A very long time ago there lived a very kind woman with her three little children. She loved her children so much that she worked hard to be able to feed them.
One day she fell ill and in a short time she died . Her spirit went to Kadungayan, of course, as she lived a good life. But one night she thought of her poor little children whom she left on earth. She imagined that no one cared for them and that they must be hungry and cold. She pitied them so much that she decided to go back to earth.
When she reached their house, she called her elder child to open the door for her. The children recognized their mother's voice and opened the door at once. She went in and spoke to them but they could not see her because it was very dark and their fire had gone out. The children were too small and they did not know how to build a fire.
So the woman sent her eldest child to beg fire from the neighbors as she felt very cold. The poor child went to the first house but when she told them that she wanted fire for her mother who had come back home, the people just laughed at her. They did not give her fire. She went to the next house, but the same thing happened. Thus, she went to the next house, from house to house but no one believed that her mother had come back. They thought the poor child had gone out of her mind. So the poor child went home without the fire. The woman was very angry at all the unkind people. She said, " Am I to die a second death because men are so selfish? Come, my children, let us go to that better place where I came from— Kadungayan. There are no selfish people there."
She took a jar of water and went outside in the yard. She shouted to all the people, "Ah, what selfish people you are. From this time on all people will follow my example. No man will ever come back to earth after death." With these words she smashed the jar on a big stone. This made a terrific sound. All the people became silent with fear.
The next morning the people came out to see what had caused the great voice. They saw the bits of broken jar and they found the three children dead. They now knew that the woman had really come back home that night and that in her anger at their selfishness had taken her three children with her. The people were so sorry for not having given fire to the little girl.
Since then no dead person has ever come back to earth.
From Philippine Folk Literature Series: Vol. III, The Myths (2002), compiled and edited by Damiana L. Eugenio, published by The University of the Philippines Press (shopee, amazon)
The Philippines has two official languages which are English and Filipino, which is also considered as the National Language of the country. Filipino, as a language, is based on a standardized version of the Tagalog language, specifically of the Manila dialect. The country also has an official sign language known as Filipino Sign Language or FSL.
The main difference between Tagalog and Filipino is that there is a mandate from the government to continue to develop Filipino using other languages throughout the Philippines as according to Republic Act No. 7104 or the Commission on the Filipino Language Act which created the Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino (KWF) or the Commission on the Filipino Language. One of the Commission's main tasks is to further research different languages throughout the Philippines in order to "enrich" the Filipino language and further develop it more uniquely away from Tagalog.
Despite this, however, Tagalog and Filipino remain functionally similar and most people use both terms interchangeably to refer to the language. Most Tagalog speakers may not even know that there should be a difference between the two. Besides this, most Filipino is often spoken with a lot of English and especially in more urban areas.
Here's an example of Filipino from the YouTube channel Easy Languages:
References:
An act creating the Commission On The Filipino Language, prescribing its Powers, Duties and Functions, and for other purposes, Rep. Act No. 7104, § 14(c) (August 14, 1991) (Phil.). https://lawphil.net/statutes/repacts/ra1991/ra_7104_1991.html
Translators without Borders (n.s.). Language data for the Philippines. Retrieved on 21 March 2026 from https://translatorswithoutborders.org/language-data-for-the-philippines/
Easy Languages. (2016, October 8). Easy Filipino 12 - What is your dream in life? [video]. YouTube. Retrieved on 21 March 2026 from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4HYuboCFLU
Hi! Not really an ask, but it would be interesting to share about how 'Filipino' evolved as a language. How it's taught in schools is that it was supposed to be a sort of distillation of the regional languages into a national language using Tagalog as a base (which is why it uses 'F' which is not a phoneme present in Tagalog but is in other Pinoy regional languages). But even though it's meant to be a national language, it feels like it takes mainly from Tagalog. I've notices that the commonalities between my own regional language and Filipino are more just commonalities between it and Tagalog, just transferred. It kinda highlights a current social issue with how centralized the socio-political sphere is in Manila, even historically which is very interesting.
sorry for the politics and long ask
Oh no, don't apologize for the ask! And political questions are welcome especially since you can't really discuss a community's history, culture, or society if you don't bring up politics and especially regarding a country's language.
I had thought about looking into the language's history and politics before and had never really made a comprehensive post about it and how fascinating it is despite my general interest in this specific topic and having our Filipino teacher back in senior high school made us learn its history in extreme detail (despite not being what we were supposed to be learning leading to us cramming like crazy to study the actual material we needed for our midterms at the last day before but that's a story for another time).
It is true that, despite "Filipino" being a language created specifically to be a "unified language" for the entire country and its different ethnic groups, the language remains indistinguishable from Manileño Tagalog and is often just referred to as "a standardized version of Manilño Tagalog" by other sources. In fact, the language called as "Filipino" isn't really thought of even in Tagalog-majority areas as a distinct language by most people and in casual settings is often used interchangeably with "Tagalog", speaking as someone who is half-Tagalog and had been raised and currently living in a majority-Tagalog region.
The main reason for this was that Filipino was a pretty recent creation (only technically being a separated construct in the 70s) with Tagalog being the official language for decades prior, though at times called "pambansang wika" and only getting officially renamed into the similar "Pilipino" in the late 50s (Oh, 2025). The "pambansang wika" only really had just a little over 50 years to really take on the task of developing into its own thing away from Tagalog and that's definitely part of the main reason that it's virtually the same and it feels redundant to say something like "Philippine languages like Tagalog and Filipino" and especially to people who actually live in the areas where it's widely spoken as a first language or mother tongue.
I do think that part of the reason why Filipino as a language struggles to distinguish itself from Tagalog is that the distinction is wholly manufactured by politics and that the average person would often not care for whatever the Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino (KWF) has to say about what words to use and what words you shouldn't use outside of specific academic settings (often just the Filipino subject in schools or university studies and programs).
If a loanword was also successfully introduced to the language, it just ends up being introduced to Tagalog anyway and vice versa so even natural evolution of the language away from Manileño Tagalog via loan words and slang is pretty much a dead-end method too in my opinion. This is other than the fact that the only way to specifically control Filipino's development to separate itself from Tagalog is mostly going to based on academic standards put into the education system which would bleed into Tagalog anyway because of people communicating with each other.
Personally, any regional specifics of my Batangeño Tagalog is shelved away when I was still in school to take my Filipino classes (although this wasn't much of an issue since my use of Tagalog in academics didn't use those quirks or words as often anyway) but the "Filipino" I learn in school which is supposed to be different from the Tagalog that I was supposed to speak daily is just... the same Tagalog that my cousins from Manila speaks anyway. Weirdly enough, despite the fact that most people in Manila definitely recognize that they speak some variant of Tagalog, I had heard that some official places state that the language spoken in Manila is specifically Filipino and is not Tagalog and is therefore different from Tagalog? Which is confusing because I do not think that's how languages work.
Either way, the previously stated reasons is probably why it's really really hard for me to see the two languages to ever be meaningfully different at least in the near future unless the KWF and DepEd would choose to do something drastic to force the change that would definitely be unpopular or, on the opposite end, regional Tagalog varieties become somehow isolated enough to develop more unique words and grammar structures to make it evolve away from current standard Tagalog to an extreme degree that there would be little intelligibility.
Enough rambling for now but I would love to highlight this further on a longer post than this that maybe I'll try to find time to finish this month or the next although I'm debating on whether or not to post it for Buwan ng Wika but August is very far away right now.
Thank you so much for the suggestion and again, don't apologize for asking something political especially since we can't really discuss the Philippines' history and culture without discussing politics.
Also, reference I mentioned in this ask:
Oh, Y. (2025). The Filipination: Philippine governmental efforts towards nation-building through national language policies. Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, 1–22. Retrieved on 7 April 2026 from https://doi.org/10.1080/01434632.2025.2571455
Because of its location near the equator, the Philippines only has two main seasons: the rainy season and the dry season. The rainy season typically starts at June and usually ends in November, while the dry season starts at December and ends in May. The dry season could also be further divided into the cool dry season from December to February, and the hot dry season from March to May.
Filipinos consider the cool dry season as what is called "Amihan Season", when the northeast monsoon winds or the "hanging amihan" hit the country. The word Amihan comes from the name of the precolonial god Amihan who presides over the gentle cool winds compared in contrast to Habagat who presides over the turbulent winds of the rainy season known as the "Habagat Season", when the southwest monsoon winds or the "hanging habagat" hit the country.
References:
Boquet, Y. (2017). The Philippine Archipelago. Springer. Retrieved on 22 May 2026, from https://content.e-bookshelf.de/media/reading/L-9816583-2649d307f8.pdf
Philippine Atmospheric, Geophysical, and Astronomical Services Administration. (n.d.). Climate of the Philippines. Retrieved on 22 May 2026, from https://www.pagasa.dost.gov.ph/information/climate-philippines
Once a little boy lived with his mother near a forest. His mother was old and poor and she could not give her son enough food. The boy helped his mother by gathering firewood and selling the wood for fuel in the town. This little boy was Jose.
One afternoon, Jose went to the woods together firewood. He was alone. He worked hard and fast so he got many bundles of wood. He put the bundle of firewood on his back.
He had not gone far when he heard a sound that seemed to be like the beating of drums. He also heard sounds of distant horns. Jose stopped to listen.
Then he heard many footsteps. Suddenly he saw a strange parade coming up the path. He hid behind some thick bushes. He peeped through the leaves and waited for the parade to pass. How he trembled as a strange parade passed by him. He saw many little men with long beards and black caps walking one after the other.
Jose knew that these were not people, but tiny folk of the forest from the old men of the village used to call "weeds of the earth" or dwendi[1]. He knew also it is not good to harm these folks, because any one [sic] who would harm them would be sick and will not get well. The dwarfs would make him suffer. The dwarfs did not see Jose, because their eyes were fixed on the path before them and they were also busy playing on their way.
Some of the dwarfs were very small. The rest of them had heavy bags on their backs.
The last dwarf came along. He looked as if the bag which he carried was too heavy for him. This dwarf did not know that a thorn on the path had torn a hole in the bag. The dwarf did not seem to notice what had happened, but Jose saw something dropped out of the hole in the bag.
And the dwarfs were out of sight, Jose stepped out of his hiding place and looked to see what had fallen off the bag. What do you think he saw? He saw several pieces of old gold coins. He quickly put these in his buri hat and ran home to his mother, forgetting the firewood.
He gave the pieces of gold and precious stones to his mother. How glad his mother was! They have become rich.
And his mother left the village and went to the big town where they bought a new home. They both lived happily the rest of their lives.
From Philippine Folk Literature Series: Vol. III, The Legends (2002), compiled and edited by Damiana L. Eugenio, published by The University of the Philippines Press (shopee, amazon)
Mod's Annotations
This is just a different spelling from the word "dwende".
"Buri Hats" is another way to call "Buntal Hats", straw hats made out of buri or corypha palm leaves. These hats are traditionally used by farmers but more formal looking hats resembling a fedora had since been made and was once a common export in the 20th century.
The first iteration of the Philippine flag was created by the Filipino resistance group the Kataastaasan Kagalang-galang na Katipunan ng mga Anak ng Bayan or the Katipunan (en. Supreme and Honorable Association of the Children of the Nation; es. Suprema y Honorable Asociación de los Hijos del Pueblo), specifically commissioned by the president of the resistance and later President-dictator of the Philippines Emilio Aguinaldo.
It was sewn by Marcela Agoncillo, also known as the "Mother of the Philippine Flag", in her residence in Morrison Hill in Wan Chai, Hong Kong after Aguinaldo learned of her sewing skills when he met with her husband Felipe Agoncillo after they and other revolutionaries were exiled by the Spanish government over there which later led to the creation of the Hong Kong Junta. It is said that she asked assistance from her 7-year-old daughter, Lorenza, and her friend Delfina Herbosa de Natividad, who was the niece of Philippine hero Jose Rizal.
References:
Ang pambansang watawat ng Pilipinas [image]. (n.d.). Wikimedia Commons. Retrieved on 10 June 2026, from https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Flag_of_the_Philippines_(1898%E2%80%931901).svg
De Guzman, S. (2021, June 11). How Marcela Agoncillo sewed her way into history as the ‘Mother of Philippine Flag’. PhilStar Life. Retrieved on 10 June 2026, from https://philstarlife.com/geeky/631991-marcela-agoncillo-mother-of-philippine-flag
Detail of Fernando Amorsolo's (1892 - 1972) The Making of the Philippine flag painting. [image]. (n.d.). Wikipedia. Retrieved on 10 June 2026, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Amorsolo%27s_The_Making_of_the_Philippine_Flag.png
Hey! Haven't heard from you for a while. I wanna ask if you can make something about the World War II/Japanese Occupation in The Philippines?? I'm getting into Philippine History lately and wanna know more info abt it. Thanks! :D
The post below was originally first mostly written during about July 2024 so a lot of the sources were taken around the time but I had tried my best to update it and edit it with my current answer. Unfortunately I wasn't able to be as active on this blog for the past two years because of a variety of personal reasons but I'm trying to do more with it right now but maybe not as extensive of posts as these because it takes a lot of spoons to make even if I really really like doing write-ups like these. Again, I do apologize for not answering this in time a lot just happened and I hope you understand.
Hey, yeah, sorry to everyone here! I had been very busy with work and some personal projects and I didn't really get a lot of other questions on this blog so I didn't really know what to post about.
As for your question, I had been getting more into World War II history as well and especially with the release of Pulang Araw recently besides trying to read more material and watch more documentaries on the topic so I'd gladly infodump about what I learned and researched!
A painting by Juanito Torres titled "The Japanese Occupation" (2021) (from Gallerie Joaquin)
The Japanese Occupation of the Philippines is by far one of the most talked about historical eras but least explored in fiction media in the country with most documentaries and articles covering the time period but very few fictional stories set during the era if it wasn't written during or immediately after the occupation. In fact, a lot of fictional stories that uses this time period come some time from the 70s to 80s and especially movies from renowned actor Fernando Poe Jr. or FPJ, while historical fiction in the 21st century mostly cover the Revolutionary era and the Philippine-American war with Pulang Araw being a rare exception to this.
Though, as I've said before, this period in Philippine history gets a lot of coverage in the non-fictional side of media with a lot of stories and discussions talked about in both print and visual media. A lot of documentaries and articles discuss stories from survivors and victims that are shown not only in schools but in public television with most Filipinos having some sort of exposure to these kinds of media.
Despite being the shortest colonial period in Philippine history, there's a lot to discuss with most Filipino families having a story or two from their grandparents and great-grandparents about what happened during the time and how they survived the occupation, mine surely do. Because of this, there's a lot I could talk about and a lot of ways to start this discussion though I could probably start with discussing the state of the Philippines before the occupation.
Before the Japanese occupation of the country, the Philippines was under the colonial authority of the American Empire which it has been under since the end of the Philippine-American war. During this time period, some in the country prospered under American rule with the modernization brought by the American government in the country while other parts of the archipelago continued to suffer from poverty. Besides this, under American rule, a lot of the powers in the archipelago was centralized within Manila and a lot of independent tribes and communities were subjugated under American rule. Despite the subjugation of the country, Filipino politicians did not give up on the desire to get more autonomy and even independence which especially became a possibility during the Great Depression.
I could go on an entire discussion on what happened to the Philippines during the Great Depression, but just know that although the economic struggles were awful, if the Great Depression didn't happen, the Philippines may not have achieved independence as soon as it did or at all for that matter. The economic struggles of the United States was one of the main arguments that Filipino politicians used as a reason as to why the United States should release the Philippines as a colony since up-keeping an overseas empire with a large colony like the Philippines (an archipelago with a slightly larger land area as the state of Arizona) during an economic crisis takes a lot of money apparently. Because of this, in 1934 the United States passed the Hare-Hawes-Cutting Act which envisioned a ten-year transitory semi-autonomous government with an elected Filipino president (Jose, 2021) which, although promises autonomy, was rejected by the Philippine Senate to be later renegotiated by Senate President Quezon to be more advantageous to the Philippines and more autonomy to the Philippine government during the transitory period which later became the Tydings-McDuffie Act ("Tydings-McDuffie Act", n.d.).
A picture of FDR signing the Tydings-McDuffie Act into law surrounded by American and Filipino politicians (from Britannica)
By November 1935, the Philippine Commonwealth was inaugurated and the country was now set to gain their independence after ten years following the Commonwealth period agreed upon by the American government. Although there were a lot of Filipinos that still harbored ill sentiments towards the American government during this time period, there was this understanding that the Americans have to release the country by 1945 and because of this, there was a large positive view of the current state of the country. This was the political situation of the Philippines when the Japanese first bombed the country just nine hours after the 1941 Pearl Harbor bombing.
The initial start of the occupation was something that both the Philippines and the American government was expecting and there were some precautions that they tried doing to increase defenses but, from local sources, a lot of Filipinos were of the opinion that these weren't enough. Although FDR did certain steps such as freezing Japanese assets (Roosevelt, 1941) and creating the United States Air Force of the Far East (USAFFE) (National Archives, n.d.), a lot of places in the country were not as reinforced as was probably necessary. I remember a discussion I had with a history teacher had described the situation as the Philippines being left behind as a "sitting duck" while the Japanese Imperial Army became a larger threat by the day. When Pearl Harbor was bombed, Filipinos were already aware that they were next and they were right. In fact, commanders had noted that they were ordered to simply "stand-by" as Japanese planes start bombing the Philippines' five major airfields (Collins, 2017).
A picture of a Japanese dive-bomber after bombing several locations in the Philippines (from Warfare History Network)
Some of the five airfields included in these attacks were Clark Airfield (now Clark Air Base) in Angeles, Pampanga, Iba Airfield in Zambales (McGowan, 2012), among others. One of these airfields that isn't as talked about today outside the province is the Batangas Airport or Batangas Airfield in Batangas City [then still the Town of Batangas], of which was never rebuilt after World War II (The Official Website of Batangas City, 2014). This airport isn't as widely discussed today unless you really get into the weeds of this kind of history but as someone who has lived in this province my whole life, this is one of those stories you may hear about from much older people considering that it's something that a lot of locals are highly aware of. Someone had stated that the airport described may be now located in present-day Camp Miguel Malvar of the Philippine National Police (Buhay Batangas, 2018a).
Japan wanted to take the Philippines as a territory as a part of their Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere (short. GEACPS) which spanned most of East and Southeast Asia. The idea behind the GEACPS was to expel Western and Soviet Imperialism in Asia by uniting these countries under the Japanese Empire. In reality, it was a way for Japan to establish the Yamato racial supremacy as revealed in a secret document from 1943 called "An Investigation of Global Policy with the Yamato Race as Nucleus" (Lim, 2023).
A piece of propaganda that showcases Japan's supposed desire to have a peaceful Greater East Asia (from TheCollector)
The Philippines proved to be extremely difficult to totally conquer not only because of the American-backed military, but also due to the geography of the country with the massive amount of islands and high mountains allowing for insurgent to continuously weaken Japanese control in some areas while they reinforce the others.
The Philippines wasn't officially surrendered to the Japanese Empire until the final surrender of Philippine-American forces in Corregidor on May 6, 1942 making it one of the last countries in Asia to be colonized (Airborne and Special Operations Museum Foundation, n.d.). During the surrender, General Wainwright wanted to just give up Corregidor itself but General Homma wanted all American forces gone from the archipelago. The exhaustion and the losses of the American military forced Wainwright to agree to those terms and all American soldiers were then evacuated to a prison stockade still within the country.
One of the most talked about events during the early days of the Japanese occupation was the Bataan Death March, an event where some 76,000 prisoners of war (66,000 Filipinos and 10,000 Americans) held in Bataan were forcibly made to travel 105 km (65.24 miles) from Capas, Tarlac to Mariveles, Bataan with thousands succumbing to injury, disease, and hunger before they even arrived (Britannica, n.d.).
American survivors of the Battle of Bataan under Japanese guard before beginning the Bataan Death March. (from Britannica)
As an anecdote I had heard from family, there apparently lived a survivor of the march nearby where I live that escaped the Japanese by slipping away without detection before traveling hundreds of kilometers back to Batangas where he had come. I'm not sure about the validity of this story but it did always intrigue me.
This event is now marked as the "Araw ng Kagitingan" or the "Day of Valor", previously called "Bataan Day" or "Corregidor Day", in the country and is celebrated on the 9th of April (but would sometimes be moved if it coincided with events that aren't stable in the calendar like Easter celebrations). (Damicog, 2023)
As much as I want to go keep talking about the more formal military history of the country, there's plenty of places where that could easily be accessed with World War II YouTube channels covering the formalized offensives more extensively but I could come back to that some other time. For now, I want to focus more on some politics as well as some more specifics on the guerilla war and what happened to the civilians of the country during this time.
Now, with the Americans gone and the government under the Japanese Empire's control, they install a puppet government and choose Associate Justice Jose P. Laurel as the president.
Laurel is by far the most controversial president in the Philippines and I could honestly dedicate an entire post about him as he remains a topic of debate among a lot of historians. Simply put, he was either someone who was a complete traitor and collaborator to the country for his serving the Japanese government which made civilians suffer or someone who was ordered to stay behind by the previous president and only collaborated with the Japanese Empire to lessen civilian casualty (Buhay Batangas, 2018b).
Jose P. Laurel's official presidential portrait (from Wikipedia)
As a side note, a lot of sources that outright call him as a total collaborator or at least loyal to the Japanese seem to be foreign sources, often American, with this video from an American YouTube channel (Yiddish Book Center, 2014) as an example of this— discussing him from the perspective of a total collaborator, while a lot of Filipino sources I had seen often regard him as a politician that had to make the tough call to collaborate with the invaders in order to lessen civilian casualty despite the treason charges immediately after the war with only very few citing him as a traitor and even then, he is described more as a traitor with nuance. In fact, comments on this video by a Filipino YouTuber alone (Tayaban, 2023) show that a lot of Filipinos seem sympathetic towards his situation and his rule. I personally had noticed that a lot of people were way more sympathetic towards him than the country's first president, Emilio Aguinaldo, who was popularly known as a ruthless politician who executed his opposition Andres Bonifacio and his brother Procopio, assassinated his general Antonio Luna because of personal reasons, and undermining his smartest advisor Apolinario Mabini which included spreading or not squashing rumors about his character.
Either way, Laurel's tenure as the first and last president of the Japanese-backed Second Philippine Republic was rife with a lot of economic struggles, starvation, and, of course, war.
As an aside before I continue, Emilio Aguinaldo actively collaborated with the Japanese even before the occupation started, trying to do their propaganda on the ground and even pleading for Gen. Douglas MacArthur to surrender over radio (Ara, 2015). Some historians speculate that this collaboration was for personal reasons, one being his desire to become the president of the country again after he lost the election against Manuel Quezon. He had also been opposed to Quezon's plans to accept Jewish refugees from other countries prior to the Japanese occupation of the country as Aguinaldo saw Jews as "communists and schemers" (Rodis, 2013). Related to this, the Philippines and the holocaust is a whole other topic that I do believe needs to be expanded on some other time if I can find more sources on it as well as the topic of what had happened to the American Ashkenazi Jewish community in the city of Manila which might also be a topic I'll get back to some day if I have the spoons to write about it.
Continuing on with the main colonial period proper, this isn't sourced as much as these are things I had heard from my grandmother, but the economy got so bad during this time period that every time they would have to go down to the markets to get food they would have to bring entire bayongs of Japanese-issued fiat pesos, derogatorily referred to by Filipinos as "Mickey Mouse Money" ("Japanese government–issued Philippine peso", n.d.), just to buy basic necessities all because the value of the money was so low because of the bad economy.
The front and back side of what people would later call "Mickey Mouse Money" (from Wikipedia)
My grandmother was closer to the upper class than most Filipinos and she still had to do something like this. That's how bad the situation was, what more the average Filipino. Besides this, my mother had also told me that it wasn't uncommon for Filipinos to have entire closet-full of stacks of the currency because of how low the value was at the time and some of these stacks of money persisted for a good while after.
The Philippines was a constant battle zone during the occupation with the Japanese army struggling to keep towns in check once the fighting stops and they're called to try to take control of another town that rebelled, only for the cycle to go rinse and repeat. This was a similar problem that the British actually ran into during the Seven Years War when they decided to "take over the Philippines" but in reality only fully controlling Manila and Cebu while the rest of the archipelago didn't fall under their army.
A lot of Filipinos went off into the mountains as guerilla fighters, the same way they knew with fighting against their other colonizers. The most well-known of these guerilla groups is the well-known communist faction the Hukbong Bayan Laban sa Hapon (short. Hukbalahap; lit. The Nation's Army Against the Japanese) led by Luis Taruc (Pacific Atrocities Education, n.d.). Although the group was extremely helpful to the allied forces and the war effort, the group would later be deemed as terrorists due to their communist ties (Goodwin, 2001). This group deserves an entire long post dedicated to them with its complicated history and eventual disbandment.
Photo of guerilla fighter and communist leader of the HUK Luis Taruc flipping through newspapers while surrounded by his man (from Esquire)
Besides the fighting front, a lot of Filipinos were subjected to Japanese cruelty, with some of the most prominent victims being what was known as "comfort women". To those who are new to the discussion Pacific Theater of the war, "comfort women" were civilian women that were abducted, raped, and prostituted by the Japanese army (Asian Women's Fund, n.d.). Even after the wars, most of them were given little compensation, there's still a lot of Japanese politicians who refuse to acknowledge their plight, even dismissing the horrors that they had endure. There had been more people calling attention to this and some in Japanese government who had at least recognized what had happened but there's still some push-back from both Japanese and non-Japanese individuals and groups, claiming that "Japan has apologized enough" for their actions in the Pacific Theater.
A photograph of the controversial Comfort Women statue found on along Manila Bay (from Rappler)
Besides women, the Japanese Imperial army also took on bakla as their sex slaves. Known as the "Comfort Gays", they are often overlooked as victims of the imperial regime with focus on them only becoming known to the public after the 2000 biographical movie "Markova: Comfort Gay" (Portes) which depicted the life of Walterina Markova was released.
It was also not uncommon for small towns to be ravaged and destroyed by the Japanese army. Stories of people getting tortured and killed mercilessly is commonplace with those stories being told to Filipino children by their relatives and their teachers. I remember a memory from 8th grade when a history teacher, after a horrific documentary that we were required to watch, talk about how babies would be stolen from their families, thrown up in the air, and then stabbed with the tips of the Japanese soldiers bayonets just for fun. I heard stories from people online on how their grandmother or grandfather survived the onslaught of the Japanese army by hiding them in unconventional places so they don't get killed. My great-grandfather who was a very rich man of his town refused to seal away food from the townspeople despite Japanese orders and, after opening his storage house in defiance, was later stabbed and somehow survived his guts coming out of him.
The brutality was written about from a diary entry from a Japanese soldier who was stationed in Fort Santiago who said simply "Burned 1,000 guerrillas to death tonight,". There were orders from their commanders that "all people on the battlefield … will be put to death.", the battlefield of which was the entire city (Drogin, 2018).
Some Filipinos were active collaborators with the Japanese Imperial Army, which, interestingly enough, included my great grandfather's brother who was tried as a traitor and even declared guilty of such after the occupation who only avoided execution because of another relative's wife's pleas to their uncle who just so happened to have been the judge's niece. Prominent figures that had actively collaborated with the Japanese (with varying degrees of debated collaboration and willingness or force) include the aforementioned Aguinaldo and Laurel, Mariano Marcos (the grandfather of the current president of the Philippines), Sergio Osmeña Jr. (the son of Philippine president Sergio Osmeña Sr.), Claro M. Recto (a famous anti-American politician who was critical of American Imperialism) and many others.
These individuals I had mentioned had been debated but from what I've seen, the majority had been declared by the public's opinion as unwilling participants of the regime and had since been exonerated from these accusations and even remembered more as heroes of the early to mid 20th century, before, during, and after the world war (save for Marcos who is still hotly debated on to this day). Honestly, same goes for my great great uncle.
The most blatant of these collaborators though that was far less debated was the Makabayang Katipunan ng mga Pilipino or the Makapili, a fascist military group founded by Benigno Ramos whose main goal was to assist the Japanese Imperial Army (De Viana, 2019). Created at the Japanese Imperial government's frustrations of Laurel's refusal to conscript Filipinos (Philippine Daily Inquirer, 2023), the group used the frustrations that some Filipinos had with US Imperialism as well as the promises of land reform for farmers in order to recruit members and pushed for Filipino fascism (Larsen, 2001). Laurel actually opposed its formation because he believed that the group didn't had the Philippines as a priority, but prioritized Japan and even planned to boycott the group's inauguration but was persuaded otherwise he would be seen as uncooperative (Friend, 1988).
The Makapili were only used against guerilla fighters and members of the Philippine Commonwealth's Army that were still in hiding, not even engaging in combat with the American military (Friend, 1988). Fighting alongside the Japanese forces, they had also been complicit or even actively participated in the acts of violence against Filipino civilians.
Despite the widespread devastation that a lot of Filipinos had recounted, there were still some Filipinos that had not been as affected or even had not endured the horrors of the war. They may only had encountered Japanese oppression in a limited capacity. On a family anecdote given by my great aunt during my late grandmother's 90th birthday party that, despite the horrors that her father endured as I've discussed before, she seemed to have been sheltered and was even protected or even used as amusement in a very "this is a silly little Filipino girl" way during this time period, saying that the Japanese were very nice (again, despite the fact that her father had literally been gutted by the Japanese which she may not have been privy too even decades after).
As recounted by popular Philippine historian Ambeth Ocampo in his article for Inquirer titled "Japan of my childhood" first published on November 2014 and republished in 2017 his book series Looking Back (Looking Back 12: Quezon's Sukiyaki):
I was eight years old when I first visited Japan for Expo ’70 in Osaka, but my encounter with that country came earlier when I would visit a favorite uncle’s hotel in Angeles City named Tea House, for a structure that was saved from his former home to become the focus of the complex. [...]
I remembered the Japan of my childhood when I took two ALFP fellows to Yasukuni Shrine and wondered why Chinese and Koreans howl when a Japanese prime minister visits this quiet and peaceful shrine. [...] I finally understood why the shrine is controversial, because to the side of the quiet and solemn part of Yasukuni is a museum that presents history in a skewed way. Outside the museums are other memorials: one to the horses that died during war, one for an Indian magistrate who dissented from the majority during the War Crimes Tribunal, one to the Kamikaze pilot, [...]
In the context of all these conflicting memories of the same event, I asked myself: How could my father’s eldest brother be such a Japanophile and what made him build a Japanese tea house in the ’50s at a time when Filipinos who survived the war would contemplate murder and revenge at the sight of any Japanese? When I look back at my personal history, I realize that my parents grew up outside Manila during the war and were spared the orgy of murder, pillage and rape that saw the end of the war in February 1945. The worst that happened to my father’s siblings in Pampanga was this: An uncle was slapped in the face by a Japanese soldier because he forgot to bow in greeting and respect.
The American army returned to the Philippines on 1945 , and although this means that the days of the Japanese rule over the Philippines were numbered, it also meant American bombs with Japanese foot soldiers. The tactic of the American army was to raze whatever strategic settlement there was in the area (often urban centers) and try to drive the Japanese out that way. As the Japanese started retreating from the bombs and the American soldiers that started to infiltrate through the streets, they would kill as many Filipinos in their wake, not discriminating between combatant or civilian. Thousands of civilians died in this onslaught with most towns at least having several hundred victims. Some even say that in the frenzy, the Japanese soldiers also started pillaging, raiding, and even raping civilians and their homes and even burn entire communities besides committing massacres throughout the islands as they retreated away from the American army (Griggs, 2020). In the end, the death toll in Manila alone reached a devastating 100,000 because of both Japanese fires and American artillery (Jose & Benipayo, 2021).
My grandmother's family, who lived quite a ways away from main city centers and only had some Japanese soldiers stationed there, were almost killed with American bombs as they drove away the Japanese and only survived if it weren't for my great aunt (the same sheltered woman who didn't know how horrible the Japanese were) started panicking and screaming which pushed the family to evacuate before the place had gotten decimated. There was a person who they used to know who unfortunately didn't make it.
At the end of the war, the United States finally declared the Philippines a free and independent country on July 4, 1945 which served as the Philippines' Independence Day celebration until it was changed to June 12 to reflect the original declaration of independence against the Spanish.
Here's some other media you could look into if you're interested to learn more:
Videos:
"The Battle of Manila: 75 years after one of WWII's deadliest battles" is a short video by DW that focuses on former guerilla fighters and their experiences. Content Warning for actual war footage and mentions of violence and rape. This video is in English and the Tagalog spoken is dubbed over with a translation.
"See a War-Torn Philippines in These World War II Clips" is a collection of different clips from before and during the Japanese occupation with narration that explains the context of the clips. Content Warning for actual war footage. This video is in English.
Documentaries:
"Ang Huling Sundalong Hapon" [en. The Last Japanese Soldier] is an episode of the documentary TV show series I-Witness with this episode being led by Howie Severino. This documentary focuses on the story of Lt. Hiroo Onada, the last Japanese soldier that was left behind decades after the war who continued to terrorize the Filipino populace before he was ordered by his leader to stand down and was granted amnesty by the Philippine government. The documentary has Severino tracing the steps of Onoda's time in the Philippines by using guides and his book, "No Surrender". The episode also focuses on the torment Onoda and his group has done to the residents of the nearby town. Content Warning for descriptions of violence and murder.This documentary is in Tagalog with English quotes. No subtitles are available.
"The Last Days of Yamashita" is an episode of the documentary TV show series I-Witness with this episode being led by Mav Gonzalez. The documentary focuses on the final moments of Gen. Tomoyuki Yamashita, "The Tiger of Malaya" who led the Japanese army's conquest of Singapore and Malaya, he was assigned in the Philippines to defend the country from the Allied Forces before he was captured in Ifugao. The documentary has Gonzalez trekking through the mountains where Yamashita and his troops hid away from American troops as well as her interviewing Filipino survivors and historians that explain the story of what had happened to the last Japanese Imperial army before their surrender to American forces. Content Warning for showing possible human bones s well as mentions of cannibalism and war-time distress. This documentary is in Tagalog. The only available subtitles are auto-generated and English subtitles are auto-translated.
"The Rape of Manila" is an episode of the documentary TV show series I-Witness with this episode being led by journalist Sandra Aguinaldo. Content Warning for explicit descriptions of Sexual Assault, Violence, as well as direct videos depicting scenes of war. This documentary is in Tagalog. The only available subtitles are auto-generated and English subtitles are auto-translated.
"Babangon Din Ang Kahapon (The Comfort Women Story)" [en. Yesterday Will Rise [Too] (The Comfort Women Story)] is an episode of the biographical anthology series Magpakailanman that focuses on two comfort women, Amonita Balajadia and Julia Porras. Content Warning for explicit depictions of blood, gore, violence, sexual assault, and self-inflicted abortion as well as scenes of people experiencing episodes of PTSD. This documentary is in Tagalog. The only available subtitles are auto-generated and English subtitles are auto-translated.
"The Last Manilaners: A Quezon's Game Documentary", directed by Nico Hernandez, is a documentary series that was release in-tandem with the movie "Quezon's Game" and recounts the experiences of Jewish refugees in the Philippines during WWII from interviews with these refugees. The series goes over their experiences from escaping Germany and later on going through the Japanese Occupation of the country. The entire series is available in the director's youtube channel here: ep.1, ep.2, ep.3, and ep.4. Content Warning for depictions and discussions of violence, antisemitism, the nazi regime, the holocaust, death, and war. The series is mostly spoken in English with some Tagalog mixed in. The series also has English subtitles.
Articles:
98-year-old guerrilla fighter recalls WWII experience by Ben Cal
This city was ravaged in WWII. Why do few remember the suffering and sacrifice? by Bob Drogin
The Untold Story of 'Miss Fernandez,' the School Teacher Who Killed 200 Japanese in WWII by Mario Alvaro Limos
Books:
Rampage: McArthur, Yamashita, and the Battle of Manila by James M. Scott - a book that focuses on Douglas MacArthur and the Battle of Manila as well as the damage the war has done on the City and its residents.
Remembering World War II in the Philippines 2, Volume I & II by the National Historical Commission of the Philippines - A collection of articles compiled by the NHCP that center around World War II and especially the Japanese Occupation of the Philippines.
Movies:
"Markova: Comfort Gay (2000)" is a historical biographical film directed by Gil M. Portes that depicts the life of Walter Dempster Jr., better known as Walterina Markova, a comfort gay who was sexually abused by the Japanese army. Content Warning for explicit depictions of implied and direct homophobia and transphobia, violence including domestic violence and queerphobic violence, sexual assault, blood, scenes of torture, death among others. This movie is in Tagalog and there are no subtitles or translations.
Unfortunately, I cannot directly identify other Filipino movies set during the Japanese occupation that I can confidently confirm is based on or, at the very least, loosely based on real-history. It would be best to look up documentaries or docuseries that covers the topic instead which there are many. If any of you has any movies to recommend that does take place in World War II and could identify directly as based on or loosely based on real-life history or experiences, please feel free to suggest them.
Other media related to World War II that isn't necessarily about the Japanese Occupation or if it is, is told through the perspective of Japanese soldiers:
Fires on the Plain or 野火 (Nobi) by Shohei Ooka (book, Japanese perspective) - a novel loosely based on the experience of the author, it that takes place during the final year of the Japanese occupation that follows a Japanese private suffering from tuberculosis as he tries to find his way to Palompon, Leyte to meet with his fellow soldiers. The book follows him as he gets more and more desperate and suffers through injury, disease, hunger, and delirium as he slowly loses himself and is pushed to his moral breaking point. This book was adapted twice with the 1959 film adaptation by director Kon Ichikawa available via archive.org here, and a 2014 adaptation by director Shinya Tsukamoto which I unfortunately cannot find any easy way to watch even in less than legal means so if anyone has any link to a way to watch it it would be appreciated. Content Warning for extreme violence, disease, starvation, corpses, shooting both of military and civilian individuals, blood, gore, death, and cannibalism both referenced in conversation and explicit depictions of such. I will also note that the 1959 adaptation has a scene showcasing the graphic death of a dog. There are also flashing lights in the 1959 adaptation. The movies include a variety of languages, primarily Japanese, with English and Tagalog spoken at different times and I believe both have English subtitles.
No Surrender by Hiroo Onada (book, Japanese perspective) - an autobiographical book written by HIroo Onada, the last recorded Japanese soldier stationed in the Philippines to surrender only sometime in the 70s. He was given amnesty and was also discussed in the previously mentioned I-Witness episode "Ang Huling Sundalong Hapon". I will admit that I had not read this and I've been going back and forth on whether or not I should get a copy of it.
Just adding this here because I might get people suggesting it, but yes, the mentioned Quezon's Game (2018) is another related film and you could see that the movie is connected to the Last Manilaners.The movie mostly depicts the pre-war period and I was supposed to put it more directly on the movie list but I actually tried to watch it and it was maybe 50% just Quezon talking with white guys and emphasizing that American Congress is antisemitic and how Washington D.C. is definitely going to give Quezon shit for this and I would be happy to suggest it here if it actually cut down on a lot of stuff to be honest or emphasized the experiences of the actual Jewish characters more. It was a drag at multiple moments with maybe some actors saving the film from being a total trek to get through and especially on the first hour of the movie. You could still watch it but again, it's a drag on a lot of moments personally and it's more political discussions than anything. You could watch it for free if you just look it up and the movie is mostly in English surprisingly with some Filipino and Spanish mixed in and even some German but the one available online doesn't have any consistent one-language subtitles.
If you've managed to read this far, thank you so much for giving me your time! I know that I've been gone a while so I wanted to put as much as I can in this ask. Anyway, it might be a while before I do a big post in general after I finish some other topics that's been requested because of how much time and research these kinds of posts takes so I hope that's understandable.
Explanatory Note: In the island of Panay is a town whose inhabitants are called Ibajaos, and the town, called Igbahay. It is a place of some two or three hundred men, who are herdsmen and sailors, although a considerable number though devote themselves to the soil.
In that place, according to custom and tradition, it was usual in the year 1539 for certain of the men native thereof to have their left ear cut—a custom which is seen at times to this day. This came to be called the sacrifice of the guilang, according to the name given it later by others. Why was this? What was its origin? This is what we should relate in the following story....
In the town of Igbahay[1], there was once a man who was the quickest of the quick and the most evil of the evil. He was called Talagman.
Such was that man that by his glance alone he caused harm. The people took counsel together to spy on that man, in order to discover why he was of such a nature. Accordingly, they spied on him, but for several nights they went away without finding anything. However, they did not become disheartened but continued to spy on him. After a long waiting, they finally discovered that the man disappeared every night at midnight. Where did he go? We shall know soon. That man rose from his bed at midnight, took a small flask, and which was a certain oil, anointed his armpits and then went flying through the air, leaving half his body in the house. The people went up into the house and examined it. There they found many curious and strange things. In the flask were several small horrors. What a creature it was! It had the form of a black crow. It's beak, which was very long, was as sharp as a knife. It had four very long feet, with sharp claws, long hair, and many spines. This was the uac-uac[2], the companion of the sigbin[3].
After a few moments they went into the kitchen to see what was there. They looked all over, but found no salt. Therefore, they inferred that the substance was not good for that man.
At four o'clock In the morning they heard the flapping of wings, and beheld that sigbin returning to his house through the window. Then he united himself to his body, and presto! He was just as if nothing had happened. When he was returning he uttered certain sentences which the people could not understand, and then united himself to his body. How could a sudden change come about? Well, the people assert that the invocation he uttered had a certain meaning, namely that and his back with the government of (evil), he had been told that the creature which he kept shut up in the bamboo joint would aid him. This the people assert was the spirit of evil, which would aid him to become what they call sigbin. The sigbin was an evil man who was accustomed to cause harm from his hiding place whenever he wished and on whomever he wished by simply flying and making some sign with his arm on his mouth.
Once there a very strong man who caught him in an evil act with one of his associates, and cut off his ear with a single splash of his sango. Accordingly, curious though it be, yet it was said that the pact with the evil spirit was broken from that time, for, since he was a man whose ear had been cut off, the evil spirit (which is called oag, or by some guang-guang— though almost always it is called oag— Which has been described above as the creature which gives the oil that is used persons when they become sigbin) will not enter into him.
From Philippine Folk Literature Series: Vol. III, The Legends (2002), compiled and edited by Damiana L. Eugenio, published by The University of the Philippines Press (shopee, amazon)
Mod's Annotations
Looking up the town of "Igbahay" and it seems to be an alternative spelling to "Ibajay", a municipality in Aklan found in the island of Panay. It may be an error on the part of the author as the inhabitants are correctly called "Ibajaos" which would make more sense if the name of the town was "Ibahay".
The uac-uac seem to be another spelling for the wak-wak, a bird-like aswang that makes strange noises, often described how it's named. The creature is similar to the manananggal but cannot separate its torso from its legs.
In most descriptions of the sigbin, it is often portrayed as a goat-like or dog-like blood-sucking creature, somewhat like the chupacabra. They are often said to be pets of aswang families. This description of the sigbin in this story is much more closely related to the usual depictions of manananggals.
