Erasing Our Heritage
by Engr. Virgilio S. Perdigon Jr.

Date of Writing: March 25, 2009

A day before Valentine's I saw the antique post of the PNR wall near the Police Outpost Number 1 demolished. My heart was broken when I saw it because that structure, useless as it may appear, can be a very good item for a city landmark. We just lost another connection to our past. I have a photograph, courtesy of Arch. Rino A. Fernandez, showing that structure during the Second World War. It can be surmised from the picture that the walls of the old railroad station have a story to tell us. Indeed, it is part of our heritage as Legazpeños. It ought to be preserved. If it comes in the way of our road widening, then it can be relocated a reasonable distance away through the skills of our engineers. Having no steel bars, the structure must date to the Spanish Period. In the 1930's we lost the San Rafael Bridge, the monument to the courage of our forefathers who fought in the Battle of Legazpi on January 23, 1900 against a superior enemy.

There are other structures and sights in our city which can serve us better if they are preserved:

1. the Stilianopulos Building (built in 1927; a chunk was defaced in the 1990's when a Chinese design was crudely inserted in it),
2. the nipa plantations (a few hundred square meters of which can be preserved as an ecological enclave in the middle of a bustling metropolis to remind Legazpeños what our place looked like in the days of our ancestors),
3. the estuary in the area near the port of Legazpi composed of Victory Village, Puro, and Dapdap (a few square meters of which can also be preserved as another ecological enclave right beside the Embarcadero currently being built), 4. the old houses of prominent families,
4. the pier of the railway to Tabaco that still stands in the middle of Yawa River,
5. the old site of Legazpi Savings Bank in the corner of Rizal and Mabini Streets, etc.

We can refurbish these structures and sights to make them attractions. Indeed, it is desirable to excellently blend past and present, nature and culture. A people which has no knowledge or valuation of its past has no decent future. Its descendants will in turn not value current efforts to build its monuments. I hope one hundred years from now, the citizens of Legazpi will look back to our time and preserve the fruits of our strivings just as we must preserve the structures bequeathed to us by our forefathers.