At last, Duterte made Lapu-Lapu a Filipino hero!
TOULOUSE, France — It's a Wednesday today, but I'm not in Cebu as today I will be flying from London's Heathrow International Airport to the Toulouse Blagnac Airport as I'm one of the lucky media souls that Philippine Airlines invited to witness PAL's pickup flight of their brand new Airbus A350-900 from the Airbus factory in Toulouse to bring home to Manila this coming Sunday July 15.
What makes this trip extra special for me is that my son, PAL Second Officer Jesus Valeriano "JV" Avila is flying the PAL Boeing 777 from Manila to London. It is the very first time father and son are flying together with the son in the cockpit of PAL's 777. But my son is a Boeing pilot and is not yet trained to fly an Airbus aircraft, so from London, he flies back to Manila.
The City of Toulouse is the fourth largest city in France, located in the Occitanie Region. Toulouse is the Center of European Aerospace industry where an estimated 120,000 jobs are in the aviation and the aerospace industry. I passed Toulouse years ago on my way to my first trip to Lourdes. For this trip we are having a one-day trip to Lourdes from Toulouse, which is nearly a two-hour trip by bus. I've visited Lourdes twice already, but for this trip I intend to take a bath in its miraculous waters.
Our main event will be this Friday when PAL President Dr. Jaime Bautista accepts the brand new Airbus A-350-900 during the handover ceremonies, then on Saturday afternoon we will board the first A-350 XWB ferry flight back to Manila, arriving on Sunday noon time at the PAL Terminal 2 at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport. Then I fly home to Cebu.
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President Rodrigo "Digong" Duterte has signed Republic Act. No.1040 or an Act declaring April 27 as Lapu-Lapu Day or Adlaw ni Lapu-Lapu. This 497 years after Lapu-Lapu's victory over the Spanish troops led by Portuguese captain Ferdinand Magellan in the shores of Mactan Island. This new law actually declares a working holiday all over the country, while it is a special non-working holiday for Lapu-Lapu City and the Province of Cebu.
This is a presidential campaign promise that President Duterte accomplished within his first two years in office. I can't forget how when he was still Davao City mayor he would use the fact that Lapu-Lapu should have been considered a Filipino hero, but bewailed the reality that we instead turned him into a fish. He then made many campaign promises that he would right the wrong that we Filipinos did to Lapu-Lapu and this is exactly what President Duterte has done, officially made Lapu-Lapu a true Filipino hero.
Actually, I really didn't think of Lapu-Lapu this way until the Cebu Newspaper Workers Foundation (CENEWOF) traveled to Corregidor Island with our President Marcelo "Celing" Fernan in order to give honor to Don Sergio Osmeña. It was the first time I ever visited Corregidor. Then we arrived at the heroes place and I asked why Lapu-Lapu was not given any honor in the place of heroes. The museum manager simply told me that Lapu-Lapu was not a Filipino. I was stunned upon hearing that remark.
The next issue about Lapu-Lapu was when a Korean institute called the Korean Freedom League led by its chairman Kwon Jung-dai donated P15 million to the Department of Tourism to cast a 40-foot brass statue of Lapu-Lapu at the Rizal Park in 2004, as a gift bestowed to the Filipino people in recognition of the Filipino soldiers who came to fight for South Korea. Mind you, certain Manila personalities tried to prevent the statue from being erected. Then tourism secretary Richard Gordon tried his best and finally had the statute erected at the Agrifina Circle in Rizal Park.
When this was finalized at the Agrifina Circle, I went to Manila and stayed at the Manila Pavilion Hotel in a room with a commanding view of the Agrifina Circle. I was nearly in tears seeing the Lapu-Lapu statue standing erect in Rizal Park. Now finally, President Duterte has finally made Chieftain Lapu-Lapu a genuine Filipino hero and we salute him for making this Cebuano dream become a reality.
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