IT is definite and final: The Rotary Club of Naga is demolishing its Rotary wheel monument in Plaza Quince Martires on Monday, August 25, 2008, as the club’s answer to the call of people who are concerned with the preservation and cultivation of the city’s heritage and culture to keep the plaza a site for respect and reverence for the honored dead of Camarines Sur.

        The demolition of the Rotary wheel should never be taken as a gesture of disgust and rejection for such a structure that is out of place in a plaza built to honor the noble dead of Camarines Sur. No, the demolition work is a gesture of acceptance that these noble dead deserve a place of honor sans the borloloy that would detract attention from them.

        The demolition work is a gesture of patriotism that has long been wanting among those who profess “Proud ako, Nagueño ako”.

        For truly, what pride in there in a place where the honored head of Camarines Sur do not get the proper respect that is due them?

        If indeed, there is pride among Nagueños, this pride cannot do without the Quince Martires --- those men whose lives were wasted by colonial Spanish on suspicion that they were revolutionaries.

        If indeed, there is pride among Nagueños, this pride cannot but closely approximate that pride referred to by Abraham Lincoln when he delivered his Gettysberg Address to pay tribute to the fallen dead in the Civil War: “It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work that they have thus far so nobly carried on; that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion…”

        Hearing all over again what Abraham Lincoln perorated on to honor the noble dead at Gettysberg should send goose pimples to anyone who claims pride in being a Nagueño.

        That sense of pride is perhaps what has compelled the Rotary Club of Naga to finally decide that it is high time that the Rotary wheel must go and that a flagpole to carry the national colors shall be erected on its place.

        That sense of pride is what perhaps being a Nagueño means.

        We do not care if officials of the City Government of Naga find it strange to pay honor to dead people who cannot put up investments in the city. We will not wonder if these officials find pride instead in using the ground to honor the memory of the Quince Martires for commercial purposes. After all, the monument has not been dedicated by the people of Naga to the Fifteen Martyrs but by “El Pueblo de Camarines a sus Quince Martires.”

        We cannot expect patriotism to spring from hearts which find no meaning in the word or which cannot translate the Spanish dedication correctly..

        In other cities in the world, shrines for “these honored dead” or monuments to honor freedom are held in high esteem and are never used for commercial purposes.

        We cannot imagine the statue of Abraham Lincoln covered with billboards and buntings of San Miguel Beer.

        We cannot imagine the Statue of Liberty with streamers and tarpaulin sheets advertising Globe or Smart.

        We cannot imagine the statue of Ninoy Aquino in Makati City lined with layers upon layers of posters of the more popular Cola drinks.

        Indeed, the Rotary Club of Naga has chosen the better part. The Rotary Club of Naga is setting a very good example to honor local heroes for all and sundry to emulate. While the Rotary Club of Naga has resolved to tear down its Rotary wheel monument in Plaza Quince Martires if only to remove obstructions that may detract people from giving importance to the honored dead in the plaza, here are other officials in government issuing permit after permit for streamers to rise and unfurl around the perimeter of the Quince Martires monument in consideration of a few pieces of silver.

        Before these government officials, we recoil in shame.

        For the Rotary Club of Naga, we doff our hats. Proud kami saindo, Rotarians.