The Flag Pole

This is a picture that I grabbed from the LGUTiwi FB page of the ongoing redesign and enhancement of the Plaza in front of the municipal building.

What caught my attention amid the chaos of construction and what have you was the concrete base of the flagpole. I can still vividly remember the story behind said structure.

One day in the late 70s or early 80s, while supervising the construction of the koi (Japanese carp) ponds & water fountains in front of the old 'municipio', my father, Aki Shimizu, was asked by mayor Oriel Clutario if he could improve the old flagpole in the plaza.

He immediately asked his workers to gather the materials needed for the simple design that he sketched on a paper bond in haste: bricks made at the Tiwi Ceramic Plant and corals that were brought from Corangon earlier; they finished the job by late afternoon of the same day.

Of course, as with many of his public landscape projects and works in Tiwi, my father did it for free.

The koi ponds and the fountains are long gone, and judging from the current design of the plaza, the flagpole will eventually be condemned to oblivion, too. I am sharing this backstory here for posterity.

On a side note: Can anyone tell me the proper name of the Tiwi Municipal Plaza?

Yes, it has a name that not too many people, especially the newer generations of Tiwinhons, are aware of. But if you read the book "TIWI Molding the Pots of Prosperity from the Springs of History" -- authored by eminent historian Danilo Madrid Gerona, you probably already know the answer to the question above.