63rd Suluan Raid Celebration

Governor, Guiuan mayor call for national recognition

By BRYAN M. AZURA
October 18, 2007

GUIUAN, Eastern Samar  –  The top official of this municipality strongly called for a national recognition on the annual commemoration of the Suluan Raid citing that what happened in her town 63 years ago is vital to the history not only of the province but the of nation and even internationally.

“We have been celebrating this Suluan Raid for 63 years and I couldn’t imagine that up to this time, we still have no support from the national government,” Mayor Analiz Gonzales-Kwan said in a speech before a group of around a hundred people who attended the said commemoration at Brgy. Ngolos of this municipality.

Governor Evardone, meanwhile, said that he himself will join the call for a national recognition of the historical commemorations in the province. “If Balangiga Encounter was given of national importance by enacting a law on it thereby making its celebration a provincial holiday, why not the Magellan Landing and Suluan Raid,” he said in a phone interview.

“The provincial government is giving emphasis on these celebrations because this is important as our identity as Eastern Samareños,” Evardone added. “We are people rich in cultural and historical backgrounds,” the provincial chief said.

Evardone was not able to attend the celebration as he has to attend an urgent meeting with President Gloria Arroyo in Manila that day. Kwan claims that the famous landing of Gen. Douglas McArthur could have not happened without the incident that happened in Suluan island on October 17, 1944. Veterans recalled that the allied forces raided a Japanese garrison in Suluan paving the arrival of McArthur.

The lady chief executive narrated that the Guiuan airport, the largest in Southeast Asia that time, was a classified airstrip which was built in less than a month in preparation for the arrival of the American general who would have to fly from Australia at the height of Japanese occupancy in the Philippines.

Logic points out, according to Kwan, that McArthur stayed in Guiuan first before going to Leyte because he already had Filipinos with him when he went offshore Palo beach. Then President of the Philippines Sergio Osmeña and Resident Commissioner Carlos P. Romulo, were with MacArthur upon landing in the gulf of Leyte. “Where would they (Osmeña and Romulo) come from if he (MacArthur) went straight from Australia,” posed Kwan.

Kwan said that the events in Guiuan could not be seen in any historical accounts. “I believe that history should be re-written,” she said. She divulged that she already commissioned the Senior Citizens including the war veterans in her town to rewrite the history of Guiuan. Once established, the mayor is very optimistic that Eastern Samar will be the center of the history of the Second World War.

Kwan repeatedly called on the media to help her get the public and national attention. “I hope that the media will find its way to promote us and to tell the world and the national hierarchy that we need this particular attention,” he said referring to the unrecognized anniversary.

Vice Governor Leander Geli for his part said that he will extract whatever means to help the tourism, historical and cultural promotion of the province.

“It’s unfair to our veterans. It’s unfair to the values that had been exuded as our contribution to the war,” says Geli citing that the commemoration remains unknown to many.

Geli was the guest speaker during the said event in behalf of the governor. The municipal chief sighed that for the 63rd time, the province is celebrating the Suluan raid without national participation. “We are celebrating this ‘secretly’ again,” she whined.

In an interview, Kwan said that she is calling upon Congressmen to make a noise in the Halls of Congress for recognition of the annual event including the Magellan Landing in the island of Homonhon. “A privilege speech of a congressman will be good to start with,” she said. “By next year, I am planning to invite the presence of the National Historical Institute and Department of Tourism,” she said.