The 7th Millennium Community would like to invite the local and international communities to participate in our proposal. We propose that a museum and multi-purpose center be established in Samar, Leyte and Southern Leyte and Surigao del Norte provinces.
The Battle for Leyte Gulf happened over 65 years ago. It was the greatest naval battle in the history of the world! Yet, there is no naval museum near where the largest sea battle took place. Furthermore, the world famous Hollywood movie writers, producers and directors do not even care to make a very good big screen movie about the historical events as good as an Oscar Awardee for Best Motion Picture!
They ignored, for example, that our government during the time of President Manuel L. Quezon opened our territory to the persecuted Jews in Western Europe to take refuge from their enemies even before Hitler ordered his soldiers to arrest and imprison the Jews in the concentration camps. "Preparations were made to accept 10,000 Jews a year, but only 1,200 made it to Manila. Sixty-seven Jewish refugees were among the 100,000 Manila residents who died during the 1945 U.S. liberation of Manila and heavy bombing that preceded it, which also destroyed Manila's only synagogue, Temple Emil".
Some of the few long time residents and survivors in Samar, Leyte, Southern Leyte and Surigao del Norte provinces had witnessed the guerrilla forces, army and marine divisions, the pilots and their crews of the fighter and bomber aircrafts, naval ships and their sailors from both the Allied Forces and the Imperial Japanese Military that fought against each others during World War 2. For sure they and their families, relatives and close friends will visit and patronize the museum.
We would like to suggest to the government and private sectors in the Philippines as well as in other countries that we need to establish a floating and/or land-based museum with multi-purpose center. The main purposes are to provide educational and cultural tours and visits, to provide an entirely different learning environment which could make a big difference to the communities involved, to promote tourism and create employment to the local residents who have no other alternative, but to work overseas to get away from their usual unproductive life or daily routine activities in the aforementioned provinces.
There are hundreds of mothballed, rusty, surplus naval, maritime, cargo and passenger ships in various types and sizes, not necessarily World War 2 decommissioned ships, which are rusting in the naval and other shipyards in Australia, China, South Korea, Japan, Russia, Canada, United States, Europe and other countries. They are obsolete to be recycled in the future world of high-tech weaponry, the weapons of mass destruction, space and star wars.
They can be towed away to the ideal locations in Samar, Leyte, Southern Leyte and Surigao del Norte. The right site should be at the strategic and safe harbor with sea walls built nearby to protect the floating or land-based museum with multi-purpose center from the predictable storms, typhoons and other forces of nature. The mothballed ships can be be cleaned, repainted, maintained and be utilized again as a floating museum with multi-purpose facilities.
The future floating museum can be viewed similar to that of the nuclear icebreaker Lenin in Murmansk, northern Russia, the battleship museum HMS Belfast in London, England, the majestic Queen Mary in Long Beach, California, the world's largest floating naval museum USS Midway in San Diego, California, the most inspiring adventure in America at the USS Intrepid in New York City, the Battleship Missouri Memorial, and other memorial museums which attract hundreds of the tourists and visitors in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
In some museums and convention centers at the famous cities around the world, they have a bookstore and gift shop, cafeteria and restaurant, business center and other facilities. Thus we suggest further that the proposed projects in Samar, Leyte, Southern Leyte and Surigao del Norte will have a tourist information booth, classrooms for seminars and workshops, an audio-visual room or theater and other services.
The few living veterans - Filipinos, Americans, Japanese, the Allied Forces, and their respective families, relatives and close friends - other citizens and residents including the next generations of the people around the globe need to be reminded always on their history through the museum. The visitors need to be reminded frequently on the history of wars, from the Assyrian-Babylonian Empire to the present United Nations versus the organized terrorists and rebels in our endangered Earth. When they review the timeline of the history of conflicts and wars, the museum visitors will know on the ultimate end result of wars: There are no winners. All are losers!
We are praying and hoping forward to the bright future of mankind when "He will judge between the nations and will settle disputes for many peoples. They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Nation will not take up sword against nation, nor will they train for war anymore" (Isaiah 2:4).
