71 years ago General MacArthur returned to Philippines

The Cebu media has lost a great journalist in the person of Mr. Juanito “Nito” Jabat, who was the editor of The Freeman from the mid-1980s and became its publisher and that includes the Banat Newspaper. He was given the Grand Perlas Award and was the Most Outstanding Newspaper Editor given by the Cebu Newspaper Workers Foundation (CENEWOF) among the many awards he got in his long career as a journalist. Mr. Jabat began his career in journalism as a copy boy in the Manila Times way back in 1952, when I was still a year old.

We became good friends long before I became a journalist as he featured me during my motorcycle races in a Manila-based newspaper, putting our photos and stories during my motocross days and later when I took up archery when the Cebu Archery Club won our national tournaments. He reported it all.

But when the late Sir Max Soliven took me in as his Bureau Chief in The Philippine STAR in August 1986, Mr. Jabat called me six months later to ask me to write my first columns. Call it my “On-The-Job” training that a year later, Sir Max asked me to go to Ma’am Betty Go-Belmonte for my interview to write for The Philippine STAR. With the passing of Mr. Jabat, Cebu has lost a media icon and a close personal friend. May God grant him eternal rest.

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Exactly 71 years ago, the 7th Fleet brought the US Army Forces led by Field Marshal Gen. Douglas MacArthur into Leyte Gulf and landed on Palo Beach in Tacloban City where Gen. MacArthur fulfilled his historic promise that he made in Adelaide, South Australia on March 21, 1942 where he said “I came through and I shall return.”

That’s exactly what Gen. Douglas MacArthur did on the afternoon of Oct. 20, 1944 when he left the Navy Cruiser, USS Nashville and waded ashore in Red Beach in Palo, with the President of the Philippine Commonwealth Sergio Osmeña Sr. and Carlos P. Romulo and announced, “People of the Philippines, I have returned.” Gen. MacArthur just couldn’t wait to make his historic announcement in order to keep his promise to the Filipino people and many Americans still incarcerated on the grounds of the University of Sto. Tomas. He made this historic statement on the beach (just when it was cleared of the threats of Japanese mortar fire), which kept the hopes of Filipinos and Americans that the Japanese held in their three-year occupation.

History tells us that Gen. MacArthur left Corregidor on March 11,1942 on four PT-Boats (he rode on PT-41 under the Command of Lt. Cmdr. John D. Bulkeley) and arrived in Cagayan de Oro and flew to Australia at the Del Monte airfield. But upon his return to the Philippines, he made another historic but lesser known move when he returned to Corregidor on March 2, 1945 on board PT-373 and three other PT-Boats. While I wasn’t yet born during World War II, however, my passion for World War II history makes me write these historic tidbits for the benefit of our readers.

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Well, by now you already know that there are 130 presidential candidates that filed their respective certificates of candidacy (COC) before the Commission on Elections (Comelec) last Friday. I do not know if this is a historic record, but I would like to believe that if 130 people lined up to the Comelec to file their COCs to run for President, it sort of belittles this supposedly highest position of the land.

It just makes me wonder why so many people line up to ran for President of the Philippines? I’m sure that perhaps we are seeing a hundred idiots who just want their names affix in that Comelec sheet to brag to their friends that they had the guts to run for President. But in my view, the Comelec should have prevented these people from filing their COCs because they really don’t have a Chinaman’s chance of winning the Presidential derby. Again this is one more thing that is truly wrong with our present electoral system, where even the village idiot is able to seek the Office of the Presidency.

This situation got me an email comment, which I am reprinting here.

“Dear Mr. Avila, Good day and God Bless. Thru your column, can I request all the presidential and vice presidential candidates to make public their respective educational and health records? Educational records should be complete from elementary, high school, college, and post grad.

If any, it must include also grades attained in each subject taken and school activities and school organizations membership/position. Other special training, if any, should likewise be indicated. And more importantly, his/her complete medical records. These records can help electorate determine one’s physical, mental and leadership fitness for the position aspired. Thanks and more power. Boy Lojo Lipa City.” I’m sure that Mr. Lojo specifically meant those potential candidates who belong to a credible political party and have a good chance of winning this presidential race.

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