Primarily blogs are used to share personal insights, opinions and thoughts about particular occurences in their everyday lives.
To deepen the experience further, pictures and/ or videos are even placed conveniently so that the experience when told or retold becomes so much clearer.
For this particular Blog though it is all that and so much more.
This blog serves as a recognition towards the historical landmark of Corregidor and to everything that it stands for.
As a display of admiration towards our courageous ancestors who fought amidst adversity for the freedom of our blessed nation and people.
As an expression of awe and wonder towards the structures and fortifications which despite its crumbled parts, still stands firm and strong as if to protect the current generations, as it did years before - a testament to the Filipino brilliance and creativity.
And also an invitation for you, our curious visitor to journey forth to Corregidor and relive history as it unfolds before you.
It is an experience which you will never forget.
And it can all begin, in a click of your mouse.
To deepen the experience further, pictures and/ or videos are even placed conveniently so that the experience when told or retold becomes so much clearer.
For this particular Blog though it is all that and so much more.
This blog serves as a recognition towards the historical landmark of Corregidor and to everything that it stands for.
As a display of admiration towards our courageous ancestors who fought amidst adversity for the freedom of our blessed nation and people.
As an expression of awe and wonder towards the structures and fortifications which despite its crumbled parts, still stands firm and strong as if to protect the current generations, as it did years before - a testament to the Filipino brilliance and creativity.
And also an invitation for you, our curious visitor to journey forth to Corregidor and relive history as it unfolds before you.
It is an experience which you will never forget.
And it can all begin, in a click of your mouse.
Enjoy...
“Come one lazy Sunday morning, I headed off with the rest of my group mates to the port in Manila Bay. To be honest, I was quite uncomfortable with not knowing what boat we were riding. Good thing it was actually a little, quaint cruise ship – with comfortable seats even! At the start, I was mesmerized with the Corregidor documentary they were showing on the TV screen. It was quite a teaser of what we were about to experience in the next few hours. The speaker giving a short history lesson of what happened in Corregidor lost me when I couldn’t keep my eyes open and fell asleep instead, only to be greeted by the view of the island when I opened my eyes an hour later. At first glance, I immediately thought the island was beautiful. It was as if it were untouched – lush greens and few people. We were greeted by these charming tour buses that were meant to bring us around the island. For the next couple of hours, we were there breathing in fresh air, visiting various iconic spots, learning what really did happen in the island during the times of war.”
“If I were to speak about what part of Corregidor was my favorite, I can’t. I can’t take Corregidor as if it had parts to be gazed at separately. For me, Corregidor needs to be taken as a whole because really, the island had one shared history, a story that needs to be told about all those courageous men who lived their lives fighting for the country. Corregidor was beautiful even in their ruins, but the history was something more. I can only imagine what it would have been like to be in that island during the Second World War, what Corregidor would have looked like before it was critically hit and destroyed by the war."
-Betsy Esguerra
“If I were to speak about what part of Corregidor was my favorite, I can’t. I can’t take Corregidor as if it had parts to be gazed at separately. For me, Corregidor needs to be taken as a whole because really, the island had one shared history, a story that needs to be told about all those courageous men who lived their lives fighting for the country. Corregidor was beautiful even in their ruins, but the history was something more. I can only imagine what it would have been like to be in that island during the Second World War, what Corregidor would have looked like before it was critically hit and destroyed by the war."
-Betsy Esguerra
"CORREGIDOR, 1941: A land of rocks and barren ground, steel and cement, gun batteries and bombs. A land of violence, blood, and gunpowder. A land of atrocity, yet touted as a symbol of the undying vigor of man. Death looms in the air; hope is but a faint glimmer in the hearts of those who believe it. The promise of help, long considered forgotten.
Day-to-day living was hell. Every so often, the ground quakes, the steel girders and support rods of the Barracks tremble under the endless fire of Japanese attack. Slowly, yet surely, guns and ammunitions run out. Supplies trickling from plenty, down to a pittance. Morale was down, with soldiers becoming more like vagabonds trapped inside a fortress of despair. Alcohol and vice were the only escape, as long before had the men’s fighting spirit died out.
A thought slowly prevails among the trapped, with the ones who died early being “the lucky ones”. Free from this dreadful waiting, free from the pain inflicted by lead bullets and steel swords. Freedom. And even the nurses, those ‘angels-on-Earth’ who stayed, all Florence Nightingales and Melchora Aquinos to the wounded heroes of the new confederacy-Katipunan, felt the misery of their situation, even resigning to alleviate the men’s final woes— being last-ditch lovers before the inevitable end.
But alas, it was meant to be over. May 6, 1942 spelled the end for that useless waiting, with Gen. Jonathan Wainwright’s surrender. All that gloom under the tunnels, turned into shame and foreboding, after ‘heroes’ being forced to concede to a vile and dishonourable enemy.
Looking back at it now, the courage of those men spoke volumes more than the thickness of their bomb shelters. That in spite of the horrors of war, these men valiantly stayed through the end. True, it was a loss—to be forever recorded in the annals of history. But the valor that these men exhibited, all in the face of certain doom and abandonment, will remain always in their legacy: the protection of Australia, giving Gen. Douglas McArthur time to rally his forces and eventually free the Far East.
Yes, the flesh must yield— not to gunfire and atrocity— but to the hands of fate."
-Vino Luna
