Plaza de Inday Nita

This year’s Press Freedom celebration will be remembered for the posthumous honor bestowed by the media and the community to three co-workers who have since crossed the Great Divide: Cerge Remonde, Clodualdo Bajenting and Wilfredo Veloso. Kudos to the Cebu Citizens Press Council led by CCPC executive director Pachico “Cheking” Seares for initiating the move. CCPC enabled the naming of the Cerge Remonde, Clodualdo Bajenting and Wilfredo Veloso streets in Argao  town with the cooperation of the provincial  and the municipal government.
Cebuanos now have a remembrance of these mediamen who pursued the common good through their calling as journalists.

I am delighted by this event taking place during Press Freedom Week because I had the opportunity to know them all in the course of my own media profession.

Noy Clod Bajenting used to listen to my commentaries aired over dyKC in the 80s and 90s and wrote about them in his opinion columns. He was a professional, one who would properly attribute the news to my program and the personalities whom I engaged in live interviews. Sometimes Noy Clod would even express my own opinion and that encouraged me to do better in my profession.

When I was booted out from dyKC at the height of the 1995 local elections over an issue which was perceived to be political rather than administrative in nature, Wilfredo “Boy” Veloso, then writing opinion for his paper defended my right to speak and take a different stand, even if it meant going against the political leadership in a media entity controlled by the government.

I haven’t had the opportunity to thank Boy Veloso for taking up the cudgels in my behalf but I’m sure he is now looking down from up above and reading this: Daghang salamat, Boy. As for Cerge, we used to work together in another radio station and I have written quite a number of articles about his interesting life and career.

Now that Argao has marked three municipal streets to honor her good sons (plus a sports complex in memory of Cerge), when will the city and province of Cebu honor their great daughter, Nenita “Inday Nita” Cortes Daluz?

I raised this point in 2007, during the year she died and I recall that then Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña responded positively and asked allies in the local Sanggunian to study the issue because there is an existing ordinance that prevents the naming of streets, public places or structures in memory of a deceased person within five years after his or her death.

It was then Councilor Sylvan Jack Jakosalem who proposed an amendment seeking to reduce the regulation period from five to four years before a street can be named after a deceased person. Had Jack’s amendment been approved, the renaming of a particular street in barangay Calamba in honor of Inday Nita would have taken off in 2011 assuming the local council voted unanimously in favor of the proposal in consultation with the National Historical Commission of the Philippines (NHCP).

The involvement of the NHCP is critical because it is the sole agency which decides whether the street, public place or structure to be renamed has any historical significance, otherwise its name cannot be changed.

In 2012, Jack fell ill and his plans didn’t prosper.

Curiously, in September 2012 the City Historical and Cultural Affairs Commission, acting on the resolution authored by Councilor Alvin Dizon put up a “a Martial Law marker” at the Plaza Independencia “to remember those who have been victims of the dark era of martial law under the late President Ferdinand Marcos”.
I will not question the decision of the City Council and the CHAC in bunching all victims and martyrs of Martial Law including Inday Nita in one marker because I’m sure the local officials had no other motive than giving honor to the freedom fighters.

On the other hand, if this was meant to quiet quarters asking to honor Inday Nita, I feel that instead of highlighting her sacrifices and struggle, they have been blurred by a common marker.
The memory of Inday Nita cannot be set aside because it is ingrained in the democratic struggle. As such, it always crops up each time we commemorate the EDSA Revolution in February 25, the assassination of former Senator Benigno Aquino, Jr. in August 21 and especially during Press Freedom which is observed in the week closest to September 21 when we remember the dark days of Marcos Martial Law.

Inday Nita is a great daughter of Cebu, somebody who lived, ate, laughed and cried with us. We will never forget her bravery during the numerous anti-Marcos mass demonstrations which she mobilized and led from 1983 to 1986. Long before Corazon Aquino emerged in the political scene, Inday Nita was the country’s Joan of Arc.
For showing great moral courage in the darkest period of our political history, I propose that Plaza Independencia should be renamed, Plaza de Nenita Cortes-Daluz Y Los Martires de Ley Marcial (The Plaza of Inday Nita and Martyrs of Martial Law).

Friday last week, I was invited by CDN Publisher Eileen Mangubat to sit in the panel of a media event that had for its center of activity the screening of the documentary, “Imelda and Me” produced by TV news personality Veronica Pedrosa. I turned down the invitation because of a previous engagement but I heard that the audience, mostly students from different colleges and universities had very short attention span and did not show much interest in the film.

Wa gyud tawon sila ka-relate sa Martial Law.

We owe it to future generations to keep the patriotic character and moral courage so well-demonstrated by Inday Nita and the martyrs of Martial Law alive by giving them specific and true honor in a public place where, many times during Martial Law, they stood up against evil.

It is in Plaza Independencia where this and generations to come can well remember, celebrate and emulate the courageous spirit of Inday Nita, as well as the victims and martyrs of Martial Law.
(To be continued).