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From the MANILA BULLETIN

 

 

Corregidor is for Tourists, Not Prisoners


By Beth Day Romulo


THE new chief of the Philippine National Police, General Edgardo Aglipay, wants to clean up the tattered image of the PNP, by rounding up the miscreants and scalawags, and reforming the service, to regain public respect, which I heartily endorse. Unfortunately, part of his plan, according to his statement and press interviews, is exile them, for retraining, to Corregidor Island.

While it is true that the name Corregidor itself implies a correctional institutions, which indeed it was during the Spanish era, today it is the principal tourist attraction near enough to Manila to be visited in a one-day trip, by swift, clean boats of Sun Cruises and other lines. Since the non-profit Corregidor Foundation, dedicated to the maintenance of this historic site, was created 20 years ago we have fought long and hard to get sufficient appropriations and help to turn it into a major historical monument dedicated to peace. Our visitors, who number 56,000 already this year, include Americans, Japanese (many of whose relatives perished on Corregidor when it was retaken by American and Filipino forces in 1945), and fellow Filipinos. We have special weekend tours, at lower prices for local visitors and students. Corregidor reeks of military history, most notably when General MacArthur and his family, along with President Quezon and his family, fled to Corregidor as the Japanese forces were entering Manila. Later, the Quezons were spirited off the island fortress, by submarine, under orders from President Franklin D. Roosevelt, taken to America, where, hospitalized for tuberculosis, President Quezon died at the TB center at Saranac Lake, New York, without ever being able to return to his beloved Philippines.

There are many war memorials to visit on Corregidor Island, remnants of military barracks, a WW II museum, and a sound and light show, equal to anything one finds in Europe, within the Malinta Tunnel. If the visitor has time, there is both a well-appointed 35-room inn and cheaper cottage accommodation available to spend the night. There is the US war memorial which all ships and planes view as they enter Manila Bay. There is the Japanese peace garden. The island itself has been declared an island of "peace valor and international understanding." Knowledgeable tour guides are available to spell the fascinating and dramatic history of Corregidor (which guards the entrance to Manila Bay) to visitors from other lands and to local students.

In short, Corregidor is an island devoted to international peace. It is not a reform school for misfits to receive moral and cultural retraining. Such a presence on this historic and hallowed ground would be a sacrilege.

As president of the Corregidor Foundation, devoted to the preservation of this internationally famous war memorial, I urge the new chief of the Philippine National Police to rethink his plan for dumping his miscreants on Corregidor Island. Surely there are other, less historic and more isolated sites in the Philippines to locate his police reform school.

Beth Day Romulo
 

 

The Author  is a well-known journalist and  writer. She is the widow of the late General Carlos Romulo, who was Foreign Minister of the Philippines for many years, and intimately connected with the history of Corregidor. Though her skill, talent and personality she has become a notable and widely regarded  personality in her own right.

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The opinions expressed herein are the opinions of the author, and inclusion in CURRENT AFFAIRS does not constitute endorsement.
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