In honor of Elizabeth Stocks, let me mention some Americans who are considered heroes in the Philippines. First and foremost perhaps are those American operatives who out of their love for their adopted country and people showed that they can live dangerously for as long as they are doing it for the islands and its people. Allow me to mention Wendell Fertig whose Mindanao-based guerillas made it impossible for the Japanese to actually claim that they have invaded the whole Philippine Archipelago. Then there is Robert Lapham who operated in the north but is somehow made controversial by the disputing claims of the ruling Marcos family. According to the official report of the official guerilla outfit recognized by the US Military, the Lapham guerillas which included some of the Julio Nalundasan relatives, Mariano Marcos, the father of Ferdinand Edralin Marcos was quartered to death using two carabaos made to move in opposite directions for publicly supporting the Japanese. As expected, the Marcos clan had a different version which claims that he was actually killed by the Japanese because he fought against them. Well, the town of San Narciso is, in fact, an axis in itself against the axis powers and its consequent exposure fallout because even the bemedalled Ferdinand Marcos who claimed to have engaged the Japanese in so many encounters was actually hibernating in San Narciso having the time of his life after being sentenced over the death of lawyer Nalundasan who was assassinated a few days after defeating Mariano Marcos in the elections. Said Americans could have easily chosen comfort zones and simply evaded the Japanese.
Most famous of those who loved the Philippines was the one who promised, “I shall return.” Gen. Douglas MacArthur, son of Gen. Arthur Mac Arthur who had a headache too many caused by Gen. Antonio Luna consistently asked the American government to help the Filipino brown brothers first but he was continually thwarted by Gen. Dwight Eisenhower’s group who wanted to free Europe first. Pres. Manuel Quezon’s foresight of establishing the ROTC just in case the Commonwealth is attacked by Japan was nixed by Eisenhower because he wanted more money. It was MacArthur who finally acceded to the plan which is why we have also the ROTC-organized guerillas. Gossips would always want to play up the story that the famous promise of the American Caesar in returning to the Philippines was actually a coded promise to his paramour, Isabel or Elizabeth “Dimples” Cooper, a teen-age senorita vaudeville dancer. She would later be abandoned prudently because in his stature in American society, he can’t possibly marry someone who is a foreigner and without a prestigious background. To separate from this Filipina who had become a Hollywood bit player he sent 15,000 dollars for her to return to the Philippines, as he was instrumental in bringing her to America in the first place. Foolishly enough, it is said that his bagman for the job was the politician, Eisenhower.
But I find the most heartwarming story among the gentlemen heroes is that one of the Japanese Capt. Tei Hara who was one of the gentlemen volunteers sent by the Japanese Military sympathetic to the Philippine cause to augment Gen. Aguinaldo’s new army. Unknown to Sanhedrin researchers, Capt. Hara, who was promoted for fighting in the other Japanese wars also was in San Narciso. He was in fact, assigned by Aguinaldo to the fiesta-loving Gen. Tomas Mascardo. Secretly, he was instrumental in getting a ship from Kobe as the Philippine-American war progressed to pick up cache of arms from Moji, another contribution of the Japanese to the Philippine cause but unfortunately this same ship was shipwrecked off the coast of China although the crew survived including Hara. This Japanese gentleman who loved the Philippines called his sister to his deathbed to give her final instructions. One of which struck me the most is when he asked her sister to monitor the Philippines’ fight for independence and he told him that once the Filipinos are already free, she or her descendant should go to his tomb and openly tell him that finally the Philippines is already free. Tei Hara must be one of the good reasons why God had sent the Japanese Nana Masay to San Narciso, this time during WWII.
Also, during WWII, there was this Lt. Col. Nobohiko Jimbo who doubted that Gen. Masaharu Homma is ordering the execution of the lives of top Filipino leaders who seem not to cooperate to the Japanese. Knowing that Homma was a gentleman samurai, he hid Manuel Roxas who would become a Philippine president and tried to contact Homma first. Unable to see Homma himself, he was however satisfied to know from his trusted secretary that there was no such cruel order. Since that moment, Jimbo started becoming the protector of Roxas. He however failed in saving the life of Jose Abad Santos from the same set of fake orders.
During WWII however, the most heartwarming story is that of Capt. Isao Yamazoe who was assigned in Dulag, Leyte. Capt. Yamasoy, as the Warays fondly call him, took the people of Dulag as his very own. He encouraged them to plant crops to avoid, asked that children continued to attend school, was friendly and warm to all the people and attending even their festivities. He ordered his men to be kind to the people of Dulag and never treat them as a subjected people. He even made it possible for the people to watch movies for free. Despite his kindness, he was informed of the impending attack on the Dulag garrison. To avoid the possibility that the civilians will be caught in the crossfire, he arranged for a meeting with the guerillas. He would have negotiated for peace in the area or have a choice of a battleground far from civilian population. The meeting never took place because he was ambushed by the guerillas on the way. After his death, the people of Dulag felt finally the atrocities of war because his replacement made them build an airstrip as an enslaved people This was bombed during the liberation and today a monument to Capt. Yamasoy’s kindness stands in the town’s plaza.
Joining the two heroines from San Narciso in our quest among the finer sex, we have Claire Phillips and Valeria “Yay” Panlilio. The first one, is an American national who chose to stay in the Philippines during the Japanese invasion. Posing as an Italian, since Italy was an Axis power like Japan under Mussolini, Laire changed her name to Dorothy Clara Fuentes and established with a friend, Club Tsubaki which was frequented by the Japanese regular military officers and the Kempeitai. Claire’s experience on the Portland stage her very much reinvent herself as an Italian mestiza. As club-owner, she would be inviting the best performers available but she herself, as Madam Tsubaki, will draw the Japanese with her signature Torch song “Some of These Days”. From here, Claire would glean important operations which greatly helped the resistance movement evade or thwart Japanese operations. Some may say that she must have done the things she did just for her forlorn husband, Sgt. John Philips who was part of Gen. King’s Army in Bataan which Gen. Wainwright ordered to surrender and who eventually died in Cabanatuan before the great raid. But Claire’s ring of spies, mostly Filipinas, would deny this because she had really transformed into a selfless lady especially after learning about John’s death. Claire survived the tortures the Kempeitai laid on her when her cover was blown. She was already sentenced to die when the liberators finally found her terribly undernourished. She was honored for her covert services upon her return to America.
Valeriana “Yay” Panlilio is of Irish-American descent but opted to use Panlilio to highlight her closer affinity to Filipino culture. Working as a broadcast journalist before the war she was forced by the Japanese to air their propaganda materials, she however opted to codify things for the resistance movement and broadcasted instead vital info which the guerillas can use. When she was exposed, she escaped to the Sierra Madre where she met Agustin Villas Marking, leader of the Marking’s Guerillas. Marking taking note of her intelligence made use of her knowledge in his operations and she virtually became the brains of the guerilla outfit. She eventually married her guerilla commander and wrote a novel, “The Crucible” based on her life as a guerilla. Yay Panlilio-Marking continued as a successful writer and journalist until her death.
Last that I will mention is not really a foreigner like Elizabeth Stocks and Elizabeth Masuda but is only of foreign descent, as her father either had either Swiss or Swedish blood (we will still check on this discrepancy about Pantaleon Keller). I am referring to the First darling of Philippine cinema, Carmen Rosales. Born Januaria Constantino Keller, she was born in Carmen in the town of Rosales in Pangasinan, the reason why she wittingly chose her screen name to be Carmen Rosales. Like Yay, she was a broadcast journalist where she met a fellow one, Ramon Novales. She had already starred with Katy de la Cruz in “Ang Kiri: Ang Babaeng Mahiwaga” when the Japanese came. Carmen’s surprising entry into the Huk Guerillas was actually prompted by her retaliation to the Japanese atrocity of killing her husband. Familiar with weapons and disguises, she easily travelled unnoticed as a bemoustached fellow. It is almost unthinkable that this lady star is an expert MAKAPILI killer. After the war she continued appearing on the silver screen achieving great success and even honors as a superb actress.
Now, let us ask again the question, with perhaps the exemption of Carmen Rosales who is very Filipina; can a foreigner indeed love his adoptive country or that one other than his homeland. My answer here as we have shown is very affirmative, for I am myself is just like them although I am not myself, a hero, so to say. You see I have not even included here the many other nationalities who came to love the Philippines and the Filipinos.
It’s just that it is so alien to me to think that so many Filipinos can betray their country as well as their people! Look at those corrupt government politicians and officials who rob the Filipino people of their rightful place under the sun….You ought to be ashamed of yourselves because these foreigners were able to love the Philippines and her people more!
.Platito Toorinkaya
