The NPC Monitor: 27th Anniversary Issue

Honor the first public safety officer!
What is it that turns quincentennial in the Philippines this year? Certainly not the existence of our civilization or of our race since historical records reveal that we were a civilized society since 900 AD or even earlier. The Laguna Copperplate Inscription, the earliest known calendar-dated document used within the Philippine Islands, reveals that we had contacts with the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia in the early 10th century.

Our trade with China is believed to have begun during the Tang Dynasty, but grew more extensive during the Song Dynasty. By the 15th century, Islam was established in the Sulu Archipelago and spread from there. What took place in March 16, 1521 was not Spain’s “discovery” of the Philippines, but our country’s introduction to the Western world, and the beginning of its journey towards nation building.

But most of all, the year 1521 marked the very first demonstration of Philippine Public Safety, when our people, through Lapu-Lapu resisted and triumphed over the first foreign subjugator. On April 27, 2017 – just barely three years prior to the 2021 quincentennial celebration, President Rodrigo Duterte declared Lapu-Lapu as the first hero in the country who defeated foreign rule.

The official declaration of Lapu-Lapu as the first Filipino hero was long, long overdue. Now, what took this nation that boasts of its utang-na-loob trait close to five centuries before recognizing the heroic deed of the very first defender? But as the cliché goes, it’s better late than never. Let LapuLapu’s legacy live on forever in the hearts of Filipinos. Let it not be a matter of dispute that the chieftain of Mactan occupies the central figure of the Philippine National Police and then Bureau of Fire Protection.

Most of all, one should not wonder why the first national hero is now proudly immortalized through a monument erected in his honor at a prominent spot on NPC ground.

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