by Pearl L. Balanay
One
of the most horrific times in the history of the Philippines is when the
Japanese occupied the country for three years. The biggest and deadliest
conflicts in human history arose, the World War II, claiming the lives of
millions and shattering havoc on countries’ economies throughout the world.
It
was indeed a “world war” in scope; virtually every country participated
directly or indirectly in the war. For the Philippines, its own involvement came
when the Japanese overthrew the Americans and became the new masters of the
archipelago. Their reign is marked by various accounts of atrocities and
violence.
There
are prominent pieces of information on such ghastly act of terror done by the
Japanese to our nation. The Bataan Death March, dreadful bombardments on our
homeland which destroyed numerous constructions and killed our countrymen, decimated
population, destroyed economy and wrecked infrastructure. When the Japanese
left; the Philippines was crippled.
But
there is one significant notion that has been forgotten; the Filipina women who
had been enslaved in Japan’s wartime rape camps, the “comfort women.”
A
Filipina-American novelist, essayist, and educator, M. Evelina Galang is writing
a book entitled “Lolas’ House: Survivors of Wartime Rape Camps.”
Galang tells the often overlooked story of the hundreds of Filipina women who
were forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese military during World War
II.
“These
‘comfort women’ were mostly 13, 14, 15 years old. They weren’t really
women, they were girls,” Galang said of the victims, who are now so old they
are respectfully referred to as “Lolas,” the Tagalog word for grandmothers.
“They were forced to do labor and raped up to 20, 30 times a day, every single
day. The tragedy is colossal.”
These
stories poured out of the grandmothers are like water from a dam, full of
horrific testimonies of habitual rape and torture:
Prescilla
Bartonico was 17 when she was captured by the Japanese.
The
year was 1943. Bartonico and a younger cousin were cowering in an air raid
shelter on the Filipino island of Leyte with family members and neighbors; the
sounds of gunfire and bomb blasts punctured the still air. The door banged open
and soldiers from the Imperial Japanese Army were suddenly upon them. They
grabbed Bartonico’s cousin and dragged her across the floor. The girl screamed
and kicked and scratched the soldiers’ faces. Three soldiers took turns raping
her before they killed her. Witnessing her cousin’s assault and murder,
Bartonico wept as another soldier tied her up and raped her in front of her
family and friends. “I wanted to resist, but I was too afraid,” she
said. “[So began] my suffering ... at the hands of the
Japanese soldiers.” For the next three months, Bartonico was
imprisoned in a military garrison in the town of Burauen in the Philippines.
She said she was raped multiple times daily, “by five to eight” men.
“[It
was] mostly during nighttime because we were forced to work in the landing
field during the day,” she said of those dark days. “Sometimes, they even
brought us to the guard posts where they kept their machine guns in trenches
made up of sacks filled with soil.”
In
1993, Rosa Maria Henson became the first Lola to come forward publicly about
her experience. Henson had been 15 when Japanese soldiers abducted her. They
incarcerated her for 9 months, and up to 30 men raped her every day.
“I
lay on the bed with my knees up and my feet on the mat, as if I were giving
birth. Whenever the soldiers did not feel satisfied, they vented their anger on
me. When the soldiers raped me, I felt like a pig,” Henson, who died in 1997,
described in her memoir. “I was angry all the time.”
For
decades, no one except Henson’s mother knew about those days of abuse. Even
Henson’s husband and her children had been kept in the dark.
“I am telling my story so that they will feel
humiliated,” Henson said of the soldiers who raped her,
according to a New York Times obituary. “It is true: I am an avenger of
the dead.
Rosa Maria Henson (second from left), from the
Philippines, joins Korean “comfort women” Kim Soon Duk (left) and Yoong Sue Ree
(second from right) during a protest rally staged in front of the Japanese embassy
in Manila in 1996. Henson died a year later.
Inspired by Henson, 174 other Filipina women
eventually came forward to share their stories.
“The
culture of shame and gossip is strong in Filipino society. When word got out
that a woman was a ‘comfort woman,’ she might have been called ‘Japanese
leftovers.’ “Some women were not taken back by their families after the war.
Some grandmothers who came forward had to deal with their sons and daughters
and even husbands who got mad at them for speaking their truth.”
An
estimated 400,000 women and girls across Asia were abducted and forced to serve
in so-called “comfort stations” by the Japanese military during World War II. A
majority of these victims were taken hostage in South Korea and China, but
women were captured in virtually every territory occupied by the Japanese,
including Taiwan, Indonesia, Malaysia and Indonesia.
In the Philippines, researchers estimate that more than 1,000 girls and women were sexually enslaved by the Japanese during World War II. Today, only 70 of them are still living, and their disheartening history is forgotten. It took 50 years before the Lolas’ stories came to light.
When an individual is used as 'comfort' for
other people, for soldiers, who may have been forced to fight, is the cruelest,
most revolting display of brutality and inhuman behavior. They were mere
objects to keep the troops from deserting. I could not fathom the idea of
getting sexually assaulted 20 to 30 times a day. I may have never been in such
a situation nor know anyone who has, but as a woman, I am deeply terrified of
how inhuman people could get. I urge Japan to correct and acknowledge the shame
they have brought to our Filipina women in the past, otherwise; they are not a
self-respecting nation.
We can recognize survivors of abuse by their courage. When
silence is very inviting, they step forward and share their truth so others
know they aren't alone because the true test of a warrior is how her 'stance'
holds up after any 'circumstance'. It is how she handles herself even after the
stormiest weather. A true warrior will still reflect the brilliant rays of the
magnificent sun through her eyes. She may get hit by sudden lightning or take
severe beatings from the cruel wind, but she will always get back up and stand
strong on her feet again, soak in the sunlight, and be prepared to get hit by
even the most merciless hail - time and time again.”
