War Comes to Binalonan Part II
Surviving the Invasion
As the guns stopped and dusk fell, Benny and his family left their hiding place, grabbed a few clothes and essentials from the house, and started walking, trying get away from the invading army that was taking over their town. Their first stop was the little family farm in Manguzmana, but they soon heard that Japanese patrols were combing outlying barrios. There were stories of atrocities. A twelve-year-old cousin was raped and another relative was shot. Whenever they heard patrols approach, women and children ran to hide in the woods. After a night or two, the situation was too dangerous. The family left the farm and headed for the foothills to camp under the stars.
The Japanese had expected to be welcomed as fellow Asians expelling the hated white colonizers, but their methods were too arrogant and brutal. Most Filipinos ardently supported the American side, even though some had grandparents who fiercely fought against the U.S. army only 40 years before. American governance had brought a public-school system and the English language, but more important, the institutions and practices of democracy. In these far-off farms and villages of the Philippines, ordinary people believed in American ideals.
That explains much that came after. Life in the mountains was hard, but many preferred it to the fear and humiliation of living under Japanese military rule. Fortunately, it was the dry season. Food was scant, but the family had a bag of rice from the farm. They also knew the fruits and edible leaves that grew wild in the forest, many of which were the same as those grown at home. Sometimes they helped in the fields of outlying farmers and traded work for food, but they kept shifting camp. Then one day Benny’s older half-brother Emilio and his new wife tracked them down. Emilio had been working in a mine high up the mountain near the Baguio City, and he reported that the Japanese military authority had not only taken over American installations there but were requisitioning food and conscripting labor. He wanted to check whether conditions in Binalonan were any better. Benny was always up for an adventure so he accompanied Emilio on his scouting trip into town just to see what was happening.
They were walking down a familiar street into town when a Japanese soldier apprehended them and marched them to headquarters, set up in the former town hall.
“Name!” the officer on duty demanded loudly. It seemed all Japanese had to speak loudly, perhaps because none of the townspeople could understand Japanese and few of the Japanese could understand English, much less Ilocano. Benny thought quickly. He didn’t want to disclose the name of their family still hiding in the hills so he made up a funny Spanish-sounding name “Cisco Caballo.” Emilio made up a name also and the Japanese officer wrote them down in the strange katakana script on new ID cards and let the young men go. It was a close shave.
As the hot dry months January, February, and March went by, civilians who were still trying to wait out the war by hiding in the mountains began to realize this was a situation likely to be measured in years rather than months. The rest of Southeast Asia had already fallen and the Japanese navy was effectively blockading the coast of the Philippines, ending hope for reinforcement or supply of the American and Filipino troops still fighting on the Bataan peninsula. On April 9, Major General Edward P. King surrendered his 75,000 starving American and Filipino troops to the Japanese, believing that the men would have some protection in their status as prisoners of war. Instead, those who had survived the fighting and the siege began the horrific 65-mile Death March north to Camp O’Donnell in Tarlac, about half way between Manila and Binalonan. It was the deadliest US military defeat since the Civil War. The first battle for the Philippines was over. Now the family needed a new plan to survive.
In late May as the rainy season began, Benny with his parents and sister moved back to Binalonan. By that time a Japanese garrison was well established in the plaza, using the school for barracks and the convent to store munitions. A sentry was posted at the entrance to the plaza, and people passing by were ordered to bow as they passed. Benny remembers one time when the sentry was not satisfied with the bow of one civilian and went into the street to beat him with his sword. From then on people were careful to bow deeply and hurry on.
Even more dreadful things were happening. Bands of guerrilla warriors who had escaped the Japanese advance still held out in the mountains. As the months went on they were reinforced by civilians and organized to strike back, harassing Japanese army outposts and raiding local towns for supplies. While Binalonan itself did not suffer a direct raid like towns nearby, some said that it was because the local guerrilla commander was actually from Binalonan. Japanese military authorities tried to control the town by fear and threat of reprisal. A house in Benny’s neighborhood on Torres Street was used to confine persons suspected of supporting the guerrillas, and executions were carried out in the town cemetery. At the same time the local resistance took revenge on individuals suspected of cooperating with the Japanese. There were assassinations of suspected collaborators including the police chief, who was shot in the back.
Of course, for ordinary people, the critical problem was sustenance. The war had destroyed a large part of the local food supply and the Japanese army had taken much of the rest. Everyone was on reduced rations, vegetarian rations, because of the loss of chickens and livestock. Even the rice supply was scant and Insa took to mixing corn into the daily rice pot she cooked for the family. With agricultural work disrupted, the entire family looked for odd jobs to earn money for food. Benny taught himself to weave the broad palm leaf hats that were always in demand for sun and rain protection. Insa returned to her enterprise as a rice merchant, assisted by Benny’s older sister Nena.
The price of rice was higher in Baguio City, even high enough to be worth the effort of lugging heavy bagfuls up the “Zigzag Highway” to the five-thousand-foot-high summer capital. Insa delegated it to the children, and Benny and Nena worked together to get the rice to Baguio, pulling a small wheeled cart loaded with a half “caban” or about 75 lbs. of rice. If planned right, they could get a ride on the Japanese military truck that connected Binalonan with Baguio about three times a week. They would sell the rice and spend an overnight with relatives or sleeping out, then catch the Japanese transport heading down the mountain in the morning. Benny remembers the one time they missed the truck. He had outgrown his shoes, so he made the trip in reed sandals he had woven for himself. Even with his well calloused feet, the reeds cut his toes. The trip back down the mountain was excruciating, even taking shortcuts between the zigzags. After a long painful day Benny and Nena limped back into Binalonan.
There was no time for school in the year following the invasion, but the Japanese occupiers were well aware of the potential of education in winning Filipino loyalty. They prepared, and in 1943 reopened classes for all grades in the old primary school building. Before the war Benny’s intermediate school class had teachers specializing in each subject – a math teacher, a history teacher, an English teacher, and so on. The new class had only one teacher from the old school, the former music teacher, who was now in charge of all subjects, except Japanese. Now that the students had to learn Japanese, a new teacher, a Japanese-speaking Filipino, was brought in to teach the language to all grades. Benny with his facility for languages quickly mastered the basic lessons and learned to write the phonetic katakana script. After school he would sometimes help neighbors who needed to have their names transcribed into katakana for those ID’s required to move around the town.
This was Benny’s final year of intermediate school, but there was no high school in Binalonan. Graduation was celebrated with a ceremony attended by Japanese officials and townspeople alike, and since Benny had the highest marks he was expected to give a valedictory speech. He was relieved that the speech was written for him in English by his teacher, the former music instructor. He was told to dress in his very best for the occasion, but there was one insuperable problem, the one that had plagued him on the road back from Baguio – his feet. His feet were too large for any of his old leather shoes so he made the speech wearing homemade wooden clogs called “bakya,” a symbol of hard times.
The celebration included a play that the Japanese language teacher had written for the school to perform. Despite the best efforts of the student actors who diligently memorized their roles in Japanese, the faces of the Japanese officials showed that they were not pleased – whether with the script of the play or the way the students played it, they never knew.
By that time, the occupiers had other reasons not to be pleased. Their mission to secure the Philippines as a reliable partner in the East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere was not going well. These southern people did not have a good attitude. Guerrilla bands continued their war of raids and sabotage from hideouts in the cordillera, the north-south mountain chain that forms the backbone of Luzon. With peaks up to 9,600 feet above sea level, these mountains sheltered valleys where the Spanish had never penetrated and where warlike tribes called Igorots practiced headhunting until well into American times.
As the guerrillas became more organized, the larger units set up a clandestine radio network. That enabled them to get their information and orders from the USAFFE, the United States Armed Forces in the Far East, the force that the Japanese thought to have eliminated at Bataan and Corregidor.
Filipino couriers from the occupied towns continued to risk capture and execution to supply guerrilla units with updates on Japanese positions. In return they received some real news from the outside, and fresh information on the larger war began to trickle into the towns and barrios. They heard that MacArthur made his dramatic landing on Leyte Island in October 1944, then Mindoro Island in December. The Japanese army was still concentrated in Luzon, but their navy no longer controlled the surrounding seas. After three years of humiliation and hardship, hope was returning to the Philippines.