Palawan: beauty and tragic stories

By Denis Murphy
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 07:22:00 07/15/2010

Filed Under: War, history, Massacre

WE WENT to Palawan for the fish and forests and a look at the world as we would like it to be. We found a great deal of that with the help of Bishop Pedro Arigo and Fr. Robert Reyes. I even met, at the end of a long day of snorkeling, a green fish with the Irish flag’s colors on its sides.

We also found the world as it actually is. The island hasn’t escaped the reach of human greed. There are 534 applications pending for mining projects in Palawan. We were told at least 80 of these will be granted. Eighty open pit mines will go a long way to polluting the waters of the island, the forests and beaches. Also Malaysian ships stop illegally in southern Palawan, load up with valuable logs and bring them back home, all with the concurrence of local officials.

We thought there might be less violence in a place so beautiful, but we found that isn’t so. During World War II, for example, Americans, Filipinos and Japanese committed terrible crimes, some of which were so gruesome people are reluctant to talk about them. The stories of these events seem to be connected with one another. Some are clearly historical; others may be not.

The story began for us when Bishop Arigo told us of the massacre of American prisoners of war by the Japanese army in 1944. He told us of the monument to the dead soldiers in downtown Puerto Princesa.

In December 1944 Japanese soldiers, fearing Gen. Mac Arthur’s troops were coming closer, decided to kill the prisoners they kept. They herded the soldiers into air raid shelters, poured gasoline on them, then set them afire. The soldiers who tried to escape were machine gunned, bayoneted or simply clubbed to death. Eleven managed to escape, one at least by diving into the bay.

The site of the massacre is now in the middle of a lovely park, shaded by old acacia and mahogany trees where children play and older students do their homework. In the center of the park, where the air raid shelters were located, there is a monument to the dead: a stone platform holds a statue of an emaciated, bearded prisoner of war struggling to free himself of the barbed wire that coils around him like a snake. The sculptor, Don T. Schloat, was one of the survivors.

For some unknown reason, there has been almost no mention of this massacre in the American or Filipino media, though it is said that what happened there was the massacre of the largest number of American soldiers ever at one time.

Bishop Arigo and the citizens of Puerto Princesa celebrate Mass each year at the monument to pray for the dead soldiers and all who suffered during the war. A person sitting in that park today, listening to the birds and children, cannot imagine the men on fire racing from the air raid shelter to the safety of the bay.

The story continued, according to other narrators, after liberation when Filipino guerrilla fighters and American soldiers rounded up some 300 Japanese sympathizers and dependents (Macabebe) and the few Japanese still left in the city and took them one night to a spot on the highway about 35 kms. to the north of the city and slaughtered them all.

Drivers, including the bishop’s, still blow their horns when they pass that spot. Others throw coins. When we asked the bishop’s driver, Norman, why he blew his horn, he said he didn’t want to meet the woman in white who is sometimes seen at that spot.

We went out along the road to the 35-km mark to see what that area was like. The highway makes big sweeping turns there high above Honda Bay. A driver coming fast downhill might easily misjudge the distance and break through the retaining wall. The ground falls off sharply from the roadside. The tops of tall trees are even with the road. Below is thick underbrush. It is a place the Mafia might pick to get rid of bodies.

We found a group of women, old and young, selling vegetables. Yes, they said, Japanese soldiers were killed near here after the war. Sometimes headless Japanese soldiers block the road, so people cannot pass.

Not everyone in Puerto Princesa believes this story, and yet the drivers still show respect for the dead and seek to appease their ghosts. A lady in white is seen. A laborer who stole a box from that area is said to have brought on many accidents.

On our last day, we saw in a history of the war one final part of the story. Shortly after the war started, 16 Japanese living in Palawan were arrested. They were sent south to a camp near Puerto Princesa in the custody of the police. On the way, they disappeared at Km 37 and were never seen again. Older people in Palawan are reluctant to discuss the role of Filipinos in these stories.

There is unrivalled beauty in Palawan, but be ready for old horror tales, blowing of horns in strange places and women in white.

(Denis Murphy works with the Urban Poor Associates. His email address is upa@pldtdsl.net)

Urban Poor Seek Prelate’s Help to Stop Evictions

Press Release
July 10, 2010

People’s Organizations and Task Force Anti- Eviction, an NGO group, are holding a rally at the Pope Pius XII Center during the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines semi-annual meeting. Children will pray to “Bro” a name used for Jesus in a popular soap opera, to ask the bishops to help stop illegal evictions.

A letter given to Archbishop Nereo Odchimar, president of CBCP read, “We write to inform you that the old practices of illegal forced evictions, demolitions without relocation and other injustices have started up again. Within a day of the president’s inaugural speech, the practices resumed as if nothing had changed.”

Evelia Balili, Secretary of Samahang Magkakapitbahay sa Pechayan (SAMASAPE) of North Fairview near Tullahan bridge, confirmed that their 197 members were threatened with demolition a day after the president’s inauguration. Twenty house owners were offered Php 8000 and asked to sign a waiver that takes away the residents’ right to relocation. Their former leader, Myrna Porcare, was killed last year in an eviction related incident.

“We have not forgotten the brutal killing of our leader Myrna and her teen-age son. They were shot to death in our community by the private security guards of a private claimant who claims he owns the land in question. Justice is still pending in the courts and until now, we are victims of housing rights violators and new violations are being committed against us,” she added.

The Church issued two pastoral statements, in 1997 and 2007, about the nation’s housing problems. It issued another pastoral letter in 2009 where the death of Myrna Porcare is mentioned. It also spoke of the evils of distant relocation.

“Through our peaceful assembly, we are sending a message to the Bishops that they must help the poor push the President to immediately order a halt to demolitions until the government prepares housing solutions including acceptable relocation,” said UPA Deputy Coordinator Teodoro Añana.

The church has said, “the government is often perceived to act without sufficient sensitivity to the plight of the poor, especially when the demolitions come without sufficient warning, without provision for adequate relocation sites, and with brutality (A Pastoral Statement on the Homeless, 10 July 1997).”

Añana concluded, “We are in a new phase of governance, we likewise want to retain the good image of the new administration and the Church can help by reminding government of its obligation to follow the provisions of law in matters of demolition.”

Task Force Anti-Eviction said, “This is the right time for the Church to urge the new government to create a government-church-civil society commission that will provide guidelines for the further development of our cities so that the urban poor will have a decent place to live in. In the 1997 Pastoral Statement, the Church stated that the chairperson of this body should be acceptable to the government, the Church, the poor people affected, and the NGOs.”

The groups also expressed fear that without the Church intervention it is business as usual - evictions will grow in number and poor people will be left homeless again on the streets. -30-