“Justice begins with the admission of wrongdoing. You cannot deny what happened to the Lolas. It is important for the Filipino people, and for the world, to remember, because only through remembrance can we prevent such atrocities from happening again.”
by Xinhua author Nie Xiaoyang
MANILA, July 7 (Xinhua) — As the rain subsided over Mapanique, a quiet village nestled within the rice fields of Candaba in Pampanga province, the Philippines, the air appeared to nonetheless carry the mud of the Nineteen Forties.
On the morning of July 6, 10 aged girls gathered in a small courtyard beneath a makeshift cover. The youngest was 92, the oldest 96. They are survivors, Filipina consolation girls who endured unspeakable atrocities by the hands of Japanese invaders throughout World War II.
Though greater than 80 years have handed, tears streamed down the faces of a number of girls as they recalled the trauma they’d lengthy carried in silence.
When they realized that among the many guests have been descendants of Filipino-Chinese guerrilla fighters who resisted the Japanese occupation, one of many girls quietly stated, “Thank you for remembering.”
At the gathering, the survivors sang a haunting ballad written particularly for them, “Please Let the Heart of Grandmother Be Healed.” One line stood out with brutal readability, “We were suffocating, longing to die. Our bodies and souls were torn apart.”
These weren’t poetic metaphors, however painful truths, they’d lived by means of among the darkest chapters of human struggling.
On November 23, 1944, Japanese forces raided Mapanique, accusing villagers of aiding guerrilla fighters. The village was sealed off. Men have been rounded up, tortured, or killed. Homes have been burned to the bottom. Young girls have been dragged away and brought to the now infamous Bahay na Pula (“Red House”) in neighboring Bulacan province, the place they have been subjected to systemic rape and enslavement.
The atrocity is scarcely talked about in textbooks, however its scars stay etched into the our bodies and recollections of the survivors.
Virginia Lacsa-Suarez, a number one Filipino human rights lawyer who has lengthy championed the reason for the Malaya Lolas, because the survivors are recognized, has been a tireless advocate for official recognition and reparations.
“These women have waited for over 80 years,” Suarez stated, “Not a single word of apology, not even a recognition of wrongdoing has come from the Japanese government. That silence is a second wound, one deeper than the first.”
Marking the eightieth anniversary of the tip of World War II, Suarez stated, “Justice begins with the admission of wrongdoing. You cannot deny what happened to the Lolas. It is important for the Filipino people, and for the world, to remember, because only through remembrance can we prevent such atrocities from happening again.”
As the ladies sat beneath the straightforward shelter, their voices continued to linger within the air, “Give us justice. Acknowledge the pain we endured.”
It was not only a tune. It was a decades-long cry for fact.
The difficulty of consolation girls has drawn worldwide consideration through the years from Korea, China, and throughout Southeast Asia, expressed in numerous languages at totally different locations, however echoing the identical cries of anguish.
Yet at present, even because the world commemorates 80 years since fascism’s defeat, there are nonetheless those that attempt to diminish, distort, or deny what occurred.
As Suarez reminded us, “We always say history repeats itself. But history only repeats itself when we forget.”
The girls beneath the cover have been outwardly calm, sitting there with quiet dignity. But inside them burns a resolve, formed by sorrow and reminiscence. They have no idea what number of extra years they’ve left to attend.