Official U.S. Marine Corps Picture: With the Marines at Tarawa

SNIPER

Whenever I am bored, one of my pastimes is visiting eBay to look for something that interests me. The online auction site is a treasure trove for collectors of various sizes and colors. It is the fantasy land for every hobbyist worth his salt. And once you learn how to navigate the website and become adept at 'treasure hunting' I can guarantee you that there is no turning back.

But I am not the greedy big-time bidder type who will engage anyone just to get his hands on a particular item. I am more of a bargain hunter, favoring more bang for my buck than a foolish dreamer who will empty his pockets just to finally grab his holy grail.

In fact, most of my acquisitions were more on the $10-20 range but nevertheless, they are all treasures safely hidden in my man cave. I have pegged my limit to $100 at the most no matter how I am smitten with a particular object, and if it is beyond the ceiling that I set up for myself, I just have to let the object of my desire pass and move on to the next one.

I am more of the sniper type of, the one who will watch a particular auction but will bid only during its last few seconds. This adrenaline-pumping vis-a-vis testosterone-deflating strategy is what the game is all about. There is no greater thrill than being in a kind of 'hope for the best but expect the worst' situation wherein you could snatch a gem from the hands of the other bidders or be left empty-handed.

 As they usually say, "it's not the kill, it's the thrill of the chase." Amen.


Most of the time, I always end up grabbing my prey, probably to the chagrin of my fellow eBayers, but the god of fortune frowned on me today. Somebody outbid me to the 53 pages of lithographs by World War II artist E.J. Dollriehs, who served under the U.S. Army's 37th Infantry Battalion in the Philippines wherein many of his wartime sketches were made.

But that's life: you win some, you lose some.

The pictures below are some of the beautiful sketches that got away today. I will look at them for one last time and move on.

Another day, another prey.

 

Filipino soldiers’ story of Korean War: Valor redux

 By Art Villasanta
Philippine Daily Inquirer

In an astonishing act of humanity and selflessness, the Philippines sent its soldiers to defend South Korea against a massive communist invasion despite its having to contend with a communist rebellion of its own and the painful challenge of rebuilding an economy crippled by World War II.

The Philippines was the first Asian country to send combat troops to the Korean War that began on June 25, 1950. Its soldiers protected South Korea until 1955.

The first Filipino warrior set foot on Korea at the port city of Busan (formerly Pusan) on Sept. 19, 1950. The 10th Battalion Combat Team (BCT) was the first of five BCTs that would serve in Korea until June 1955 under the flag of the elite Philippine Expeditionary Force to Korea or Peftok.

Over 7,400 officers and men of the Philippine Army served in Korea. Five of these warriors—all in their 80s—recently returned to Korea for the first time since the Korean War. The Korean government sponsored their visit as part of the “Revisit Korea Program” for the Filipino war veterans and their families.

These veterans were accompanied by 15 other Filipinos who were either their children or grandchildren. Their host was South Korea’s Ministry of Patriots and Veterans Affairs.

These veterans were all astounded at the massive progress Korea had made over the past six decades. One veteran noted that our present economic situation is the reverse of what it had been in the 1950s.

The Philippines then was Southeast Asia’s leading economic and military power and Asia’s second largest economy after Japan. From being one of the world’s poorest nations in the 1950s, South Korea is now one of the world’s 30 richest in per capita gross domestic product.


Oldest war veteran

“I can’t believe how fast South Korea has improved since the Korean War,” said Jesus Dizon, who at 86 is the oldest Korean War veteran among the “revisitors.” “It’s a tribute to the Korean people.”

His unit was the 20th BCT, the second Filipino BCT deployed to Korea. Dizon was a forward observer or FO, the most dangerous of allied soldiers, whose job was to identify targets for the six 105mm howitzers of the battalion’s field artillery battery.

FOs got their deadly job done with a field telephone; a pair of powerful binoculars, maps—and a great deal of courage. They normally occupied well-hidden positions on hilltops or other dominating terrain near the enemy and spent days searching for enemy activity. The power of life or death held by an FO was terrifying.
In North Korea one morning, a large number of communist Chinese soldiers suddenly appeared below a ridgeline Dizon had been observing for some time. Dizon located the enemy unit on the grid map spread before him.

He calmly picked up his field telephone and called in the target coordinates to the battery’s fire direction center of the battalion’s artillery battery emplaced a few kilometers behind him.

“Fire!” he ordered.

A single high-explosive 105mm round exploded away from the Chinese unit. Dizon noted the fall of the ranging round through his binoculars. He reported the adjusted range over the phone and commanded the entire battery to open fire.

Six 105mm howitzers manned by Filipinos unleashed shell after shell into the Chinese. Dizon saw the bewildered Chinese engulfed by horrifying explosions as murderous blasts tore apart their unit.

The inferno was over in about a minute. A dirty pall of dust and smoke from the barrage lingering over the tragedy served as the gravestone for dozens of dead Chinese.

Wounded in action

“All of this was flat,” exclaimed Luminoso Cruz, referring to the thriving and crowded city of Suwon, 30 kilometers south of Seoul. “It was flat and gray. This city was totally destroyed.”

Suwon was where Cruz’s unit, the 10th BCT, spent its first Christmas in Korea. That was in 1950 and the 10th was the first of the five BCTs that served in Korea.

Cruz, a member of Recon Company, was the gunner of an M24 Chaffee light tank armed with a 75mm cannon. He took a shrapnel wound to the head along the banks of the Imjin River and was visibly moved as the bus crossed the river north during his visit to the Demilitarized Zone.

“This was where I was wounded,” he said, pointing to the bank of the Imjin, while holding back his tears.
He fought in a two-man foxhole at the great Battle of Yuldong, which he recalled as a night of incredible terror.

“The Chinese attacked us in waves all night. My buddy and I just kept firing and firing our rifles,” he recalled of this gory battle, which was fought on April 23, 1951.

He doesn’t know how they survived the murderous hell of Yuldong. But his buddy had to be sent home afterwards. His nerves had given way under the terror of too much savage combat.

They called it “shell shock” then. We call it “post-traumatic stress disorder” today.

The Battle of Yuldong was the greatest Filipino victory in the Korean War. A mere 900 Filipino fighting men withstood the night attack of an entire communist Chinese army that numbered 40,000 men at peak strength.
In standing their ground at Yuldong, the Filipinos fatally slowed down the largest Chinese offensive of the war, and probably helped prevent the destruction of the United Nations forces and the communist conquest of South Korea.

One man’s handiwork

Amiable and talkative, Florendo Benedicto served in both the 10th BCT and the 20th BCT. He decided to “re-up” or reenlist in the 20th BCT because he loved combat.

Benedicto stands almost 6-ft tall. In the Army at the time, tall men generally wound up becoming gunners in the belief they could carry heavier loads.

Benedicto’s weapon was the M1919 Browning .30 cal. medium machine gun that could fire up to 600 rounds a minute. The gun itself weighed 14 kilograms and it was Benedicto’s job to lug the gun onto the battlefield and fire it at the communist enemy. He did this on many occasions in two years of fighting.

He believes that South Korea’s enviable economic blessings are due mostly to the strong unity pervading South Koreans.

“Their national unity is worth emulating,” he said. “Filipinos should learn from the South Koreans. We have to establish love in the heart of every Filipino. We must love one another.”

It is a startling transformation for a formerly fierce warrior. It is all the more surprising if one knows what he did in the Korean War.

“I know I killed about 200 Chinese,” he said calmly when we talked about this. “I probably killed 300 more. I counted their dead bodies.”

Benedicto’s feat is all the more astounding since only 112 Filipino soldiers died in three years of combat in the Korean War despite almost constant fighting.


Winter experience

Constancio Sanchez turned 24 on the historic day the 10th BCT arrived by ship at Busan on Sept. 19, 1950, less than three months after the start of the Korean War on June 25.

Knowing this, his officers allowed Sanchez to become one of the first Filipino fighting men to set foot on Korean soil. His mates then treated him to merienda at one of the restaurants in the port city then being besieged by the communist North Korean People’s Army.

Sanchez served in the Headquarters & Headquarters & Service Company, the command group of the 10th BCT. The battalion was founded and first commanded by Col. Mariano Azurin. Col. Dionisio Ojeda replaced Azurin in the spring of 1951.

Of all the dangers he faced in the war, Sanchez remains awed by that phenomenon alien to Filipino experience called winter. It was December 1950 and the battalion was in Pyongyang when the communist Chinese intervened and hurled the United Nations Command (including the 10th BCT) out of North Korea.

The winter of 1950-1951 was Korea’s coldest in two centuries but this did nothing to dispel the savage fighting that actually intensified with the Chinese intervention.

“We were shocked when the Chinese came and advanced so quickly,” he said. “We had to withdraw rapidly to avoid encirclement and it was terribly cold.”

Things would have been far worse for the battalion if the Chinese had attacked earlier, Sanchez believes. The onset of winter a month earlier immobilized most of their motor vehicles.

The intense subzero cold froze the water in engines and shattered engine blocks. This paralyzed most of the battalion’s vehicles, including those in the transport-heavy HQ & HQ & Service Company.

Adding antifreeze to the water solved the problem, however, so that when the Chinese came, the battalion’s trucks, jeeps and armored vehicles kept running despite the intense cold.

“We probably wouldn’t have escaped from Pyongyang if we had to march on foot through the snow.”

Rediscovering God

Prudencio Medrano served in the HQ & HQ & Service Company of the 19th BCT, the third Peftok unit deployed to Korea, and re-upped for another year with the 14th BCT. And this was because of his friends.
“I re-enlisted because we were ‘buddy-buddy,’” he said. “Five of my buddies in the 19th BCT decided to extend. They asked me if I wanted to extend and I did because they were my buddies.”

In both BCTs, Medrano served as a radio operator of their battalion commanders—Col. Ramon Aguirre of the 19th and Col. Nicanor Jimenez of the 14th.

With the 19th, Medrano recalled he was often in the advanced command post with Colonel Aguirre. His job was to transmit and receive voice messages and telegraph messages via Morse Code. Lives depended on the accuracy of his messages.

Medrano rediscovered God amid the horror of the Korean War. The long spells between action and boredom along the static front line gave him time to reflect on things spiritual.


(Editor’s Note: The author is a historian of the Korean War. Among his stories published in this newspaper is one about the P500 bill being a memorial to the Philippines’ involvement in that war. His Korean War website is www.peftok.blogspot.com.)

Military honors fathers in its ranks, 37 of whom die each year on average

By DJ Yap/ Philippine Daily Inquirer


MANILA, Philippines – Perhaps nobody appreciates better the preciousness of Fathers’ Day than the children of soldiers who know that every moment they stay alive is a blessing.

Some 70,000 fathers comprise over half of the workforce of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, and each year, an average of 37 of the “soldier dads” get killed in action, making military service one of the deadliest jobs for Filipino fathers.

“It’s a hard life to be a soldier and to be the child of a soldier. You have to make every moment count,” said Private First Class Ilyser Infante of the Army’s 82nd Infantry Battalion based in Miag-ao, Iloilo.

The 25-year-old soldier could only wish for more time with his dad.

Four years ago, Infante lost his father, Technical/Sergeant Abraham Infante, to communist New People’s Army guerrillas, who shot and killed him near his home in Moises Padilla town in Negros Occidental. The older Infante was only two years away from retirement when the ambush took place.

Then 21, Infante, who had been unsure of what he wanted to do in life, made a vow to follow in his father’s footsteps and signed up at the Philippine Military Academy, where he lasted only seven months after failing some academic subjects.

“But I was determined to be a soldier so I still enlisted in the Army,” Infante told the Philippine Daily Inquirer on the phone.

His motivation, he said, was not to avenge his father, but to continue what he had started. “At first, there was anger but the longer I am in the service, it just becomes all about wanting to serve my country,” he said.

On the eve of Fathers’ Day on Saturday, the 125,000-strong AFP saluted all the fathers in its ranks.

In a statement given to the Inquirer in lieu of an interview, the military top brass congratulated these fathers “for their continued dedication and commitment to the fulfillment of their mandated duties and responsibilities to the nation while at the same time working very hard to be responsible fathers in their homes.”

“Being a soldier dad is probably the most dangerous and difficult occupation in the world,” AFP spokesman Colonel Arnulfo Marcelo Burgos said.

But “the most challenging thing for a Pinoy soldier dad is striving to be the best father he can be while keeping in mind that his duty and service to the country should always come first,” he added.

The AFP chief of staff,  General Jessie Dellosa, said in the same statement: “I would like to pay tribute to all the Filipino Soldier Dads who guard our skies, patrol our seas and secure our lands so that all the other fathers in the country may be able to celebrate Fathers’ Day with their families peacefully.”

For Infante, Fathers’ Day will be spent quietly at the camp reflecting and remembering the good times with his father, who left behind a wife and five children.

“I will light two candles and remember the kind of father he was to me,” he said, speaking in Filipino.

Infante said the life of a soldier’s son was “completely different” from that of a civilian’s son.

“When your father is a soldier, your time together is so limited. That’s why you just have to make sure that you spend your time together well,” he said.

Recalling his times with his father, Infante said, he would usually have time off only about 10 days in a year.

“Every time he was home, the family would gather together. We would just stay home, talk about a lot of things, laugh together over dinner,” Infante said. “We didn’t go out that often because he would just want to relax and enjoy our company.”

Infante said he has no immediate plans to become a father himself, but when he does, “I will do as my father did.” “I will focus on raising my children and make sure that they finish their studies,” he said.

Stories like Infante’s are not rare in the Philippine military.

Another soldier-son whose father was killed by enemies of the government is the current chief of the Philippine Army, Lieutenant General Emmanuel Bautista.

He was a freshman cadet at the PMA when his father, Brigadier General Teodulfo Bautista, and 33 other unarmed officers and men gathered for a meeting with rebels about a year into a formal ceasefire, were gunned down by Moro National Liberation Front rebels in Patikul, Sulu on Oct. 10, 1977.

Speaking of his desire to achieve lasting peace, Bautista often refers to the experience of his own father.

“We have been fighting for too long. Too many have died. The statistics include my father. How many more will suffer?” Bautista said in an interview with the Inquirer last year. “My own father was killed trying to reach out. If I am able to overcome it, who can contest me?”

Burgos said the AFP strove to honor the memory of the fallen fathers in the ranks through the conferment of posthumous honors to those who were killed in action and providing for the education of their children.

“The Educational Benefit Systems Office of the AFP continues to provide scholarships to dependents of soldiers including those killed in action,” he said.

Currently, there are 4,206 children who have received grants. Of these, 1,896 were the children of soldiers who were killed in action. Some 385 are in elementary school, 525 in high school and 986 in college, Burgos said.

AFP Chief of Staff Dellosa said: “The AFP lauds all FIlipino soldier dads for their unrelenting service and unswerving loyalty to our country.”

“Let us continue to do our utmost best in performing our duties to our nation and our families, keeping alive the Bayanihan spirit as we altogether strive harder to attain a just and lasting peace for our country,” he added.

US Navy hopes stealth ship answers a rising China

By ERIC TALMADGE | Associated Press

SINGAPORE (AP) — A super-stealthy warship that could underpin the U.S. navy's China strategy will be able to sneak up on coastlines virtually undetected and pound targets with electromagnetic "railguns" right out of a sci-fi movie.

But at more than $3 billion a pop, critics say the new DDG-1000 destroyer sucks away funds that could be better used to bolster a thinly stretched conventional fleet. One outspoken admiral in China has scoffed that all it would take to sink the high-tech American ship is an armada of explosive-laden fishing boats.

With the first of the new ships set to be delivered in 2014, the stealth destroyer is being heavily promoted by the Pentagon as the most advanced destroyer in history — a silver bullet of stealth. It has been called a perfect fit for what Washington now considers the most strategically important region in the world — Asia and the Pacific.

Though it could come in handy elsewhere, like in the Gulf region, its ability to carry out missions both on the high seas and in shallows closer to shore is especially important in Asia because of the region's many island nations and China's long Pacific coast.

"With its stealth, incredibly capable sonar system, strike capability and lower manning requirements — this is our future," Adm. Jonathan Greenert, chief of naval operations, said in April after visiting the shipyard in Maine where they are being built.

On a visit to a major regional security conference in Singapore that ended Sunday, U.S. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said the Navy will be deploying 60 percent of its fleet worldwide to the Pacific by 2020, and though he didn't cite the stealth destroyers he said new high-tech ships will be a big part of its shift.

The DDG-1000 and other stealth destroyers of the Zumwalt class feature a wave-piercing hull that leaves almost no wake, electric drive propulsion and advanced sonar and missiles. They are longer and heavier than existing destroyers — but will have half the crew because of automated systems and appear to be little more than a small fishing boat on enemy radar.

Down the road, the ship is to be equipped with an electromagnetic railgun, which uses a magnetic field and electric current to fire a projectile at several times the speed of sound.

But cost overruns and technical delays have left many defense experts wondering if the whole endeavor was too focused on futuristic technologies for its own good.

They point to the problem-ridden F-22 stealth jet fighter, which was hailed as the most advanced fighter ever built but was cut short because of prohibitive costs. Its successor, the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, has swelled up into the most expensive procurement program in Defense Department history.

"Whether the Navy can afford to buy many DDG-1000s must be balanced against the need for over 300 surface ships to fulfill the various missions that confront it," said Dean Cheng, a China expert with the Heritage Foundation, a conservative research institute in Washington. "Buying hyperexpensive ships hurts that ability, but buying ships that can't do the job, or worse can't survive in the face of the enemy, is even more irresponsible."

The Navy says it's money well spent. The rise of China has been cited as the best reason for keeping the revolutionary ship afloat, although the specifics of where it will be deployed have yet to be announced. Navy officials also say the technologies developed for the ship will inevitably be used in other vessels in the decades ahead.

But the destroyers' $3.1 billion price tag, which is about twice the cost of the current destroyers and balloons to $7 billion each when research and development is added in, nearly sank it in Congress. Though the Navy originally wanted 32 of them, that was cut to 24, then seven.

Now, just three are in the works.

"Costs spiraled — surprise, surprise — and the program basically fell in on itself," said Richard Bitzinger, a security expert at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University. "The DDG-1000 was a nice idea for a new modernistic surface combatant, but it contained too many unproven, disruptive technologies."

The U.S. Defense Department is concerned that China is modernizing its navy with a near-term goal of stopping or delaying U.S. intervention in conflicts over disputed territory in the South China Sea or involving Taiwan, which China considers a renegade province.

China is now working on building up a credible aircraft carrier capability and developing missiles and submarines that could deny American ships access to crucial sea lanes.

The U.S. has a big advantage on the high seas, but improvements in China's navy could make it harder for U.S. ships to fight in shallower waters, called littorals. The stealth destroyers are designed to do both. In the meantime, the Navy will begin deploying smaller Littoral Combat Ships to Singapore later this year.

Officially, China has been quiet on the possible addition of the destroyers to Asian waters.

But Rear Adm. Zhang Zhaozhong, an outspoken commentator affiliated with China's National Defense University, scoffed at the hype surrounding the ship, saying that despite its high-tech design it could be overwhelmed by a swarm of fishing boats laden with explosives. If enough boats were mobilized some could get through to blow a hole in its hull, he said.

"It would be a goner," he said recently on state broadcaster CCTV's military channel.

___ AP writer Christopher Bodeen contributed to this report from Beijing.

Super Secret Hypersonic Aircraft Flew Out of Its Skin

It turns out that tearing through the atmosphere at 20 times the speed of sound is bad for the skin, even if you're a super high-tech aircraft developed by the government's best engineers at its far-out research agency.

DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Project Agency, has made public its best guess about what might have caused its unmanned arrowhead-shaped Hypersonic Technology Vehicle (HTV-2) to suddenly lose contact and crash in the Pacific just a few minutes after slicing through the sky at Mach 20 last August: it was going so fast its skin peeled off.

After an eight-month investigation, DARPA concluded that even though the HTV-2 was expected to lose some of its skin mid-flight, "larger than anticipated portions of the vehicle's skin peeled from the aerostructure," the agency said in a statement Friday.

The agency said it expected the HTV-2, which goes so fast it can make the commute from New York to Los Angeles in 12 minutes, to experience "impulsive shock waves" at such speeds, but shocks it experienced last August were "more than 100 times what the vehicle was designed to withstand."

While the test was very public, the details of the HTV-2's design, stability system and potential purpose remain highly classified.

Two months after DARPA's test, the Army tested its own hypersonic aircraft - this one a long-range weapon system called the Advanced Hypersonic Weapon (AHW) designed to strike any target in the world in just a couple hours.

Heroism of Scouts recalled

CLARK FREEPORT—Sergeant Dominador Figuracion, 92, begged off from talking about the Fall of Bataan to the Japanese Imperial Army on April 9, 1942, and how he and some 70,000 Filipino and American soldiers had been forced to march to a concentration camp in Tarlac.

Around 7,000 to 10,000 soldiers perished during the Death March. About 26,000 of the 50,000 Filipino prisoners of war at Camp O’Donnell in Tarlac died of dengue, malaria, dysentery or starvation when this was closed in January 1943, according to historical accounts.

Instead, in a room filled with war veterans on Saturday, Figuracion, garbed in his military uniform, declared: “The Philippine Scouts (PS) is not a Boy Scouts organization.”

This mistake, he said, diminishes or erases the role the PS made in defending freedom during World War II.

Historian Chris Schaefer wrote: “In 1901, the United States Army organized the Philippine Scouts to combat insurgents and bandit groups in the islands, and when the insurgency was over the Scouts became the US Army’s front line troops in the Pacific.”

Schaefer said the PS bore the brunt of the Japanese attack on the Philippines at the outset of World War II. “Survivors of the Battle of Bataan, to a man, describe the Philippine Scouts as the backbone of the American defense there,” he said.

Figuracion came all the way from his Lakewood City home in Washington to set the record straight—a matter that he said meant a lot to him, his few surviving comrades, fallen soldiers and their relatives.

The event marked the Philippine Scouts Heritage Society’s (PSHS) 28th annual reunion, the first to be held in the Philippines.

On Saturday in this free port, the reunion was hosted by PSHS’s Fort MacKinley chapter that was cofounded by Philip Garcia and led by Jojo Dy.

Surviving members have dwindled to between 60 and 70, said Jose Calugas Jr., PSHS president.

MacArthur’s elite troops

Rhode Island Senator John Patterson and PS officers founded the PSHS in 1989 to preserve the history and legacy of what they call outstanding soldiers.

“Not too many people know about the PS. Some thought them to be Boy Scouts. They were the elite soldiers of (US General Douglas) MacArthur. They were American-trained, disciplined, good marksmen,” Calugas said.

As in the United States, there has also been a lack of recognition for the PS in their native country.

“The museum of the [Armed Forces of the Philippines] has not mentioned the PS,” said Donald Plata, who documented the exploits of PS in the film, “Forgotten Soldiers.”

This was because the AFP might have “considered them Americans,” Plata said.

Schaefer, in a report on the PSHS website, provided the context:

“After the surrender of Japan in August 1945, the US made good on its previous commitments and granted the Philippines full independence on July 4, 1946. At that point the Philippine Scouts held a unique status in US military history: They were soldiers in the regular US Army, combat veterans at that, but now they were citizens of a foreign country. To solve the dilemma, the United States offered the Philippine Scouts full US citizenship.”

Not a citizenship issue

Schaefer said most of the surviving Scouts accepted the offer and the US Army transferred them to other units to finish their military careers. He said in 1946, President Harry Truman disbanded the unit.

Citizenship should not be an issue, said Figuracion whose father, Juan, signed up in the early batches of the PS.

“I followed my father’s footstep. We were then under the US. You have to get involved. The Japanese were invading the Philippines,” he said. “I took my US citizenship on Nov. 10, 1946, because the Philippines was in ruins, the socialists and communists were harassing us in Pampanga and the US was where the jobs were.” He joined Boeing.

“I love this country. Every year I come here,” Figuracion said.

“The truth is, we did suffer much. I should never forget. We tried our very best. We are brothers. This togetherness and solidarity [between Filipino and American soldiers] should be passed on to the next generations,” he said.

The PS is credited with delaying the advance of Japanese troops to the last stronghold of the Allied Forces in the Pacific.

Distinguished record

The 26th Cavalry Regiment, to which Figuracion belonged, had a distinguished record. Backed artillery, it attacked the Japanese during initial landings at Lingayen Gulf, said retired Colonel John Olson, PSHS historian emeritus, in an account posted on its website.

In the withdrawal to Bataan, the regiment served as rear guard, becoming the last to reach the peninsula with only 200 of 600 troops alive, Figuracion said.

Members of the regiment, he said, were the last to charge the enemy on horseback, sending the Japanese fleeing the defense line in Abucay, Bataan.
Half of the PS units were killed in Bataan. Some escaped the O’Donnell and Cabanatuan camps and led guerrilla forces. They later rejoined the PS to liberate Manila.

Capt. Felipe Fernandez, 96, attended the reunion but refused to talk about the war “because some wounds have not healed.” He talked about Fort Stotsenburg (Clark Air Base) as a pasture for horses.

He was on the verge of tears when he recounted that for lack of food during the Japanese onslaught, the PS butchered their horses, including his own, Mike.
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By Tonette Orejas
Inquirer Central Luzon

Army private sacrifices life to save his platoon in NPA ambush

26-Mar-12, 9:18 PM | Jaime Sinapit, InterAksyon.com



MANILA, Philippines - It may seem like a footnote in the avalanche of statistics about the four-decade communist insurgency in the country, but for 29 Army soldiers, Private First Class Edel Llamas, who died saving them, will always be more than just a name.

Llamas, a member of the 83rdInfantry Battalion, on Monday sacrificed himself in order to save the soldiers who were ambushed by more than 20 members of the New People’s Army (NPA) in Balatohan, San Miguel, Catanduanes.

The brave Army private did this by providing cover from his submachinegun, despite being pinned down by enemy fire, in order to allow his fellow soldiers to leave their truck safely as the ambushers did their worst.

“He selflessly sacrificed to save 29 lives,” Maj. Angelo Guzman, spokesman of the 9th Infantry Division, said in a phone interview.

He said Llamas’s group was ambushed at around 1:30 p.m. while on board a military truck on their way home to camp. They had gone on a security patrol on information that the NPA was planning to bomb the hydroelectric power plant located in Barangay Solong.

The NPA, the armed wing of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), usually conducts a series of tactical attacks against government forces and private and government facilities in the run-up to its anniversary. It marks its 43rd founding anniversary on March 29.

According to Guzman, Llamas’s group was pinned down at the ambush site where the rebels had a vantage point.

“He was not wounded yet when he repeatedly shouted to his fellow soldiers to find a way to get out from killing zone. Ang paulit-ulit na isinisigaw niya ay ‘Baba na, baba na, ako na bahala ditto [he kept shouting, get down, get down; I’ll handle this]’ as he fired his K3 submachine gun against the ambushers,” Guzman said.

He said the military truck was crippled by at least two landmines that were detonated by rebels, who also simultaneously fired upon it.

“PFC Llamas provided suppressive fire against the rebels with his K3 sub-machinegun despite under heavy enemy fires. This brave act allowed the rest of the platoon to unload the truck then engage the NPA rebels in firefight before the rebels retreated,” Lt. Col. Rod Batang, commanding officer of the 83rd ID, said in a statement.

While scrambling for cover, PFC Elisio Gran was hit in his right leg and is recuperating at the Eastern Bicol Medical Center in Virac, Catanduanes.

Llamas, however, was not as lucky.

“He is a hero. He died saving his platoon, He died serving his country,” said Maj. Gen. Josue Gaverza, commander of the 9th ID, referring to Llamas.

Reveille: The search for truth

By: Ramon Farolan
Philippine Daily Inquirer

On Sept. 27, 1995, Ensign Philip A. Pestaño, a 1993 graduate of the Philippine Military Academy was discovered dead aboard the BRP Bacolod City inside his stateroom. He had a single bullet gunshot wound to the right temple.

Since that time there have been a series of investigations carried out by several government agencies with private forensic/medical examiners being called in to help determine the cause of death. Conflicting opinions were expressed.

For a better appreciation of the case, let me provide excerpts from several of these reports as well as a study conducted on the same.

National Bureau of Investigation (NBI)

On 2 October 1995, Felipe Y. Pestaño, father of Philip, requested the NBI for investigative assistance on the death of his son.

The findings of SRA Ludovico T. Lara submitted to the Chief, Interpol Division, dated 24 November 1995 reads as follows:

Comments and Observations:

23. (number refers to the paragraph on the report) Evidence gathered so far indicates no foul play in the death of Ensign Philip A. Pestaño. The weight of the evidence gathered tends to support the theory of suicide.

Fortun Report

On 13 November 1995, Atty. Haydee Yorac addressed a letter to Dr. Raquel B. del Rosario-Fortun, forensic pathologist, General Anatomic and Clinical Pathology, UP College of Medicine. It reads as follows:

On behalf of our client Felipe Y. Pestaño, we would like to request your assistance in the evaluation of the autopsy examination and related forensic tests conducted by police authorities on our client’s late son, Philip Andrew Pestaño…. our client believes with your assistance the truth will be revealed and justice served.

On 5 December 1995, Dr. Raquel del Rosario-Fortun, forensic pathologist, submitted a summary and opinion on Ensign Pestaño’s death. Part of the report reads as follows:

The cause of death is consistent with perforating handgun wound to the head. Based on available information, there is no reason or cause to call the manner of death other than suicide.

PNP Criminal Investigation Group (CIG)/Criminal Investigation and Detective Office

Investigation Report Re: Mysterious Death of Ensign Philip A. Pestaño, PN. According to this report, on 24 February 1997, Mr. and Mrs. Pestaño made a personal appearance before the Office of the Director, CIG requesting assistance in the reinvestigation of their son’s death.

Matters Investigated:

6. (number refers to the paragraph on the report) To determine if indeed Ensign Philip A. Pestaño committed suicide or was deliberately killed aboard BRP Bacolod City on that fateful morning of 27 September 1995.

Conclusion:

177. The weight of the evidence overwhelmingly supports a conclusion and inspires a belief that Philip died from self-inflicted wounds while in the act of committing suicide on that fateful morning of 27 September 1995.

Recommendations:

178. Recommend that the investigation of this case be considered closed insofar as the CIG is concerned.

180. Copies of this investigation report should be furnished to the Philippine Navy, the Senate, and the House of Representatives for their information and appreciation.

Senate Committee Report

From 5 May-3 September 1997, the Committees on Justice and Human Rights and on National Defense and Security conducted 8 committee hearings, including an ocular inspection of the stateroom of Ensign Pestaño. The Committees submitted their report on 29 January 1998.

Conclusion:

1. (number refers to the paragraph of the report) Pestaño did not kill himself aboard the BRP Bacolod City on 27 September 1995.

2. Pestaño was shot elsewhere in the vessel.

Recommendations:

4. An independent reinvestigation be conducted on the circumstances surrounding the killing of Ensign Pestaño with the end in view of bringing the perpetrators to justice as well as to identify the persons who participated in the deliberate attempt to make it appear that Pestaño killed himself inside his stateroom.

Fortun-Tatsuno Study

In 1997-1998, Dr. Raquel Fortun and Dr. Yoshitsugu Tatsuno, professor of Legal Medicine, Kobe University School of Medicine, completed a study of the Pestaño case entitled “Death Aboard Ship from a Single Gunshot Wound of the Head: Forensic Issues of the Pestaño Case.” The study was made during the research fellowship of Dr. Fortun under the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science Long Term Invitation Program.

Conclusion of the Study:

This is the case of a 23-year-old who was found dead inside his stateroom aboard ship. He sustained a single perforating gunshot wound to the right temple. Analysis of information known so far indicates that the manner of death is suicide based on scene investigation, physical evidences, witness accounts, and autopsy findings. The decedent left a suicide note. The preponderance of evidence does not support a theory of homicide.

In general, suicide determination is difficult to do on the part of the death investigator. Likewise it is often not easily acceptable to the decedent’s next of kin. Truthful recognition and reporting of suicide are however very important not only to maintain accurate public records but also in the interest of justice. Pursuing the theory of homicide without sound forensic proof could hurt innocent people.

* * *

There were other forensic expert reports submitted on the Pestaño case. One was by an American who viewed himself as a “firearms/self-defense consultant aside from being a forensic examiner.”

Forensic pathology is a branch of pathology concerned with determining the cause of death by examination of a corpse usually during the investigation of a criminal case. Doctor Fortun is the first Filipino woman to become a forensic pathologist. She is known as the “Mother of Forensic Pathology” in the Philippines. She was a Ten Outstanding Young Men (TOYM) awardee in 2002 for Forensic Pathology and one of The Outstanding Women in the Nation’s Service (TOWNS) awardee in 2004. Although she was subpoenaed by the Senate during the Pestaño hearings, her expert testimony is nowhere to be found in the Senate report.

The death of Ensign Pestaño remains a mystery. Some say it was murder; some, suicide. If it were murder, who pulled the trigger? If it were suicide, then there are no murderers.

The death of any human being is always a tragedy. It is also a tragedy when in the search for the truth, a possible miscarriage of justice results in promising careers being cut short and innocent lives destroyed.

As I See It: Two uncles dead in battle for Intramuros

By: Neal H. Cruz
Philippine Daily Inquirer

Before the month of February ends, which is the anniversary month of the liberation of Manila by American forces, I would like to write about the deaths of two of my uncles and the narrow escape of my aunt and her 7-year-old son from the Japanese in the battle for Intramuros.

We lived on an idyllic island in the middle of fishponds in Malabon, but an uncle had a shoe store on Calle Real in Intramuros. It was called Real Shoe Store and was one of the most popular shoe stores there during the Japanese occupation. The store sold made-to-order shoes and boots to Japanese officers.

Workers made the shoes at the back of the store. The second floor was the living quarters for my aunt (the younger sister of my mother), her husband and their young son, and her brother who was crippled by polio.

My eldest sister used to take me there on some Sundays, and I liked it very much because on the way there we passed through the Mehan Gardens which had a zoo with many animals.

After the Americans landed in Leyte and later in Lingayen, and as the battle for the liberation of the Philippines raged closer to Manila, we were advised to evacuate to the provinces as many other families had already done. My aunt and uncles, however, refused to leave. Business was good, the war was still far away and they wanted to earn as much as they could before the battle reached them. That was a big mistake.

The three youngest children in the family, I and two brothers, were told to evacuate with the family of my oldest brother, his father-in-law and mother-in-law, and the families of three brothers-in-law.

We set out on foot with two pushcarts piled high with our belongings. It was like an outing for us children. We were bound for a farm in Pangasinan, and it was estimated that it would take us at least a week of walking to get there.

We cooked our food at the side of the highway and slept either on the ground or in some of the abandoned huts near the road. We bought what we could from markets along the way.

My eldest sister and older brother and my grandfather were left in our house in Malabon. My father and his new family were living in an apartment on Lepanto Street, Sampaloc, Manila. Meanwhile in Intramuros, my aunt and uncles were blissfully unaware of the coming holocaust. They were too busy raking in Mickey Mouse money from the Japanese.

At Barrio Agoso in Tarlac, two American bombers, Liberators, swooped very, very low. We thought they were going to land. But they only dropped leaflets. They said that American forces had landed in Lingayen and were fighting their way to Manila, and advised Filipinos to stay away from the highway and move inland so they would not get caught in the crossfire.

We were in a quandary. If we continued on to Pangasinan, we would meet the American troops and we probably would get killed in the crossfire between the American and the Japanese forces. The barrio folk in Agoso knew that, too, and kindly invited us to go with them across the wide river to a barrio on the other side.

We accepted the offer, and that same afternoon there was a mass evacuation from Agoso to the other barrios on the other side: San Jose, Sta. Maria and Sto. Niño.

The barrio folk piled their belongings into their carabao-drawn carts and led the trek across the river. The river was very wide, but it was summer and there was only a stream flowing in the middle, and pools of water were scattered here and there. The rest was white sand that became so hot in the middle of the day you could not walk barefoot on it. Luckily, the sun was on the way down and we could walk behind the carts.

We led an idyllic life there until Manila was liberated and we went back home.

My relatives in Intramuros, however, went through hell. As the sound of the big guns came closer, they decided to leave. But it was too late. All the bridges across the Pasig had been blown up. They could not go south because there was fighting there.

So they went back to Calle Real. One day, Japanese soldiers went from door to door and told the residents to gather in a church. The men were separated from the women and children.

The men, including my two uncles, were taken to Fort Santiago, but the women and children were taken to a church. They stayed there while the battle raged nearer and nearer. Shrapnel from exploding artillery tore through the roof and windows, but the church remained standing. The people inside took shelter under the pews and even behind the altar. My aunt put a basin on the head of her son as if that would protect him from shrapnel. It turned out, a very small piece tore through the basin and wounded him in the forehead.

When—from the sounds of battle—they knew there was already house-to-house fighting, the church doors opened and there stood several Japanese soldiers. They poured gasoline inside the church, and one Japanese then threw in two incendiary grenades.

Fire raged and everybody thought they were going to die. Luckily, the doors were left open by the Japanese hurrying to get away. So many of the refugees were able to rush through the fire and escape. My aunt, now almost 100 years old, is still alive to tell us the story of their harrowing escape.

My two uncles were not as lucky, however. Their deaths were told by the few who were able to get away.

They were packed into a cell in Fort Santiago. Some of them began chipping off the adobe roof of the cell. In time, they were able to punch a hole, just big enough for a body to push through. Just then, Japanese soldiers poured gasoline into the cell and lighted it. There was pandemonium as everybody rushed to the escape hole.

One uncle, the husband of my aunt, was already out, but my other uncle, the cripple, called out to him for help. So he went back although the fire was already licking at him. The two of them, and many other prisoners, never got out.

A Philippine Scout's Diary: Revenge Bataan Unit

The Year was 1945.

I was part of the contingent of Philippine Scouts that greeted the first Americans at Lingayen, Pangasinan. We were briefed the night before by our commanding officer to accompany the GIs on their way to Manila to liberate the more than 3,000 prisoners of war interred at the University of Santo Tomas Campus.

So off we went with the 2nd squadron, 8th Cavalry Regiment of the US Army’s 1st Cavalry Division under the command of a certain Lt. Col. Haskett Connor, with tanks, jeeps, weapons carriers, command cars, trucks and engineering and service outfit with one task in mind -- to liberate UST from the enemy.


February 2 -

We encountered a stiff resistance from a hard-fighting unit of the Japanese Imperial Army in the highways off Bigaa, about 18 miles from Manila, but their weapons were no match for our mounted light and heavy machine guns as well as 20 mm & 40 mm mortars. We annihilated them in no time and squeezed into the blown up bridges and pockmarked dirt roads with minimal casualties.

February 3-

We were able to move from Bigaa at noon to Sta. Maria just before midnight with sporadic clashes with the rag-tag enemies. At dawn we could hear the bell tolls from nearby churches and chapels, a signal that the town was liberated of the last bands of Japanese resistance.

The “Japs” fought to the last man. There were no prisoners taken.

Then at 10:00 A.M., on our way out of Sta. Maria, Col. Connor received a report that our Recon team was ambushed and wiped out. We positioned our artillery and shelled the Japanese position. After about an hour or two, a lull in the fighting was declared and we passed by the burning Japanese tanks and the dead bodies littered on the ground. But there were lots of skirmishes and pocket resistance from the “Japs” that slowed down our advance.

A staff meeting was immediately called and Col. Connor was now growing impatient because our objective was to be in Manila before dark. He told us that we should annihilate the last enemy at all costs and be in Manila by twenty hours.

It was raining hard when we finally arrived at Novaliches about eight miles from Manila. The dirt road turned into a soggy slippery mess, bogging down our advance, when all hell broke loose. The Japanese resistance was heavy. From the two-story house on the other end, we could see the smoke and the heavy volume of fire, and hear the familiar staccatos of the Japs’ Machine guns and 75s.

But the 'Revenge Bataan Unit' would not be denied, and after another hour of fierce fighting, the last resistance in Novaliches was finally silenced what with the two-story house that served as the maching gun nest leveled to the ground from the constant bombarding from our tanks and 105-howitzers.

We proceeded without any resistance until we reached the Chinese Cemetery, when a young boy warned us that there were a handful of Japanese soldiers inside, but after consultation with his officers and Filipino volunteers, Col. Connor decided to bypass them and proceed to our main objective.

We passed by Grace Park Airfield with its hangars burning briskly from constant US bombardments, and then we swung into the area of Rizal Avenue until we finally reached the walls of UST. We could see that fires were burning over much of the city.

The half of the University of Santo Tomas front gate was open and the inside was black. We shouted in the dark and got no answer. Then two tanks rumbled into the front gate with their powerful lights turned on. We cut a hole in the fence and crawled in, but saw nothing.

Then, near the guard house at the gate entrance, a Jap with his Arisaka rifle jumped out from nowhere and fired point blank at us. The flash from the gun momentarily blinded me. When I regained my sight, the Jap was gone and my two companions lay dead, but I was miraculously unharmed.

Then a battle basic medium tank rammed and broke into the concrete fence as if it were corrugated cardboard. We made our way inside the Campus with bullets whizzing in between and above our heads from the enemies holed up inside.

Then somebody shouted "Grenade!" and we all scampered and dropped to the ground, but it was nothing but a knee-jerk reaction from an overly anxious soldier that made some of us laugh albeit nervously.

Then an excited voice coming from the main building was heard, "You Americans?

"Yes"

Followed by a chorus of-

"Thank God you're here."

"Oh how long we’ve waited."

"God Bless America!"

Suddenly, there was firing from the Education Building, just to the right of the Main Building. We were told that about 65 “Japs” with 201 American interns were holed inside. The “Japs” were on the second floor, the Americans on the third. The troops attempted to break in, but the enemy had an overwhelming advantage -- besides, the Education Building was composed of steel-reinforced concrete.

February 4-

There were short and sporadic exchanges of fire between our men surrounding the building under Col. Connor and the Japs inside, and we suffered light casualties as the day wore on. The next day negotiations went on and it was agreed upon to give the Japanese forces safe conduct passes which was accepted by some of the men grudgingly. The Officers told their men to keep their fingers off the trigger and honor the terms of the agreement.

We hastily formed a unit to escort the remnants of the Japanese Army out of UST with Col. Connor himself leading it. Slowly but surely, the Japanese soldiers emerged and staggered from the building and marched in formation with their weapons, until we arrived at Legarda and Aviles Sts.

Col. Connor then told a certain Col. Hayashi, the Commander of the Japanese Army,

"This is as far as we go. This is the front line. You are on your own."

They then saluted each other as the Japanese Army marched up north to live and fight another day, but we couldn’t care less, for what was important at that point in time were the lives of the Prisoners of War that we liberated.
#

(As told to the author, Bill Mitsuru T. Shimizu, by Mang Berting, an indigent patient and a frail old man in his 80’s during a Medical Mission in Bagong Nayon, Antipolo, Rizal in 1996)

Reveille: February 1945

By: Ramon Farolan
Philippine Daily Inquirer


This is for the generations of young Filipinos who have never known the difficulties, the deprivations and the horrors of war.

* * *

On Sept. 2, 1945, aboard the US battleship Missouri, Japanese Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu signed the Instruments of Surrender, formally ending World War II. In the euphoria of victory, not many people remembered that six months earlier, Manila, once the proud “Pearl of the Orient,” was completely destroyed in a battle that some historians considered unnecessary. And if there was a rape of Nanking, there certainly was a rape of Manila.

During the last few months of the Pacific War, our family stayed in Ilocos Norte, while my father, Modesto Farolan, remained in Manila where he served as the general manager of the Philippine National Red Cross. At that time, the Red Cross offices were on Isaac Peral St. (now UN Avenue) corner Taft Avenue. It was a modest two-story building that was built in 1932 and was now converted into an emergency hospital. In February 1945, it was the only building left standing in the area. Most others had been destroyed by American shellfire or were burnt by Japanese marines defending the city.

In his book “By Sword and Fire,” Alfonso J. Aluit provides a graphic account of some of the events that took place in Manila from Feb. 3, 1945 (when a column under Gen. William Chase reached Santo Tomas internment camp to free American prisoners) up to March 3 (when the Battle for Manila officially ended). The account includes my father’s experiences during this period.

After the war, my father would relate to us what happened to him on a Saturday in February that year: In the afternoon of that day, he was in his office with a volunteer nurse Marina de Paz, when Japanese Marines entered the Red Cross premises shooting and bayoneting everyone in sight despite protestations that it was a Red Cross Hospital. One of the victims was Corazon Noble, a popular movie star of the pre-war era, who was stabbed several times in the chest, abdomen, back and other parts of her body while protecting her 10-month-old baby in her arms.

As soon as one of the Japanese soldiers opened his door and went on a shooting rampage targeting anyone in the room, my father ducked underneath his desk and luckily was partially covered by the falling body of one of the doctors who got hit in the first volley of fire. Author Aluit continues that “the Japanese peered under the desk where Modesto Farolan crouched and fired twice. The bullets passed between his feet. The Japanese turned to the others in the dispensary, killing a mother with her 10-day-old baby and the baby’s grandmother as well. Under his desk, Modesto Farolan froze. He could hear shooting from all over the building. He could hear screams of terror and pain, the agonized cries of women and children, and the sound of feet scurrying in panic every which way.”

One of the more pitiful accounts in Aluit’s book, which reads like a page from a Holocaust story, concerns the rounding up of families in the Ermita section of Manila. The residents were gathered at Plaza Ferguson and the young women and girls, some 400 out of 1,500, were brought to the Bayview Hotel fronting Dewey (now Roxas) Boulevard, while the men and children were dispersed among other buildings in the area.

“The group of young women and girls brought to the Bayview Hotel was composed of many nationalities. Aside from Filipinas and Chinese, there were caucasians, mestizas of Spanish, American, Russian, French, Portuguese parentage.

“Some of the ladies were assigned rooms in the hotel but the big mass of them was confined in the main dining room on the second floor.

“From this night, Bayview became a joro house, a brothel for the Japanese military. Singly or in groups, Japanese soldiers, sometimes intoxicated, would come into the rooms where the women were held. They would shine flashlights, lighted candles or kerosene lamps at the faces of the women and by force and violence take away the ones they would fancy into any of the rooms in the hotel.”

* * *

Another book, “The Battle for Manila” by three writers Richard Connaughton, John Pimlott, and Duncan Anderson, dwells more on the details of the battle. But the authors also bring up some interesting points.

Why was the battle fought? One of the reasons given was “General MacArthur’s personal obsession with Manila as a symbol of his promised return. Until he could hold the victory parade in the city and publicly hand power back to a Filipino Commonwealth government, his self-appointed task was incomplete… he viewed the capture of Manila as the key to victory, deciding to surround the enemy leaving them no avenue of escape. When this decision was carried out, Manila was doomed. As the Chinese strategist Sun Tzu pointed out more than 2,400 years ago, it is an integral aspect of the art of war to ‘leave a way of escape to a surrounded enemy’.”

Even before the city had been secured, there were detailed “Plans for Entry of the Commander-in-Chief and Official Party into the City of Manila,” issued by General Headquarters, Southwest Pacific Area, dated Feb. 2, 1945.

It was only on March 3 that Manila was completely in American hands and the organized resistance ended. A few days earlier, General MacArthur, speaking at Malacañang Palace, formally announced the reestablishment of of the Commonwealth government.

The tally of fatalities involved in Manila’s recapture was: 1,010 Americans, 16,665 Japanese (counted dead), and approximately 100,000 civilian inhabitants. In the fire raid on Tokyo in March 1945, 84,000 were killed. In the Hiroshima atomic bombing, casualties came up to 78,150. The destruction of Manila was on the same scale as the destruction of Warsaw, Poland, and slightly less than that of Berlin or Stalingrad.

The authors point out that “the manner in which hospitals and residential areas were systematically bombarded by US artillery is really indefensible. The desire of any commander to protect his men’s lives is understandable; it is what is expected of him. Where the line is drawn is when the guns of war are loosed upon inhabited areas where the enemy is either not present at all or present in such small numbers as not to justify carpet bombardment. There comes a time when the civilian population, even when it is not of one’s own nationality [they were friendly civilians—Filipinos], has to be a key consideration in deciding on the means employed.”

As Carmen Guerrero Nakpil narrates in her book “A Question of Identity: Selected Essays”: Those who survived Japanese hate did not survive American love. Both were equally deadly; the latter more so because it was sought and longed for.

* * *

Liberation can have many meanings. Death and destruction are two of them.

PGH 1945: Days of terror, nights of fear

The battle for the liberation of the Philippine General Hospital (PGH) on Taft Avenue in Manila was only one of a series of street-by-street, house-to-house and building-to-building fights that was the story of the liberation of the city in 1945. It was also one of the fiercest.

American and Filipino soldiers who participated in the liberation of Manila, which took place from Feb. 3 to March 3, 1945, told civilian survivors it took them three days to cross the intersection of Padre Faura Street and Taft Avenue, advancing toward Paco Cemetery.

The automatic weapons fire that raked the American lines from heavily defended buildings of the hospital and the University of the Philippines forced them to call for armor assistance in spite of the heavy artillery carpet barrages that the area was subjected to for one week.

My school, Ateneo de Manila on Padre Faura, was closed and taken over by the Japanese Imperial Army as it was considered American, and therefore, enemy property. The Japanese, however, allowed some schools, like De La Salle College on Taft Avenue, to reopen. It was then that my odyssey as an Atenean at De La Salle College began.

Blue invasion

Despite the “blue invasion,” the La Salle Brothers and La Sallites were kind to us Ateneans and treated us well.

After De La Salle suspended classes indefinitely, our family moved to Baguio City in early October 1944, returning only to PGH—where my father was confined—the following year.

Before they closed the school, the La Salle Brothers, acting with incredible courage and concern for the safety of the students under their care, decided to escort each of us home.

We were divided into groups, each made up of boys living in one district of Manila. I belonged to the Pasay group of about 50 students. During the battle, all the Brothers were mercilessly killed by the Japanese.

The battle caught us inside PGH.

On Feb. 7, 1945, we could hear artillery shells edging closer to us.

From the balcony of our suite, we watched the arching trajectory of artillery shells coming from somewhere in Sampaloc, tracing white lines against the black night sky and crashing around Port Area. The crackle of machine gun and rifle fire filled the air as fighting raged.

By Feb. 10, the US Army had set up its 105-millimeter batteries in Grace Park. There must have been other artillery batteries from the east as we heard the whine of shells flying over PGH in the direction of Dewey (now Roxas) Boulevard, where the Japanese had set up heavy naval guns facing Manila Bay. Soon enough, the first shells crashed on PGH.

We had not imagined the Americans would shell the hospital, which was full of thousands of patients, hospital staff and refugees from Malate, Paco and Singalong who were told by the Japanese to stay indoors or be killed. Our agony at PGH had begun.

Carpet bombing

During that week, which never seemed to end, artillery barrages came crashing down on us in carpet-bombing fashion: first PGH, then the Bureau of Science, St. Paul College, Assumption College and later, Ateneo de Manila and the University of the Philippines across Padre Faura and back to PGH.

Some shells seemed to have a delayed action fuse as these would shake the building first and explode a minute later, causing chaos. Patients and nurses were given the priority to sleep on the floor. The rest had to squat, remain standing or lean against the wall, sometimes for days. The doctors operated on the wounded without anesthesia, lights and water.

We later found out why the Americans where shelling PGH.

During the lulls, a piper cub would fly low over the hospital complex observing the accuracy and effect of the artillery barrage. No sooner would the plane fly overhead than Japanese soldiers would crisscross the grounds, firing at the aircraft. This only drew fire from the Americans.

We realized then why the Japanese had forced the people to hide inside—to make the Americans think that only Japanese soldiers were occupying the hospital and thus provoke the Americans into bombing it.

Courageous Jesuit

The artillery barrages started at 7 or 8 a.m., breaking off at lunch, then resuming in the afternoon. B-25 Mitchell bombers were now flying sorties at tree-top level strafing Japanese positions around PGH. Then P-51 Mustang fighter planes began showing up.

As the fighting raged closer to the hospital, rumors spread that a massacre inside the PGH compound was imminent.

Father Cabonce, the hospital’s courageous Jesuit chaplain, braved the shelling to administer to the wounded, and led the prayers ward by ward. He blessed the people and gave us general absolution. His courage and dedication to his ministry was one of the many inspiring acts of heroism during those agonizing days.

We were eventually transferred to the basement after Japanese soldiers lobbed smoke grenades inside our wards. It was difficult to sleep at night as we could hear soldiers roaming around looking for women.

Lamps were doused as soon as the sound of hobnailed boots could be heard approaching. Some soldiers wore split-toe black rubber shoes so they could tiptoe around undetected, pounce on a girl and drag her out into the night.

Cannon fire and prayers

The morning of Feb. 17 dawned on us brightly. We braced ourselves for the morning artillery barrage. The rapid staccato of “woodpecker” machine guns could be heard, backdropped by the rattle of musketry with occasional loud “whoomps” from bazookas or mortars.

We were resigned to the thought that we would die before the Americans arrived. There was almost no food and water for the thousands trapped inside the hospital.

A heavy barrage suddenly came crashing down on us, preceded by the all-too-familiar distant booming of cannons. Count six seconds and the shell would either hit you or fly overhead. By midmorning, the barrages came in quick succession. Machine-gun fire from both sides suddenly opened up in a deafening duel.

Heavy fire peppered the building with bullets without letup. There was a crash of exploding shells against concrete and the sound of ricocheting shrapnel and bullets. We were crouched under the elevator, but showers of sparks from exploding shells and shrapnel so terrified us that prayers asking God to save us filled the basement.

Then, as if by magic, all noise stopped. We heard the stomping of boots on the concrete floor over our heads as Japanese machine gunners set up weapons right on top of us. As they fired, responding heavy machine guns sent them scurrying to the back of the PGH compound.

Heroes, sung and unsung

After a deafening silence, we heard someone shout—then sing—“God Bless America” as approaching US soldiers were mobbed, embraced and kissed.

A stone’s throw away, Japanese soldiers were running back to PGH towards the Bureau of Science. We were still in a daze when we were led out to the front driveway. There, we saw a line of Sherman tanks facing the administration offices still in position before they delivered the point-blank barrage that preceded the assault on the hospital buildings.

There was a long line of ambulances, weapon carriers and trucks ready to evacuate the patients and hospital staff, supervised by fully armed, steel-helmeted American soldiers, while machine-gun fire continued to assault the UP complex.

PGH was liberated by elements of the 37th “Buckeye” Division of the American Army of liberation on Feb. 17 commandeered by Lt. Gen. Walter Krueger. Arrayed against them were crack units of the Japanese Imperial Marines under Vice Admiral Ranji Iwabuchi.

On the Feast of the Assumption of Our Lady on Aug. 15, Japan finally surrendered, and fighting in the Pacific War arena came to an end. The formal surrender took place on Sept. 2, when USS Missouri anchored on Tokyo Bay.

Battles have their heroes, sung and unsung. For many, their acts of bravery and heroism are known only to God. May they all rest in peace in the embrace of the Lord.
#

By Miguel P. Avanceña
Philippine Daily Inquirer

ON TARGET Pestaño’s case: The true story

By Ramon Tulfo
Philippine Daily Inquirer

The Office of the Ombudsman has revived the case of Ensign Philip Andrew A. Pestaño who was found dead with a bullet wound in the head aboard the Philippine Navy ship BRP Bacolod City on Sept. 27, 1995.

It’s surprising why the Office of the Ombudsman would believe there was foul play in Pestaño’s death when three police agencies ruled it a suicide.

The police agencies were the Western Police District (since renamed Manila Police District), the Criminal Investigation and Detection of the Philippine National Police and the National Bureau of Investigation.

Is the Ombudsman questioning the competence of these three law-enforcement agecies?

Is the Ombudsman also questioning the competence of Dr. Raquel B. del Rosario-Fortun, a private forensic pathologist, whose services were hired by Pestaño’s parents?

Dr. Fortun undertook the study of the cause of Pestaño’s death with the Department of Legal Medicine, Kobe (Japan) University School of Medicine, with the department chair, Prof. Yoshitsugu Tatsuno.

Fortun also ruled the young Navy officer’s death a suicide.

Now what?

* * *

Pestaño’s parents, Felipe and Evelyn, would not accept Fortun’s findings even if they were the ones who hired her.

They insist their son was killed by fellow Navy personnel who were allegedly covering up an irregularity aboard the ship.

Why can’t they accept the fact that their son was despondent days before he committed suicide?

In fact, records at the Southern Command Hospital in Zamboanga City would show that Pestaño was taken there after he slashed his wrist days before the suicide.

He was referred to Lt. Col. Jose del Rosario, a neuro-psychiatrist for examination.

But for one reason or another, Pestaño was allowed to board the BRP Bacolod City.

Why was he despondent?

Pestaño was facing an administrative case filed by his former girlfriend.

Felipe and Evelyn allegedly forced their son to leave the woman for another because she happened to be a member of another religion.

Why can’t the Pestaños accept the fact they could have been the ones who drove Philip to commit suicide because of their meddling in his private affairs?

DONG XOAI

Vietnam 1965: Joe Kubert captures the action and confusion of the men in the heat of battle through his ink and style. In this fiction loosely based on real events of the Vietnam War, he was able to depict the story clearly with his unique brand of illustrations- raw, rough and real.

OFFICE OF THE OMBUDSMAN: ‘Pestaño case not suicide but murder’

10 Navy officers face raps in ensign’s slay

Agreeing with the parents of Navy Ensign Philip Pestaño that he did not kill himself 16 years ago, the Office of the Ombudsman reversed itself and filed murder charges against 10 Navy officers in the Sandiganbayan Wednesday and ordered their dismissal for grave misconduct.

If they could no longer be dismissed, the alternative penalty is a fine equivalent to their one year salary.

The 24-year-old Pestaño was found dead in his cabin aboard the BRP Bacolod City on

Sept. 27, 1995, shortly before the ship was to dock at the Philippine Navy headquarters in Manila. He had bullet wounds in the head.

A supposed suicide note was found on his body, but his parents, Felipe and Evelyn, refused to believe that their son killed himself and filed charges against the Navy officials.

In 2009, the antigraft body, then headed by Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez, dismissed the complaint, saying the evidence was circumstantial.

The Pestaños filed a motion for reconsideration, which was granted in an order approved by Gutierrez’s successor, Conchita Carpio Morales, on January 10.

The alleged inaction on the Pestaño case was one of the grounds raised against Gutierrez during her impeachment last 2011.

Charged with the nonbailable crime of murder were Capt. Ricardo Ordoñez; Cmdr. Reynaldo Lopez, Hospital Man 2 Welmenio Aquino, Lt. Cmdr. Luidegar Casis, Lt. Cmdr. Alfrederick Alba, Machinery Repairman 2 Sandy Miranda, Lt. Cmdr. Joselito Colico, Lt. Cmdr. Ruben Roque, PO1 Carlito Amoroso and PO2 Leonor Igcasan.

Circumstances

In the latest order, Ombudsman Morales said the circumstances surrounding the young officer’s death belied the earlier finding that he had committed suicide. His own wounds did not appear self-inflicted, she said.

Morales said Pestaño had two contusions on the right temple and a cut in the left ear, which, it added could not have been caused by the bullet fired into his head but a hard, blunt object.

The bullet’s entry wound was oval in shape and did not bear any tattooing, smudging or burn mark as what would have happened during a close-contact fire, Morales said.

“It is farfetched for a person who commits suicide to shoot himself in the head at a distance,” she noted.

Citing findings of forensic experts, the Ombudsman said the handwriting on the suicide note was different from that of Pestaño’s.

Bullet path

The conflicting observations on the trajectory of the bullet also debunked the suicide theory, Morales said.

While the autopsy report showed a downward trajectory, the Philippine National Police Crime Laboratory said the bullet mark on the cabin wall was caused by a bullet hurtling upward.

The bullet was also found on the bed and not on the floor where it should have landed, the Ombudsman said.

Morales further pointed out a blood smear was found on the cabin wall, but no blood spatters, bone fragments or human tissue on that wall despite its close proximity to the bullet’s exit point.

The Ombudsman cited the finding of splotches of blood on the pillow parallel to Pestaño’s head, as well as pools of blood on the bed. As a forensic expert said, the blood could not have crawled up from the bed to the pillow.

Morales found it hard to give credence to Aquino’s testimony that Pestaño borrowed his gun to kill himself. Pestaño had his own gun in the first place, it said, and it was “irrational” for an officer and a gentleman who wanted to die by his own hands to borrow a gun.

Gangway duty

Aquino could also not have been at the gangway that time since he assumed his gangway duty only after Pestaño was found dead, the Ombudsman added.

In finding the 10 Navy officers liable for the death, Morales said it appeared that their apprehension that Pestaño would expose the illegal activity aboard the Bacolod City motivated them to kill him.

She noted that the Senate and Armed Forces received information about a shipment of undocumented lumber aboard the ship in exchange for drums of fuel oil.

Pestaño, as cargo deck officer, was said to have objected to the shipment but was prevailed upon by the superior officers to allow it.

Unnatural reactions

The Ombudsman said the officers’ reaction to finding Pestaño dead was unnatural.

Morales said Ordoñez did not rush to see Pestaño but instead focused on docking the ship at the Navy headquarters. He should have seen to it that the pieces of evidence in the cabin was not moved, she added.

Lopez, who claimed to be Pestaño’s closest friend, did not immediately go to the cabin, Morales said, but waited for the ship to dock and for the police to arrive. This is not a normal reaction for someone losing a friend to suicide, she added.

The Ombudsman said Colico, who found the body, did not immediately report it to the executive officer or check on Pestaño’s breathing or pulse. She said the normal reaction of a fellow officer would have been to check if the victim was still alive.

Casis did not stop Colico from picking up the gun, emptying it of bullets and cleaning it with a piece of paper, Morales said. She said Casis, a graduate of the US Naval Academy, would not have been ignorant of basic protocol in crime investigations.

The individual reactions “run counter to the grain of human nature and experience” and led the Ombudsman to conclude that they had conspired to kill Pestaño and to fabricate evidence to make it appear as a suicide.

Conflicting statements

The officers also gave conflicting statements, Morales said.

At first, Colico told the National Bureau of Investigation that Roque had told him to check on Pestaño, but he later told police officers that he took it upon himself to look in on his colleague, Morales said. He also gave different times when asked when he found the body.

Colico said that when he cleaned the gun and removed the bullets, he was with Casis and Aquino. But Alba said he, Miranda and Aquino were the ones present. Roque claimed to have been at the scene, but this was contradicted by Casis.

Ordoñez failed to disclose the presence of Amoroso on the ship when Pestaño died, the Ombudsman said.

Ordoñez later said Amoroso disembarked at Sangley Point in Cavite and never returned.

But Amoroso’s cabin mates said he was on board the ship on its trip to Roxas Boulevard where the Navy headquarters is located.

‘Unusual dogleg route’

The Ombudsman gave weight to new evidence presented by Pestaño’s parents, which came from the Armed Forces investigation and made available to them only 10 years after their son’s death.

One such evidence was the ship’s “unusual dogleg route” from Sangley to the Navy headquarters. The trip usually takes 45 minutes, but it took two hours on the day of Pestaño’s death.

“An unexplained delay of about one hour and 15 minutes raises the presumption that the prolonged trip was occasioned by the time it took respondents to create the suicide scenario,” the Ombudsman said.

Pages were also ripped off from the gangway logbook, which would have shown the names of the crew members aboard the ship.

There was also no passenger manifest that would have shown who was on board at that time. This could have been the basis as to who would have to undergo a paraffin test to see if any of them had fired a gun, the Ombudsman said.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

These indicate an attempt to conceal important information, Morales said.

The Ombudsman’s order was signed by graft investigation and prosecution officer Yvette Marie Evaristo, Director Dennis Garcia, Assistant Ombudsman Eulogio Cecilio and Overall Deputy Ombudsman Orlando Casimiro.
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By Leila Salaverria
Philippine Daily Inquirer
Originally posted at 05:12 pm | Wednesday, January 11, 2012

2 ex-AFP chiefs, 9 more top brass face plunder raps

By Marlon Ramos
Philippine Daily Inquirer

The Department of Justice (DOJ) on Thursday recommended the filing of plunder charges against retired Armed Forces Chiefs of Staff Diomedio Villanueva and Roy Cimatu, former comptrollers Carlos Garcia and Jacinto Ligot, and seven others accused of diverting and pocketing P2.3 billion in funds intended for troop salaries and combat needs.

Justice Secretary Leila de Lima said the decision of the DOJ panel, led by Prosecutor General Claro Arellano, to pursue legal action against those behind the illegal practice was a stern warning to military officials.

The case stemmed from the revelations of former military budget officer George Rabusa, who testified in a Senate inquiry last year about the intricate pabaon (sendoff) and pasalubong (welcome gift) for outgoing and incoming AFP chiefs of staff.

“This should really be a fresh start and a clean slate for the current AFP leadership under (the Aquino) administration,” De Lima said at a news briefing.

At least three military officers on the DOJ list are in active service, including Brigadier General Benito de Leon.

Asked if the filing of the criminal charge was a warning to military officials, De Lima replied: “You can call it that. I like to believe that those in the rank-and-file and ordinary soldiers welcome this development.”

Open secret

“It’s an open secret that these anomalies happen within the AFP where millions and millions of pesos were involved in the irregularities,” she added.

In a 105-page resolution, the three-member panel of prosecutors said there was a “semblance of truth” to Rabusa’s allegations that the accused had conspired with one another in pilfering from the AFP coffers.

“We are convinced that the AFP’s budget had been plundered during the period stated by the complainant,” read a portion of the DOJ resolution.

“In the instant case, complainant’s grandiose illustration of the ‘rampant irregularities in the AFP’ relative to the malversation, misuse and misappropriation of its funds, appears to have a semblance of truth,” it added.

Rabusa claimed Villanueva could have earned over P227 million from the conversion of military funds. Cimatu pocketed around P140 in his brief stay as AFP chief, he said. Cimatu, who served as special envoy to the Middle East after retiring from the military, and Villanueva have denied receiving any payoff.

Rabusa said Ligot made about P360 million while Garcia, jailed for another graft case, took some P368 million.

Others recommended to be charged were retired Major General Hilario Atendido, retired Colonels Cirilo Donato and Roy Devesa, retired Lieutenant Colonel Ernesto Paranis, J-6 accounting division chief Generoso del Castillo and former State Auditor Divina Cabrera.

“Most, if not all, of the concerned respondents had admitted to the existence of the OPB (Operating Program and Budget) as a measure of implementing lump-sum appropriations made by the Philippine Congress of the AFP budget,” the DOJ panel said.

The panel said it appeared that it was through the realignment of the (military budget), through the OPB, “that respondents were able to malverse and/or convert AFP funds from the purposes that are different from their original allotment.”

11 others absolved

However, the panel of prosecutors absolved 11 others of complicity, saying there was no sufficient evidence to include them as accused. Cleared were former AFP Chief of Staff General Efren Abu, retired Lieutenant General Gaudencio Pangilinan, retired Major Generals Epineto Logico and Ernesto Boac, Navy Captain Kenneth Paglinawan, Colonel Gilbert Gapay and Major Emerson Angulo.

The DOJ panel also dismissed the case against Colonel Robert Arevalo and former State Auditors Arturo Besana, Crisanto Gabriel and Manuel Warren.

A known close associate of Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmin, Boac is currently the budget officer of the Department of National Defense. Pangilinan, on the other hand, was appointed by President Benigno Aquino III as director of the Bureau of Corrections.

De Lima, however, clarified that the DOJ resolution was still subject to review by the Office of the Ombudsman, the only government agency mandated to file graft and corruption cases in the Sandiganbayan.

“Since this is a plunder case, the final say would fall on the Ombudsman, This is merely recommendatory,” the justice secretary said, adding that her department would immediately transmit the documents regarding the case to the antigraft body.

“It is up to the Ombudsman (if it wants to) adopt, modify or reverse the resolution. It’s up to the Ombudsman to decide or determine whether there is a need for another preliminary investigation,” De Lima said.

In his complaint, Rabusa accused the respondents of converting “commercial vouchers” of the Intelligence Service of the AFP (Isafp) and “J2” (Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence) into cash.

He said the money, supposedly intended for intelligence projects of the AFP, was illegally diverted for cash allocations of the Office of the Chief of Staff, monthly cash incentives of some senior military officials, administrative-related expenses and for personal expenses of some of the respondents.

Exacting accountability

Sought for comment, Rabusa said he was “both happy and sad” about the resolution of the DOJ panel.

“I’m happy because while not all of the respondents will be charged, those officials who I expected to be included (in the complaint) were there,” the whistle-blower told the Philippine Daily Inquirer over the phone.

“I’m somewhat sad because not all of them were charged. But as my lawyer said, we could still appeal the DOJ recommendation in the Ombudsman,” he said.

“But I respect the decision of the DOJ panel. At least, we know that we now have a process (of exacting accountability).” With a report from AP

Dead Shot: 'One shot, one kill'

Behind the steady finger that pulls the trigger and the sharp eye that peeks through the crosshairs are men like Gunnery Sergeant Kyle Swanson and the enigmatic Juba, two snipers on different sides of the spectrum but with one common mission- to exterminate anybody on their path with 'one shot, one kill."

Add Baghdad, Black Ops, Al Qaeda, Chemical weapons and the Iranian connection make Dead Shot a good read; a novel that is just all right but still manages to intrigue.