Libingan ng mga Bayani

My travel buddy abandoned me in a cemetery in Taguig because I was a pain to be with. He wanted me buried in one of the plots there. Unfortunately for him, I was no hero. Just joking. He had to fly home on an emergency and I decided to visit a cemetery. But the first story would have been more interesting. I would have asked him to choose a spot next to one of the Philippine presidents.

Libingan ng mga Bayani in Fort Bonifacio in Taguig is the final resting place of tens of thousands of Filipinos who have brought honor to the country: soldiers, statesmen, national artists/scientists, presidents.

The words of General Douglas MacArthur

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier

It was a gloomy and quiet afternoon when I visited Libingan ng mga Bayani. I found the graves of three of four Philippine presidents: Elpidio Quirino, Carlos Garcia, and Ferdinand Marcos. (I didn't see Diosdado Macapagal's.) Ferdinand Marcos's was being guarded by three soldiers and visitors had to write down their names on a logbook.

Memorials were erected around the cemetery. One is the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, with three pillars representing Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. There are memorials for the Filipino soldiers who fought in the Korean War, in the Vietnam War, and in World War II.

And around the 103-hectare cemetery were thousands of white crosses marking the graves of soldiers. The stillness of the cemetery disrupted every five minutes or so by a plane flying overhead.