Remembering the unsung heroes of Cebu

The past two days have been declared a holiday: today markes the end of Ramadan or Eid’l Fitr, while yesterday was National Heroes Day. Speaking of heroes, this is the problem of our government, they keep changing our National Heroes Day and even changing our heroes. Once, April 30th was Heroes Day and I don’t know who or why this was changed, then again moved to today, a very insignificant date.

 Anyway, we’ve already known who are our real heroes from Lapu-Lapu all the way to Dr. Jose Rizal. Yet there are so many people who are heroes in their own right that few people even care to remember. One of them is the late Col. James Cushing, who was Governor, Mayor or the military head of Cebu during the Japanese occupation. Not a single street is named after this man who truly loved Filipinos.

 This is why I was heartened to know that last Friday, the Ramon Aboitiz Foundation, Inc. (RAFI) opened an exhibit entitled, “Mga Bayani sa Sugbo: Cebu’s Contributions to Nation Building” which will run up to October 21st. This exhibit gives you the names of Cebu’s heroes who have been honored with a street named after them. Surely the name of Gen. Arcadia Maxilom is familiar to you. But my grandfather Don Jose Avila named that street Mango Ave. as it was lined with mango trees on both sides of the road when it was first constructed.

 Street names like Juan Climaco, Don Pedro Cui, Vicente Rama, Don Sergio Osmeña, Julio Lorene or Leon Kilat were named after these Cebuano heroes. I have written it here that these names do not appear in our history books, whether it is written by Gregorio Zaire or Teodoro Agoncillo because their history revolves around Manila. These are the authors of our history books when we were in high school and yes, we only read about our country’s history from a Manila point of view. That early, I could already sense that a certain group of Filipinos were already trying to brainwash Filipinos that Manila is the Philippines and that the Philippines is Manila… down to our national language.

 Unfortunately, these authors never heard of a Katipunero named Pantaleon Villegas a.k.a. Leon Kilat, nor did they even learn that Leon Kilat on April 3, 1898 fought the Spanish troops and captured the City of Cebu and held it for four days, until the Spanish Cruiser, the Don Juan Austria, arrived in Cebu with fresh Spanish troops (they rescued the Spaniards who held out in Ft. San Pedro) and Leon Kilat’s forces had to flee in haste. A few days later, Leon Kilat was murdered by his own men in Carcar and was offered to the Spanish in return for clemency. But the Spanish “Juez de Cochillo” wasn’t merciful to the Katipuneros who gave them the body of Leon Kilat and executed all of them.

 The irony of ironies is that, by the end of the month of April, 113 years ago, Commodore George Dewey’s Asiatic Squadron, which was anchored in Hong Kong sailed to Manila Bay and on May 1, 1898, he attacked the Spanish Armada off Cavite and destroyed Admiral Patricio Montojo’s fleet and made history as America’s greatest naval battle.

 Perhaps the bigger problem with us Filipinos is that we do not read as much as the Vietnamese, the Taiwanese or the Thais who are voracious readers. We have been so used to hearing reports or tsimis from the radio or when we read, we read only entertainment magazines. This is why I’m glad that RAFI came up with this project on our unsung heroes so they would be remembered. I hope that the Department of Education (DepEd) would allow all school children to see this exhibit so that we Cebuanos who know these street names by heart would remember the personalities behind these familiar names. Kudos to RAFI.

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 THE BLACKBOX:

 It was a great party that our good friend Chester Cokaliong held at the Marco Polo Plaza’s Ballroom last Saturday evening to celebrate his recent awards, the 2011 Entrepreneur of the Year Award from the Cebu Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Inc. (CCCI) and the prestigious Garbo sa Sugbo Award from the Province of Cebu. Kudos to you Chester!

 To spice up the evening, Chester got the mercurial Rico J. Puno who was here in Cebu not so long ago and ended up causing problems with Gov. Gwen Garcia. Well, he was up to his old tricks, naming a friend who hired him just a few months ago as a “smuggler.” Of course he took it back when he realized that he made a faux pas again. Incidentally, he already made fun of Gov. Gwen Garcia who was present in that evening. I don’t know if Rico J. was sanctioned for that faux pas. Perhaps he wasn’t which is why he did it again!

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