“What you sow, you reap.” That was my father’s favorite saying. That played a great part in saving our lives during World War II.
Thanks for a little good deed of my father, my mother and I were saved from the hands of cruel Japanese soldiers, and I lived to tell this unforgettable episode in our lives.
As a policeman in Iloilo City in the 1920s, my father’s regular patrol assignment was at the Parola (now known as Fort San Pedro) where ships docked.
One day, while making the rounds, he passed by a group of naughty boys who were on the heels of a man, mocking and throwing insults at him because of the way he walked, talked and looked with his slanted eyes. One or two of the boys pelted stones at the stranger, who tried in vain to elude his tormentors.
Upon seeing this, my father started toward the group, blowing his whistle. As the boys scampered off, my father offered his handkerchief to stanch the blood from the man’s temple, which had sustained a gash from one of the stones thrown at him. Through gestures, the man introduced himself to my father: He was a Japanese sailor left behind by a merchant ship. Father brought the Japanese to the owner of the restaurant he regularly patronized, and the latter accommodated the sailor as a boarder.
As days passed, while waiting for his ship’s return, and obviously to replenish his dwindling finances, the Japanese engaged in buying and selling empty bottles. He went around the city and eventually learned how to speak Ilonggo, the native tongue, well. Whenever he and father met, they greeted each other cordially. A year later, the sailor was able to rejoin ship and went home to Japan.
At the age of 27, my father got married to a 19-year-old lass from his native town, Dumalag, Capiz, another province in Panay island. After a three-year stay in Iloilo, they returned to their hometown and father joined the police force there. They were blessed with eight children, two boys and six girls. I was the fifth child, born just after World War II broke out in the Pacific in December 1941.
Father evacuated his family to my mother’s barrio, Sto. Rosario, after the town was burned down by Filipino soldiers to discourage the invading Japanese forces to occupy and stay long in the town. It was in the barrio where I was born in 1942.
One day a group of Japanese soldiers—the advance party for a bigger force, it turned out—came across my father as he was fishing in a creek. Suspecting he was a guerrilla, the Japanese forced him to lead them to our home and, there, to prepare food for them. The hungry and tired soldiers, however, opted to stay and rest on the meadow in front of our small hut. Pretending that he was just getting a cooking pot and a kitchen knife, father went into the house to warn my mother about the presence of the Japanese soldiers and to keep everyone quiet so that the soldiers would not know that there were other people in the hut.
Luckily, my three older sisters were staying at an aunt’s house on the other side of the hill. So, there were only two of us siblings—my 5-year-old elder brother and I, then a few months old, who was being breastfed by my mother.
While father was dressing the chicken for a meal, he heard me cry and so, too, the soldiers. They became alert and their leader went up the hut and ordered my mother to come out with her baby, which was me. Trembling with fear, my mother almost fell down the stairs. The soldier caught her, grabbed me from her arms and tossed me into the hands of another soldier on the ground.
Then he turned to my mother who was shaking all the more. Father saw the lust in the eyes of the soldier and moved closer to defend mother, but he was stopped, thrown and pinned to the ground by the other soldiers. Mother protested loudly, but she was ordered to go back inside the house.
The leader then directed the one holding me to throw me into the air and pierce me with his bayonet. But before the order could be executed, a loud voice rang out, directing all the soldiers into formation. The larger force of Japanese soldiers had arrived without the advance party noticing, probably because of the commotion.
Immediately, father stood up and comforted mother who was trembling and crying while she cuddled me. Father was held by one of the Japanese officers who had just arrived. My father would learn later that the officer issued a command to stop my execution. Then, my parents heard another command in perfect Ilonggo, that the civilians should not be harmed and be set free.
The officer then greeted my father with a handshake and father was greatly surprised to see that the Japanese was the same man he had met and befriended at the dock of Iloilo City before the war. The officer talked fluently in Ilonggo, and then issued another command for his soldiers to give some of their rations to our family.
The soldiers set up camp for the night on the meadow, while my parents and us, their children, slept safely inside our hut.
Early the next morning at around five o’clock, father woke up to find the Japanese gone before he could thank the officer. The only evidence of their presence was the boots-trampled grass growth on the meadow.
We never grew tired of listening to this story of that kind Japanese officer from both of our parents. His name was very difficult to pronounce and neither my siblings nor I can remember it. Our parents died a long time ago.
What is important is the realization we came to from that experience of our parents. Not all Japanese soldiers during the war were cruel. To me, that Japanese officer was my savior and hero.
Libertad Firmalino Florida, 73, is a retired teacher, guidance counselor and administrative officer of Dumalag Vocational Technical School. She is married with eight children, four male and four female.