A war memorial

There is a serious message at the core of current political developments in our country that highlights profanity against the United States. It offends memories of a 152-acre landscape of white crosses and green grass located along a beeline leading to and from the Global City in Taguig. The site, known only to a few passing motorists, is the American Cemetery, in which are buried the remains of 17,497 American soldiers who died fighting the Japanese Imperial Forces in defense of Filipinos during World War II. Their bodies were retrieved from different battle sites across the country, on the very spots where they fell. Thousands more that included those who perished in battles in other parts of the Pacific Region were left to perilous fate in forests, but their names are recorded on the cemetery’s walls.

At the height of the war, while Filipinos were being shocked by atrocity after atrocity that ended in massive destruction and loss of life, the American soldiers said: “We will not leave you, we will fight to the end.” And they did.

Before the war, the Japanese basically depended on imported materials to fire Japan’s industry, so that when the war broke out they groped for much needed resources to sustain their war economy. It was for this reason that they invaded the Philippines, which was replete with copper and manganese. The invasion came at a time when the Philippines was halfway toward complete independence from US colonial rule. In a nutshell, the Americans took the Philippines as a colony on the strength of the Treaty of Paris, under which Spain ceded the country to the United States for $20 million, or barely $3 per Filipino. The Philippine population at that time was 7 million.

The Americans promised Filipinos that colonial rule would only be tutelary in nature. But Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo, who had already proclaimed an independent Philippine Republic, resisted, and the Filipino-American War broke out in 1899. The outnumbered and outgunned Filipino fighters were defeated, with 20,000 casualties; 4,000 were killed on the American side.

After the war ended in 1902, the Americans proceeded with what they called tutelage. They put up social institutions like hospitals and schools for which they brought in American doctors and teachers. They also sent qualified Filipinos to the United States for university degrees. The Tydings-McDuffie Act was finally passed by the US Congress, providing the Filipinos a 10-year-period of preparation toward complete independence. The provision took its countdown under a Commonwealth government with President Manuel L. Quezon and Vice President Sergio Osmeña.

Quezon took Gen. Douglas MacArthur as his military adviser until World War II broke out in 1941. Before MacArthur left on an emergency call from Washington, he declared Manila an open city to spare it from further destruction by Japan’s intense bombings. He pledged to return soon.

In Bataan, Filipino and American soldiers fought valiantly, but in vain. On April 9, 1942, they surrendered to the Japanese, leading to the war’s most cruel episode: the Death March. In the sweltering heat of summer they were made to walk without food and water from Mariveles in Bataan to San Fernando in Pampanga, and finally to Capas in Tarlac. The march was marked by a special bond of brotherhood between the Filipino and American soldiers, who linked hands and propped up each other. Those who could hardly walk were bayoneted by the Japanese on the spot; others just dropped dead from heat and hunger.

Some prisoners who exhibited extreme thirst were given water mixed with human urine. Of the 90,000 marchers, 70,000 died before reaching Capas. Of the number, 11,000 were Americans.

MacArthur returned on Oct. 20, 1944, and took back Leyte island from the Japanese. In the Battle of Manila on Feb. 3-March 3, 1945, American soldiers from the US Army’s 5th Cavalry Division engaged the enemy fiercely and decisively in hand-to-hand combat and street-to-street fighting. The battle ended with 1,010 American soldiers killed, and 12,000 on the enemy side.

The Japanese occupation of the Philippines officially ended on July 5, 1945. On July 4, 1946, the Americans granted the Filipinos independence.

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Pablo A. Trozado is a freelance writer.