By: Errol Casiano, M.D. (Class 2000)
Posted: May 31, 2007

     I arranged my work schedule in order to have the weekends off for the month of May. Just like hospital days, that would mean going on duty on Friday and you get the weekend off. It is still the same for me in my present work. I report for my airport duty on Fridays and I get the weekends off. However, even though I am not currently connected with a hospital where I can be "on-call" even on a weekend off, being employed in a pharmaceutical company is still not a guarantee that I do not get to work on weekends. Sometimes, I have to.

(top to bottom) Ruins of the mile-long barracks; One of the giant long-range guns on the island; GCP participants board the Tramvia; South beach; Roche team poses in front of one of the mortars of Corregidor.

     We support the marketing departments of our company when it comes to medically related activities like round table discussions, conferences, and trainings. Last weekend, I had to attend another Good Clinical Practice (GCP) training workshop and give a lecture together with the public health specialists of the University of the Philippines. More and more doctors are getting interested in the GCP training nowadays because they are now aware that this training is required before they can conduct clinical trials. So I reported for airport duty on Friday. Early morning the next day, I had to be at the CCP Bay Terminal A. We boarded the Sun Cruises ferry for an hour-and-a-half transfer to the island. The training was held at Corregidor Island.

     Corregidor Island is a rock formation that is shaped like a tadpole when viewed from the top. Its head is turned towards the South China Sea and its tail is curved towards Manila. It has an area of approximately three square miles and it is strategically located at the entrance to Manila Bay, ten miles from Cavite and five miles from Bataan.

     When war broke out in December 1941, Corregidor Island became the headquarters of the Allied forces under the command of General Douglas MacArthur and the seat the Philippine Commonwealth Government under the presidency of Manuel Quezon. Although on April 9, 1942, it was announced on the "Voice of Freedom" radio station on Corregidor that "Bataan has fallen," the Filipino and American soldiers continued to defend the island against the invading Japanese forces for the next 27 days. However, their rations depleted so they were forced to surrender Corregidor to General Masaharu Homma of the Japanese Army.

     After three years, in March 1945, General Douglas MacArthur kept his "I shall return" promise and the Allied forces recaptured Corregidor.

     At present, new structures have been built and some old structures have been restored on the Island of Corregidor. There are still a lot of ruins of the structures that used to be the military headquarters, barracks, quarters, hospitals and tunnels. And they echo the courage of the Filipino and American soldiers who defended the island. The big guns of Corregidor have been preserved. Although they are silent now, they have served their purpose during the war. The means of transportation on the island at present is the Tramvia, a 36-passenger capacity bus dressed up as replica of turn-of-the-century streetcar.

     It is memorable to spend a weekend on this former battleground. We had a whole day training session on that Saturday at the Hostel. Across the Hostel is the Recreation Hall where you can have your drinks, play billiards or sing your favourite song on videoke. To the right of the Hostel is a church. However, there was no priest available to celebrate the Mass. We had dinner by the bonfire at South Beach. Fortunately, the menu was not South Beach! Then we spent the night at La Playa Hotel, which according to the tour guide, is the only 31-star hotel in the Philippines. It has 31 rooms with one star each!

     We completed the training sessions morning of Sunday. After lunch, we joined a guided tour of the island. We went to see the ruins of the military headquarters, barracks, quarters, hospitals and tunnels. We watched the Lights and Sound Show at the Malinta Tunnel, a structure completed in 1922 which served as army hospital, quartermaster supply storage, and headquarters of General Douglas MacArthur when the war broke out in December 1941. The principal tunnel is 925 feet long and 25 feet wide with 24 main laterals extending from the sides.

     We passed by the ruins of a movie house and the tour guide told us that the famous movie during that time was "Gone with the Wind." It should have been spelled as "Gun with the Wind!"

     We did get to see the guns of Corregidor and they were really big guns. There were ten-ton 12-inch mortars and giant long-range guns mounted on such batteries as Way, Geary, Wheeler, Cheney, and Crockett.

     New structures have been built on the island like the Pacific War Memorial and the so-called Eternal Flame, which was made from shells collected after the war. The Eternal Flame was not burning when we got there.

     The tour guide told us that even though we stayed one month on Corregidor Island, we will not be able to visit all the structures because there were a number of secret passageways created during the war. Anyway, we did have a very enlightening day tour of the island and we knew that the memories of the war that took place there will never fade in our hearts and minds. I hope the photographs we took will never fade as well.

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