Mayabeque, Cuba_ A monument in the park of Surgidero de Batabanó recalls the defense that the humble fishing village makes of its history. More than 100 children of this land shed their blood, among them Miguel Felipe de la Torre, who was born in 1866 in the town of Güines, two years after the outbreak of the War of Independence.
Her family, like others at that time, was attracted by the development of the flourishing Surgidero de Batabanó. Being in the crew and then captain the Gulet Josefina, dedicated to the activity of cabotage, turned him into another Batabanoense by his own right.
After burning his own boat on March 15, 1896, a day after the simultaneous attack on the fortified towns of Batabanó and Surgidero, by troops led by General Quintín Banderas, under the command of the Lieutenant General, Antonio Maceo, Miguel Felipe de la Torre, joins the mambises, receiving that same day the rank of Captain Assistant.
When the Calixto García Regiment, known as the Batabanó’s Regiment, was constituted, due to the important number of daughters and sons of this land that made up its ranks, de la Torre joined it to the side of Lieutenant Alberto Rodríguez Acosta.
The Illustrious Adoptive Son of Batabanó dies at the age of 30 years on November 13, 1896, because of a wound received the previous day in the battle of the Santa Lucia Farm in the area of Camacho.
That the monument to Miguel Felipe de la Torre presides over the park of Surgidero is a sign of perseverance of the inhabitants of a locality represented in that distant date of 1948 by the Committee "Un Batabanó mejor".
The same integrity prevented the ignorance of a few decision makers from turning the Monument's bronze into nails for ships, that conviction also allowed a thorough investigation with which important personal documents and the sword with which he fought the enemy were recovered.
In a massive act carried out on January 31, 1988, the Monument was restored to its place of origin, where the people, under Marti’s principle of "Honoring, honors", pays tribute of remembrance to Miguel Felipe de la Torre, one of their Heroes that remember the imprint of Batabanó in the wars of independence, when the 150 years of its initiation are celebrated.
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