PALO, Leyte (PIA) -- President Ferdinand Romualdez Marcos Jr. is expected to grace two big events in Eastern Visayas – the Spark San Juanico Light and Sound Show Lights Up Ceremony on Wednesday (Oct. 19) and the 78th Leyte Gulf Landings Anniversary on Thursday (Oct. 20).

“The president will be attending the San Juanico Bridge lighting. By protocol, I will meet him at the airport,” Gov. Carlos Jericho Petilla announced in a press conference at the Leyte Provincial Capitol Tuesday, October 18.

The switch-on ceremony on the 2.16-kilometer bridge that connects Leyte and Samar islands since the 1970s is scheduled to be held at 6:30 p.m. in which Vice President Sarah Duterte, Department of Tourism Secretary Christina Garcia-Frasco, and Tourism Infrastructure and Enterprise Zone Authority Chief Operating Officer Mark Lapid  are also expected to witness.

The day after, Petilla said the country’s chief executive is being anticipated to be around for the commemorative program of the Leyte Gulf Landings, now on its 78th year of observance, an event that later proved crucial for the liberation of the Philippines during World War II.

The president’s presence highlights the significance of the two occasions as a great boost for tourism, and for the surviving veterans, it showed his concern towards them, Petilla pointed out.

He shared that the living veterans are fast becoming a vanishing breed, their number dwindling by the years, with last year, some 97 were accounted alive, and this year, it was down to 30 individuals.

The oldest WWII veteran in the region is 101 years old, from Burauen, Leyte, while the youngest is 93 years old, from Hinunangan, Southern Leyte, Petilla said.

He is now moving to institutionalize the stories of the veterans, including relics during the war years, to be compiled in a museum now being worked out, and to be stored in digital form using current technology, easily accessible by the cellphone users young and old alike.

Meanwhile, Petilla admitted that the idea on illuminating the San Juanico Bridge for aesthetic effects was a brainchild of Samar Gov. Sharee Ann Tan, and that Leyte province will support it as part of its tourism attractions.

The P80-M project, dubbed San Juanico Bridge Aesthetic Lighting Project, is said to be the first of its kind in the country, where the colors can be customized depending on the prevailing socio-political mood.

During the June 12 Independence Day celebration, for instance, the country’s tri-colors bathed the major portions of the bridge, and in August, the color green dominated the scene as requested by the Embassy of India for the country’s 75th year anniversary.

Last month, September, the color purple lit up the bridge for about an hour as a tribute for the late Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom. (LDL/MMP/PIA-8)