Beyond Bataan (2)

Last Friday I began to take you on a tour of the Chinese Cemetery’s war memorials, my way of commemorating the many heroes who resisted Japan’s invasion of the Philippines.

The Chinese Cemetery has four (not three, as I mentioned in my last column) sites with memorials for these patriots. I already described the first one, which honors eight staff members of the Chinese consulate who were arrested in Manila in January 1942 by the invading Japanese Army and were executed weeks later, on April 17, for refusing to collaborate. The execution took place in the Chinese Cemetery, in front of the graves that had already been dug.

The execution of the consular officials was a violation of international law and the Chinese government, both the Guomindang and the communists that took over in 1949, have made sure that the Chinese people would not forget that incident and Japanese aggression. There was a flurry of activities in Nanjing these last few weeks to honor these eight martyrs, who are now buried together in a special cemetery.

Here in the Philippines we have lulled ourselves into amnesia with World War II. April 9 was poorly commemorated despite it being the 70th anniversary of the Bataan death march, where 24,000 captured Filipino and American soldiers died. A reader, Melane Manalo, e-mailed to point out the irony of a monument that has been put up at the site where the march began. It is called the Philippine-Japanese Friendship Tower.

Indeed, I sometimes think there are more memorials to Japanese soldiers who died in the Philippines than to the Filipinos, Chinese and Americans who died resisting the invading troops.

Which takes me back to the Chinese Cemetery memorials, still well kept but hardly visited. Besides the memorial to the Chinese consular staff, there is a Martyrs’ Hall, put up in memory of nine local Chinese businessmen who were executed two days before the Chinese consular staff, also at the Chinese Cemetery.

As early as 1931, as Japanese troops began to occupy parts of China, local Chinese businessmen in different parts of the Philippines launched a boycott of Japanese goods and also raised funds to help China to fight the Japanese.  The Japanese retaliated when they occupied the Philippines, arresting 42 of the leaders in Manila and executing nine of them—Go Kiu Lu, Uy Lian Ta, Sy Kaw Ki, Tan Diao Ting, So Chay An, Dy Lian Tiao, Gan Bun Cho, Dy Hok Siu, Chua Phai Kiong (whose granddaughter e-mailed me to remind me of these martyrs) and, last but not least, Yi Yu Tung, the publisher of the Chinese Commercial News, which still exists today.

Guerrillas

The Japanese retaliation against local Chinese was to continue throughout the war. Many prisoners in Fort Santiago who were tortured and killed were Chinese. As the Japanese realized they were losing the war, they began to vent their fury on civilians, particularly local Chinese. There were several massacres of the Chinese, the worst being in San Pablo, Laguna, where some 650 Chinese were bayoneted and beheaded on Feb. 24, 1945.

The Japanese Army targeted the Chinese because many of them were in the underground resistance. Antonio Tan’s “The Chinese in the Philippines During the Japanese Occupation 1942-1945” writes that like their Filipino comrades, “the Chinese guerrillas conducted sabotage, gathered military intelligence, carried out propaganda work, helped in the escape of prisoners, as well as engaged in actual fighting.”

Close to the Martyrs’ Hall is a cluster of memorials to honor Chinese, Filipino and American guerrillas. There were so many names on the memorials, each with their hometown in China, that I could not count them.

In another part of the Chinese Cemetery, closer to the one honoring the consular staff, there is a separate memorial for the Philippine Chinese Anti-Japanese Guerrilla Force, more popularly known as Wah Chi (also sometimes spelled Wha Chi). This memorial even has a plaque in Filipino put up by the National Historical Commission. The special mention comes because the Wah Chi fought side by side with Filipino guerrillas, more specifically the Hukbalahap or Hukbong Bayan Laban sa Hapon (People’s Anti-Japanese Army).

The Wah Chi guerrillas were of working-class origin, many of them members of a labor union with close ties to Filipino socialists and communists who fanned out to Central Luzon, mainly Nueva Ecija and Pampanga, to fight the Japanese.

There were many battles between the Japanese and the Wah Chi-Huk guerrillas, including the liberation of the entire town of Santa Cruz in Laguna. In the final days of the war, Chinese guerrillas joined Filipino and American forces to free more than 2,000 Filipino and American prisoners of war in Los Baños, Laguna. And in February and March 1945, the Wah Chi guerrillas again helped fight the final battle to regain Manila.

World War II was a turning point for many of the local Chinese. In “Tsinoy: The Story of the Chinese in Philippine Life,” an ex-guerrilla, Chua Bon Bieng, is quoted as saying: “I didn’t do it for China, but for the land where I grew up.”

Missing memorials

I visited the Chinese Cemetery twice in the last month, not just to get more information about the guerrillas but also to pay homage to these heroes. Walking through the cemetery grounds, I realized too there are no memorials to Filipinos who were also executed in the area of the Chinese Cemetery in 1942. One of them was Josefa Llanes Escoda, founder of the Girl Scouts of the Philippines and one of our earliest feminists. She is believed to have been executed near the Chinese General Hospital, which is close to the Chinese Cemetery.  Her remains, and those of other Filipino patriots, have never been found.

Neither is there a memorial to mark a battle fought on Feb. 5, 1899, a day after the Philippine-American War broke out. American troops had gone into Tondo to fight Filipino rebels, and the battle reached the Chinese Cemetery and ended in La Loma. The Filipinos lost this battle, but this was to be the first of many examples of fierce resistance against foreign invaders.

We have to find ways to remember. Last weekend a Chinese journalist from the Nanjing Modern Express, Wang Yingfei, sent me links to newspaper articles and newscast videos covering the memorial activities for the Chinese consular staff. The photographs and videos were moving, especially one of the grieving widows of the staff at the exhumation, standing behind boxes with their husbands’ remains.

There were also family photos from happier times, stark reminders that the consular officers were in their prime, with very young children, when they were executed. They, and the leaders of the boycott-Japanese-goods campaign, as well as the guerrillas, could have collaborated with the invaders and lived comfortable lives with their families. Instead, they chose the more difficult path of living according to their principles, and paid with their lives.