(Features) Australia returns to PHL WWII vintage table of Gen. Valdes

From the Philippine News Agency (Apr 8): (Features) Australia returns to PHL WWII vintage table of Gen. Valdes

Australia has turned over to the Philippine government a vintage table used by the late Armed Forces chief of staff Maj. Gen. Basilio Valdes which he brought with him when then President Manuel L. Quezon escaped to Down Under aboard a US PT-Boat a month before the fall of Bataan on April 9, 1942.

The vintage desk measuring about five feet by three feet is now in the office of retired Lt. Gen. Ernesto G. Carolina, administrator of the Philippine Veterans Affairs Office (PVAO), in Camp Aguinaldo in suburban Quezon City.

“The Australian government earlier turned over the table to the next-of-kin of President Quezon residing in Brisbane, Australia before turning it over to us,” said retired Brig. Gen. Resty Aguilar, PVAO acting chief for Veterans and Historical Division.

Aguilar said that the table, which is 75 years old, is a very significant war relic which PVAO will turn over to the AFP Museum in Camp Aguinaldo for public display.

“The table was used by Gen. Valdes when he was the commanding general of the Philippine Army during the Commonwealth period,” Aguilar told the Philippines News Agency on the eve of the 74th anniversary of the “Araw ng Kagitingan.”

Tracing back its origin, Aguilar said that the table survived the blistering Battle of Manila between the Japanese Imperial Army and American and Filipino soldiers at the outbreak of the Second World War.

Aguilar said that Valdes held office in the Lawton area in Manila where Gen. Douglas MacArthur, the commander of Allied Forces in Pacific in World War II, also established his headquarters.

Before Manila was captured, Gen. Valdes was able to evacuate the table and brought it to Corregidor Island near the Bataan Peninsula.

“When President Quezon escaped to Australia, again Gen. Valdes brought the table with him to Brisbane, Australia aboard a US-PT Boat before they transferred to an American submarine at mid-sea in the Southwest Pacific,” he added.

Aguilar said after President Quezon arrived in Australia, his party proceeded to the United States where he established an exile government when the Japanese occupied the Philippines, but the table was left behind in Brisbane,” Aguilar said.

When MacArthur liberated the Philippines after crushing the Japanese resistance in a bloody battle, Valdes came back and was named as chief of staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) immediately after the war ended.

He said when the table was turned over to Quezon’s relatives in Australia, the problem was who would foot the bill in transporting it to Manila?

Beth Dapiton, administrative officer of the AFP Museum, contacted Undersecretary Manuel L. Quezon III, officer in charge of the Presidential Communications Development and Strategic Planning, and told him about the problem.

When PVAO learned about it, he assured that PVAO was ready to shoulder the shipment, Aquilar said.

For the record, it is during the time of Gen. Carolina as PVAO chief that preserving historical records has been intensified such as printing books on the heroism of the Filipino soldiers in defending freedom and democracy as easy reference for the present generation and the generations yet unborn.

http://www.pna.gov.ph/index.php?idn=10&sid=&nid=10&rid=874573