65th Leyte Landing Anniversary

65 years ago, Gen. MacArthur landed in Leyte as he promised and drove away the Japanese troops. A battle ensued until the official surrender of Japan on September 2, 1945. Every year the Leyte Landing is commemmorated by officials with many Filipino, Japanese, American and Australian war veterans attending. It's one of the big events in Leyte's cultural activities. It always make me wonder why we love to celebrate wars. We have war festivals and war museums. The peace treaty signed between the US and the Japanese aboard the USS Missouri that ended World War II is not even remembered.

But anyway, this year, the Leyte Landing will be celebrated again at the scorchingly hot McArthur Park in Palo, with the President of the Philippines attending. But it will also be celebrated at the new a/c Robinson's Mall, so I wasn't surprised to see a replica of the McArthur monument at their entrance. It was nicely made too, better sculpture even than the original bronze at the park. When I touched it, I was surprised that it was sculpted from styrofoam. It is amazing, don't you think? I didn't get the name of the artist who did this tho.