By Dennis Gorecho
“Never forget” is an expression and political slogan used to urge others to remember events surrounding a national tragedy. It was first used in relation to the damages brought by World War II which started as a sincere symbol of shared trauma.
The documentary film “Children of the War” by Mike Alcazaren featured the stories of some of the few remaining survivors of the “Battle of Manila” — Ching Africa Caluag, Fely Zafra Reyes, Lourdes Reyes Montinola, Terry Suarez Sison, Leopoldo de Guzman, and Nando Vasquez Prada.
The film on one of World War II’s most devastating ground battles had its gala screening at the Metropolitan Theatre on February 23, 2025 as part of the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Manila. It featured narratives of surviving the war by people who were children or teenagers during this historical tragedy that left Manila in total ruin and over 100,000 civilians dead (either killed by the Japanese or caught in the crossfire).
Some of their stories are horrific — witnessing parents, siblings, relatives, and friends mercilessly gunned down; women molested and murdered; men stabbed by bayonets or beheaded by swords.
Also known as the “Rape of Manila” (February 3, 1945 to March 3, 1945), the city became one of the most devastated Allied capital cities during the entire war, alongside Berlin and Warsaw, as Japanese resistance and American artillery destroyed much of Manila’s architectural and cultural heritage dating back to the city’s founding.
Between Japanese demolitions and American artillery, Manila was being destroyed from the inside and out through a series of street-by-street, house-to-house and building-to-building fights as part of the liberation of the city.
Subjected to incessant pounding and facing certain death or capture, the beleaguered Japanese troops took out their anger and frustration on the civilians caught in the crossfire, committing multiple acts of severe brutality.
The Japanese turned their wrath on the innocent, unarmed Filipinos. They did not discriminate in killing everyone they find — men and women, the old and the young, the strong and the infirm, the rich and the ordinary civilians.
Two men narrated their harrowing experience during their short stay at the campuses of two major universities along Taft Avenue — Leopoldo de Guzman at the Philippine General Hospital of the University of the Philippines (UP-PGH) and Nando Vasquez Prada at the De La Salle University (DLSU).
“War is the worst thing that was invented,” Prada said in the film.
The various crimes committed by Japanese forces often shared significant commonality:
(1) The bayoneting and shooting of unarmed civilians with rifles, pistols, machine guns, and the throwing of grenades at them
(2) The herding of large numbers of civilians into inflammable buildings, the barring of doors and windows, and setting fire to the buildings, burning them alive; or tying them up and throwing them in the river to drown to save on ammunition
(3) The throwing of grenades into dugouts where unarmed civilians were taking cover, burying alive those who were not killed by the grenades
(4) The assembling of men in large groups and the tying of their hands and then bayoneting, beheading them with a sabre on a chopping block, or shooting them
(5) Theft from civilians of money, valuables, food, and the looting and burning of their homes
(7) Torturing both military prisoners of war and civilians by beating, kicking in the face, burning, and making them assume contorted positions for long periods of time until they lost consciousness in the attempt to make them reveal information which the Japanese desired
(8) General disregard of the rights of prisoners of war under the Geneva Convention
(9) The taking of large groups of girls, as many as a hundred, to a hotel and the systematic raping of all of them, with an average of three or four men being forced on each girl
The Japanese forced Filipino women and children to be used as human shields into the front lines to protect Japanese positions. Those who survived were then murdered by the Japanese.
Babies were tossed in the air, skewering them on bayonets, and gouging out the unborn from their mother’s wombs.
It was a dangerous journey through an apocalyptic wasteland as bodies of people, even babies — beheaded, mutilated, bayoneted, and shot — littered the streets, schools, public buildings, even places of worship. Thousands more were driven from their homes and left without food, shelter and access to medical care.
Most of the survivors are now in the twilight of their lives, many were merely toddlers or teenagers forced by circumstance to come of age and carry the brunt of a nation under attack.
The “Memorare Manila 1945 Monument” in Intramuros serves as a “gravestone” with its main feature of the figure of a hooded woman slumped on the ground in great despair for the lifeless child she cradles in her arm along with six suffering figures surrounding her.
The toll of World War II has transcended several generations, but to understand its ramifications, it is important that these accounts are properly documented. Its lessons must be taught to the younger generation who will become the leaders of tomorrow.
Remembering history helps us to appreciate how events in the past made things the way they are today, to avoid mistakes and to create better paths for our society. #NeverForget.
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Atty. Dennis R. Gorecho is the Junior Partner of the Sapalo Velez Bundang Bulilan law offices. For comments, e-mail info@sapalovelez.com, or call 0908-8665786./WDJ