Leyte Landing 40th Anniversary October 20th 1984

Rev. Levis Montes

Rev. Levis Montes was working as the editor for the major newspaper in Tacloban City. He also served as the Pastor in his home church. I had invited Levis to be my interpreter at our Living Word Christian Center meetings. One of my fondest memories at LWCC was a sermon I preached with Levis interpreting; the presence of the Lord filled the room. LWCC was doing well with a consistent group of a couple hundred folks on Sunday mornings. The offerings were paying the venue rental, and several church workers salaries. Later I would ask Levis to pastor LWCC. Over the years he purchased land, built a building and was instrumental in producing two other churches in Tacloban that grew out of LWCC. Later, Levis and his wife Becky migrated to the U.S. and pastored in Oceanside California for many years.

Levis had obtained press passes for his self, James, and I to sit on a platform just a few feet behind Marcos as he gave his speech at the Leyte Landing 40th anniversary. All three of us were aware of the risk because the NPA were active all across Southern Leyte. One Sunday morning I had a young man at LWCC want to speak with me in private. He told me he was going to serve Christ but wanted to give me his gun because he was a member of the NPA. I’m sure he was sincere, but of course I was not going to take his gun. There had also been marches in Tacloban with folks carrying signs that read, ‘Americans go Home’. This particular sign was carried by some of my church ladies! Of course, they were poor and being paid to carry the road sized banner that stretched across both lanes.

I mentioned to Levis and James how a few years earlier the Egyptian President Anwar Sadat had been assassinated in a flurry of indiscriminate automatic weapons fire and I had concerns as the crowd grew that such an event was possible. These thoughts accompanied my mind as the crowd became uncontrollable. Some yellow nylon rope had been stretched forming an open area in front of Marcos’ platform to keep a distance from the crowd. We all knew that rope was not going to hold the crowd. One of us said, “Maybe we should leave in case someone tries to shoot Marcos”. We all agreed and quietly dismissed ourselves while Marcos was releasing his rhetorical powers as a speaker to hang on to public opinion. He even spoke in the Samarenyo dialect rather than Tagalog.

The Leyte landing anniversary included over 400 veterans from the U.S., Australia, and Japan plus thousands of Filipino veterans (including my father in law Porferio). The celebration was alive with old U.S. ships in the bay, WWII planes in the sky, and charges going off on the beach as the battle was re-enacted. The most moving event I saw that day was uncommon for many of the veterans were not happy about the presence of the Japanese veterans or of the U.S. acceptance of Japan as an ally. However, there were a few U.S. veterans who wept with the Japanese as they remembered the battle and the friends they lost. Some of them were seasoned by time and no longer held any animosity for the other side; they wept together.

All across the Philippines there is evidence of WWII. The Marston matting used for laying down a safe landing field has been serving as fences and walls in homes all around Tacloban for decades. On many islands you can find small concrete bunkers used by the Japanese.

The MacArthur memorial is still home to periodic anniversary celebrations. The MacArthur beach hotel that I enjoyed for many years has been replaced by a Japanese owned hotel named, ‘The Oriental’.