Manila 1945....

Memmorare- Manila 1945

Last Week, I went to the Philippine General Hospital to pick up some medical card for a free check up. Usually, the process of obtaining such a card takes hours to produce.
Instead of waiting inside the hospital, I went out and look for some place to eat.

I came across the walled city called Intramuros and decided to look around for some oddities that may inspire me.

Intramuros it seemed was like a giant time capsule filled with old buildings and shops. There were old churches, some “cobble stoned” roads, schools, historic buildings with markers; there’s even a church with life-sized figurines of Spanish “railes” and “Guardia Sibils” painted black.

Intramuros, I’ve recalled, was the original “Manila” built inside a large stone bastion by the Spaniard Conquerors. It was defended by large cannons positioned in strategically located places. These cannons were taken from galleons and other Spanish frigates.

As I walked through this giant “antique town”, I came across a large marker…The marker was made of polished black granite and it bears the story of over one hundred thousand civilians, men, women, children and infants who perished from the ravages of World War Two. The marker was called Memmorare-Manila 1945.

It was a lone marker, gloomy and surrounded by two large trees. It was placed on a small corner park of some sort. The top portion of the marker had 8 life sized figures all made of black, polished granite; A cloaked woman, sitting, crying, holding a dead baby; a dead mother sits motionless as her still living baby quest for her breast for milk; a dead father and his dead son and a wailing man clutching the body of his dead son whose sightless eyes stares at the sky.

As I sit there, transfixed at the figures, I recalled the stories my old man and my mother about World War Two; my mother had seen how the Japanese and American planes (P-38) doing dog fight battles in the skies of Negross.

On one account, the American plane was dealt with by two Japanese planes. The American plane was shot down and the pilot had just bailed out. But as he descend down with his parachute, one of the Japanese planes came down on him, ridding his body with bullets before he hit the ground.

On the other hand, my father could see that the Japanese were making their captive Filipinos dig a large ditch said to where they intend to drop the Filipinos they’ve killed whenever the Americans came to liberate Manila.

I also remembered reading some books about World War Two, but most of the contents were concentrated on the armies, generals, commanders of different side. However, a book titled, “Warsaw of Asia-The Rape of Manila” (by Giraffe books) was different; the author concentrates his scope on the victims of Japanese Atrocities and the places where the mass brutalities had taken place. Like for example, the Letran incident, the Dapitan incident, and the German Club Massacre.

On the internet, there were numerous sites about the devastation of Manila by the so-called “honorable” Japanese Imperial Forces…Women where gang raped, men were beheaded, children were bayoneted, all because the Filipinos favored the Americans over the Japanese.

In my personal opinion, the Filipino people were treated less cruelly by the Americans in their occupation of the islands.
Unlike the Spaniards, the Americans gave the Filipinos adequate education, the right to vote, women learns their rights and democracy. Even though there were clashes and skirmishes in the start.
The Japanese however, instituted a reign of terror among the disheartened Filipinos. They failed to fraternize with the local natives and frankly, in those times, a Filipino wishes to be with handsome looking Americans than monkey faced Japanese.

The internet sources also said that the interim Japanese government was reluctant to give apologies to the Filipino people because the Philippines had a long line of financial debts from Japan. Further more, there were only a handful of survivors still living and someday, the new generation of young Filipinos, saturated with manga, anime, all the so called “sugar coated” goodies from Japan will end up forgetting the atrocities made by the Japanese against the Filipino people, against their forbearers and ancestors.

This statement is best illustrated by an anime/manga fanatic friend of mine who confronted me about my being “Anti-Japanese.”
He told me to “Stop reminiscing World War Two, that the Japanese who committed the crime were all oldsters, dying or already dead!”
I told him that “If we stopped remembering, when will we receive justice?”
He’d seem to go ballistic…his eyes scowled and his nostrils flare like those Japanese Samurai characters.
Hell!...I could see the time, that some Filipino youths will dismiss World War Two and even call the event a fake…concocted only by Japanese haters!

Golly, is this what Manga and Anime does to its fans; glorify Japan and then forget and or deny her wrong doings?...The signs are all around now…Filipino youths like to wear Japanese looking costumes in cosplays, simulating their fav, Japanese characters.
Never did I’ve seen Filipino youth dressing up as Filipino heroes in their native stories.

I admit, I am a Voltes V and Nausicaa fan but it stops there…I could not see issues of World War Two in these anime shows….But I know there were Japanese Animes out there that justify the Japanese war crimes, trying to gain global sympathy through kids and the youth by overstressing the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and back stab the Americans in World War Two like in the case of “Space Cruiser Yamato,” Tetsujin 28, Graveyard of the Fireflies, Hiroshima Jen (Barefoot Jen) and a host of others. Why don’t they all have the balls in showing the world how cruel, animalistic and savage they were back then in Manila 1945?

I’ve left the marker and the place, shaking my head from the almost forgotten horrors of the past and recalled an old saying:

“He who does not turn to look at the past, is condemned to repeat it!”