Walang Hanggang Pasasalamat: A Personal Tribute to Bataan’s Survivors
(Written in the early morning of April 9, 2017, my personal diary)
Mga Minamahal ko pong mga Beteranong Lolo,
I am a loss for words on this day of all days.
It was seventy-five long years ago when Bataan fell to the Japanese. I would not pretend that I was there. I was not.
I would not even pretend that I knew what you were thinking then. From what I could gather in the documents, in the recorded stories I have--those you told me while my voice recorder was on--I think I can humbly imagine what you felt: devastation from this admittance of defeat, and this great looming fear from uncertainty; a clear and present danger. Your country, our country, had been overrun again by another invader. Your families, your loved ones you haven’t seen in months, may have been huddling in their basements, in their cabinets, or may have run to the mountains, amidst the sound of marches and shouts of a foreign language you didn’t understand. You didn’t know then what had happened to them. Your heavy heart was full of worry. Somehow that worry gave you great strength, a strength you may not have imagined you have. That strength carried you on amidst decreasing rations, disease, heat stroke from the summer heat, low morale because of your closest comrades’ deaths. And yet you pushed on. Even when defense line after defense line fell apart in Bataan, you retreated but with full resolve, spending the very last drop of your energy for the defense of the country you truly loved.
*Filipino artillery crew takes nap during a lull in Bataan skirmishes. Photo featured in The Sunday Times, April 9, 1967.
But three months of outlasting the encroaching Japanese was more than what Supermans could do. You were human too, and spending the last ounce of your strength to defend us all was honor enough, to the highest degree.
So here we are. The nation commemorates what seemingly was a defeat.
We dare not trivialize your humongous sacrifice as if we can commit to the same ideal you held on to given the same experience, that same peril and impending doom you went through. To do so would be pure arrogance.
Nor could we prejudge you that you were American pawns. As what you have told me and what I know from the papers you left behind, you knew your history. You were reared by the generation that fought both the Spaniards, and the Americans at the turn of the 20th century. Even in the barracks and the lessening rations at Bataan, you were also willing victims of persistent American prejudice which can be seen even in the rations--sardines for Filipinos, spam for Americans (as if the sardines were of any lesser value; sardines are in fact more nutritious).
But in the greater scheme of things, and in the deepest pain one could endure, of the psywar and propaganda posters the Japanese would disseminate by plane on your beleaguered ranks, and yes.. that impending death, you took on the job, drafted to join the defenders of Pilipinas. You saw through all the complexities and saw one thing: ang kalayaan ng bansang nagbigay buhay sa inyo.
*Some Filipino soldiers going down a Bataan road one of whom is waving the flag of truce to signify the end of their (private) resistance. Photo taken in April 9, 1942, featured in The Sunday Times, April 9, 1967.
You lived in a bigger world where politics were of small value, and where ideals were larger than what your hearts could carry. Maybe your ears were deafened by the incessant gunning, and your bodies may have gone through grueling pain--a loss of a leg, an arm, a loss of sight from a shrapnel, but your spirits were free, because you have thrown personal security and needs aside for the nation and Filipinos yet to be born.
I don’t think I can do what you did, given the same circumstances. But if that moment arrives, I hope I could muster the same courage—and I hope I would not fail you. You haven’t failed us. What you have achieved even in defeat was a tall order.
*U.S. Major General Edward P. King faces the Japanese in behalf of the Filipino and American forces in Bataan to discuss the terms of surrender (April 9, 1942). Around 80,000 troops —70,000 Filipino and 12,000 American soldiers, laid down their arms.
Minamahal ko pong mga Lolo… we commemorate this defeat because we honor you the most. It was a defeat that led to ultimate triumph. You gave us all a pulsating, beating history that is so real because as you told us in your stories, it’s as if we were given the glimpse of your lives through your very eyes. And that is why I consider it my great privilege, as a historian, to share, even the incongruities and the complexities of the world you lived in, and despite that, the choices you made. And I understand why you haven’t had the heart to tell me many of those painful memories. You lived carrying those scars of war, and wounds that would never heal. Some questions remained unanswered... questions like why you survived and your friends didn’t. God knows how you wrestled with that guilt in the deep recesses of your soul.
But you came out living long, and living well. You gave us all these pamana that we will treasure and pass on.
*Bataan soldiers surrender on April 9, 1942, as the Japanese forced them to march to San Fernando, Pampanga from Mariveles, Bataan on foot. This great atrocity would be known in history as the Bataan Death March. Courtesy of Time & Life Pictures.
Some of you have already passed on, some remain. It won’t be long now before you say goodbye. Your generation is nearing the final curtain call. But before you take a bow, with your frail backs, as you are honored in the hallowed grounds of Mt. Samat in Bataan, in the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Libingan ng mga Bayani, and in the Manila American Cemetery in Taguig, allow me to tell you what a high honor it is to ink my pen and tell of your unfading glory. There are some things too big for words to encapsulate.
In this occasion of the seventy-fifth year of Bataan’s fall, my heartfelt, tearful and grateful heart for the great service you have rendered our country.
I stand proud to be called your apo.
In commemoration of the 75th anniversary of the Fall of Bataan.
- The East Shall Be Alight with the Glory of our Liberation
- Why Retreat to a Dead End?
- World War II in the Philippines
Photo above: “Battered helmet lies untouched on a rock on Mt. Samat, scene of USAFFE's final struggle against invading Japanese forces,” photo taken in April 1942 as featured in The Sunday Times, April 9, 1967, courtesy of the Presidential Museum and Library.
