The "Preserve Pres. Carlos P. Garcia's Heritage: Save a Museum" is one project that deserves the maximum support of Boholanos here and abroad.

Happily, man are putting their cash where their mouth is - and not just paying lip service in adulation of Caloy's great virtues. Just last night, the second of two Pledging Sessions to preserve what remains of the Garcia ancestral home netted some P1 million at the Bohol Cultural Center.

Under the stewardship of Project Director Joseph Rañola, the first Pledging Session in manila late last year generated P1.5 million.

The Boholano Association in Metro Manila, Inc. (BAMMI) under its chair Purita Soliven and indefatigable president Bernie Calibo, in coordination with the CPG Foundation, Inc. is taking the cudgels to rehabilitate and then preserve the late president's home in Tagbilaran City. likewise, we welcome the move of the Provincial Tourism Council (PTC) who offered to help oversee the preservation of the CPG Home.

The CPG Home, a museum of memorabilia of the most illustrious son of Bohol, will become part of the standard Bohol tour package - so that every visitor in the province will know that Bohol is the birthplace of one of the best presidents the country ever had. It is a fact that Boholanos should be proud of.

Consider that not too many provinces had produced a Philippine president - to our recollection only one province had produced more than one: Osmeña (Cebu), Roxas (Aklan), Magsaysay (Zambales), Macapagal (Pampanga), Marcos (Ilocos Norte), Cory Aquino (Tarlac), Fidel Ramos (Pangasinan), Joseph Estrada (Manila) and Gloria Arroyo (Pampanga). It is being too hopeful, perhaps, to dream Bohol would produce two presidents in our lifetime.

In a state of partial deterioration, the rehabilitated CPG house should bear the president's illustrious name, rather than some innocuous title like a "Bohol Museum." It will be a proud testament to the greatness of Caloy; a lasting monument to a proud product of the Malay race.

More important than being president, the preservation of Caloy's memories is an act of preserving the virtues that are hard to come by in this day and age: patriotism, honesty and love for humanities.

Patriotism - Carlos P. Garcia was a valiant guerilla leader opposing the rampaging Japanese invaders during World War II. So sought after was Caloy's head by the Japs, they burned his house in old Talibon in retaliation for the war-time exploits. Garcia, for one, never faked any war medals.

His love of country seared his entire being with such commitment to the country, that to this day he is the only president credited with such honorable distinction as the author and defender of the "Filipino First" policy. Garcia fought the inroads of the Chinese merchants in the retail business and took the cause of the small Filipino entrepreneur; his gallant resistance allowed the American bases a shorter time to stay in the country than the Yankees originally wanted. If he was alive today, Pinoy Caloy would have objected to the unilateral implementation of "globalization" that puts to a disadvantage Third World countries that do not have the competitive advantage in almost all factors of production: land, labor, capital and technology.

Caloy was brown-skinned and he was proud of it; shame on us white-skin bleachers who try to be Hollywood's "second-rate trying hard copycats," to borrow a cinematic dialogue piece. To Garcia, the Filipino is first in his own country - the disease called foreign mendicancy was not in his vocabulary. Garcia had that rare privilege of serving his country - both as president of the republic and president of the Constitutional Convention - till death so suddenly if not so cruelly - intercepted his next great career achievement.

In this age where most politicians' image is soiled by issues of corruption and electoral cheating, Carlos P. Garcia was an unsullied exception when it comes to Honesty.

Attempts to denigrate his integrity resulted in the suspension of then congressmen Serging Osmeña of Cebu for besmirching Garcia's reputation without factual basis. He left the presidency with the same shirt as he wore coming in (figuratively) - meaning Garcia was not known to have enriched himself while serving in office.

When political debacle stared him in the face in 1961 to then vice president Dadong Macapagal, his lieutenants suggested to "doctor" the results in Lanao and tilt the victory to Bohol's Favorite Son. Caloy would have none of it - he fought and lost a fair and square presidential fight and bowed out in full dignity before the country to see.

While he was candidate for the Concon presidency, agents of Ferdinand Marcos (president) approached him that he will get the votes if Garcia would support the Charter Change to a Parliamentary system. Caloy told them to go to wherever they belonged. Because Garcia knew he could win the Concon presidency on his own merit - and he did.

When pressed by well-meaning but misdirected province mates to favor Bohol by asphalting all the roads during his four-year presidency, Garcia told them he must allocate the budget equally to all provinces because he was elected president of the country and not leader of a petty fiefdom in the Visayas.

Carlos Garcia's personal virtues of simplicity and humility are legendary. Aside from that he loved the arts - known as the Bard from Bohol - for his outstanding oratory in Bisayan and English: the first one the late Inday Lelang of Opon, Cebu knew too well; the other his peers in Congress. He was also an avid chess enthusiast and promoted that sport to the hilt.

Today's open reality of foreign domination, electoral fraud, pork barrel, budget manipulation, corruption, political arrogance, personal haughtiness and lack of qualifications of many public officials today - even makes our great hero Carlos Polestico Garcia - such a gem of diamond that we once had and lost to Mother Time.

Hopefully, this present generation and visitors alike will remember-more than pictorials and awards, the noble virtues that Garcia will leave like an eternal flame - to inspire all of us to live beyond our petty selves with the preservation of the Garcia Home.

Finally, we encourage Congressman Edgar Chatto (who used to head the CPG Foundation) to push with his plan to request the DPWH to change all the street signages along C-5 (Metro Manila's longest) to Carlos P. Garcia Highway. We likewise suggest that the press groups like the PAPI (Publishers Association of the Philippines), PPI (Philippine Press Institute) and the KBP (Kapisanan ng mga Brodkasters ng Pilipinas) be requested to require all its members to use Carlos P. Garcia Highway (not C-5) from now on.

Maybe, it will take time, but we must start now. Remember EDSA used to be Highway 54. Today, with changed name, we had two revolutions there that unseated presidents Marcos and Estrada.

Let all Boholanos be united as one on this undertaking.