''IT'S a bit surreal,'' says Bert Laput, an executive officer of the Dapitan city government. ''It's like executing Dr. Jose Rizal all over again,'' adds Mayor Joseph Cedric Ruiz on the ongoing ''desecration'' of the Rizal Shrine by, of all institutions, the National Centennial Commission. 

For Dapitanons, the Rizal Shrine, where the national hero spent the greater part of his life as an exile, is ''hallowed ground.'' 

Rizal stayed in the shrine from March 1893 until his departure, supposedly for Cuba, on July 31, 1896. Rizal stayed in the Casa Real in what is now the downtown area from his arrival on July 17, 1892 until he moved to the shrine in March 1893. 

During those years, Rizal worked as physician, farmer, businessman, scientist, scholar and writer, artist, community leader and a model citizen. 

Until its ''transformation'' this year, the Rizal Shrine had this huge dao tree Rizal planted over a century ago, standing amid replicas of his main house, pupil's dormitory, octagonal and hexagonal houses, square house, kitchen house and little hospital houses (casitas), poultry, his water system, the dam he built where he taught boys how to swim and where he also swam with Josephine Bracken, and his Mi Retiro rock. 

Except for the giant dao tree, the rest of the structures are hardly recognizable now. And this is why the city is suing NCC. 

The commission, in its initial press releases, was supposed to rehabilitate the shrine. Over the past six months, however, it has transformed the site into what Dapitanons refer to as ''phantasmagoric theme park'' fit for Disneyland but one that would certainly make Rizal turn in his grave. 

Aside from suing NCC, the city is also raising funds to demolish the structures NCC has built. 

The commission has allocated P65 million for the project that would have been completed this year. Dapitanons call the project ''a monstrosity.'' 

Joselito Asinero, a Dapitanon engineer-businessman based in Manila, was sent to Dapitan by the NCC to dissuade local officials and residents from opposing the project. 

But seeing how history was being destroyed, Asinero was instead dissuaded from supporting the project. He has, in fact, offered a million pesos to help defray the cost of demolishing the structures that the NCC has built. 

Pat Reilly of the Museum Volunteers of the Philippines, describes the renovation as ''not sympathetic to Rizal.'' 

Members of the Order of the Knights of Rizal who attended a Mindanao Special Assembly (Mindasa) complained that the shrine ''looked and felt different now compared to before.'' 

''To Dapitanons, the Rizal Shrine is more than a historical landmark. It is a religious icon, piously but lovingly venerated by some 70,000 souls who consider this hallowed ground a sacred reminder of the brief but colorful sojourn of our national hero, Dr. Jose Rizal, in this desolate but idyllic paradise, in a bygone and exciting era, when Filipinos were trying to forge a nation at the threshold of the revolution against imperial Spain,'' says Ruiz in a written critique. 

The NCC, in drawing up the ''master curatorial plan,'' vowed to transform the shrine into the world's first outdoor museum. 

It constructed a steel fence at the entrance of the shrine, purportedly to symbolize Rizal's ''open prison.'' 

Structural interventions, like an elevated steel boardwalk winding along the periphery of the shrine's interior, will be set up to prevent undue damage to plants, topography and reconstructed buildings. 

A stairway leading to a viewing platform a few feet from the Mi Retiro rock has been constructed to allow visitors to imagine Rizal writing his thoughts and his poetry while sitting on the rock. Before the NCC came, you could actually sit on Rizal's rock. 

Construction of a building to house the information center and curatorial offices, building for rest rooms, a picnic area and a children's play sand pits is ongoing. 

Plants of varied species are to be planted and nurtured in the area as ''artifactual elements'' contained in many of Rizal's poems. A ship's prow has been installed at the mid-portion of the seawall because, according to the plan, it ''brings in strong associations with departure and arrivals, particularly in such close proximity to the sea.'' 

''The prow-like extension on the seawall is for visitors to make a poetic connection between the gangplank-shaped new platform on the Mi Retiro rock and the prow ship of this special veranda. In addition, the tip of the prow-like form is effectively the tip of an axis stretching from the Casitas de Salud area, through the gravel pathway leading to Casa Cuadrada, to the sea. This axis describes a trajectory in the life of Rizal: leader, teacher, traveler,'' the plan states. 

Rockscaping work was done on the water channel, coupled with decorative concepts and symbolisms. Metal railings or fences run along both sides of the embankment. 

Even the replica of the house Rizal built, has not been spared. It has been given a ''touch of modernity'' with NCC using hinges, nails and other modern trappings in connecting and fastening wooden parts. Even the architectural design of the roofs of Rizal's casitas (hospital houses) had likewise been changed. They are now pointed. 

Ruiz described the steel fence at the shrine's entrance as ''obtrusive and unnecessary.'' 

The NCC's ''open prison'' concept, he said, is a ''strained symbolism,'' adding that when Rizal was in exile, ''he was free to move around, limited, of course, to the territorial confines of Dapitan. He was not behind bars. It is banishment, not incarceration. Incarceration is one which evokes confinement behind Bilibid Prison, or Sing-Sing Prison, or what used to be the Alcatraz island-prison.'' 

''They are building flyovers in our beloved Rizal shrine,'' several residents said of the planned steel boardwalk. 

''It is a monstrous structure--like some huge slithering serpent showing off scales of metal and concrete. It is an ugly keloid (scar) at the back of verdant Talisay Hills-etched there, now perhaps indelibly, by those concerned with preserving the topography of the place as close as possible to what it was at the time of the banishment of Dr. Jose Rizal,'' Ruiz's critique said. 

The stairs-cum-platform leading to the Mi Retiro rock reminds residents here ''of the stairs and gangplank of Super Ferry boats. 

''It is a pity that the Mi Retiro rock, instead of being highlighted by making it a centerpiece attraction, is instead swamped with competing scene stealers, such as massive stairs--viewing platform--gangplank combined, the nearby ship's prow seawall protuberance, and a modernistic lagoon at its foot that does not blend with its natural surroundings,'' the critique said. 

It also described the modern architectural design of the building housing the information center and curatorial offices as ''anachronistic to the social and historical milieu the shrine should project.'' 

The proposed picnic area and playsand pits ''desecrate the revered and hallowed shrine,'' adding that nobody has been allowed to hold any kind of picnic in the shrine. Visitors speak with hushed voices and children are often told not to disturb the area. 

''The concept of open-air museum, if carried to an inordinate extent, especially in landscaping and in the placement of artifactual elements, will transform the shrine into the local version of the Amazon jungle, which might be acceptable for a resort-type commercial endeavor,'' the critique said. 

It also described the ship's prow design of the seawall as an aberration. 

''The designers of this item may have been watching too many movies lately--the 'Titanic' blockbuster movie, for one,'' Ruiz said, adding that the Shrine's transformation into an outdoor museum will destroy the aura of the place, for then there will be so many attractions and distractions, preventing visitors from ''feeling the essence of the shrine and the quintessence of Rizal's banishment.'' 

''The Rizal Park is our identity. It is our soul. It is the tie that binds us together. To destroy Rizal Park is to denigrate our identity and blemish our souls,'' said a manifesto of Dapitanons. 

On Wednesday is the 102nd anniversary of Rizal's execution in the Luneta. Nationwide, flags will be raised again in honor of Rizal, wreaths will be laid on his statues. 

In Dapitan, residents hope the nightmare that befell Rizal's shrine will end. Otherwise, visitors who never had the opportunity to visit Rizal Shrine before NCC ''transformed'' it, will never be able to understand Dapitan's place in history.