Photo Weekly Challenge: Silhouette / Corregidor Island’s Tail

Dawn in Corregidor Island, Philippines — the last bastion of American freedom during World War II; the last island to surrender to the Japanese in 1944.

I was waiting with my crew members for the sun to rise. We stayed in the tadpole-shaped island for five days to do a historical documentary [islanders] about the lives of my family who lived there before the War. Now a historical shrine, it would remind anyone of the time it vibrantly served as an American military garrison fortified to fight Spanish armadas and other weapons from the sea – almost all canons installed there were facing the sea and could not be moved rendering them useless when airplanes were invented; the Japanese zero fight planes attacked from the air and pulverized the island that led to the American surrender in the Pacific. Buildings and remnants of the days old past have been kept; but with the harsh elements through the years – both Man made and Natural – sun, rain, wind  –   structures are slowly eroding, needing serious study for their restoration so as to be continuously preserved for the future generation.

I sat on a hill overlooking the tail of the island where the cemetery was, according to my oldest living brother who is one of the few remaining Corregidorians who was born there. It is not in the tourist’s itinerary but it can be reached by foot – which we did. I didn’t find the slab that would tell me where my relatives “rested.”

Corregidor Foundation is maintaining the facilities in the island. [Click this for more info about the island, corregidorisland.com]

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