THE city of Dagupan will seek the opinion of experts, including the United States of America to finally settle a local historical dispute as to where General Douglas Mac Arthur really first landed in Pangasinan during the liberation of Luzon from the Japanese 61 years ago.

This was disclosed by Mayor Benjamin Lim in a speech during the opening of World War II exhibit at the Dagupan City museum sponsored by the Philippine Veterans Bank last Friday.

Former President Fidel V. Ramos, who was born in Lingayen and was sophomore at the University of the Philippines high school when the war broke out, was the guest of honor and speaker during the opening of the exhibit.

Ramos however provided no clues to the landing site of Mac Arthur. He said that based on accounts of historians, the first wave of the liberation forces landed simultaneously in the shores of Lingayen, Binmaley, Dagupan and San Fabian.

Lim said the issue must now be settled because until today the people of Lingayen insist that the American general first landed in Lingayen although they cannot show a single proof attesting to this.

On the other hand, he said Dagupan has two rare photographs clearly indicating that General Mac Arthur came ashore in the city on those fateful days of Jan. 9 to 12, 1945.

One of these photos shoed Mac Arthur walking along Dagupan’s Torres Bugallon street with a few of his staff and a Filipino civilian official on an inspection shortly after his landing.

The photo showed that Mac Arthur’s khaki was wet from the knee down, indicating he had just come ashore apparently aboard a landing craft from his flagship “Boise” anchored somewhere in the Lingayen Gulf.

Another photo is one of Mac Arthur meeting his senior staff at the Home Economics building on West Central School in Dagupan, where Mac Arthur set up his first command post in Luzon shortly after landing in Dagupan.

The original owner of these rare photos was historian Restituto Basa, author of the book “History of Dagupan” who obtained these by writing the U.S. War Department when he served as information officer of then Mayor Cirpriano Manaois in the 70s.

In fact there were two photos more that were mailed to him, one showing Mac Arthur and his staff walking along the sand dunes teeming with a kind of crawling plan called cantaromas which were aplenty in Bonuan beach during and after the war, and another photo of residents of Bonuan, Dagupan waving and rushing to welcome soldiers of the liberation forces.

Basa pinpointed the spot where Mac Arthur and his staff were walking to be at the back of the present Tondaligan Park amphitheatre in Dagupan which was the only place in the beach before that was teeming with sand dunes and cantaromas plant.