In September this year, when FU Finance & Admin VP Dean Sinco, Sports Director Paultom paras, and I were plotting out the route of the Dumaguete Adventure Marathon(billed as the biggest sports tourism event in Negros Oriental, held Nov. 22 as part of our City fiesta celebration), we were thinking of organizing a similar adventure marathon that will start in Dumaguete or in the Municipality of Valencia, and ascend to what is more popularly-known locally as the Japanese Shrine.

A month before that on Aug. 21, Negros OrientalG Gov. emilio Macias II announced that a plan was being drafted by the Provincial Engineer’s Office to undertake a “survey of the access road that will be rehabilitated and developed in support of the Shrine’s support infrastructure.”

The Filipino-Japanese-American friendship shrine, an eight meter concrete tower with white marble finish, is located on a plateau on Nasunog ridge – the northeastern shoulder of Mt. Talinis in Sagbang, Valencia.

I downloaded the following from the website of the dumaguete Host Lions Club:
The shrine was inaugurated on April 2, 1977, which — because of its special message regarding the quest for peace — is ample reason for all of us in the City of Gentle People to create awareness of its significance in our midst:
The significance, symbol and purpose in constructing this amity memorial shrine are:
1. Serve as a sacred memory and deference to, and an act of mourning for the Filipino, American, and Japanese soldiers who died during World War II.
2. A history landmark of the fiercest and major encounter during World War II in Negros Oriental.
3.A tri-sided tower representing the American Liberation forces (164th Regiment later replaced by the 503rd Parachute Regiment, US 8th Army), the Filipino guerrilla units (75th Infantry and 77th Infantry) and the Japanese Imperial Forces (174th Infantry and Unit 31 Air Corps).
4.A navigational aid and beacon for ships and planes. The tower is visible from a distance and is provided with a high voltage bulb beamed towards the sky,electronically controlled, the electricity is provided by the geothermal generator in Mag-aso (2 kilometers from the site) which was operational by 1980.
5. A fulfillment of the burning passion of those left behind to denounce war and its evils. It is a tangible proof that the human quest for universal brotherhood and peace among men and nations of diverse background, origin, race, religion, and culture can be achieved.
6. A visible declaration of the costly futility and disillusion in settling differences, misunderstandings, international clases of ideologies, and search for wealth by means of war.
7. A painful reminder of those who use force or armed encounter as means of advancing egoistic interest and self-aggrandizement.

Reading the above manifesto and being painfully hurt by the impunity of those involved in the Maguindanao Massacre, we are encouraged to actively pursue our plan to organize an event that will promote the Shrine’s message of “denouncing war and its evil (and) the use of force or armed encounter as a means of advancing egoistic interest and self-aggrandizement”.

To date, I have sent emails to the Japanese Embassy, the Japan Foundation, as well as the American Embassy seeking support for the improvement of the access road to the Shrine. Such efforts on my part could be futile but I have always been a cock-eyed optimist.

With elections just around the corner, we anticipate that the plan of Governor Macias and the Provincial Engineer’s Office to rehabilitate the road to the shrine will be shelved until after the elections next year.

I understand it in the Dumaguete Host Lions Club, headed by its president Angeline Dy, Edrei “JB” Lim (1st vice president/treasurer) and others like Immediate Past President Anthony Jerome Villegas, Board of Directors Gregorio “Goring” Uymatiao Sr., Marcelino Maxino, and Monserrat Magbanua are responsible for maintaining the shrine.

Thus, I call on the CLub and its members to join hands with us at Foundation University and do something concrete to preserve and promote this historic site and utilize it to inform and educate the children and youth regarding its significance in the promotion of peace ad brotherhood.

“If we are to have peace, we must have to start with the children,”Mohandas Gandhi reminds us.

It will also be an excellent medium to promote tourism in Negros Oriental since our Province is one of those identified as a part of the tourism hub in the Tourism Act of 2009.

April 2, 2010 will be the Shrine’s 33rd anniversary. Wouldn’t it be a wonderful event in Negros Oriental if we commemorate the day with something special like an adventure marathon participated in by Filipinos, Japanese, and Americans, and people of other nationalities celebrating a day of peace?