesta. Repancol narrated to them the struggles and horrifying experiences of Pangasinan war veterans in December 1944.

The Castros have their own band, the Castrac Band, that performs in some gatherings.

Panaon na Giyera, sung to the tune of Bayan Ko, narrates the beginning of the war, the sights and sounds in the battlefield, and the hunger and pain which Filipino soldiers experienced then.

In Thursday’s commemoration, Lingayen Mayor Josefina Castañeda called the war veterans "the symbols of bravery."

"You are the pride and inspiration, our great heroes. Filipinos would not have been free today without you," she said.

Retired General Velerio Perez, the veterans’ adviser, suggested that the Jan. 9 commemoration be made a week-long and provincial event.

He said there should be an effort to explain to schoolchildren in Pangasinan the significance of the Lingayen Gulf landing.

But while the veterans are celebrating the historic event yearly, the exact location where MacArthur and his forces landed in Lingayen Gulf remains unsolved.

But lawyer Luis Samson, secretary-general of the Veterans Federation of the Philippines, quoted James Clayton, MacArthur’s official biographer, as saying that the American general actually made three landings.

The first was on Jan. 9, 1945 when he visited the headquarters of General Patrick of the 6th Infantry Division in Bonuan, and from there, proceeded to the poblacion of Dagupan.

The second was on Jan. 10, 1945 when he visited the four divisional command posts in Lingayen, Dagupan, Poblacion, Bonuan and San Fabian.

The third and last was on Jan. 13, 1945 when he abandoned his quarters in the flagship Boise at sea and moved to the Home Economics building in Dagupan.