remembrance of things awry

All these recent disasters in our beleaguered country bring to mind one of the most difficult periods in Philippine History, the Japanese Occupation from 08 December 1941 - 03 March 1945.  According to the surviving seniors, compared to those years, what we are undergoing now as a nation is “chickenfeed.”

I was born in 1967, 22 years after The War ended in 1945.  That’s just the time period between 2009 and 1987, and it’s not very long, nor essentially very different.  And in the minds of those who had experienced it — from my grandmother, my parents, aunts and uncles, and household staff — it was as fresh and as frightening a memory as anything.

We have all read about Wartime in the Philippines and have even seen movies about it like “The Great Raid” by John Dahl in 2005 and “Oro, Plata, Mata” by Peque Gallaga in 1981.  One book, “By Sword and Fire:  The Destruction of Manila in World War II:  3 February – 3 March 1945″ by Alfonso J. Aluit in 1994 fully describes the Sheer Horror of the Carnage and Destruction of Manila in late February 1945.

The following are stories of our various Gonzalez-Escaler-Arnedo and Reyes-Quiason family members during The War.  They are not spectacular in the sense that no one was a bemedalled War Hero, nor an active leader of the guerrilla movement, nor an entire household murdered.  But they are Stories of War and Suffering just the same, and well worth recording for posterity.

GONZALEZ

My paternal grandfather, Lolo Augusto “Bosto” Sioco Gonzalez, already knew as early as 1937 that a Great World War was looming in the horizon.  He was 50 years old and was at the prime of his fortunes but sadly at the ebb of his health because of severe diabetes.  That, however, did not stop him from forging ahead with his ambitious professional aims and flourishing family life.  Although he had set his sights on purchasing an elegant and expensive residence along prestigious Dewey Boulevard to serve as his Manila base [ impressed by his brilliant and accomplished nephew Joaquin Tomas de Aquino "Jake" Valdes Gonzalez, he determined that his own young sons would be attending De La Salle College along Taft Avenue ], he purchased two small, 441 sq. m. properties in the first government employee housing project of President Manuel Quezon in faraway Quezon City [ which later became the "Scout area" ], on a street called “South 9.”  He urged his very rich aunt Dona Sabina Sioco de Escaler to buy one across and the widow of his eldest brother Fernando, Clementina Elizalde-Gonzalez, to buy beside him.  “What on earth are we going to do in that ’squatter resettlement’ area, Papa?”  asked his eldest son Rogie [ used as Rogie was to the commodious and elegant residences of the Gonzalezes, the Escalers, and his wife Luding's Salgado and de Leon relations, in Pampanga and in the posh enclaves of  Manila ].  That done, he had extensive aerage / bomb shelters constructed underground connecting all four houses.  He told his wife, my Lola Charing:  “When The War comes, We will be safer here.  Of course, the Japanese will go to the best areas first, to Ermita and Malate and Taft, before they will even think of coming to this nondescript place.”  Of course, Lolo Bosto was assassinated at the PASUDECO offices on 12 July 1939 and never saw The War.  Might as well, for knowing what a firebrand he was, he would have surely funded the guerrillas, helped the Americans, and been forthwith executed by the Japanese.  But he was very right when he predicted that the Japanese would come to Ermita, Malate, and Taft Avenue first.  They did.  But they eventually reached Quezon City too.  When the Japanese soldiers found out in late 1944 that the Gonzalez and Escaler houses along South 9 had aerage / bomb shelters, they evicted the families, giving them 24 hours to leave.  They also confiscated Lolo Bosto’s elegant, 1937 black Cadillac stretch limousine, the last car that he had purchased.  They broke open Lola Charing’s camphor chests and chanced upon her 1930 “traje de boda” wedding dress, which they promptly used as a rag to polish their guns.  The four families were “scattered to the winds.”  Lola Charing and her family were graciously taken in by Imang Belen Zapanta-Reyes and family in their Kamuning house, and that is where they stayed for a time.

My aunt, dearest Tita Naty, Natividad Gonzalez-Palanca, remembers:  “Every time there was an evacuation, I remember Mama Charing running, with Macarito the toddler [ the future Brother Andrew Benjamin Gonzalez, F.S.C. of De La Salle University ] on one arm and the silver [ the  heavy, wrapped-up American sterling silver flatware service for 36 pax monogrammed "RAG" { Rosario Arnedo-Gonzalez }, which was one of Papa's last gifts to her ], on the other.”

It was a good thing that all of the Gonzalezes had vacated the 1883 ancestral Gonzalez-Sioco mansion in Barrio Sulipan, Apalit, Pampanga by the time War broke out on 08 December 1941.  It was the one fortuitous result of Lolo Bosto’s 12 July 1939 assassination at the PASUDECO:  there were persistent death threats from the assassins’ families which necessitated the final and irrevocable transfer of the Gonzalez-Escaler and the Gonzalez-Arnedo families to Manila.  It was sheer serendipity for early in 1942, American reconnaissance planes sighted several Japanese Army trucks parked beside the Gonzalez-Sioco mansion and dropped a bomb on it.  They also dropped bombs on the nearby Apalit bridge to block Japanese movement in the area.

Tito Rogie and Tita Luding and their young children had been the last residents [ my father's eldest half brother Rogerio Escaler Gonzalez, his wife Lourdes David Salgado-Palanca, and their elder children Carmelita "Mely," Renato "Ato," Leonides "Leony," and Rogerio Jr. "Jerry." ]  Tito Rogie had supervised the hiding of Lola Florencia’s 1880s “FS” monogrammed Paris porcelain service by Mansard and of Lola Matea’s 1890s ”MR” “Sulipan” Paris porcelain service by Ch. Pillivuyt & Cie. in several Martabana jars, some buried under the house, and the others buried in the garden.  [ After The War, Tito Rogie was able to retrieve much of Lola Florencia's "FS" porcelain service as it was buried under the house, but much of Lola Matea's "MR" "Sulipan" porcelain service, buried in the garden, was destroyed. ]

Also destroyed was the beautiful, nearly-lifesize ivory image of “Santa Maria Magdalena” and its giltwood “carroza,” the most beautiful “paso” during the Holy Week processions in Apalit from the 1880s to the PreWar.

Gone in one swoop were the beautiful collections of the distinguished patriarch, Don Dr. Joaquin Gonzalez de los Angeles y Lopez, who at one time, from the 1870s – 80s, was the country’s preeminent medical doctor [ specialized in ophthalmology in Paris under Dr. Louis de Wecker, who years later mentored Dr. Jose Rizal ] and was one of only two representatives of Pampanga province to the 1898 Malolos Congress [ the other was Don Francisco Rodriguez Ynfante ].  He had an extensive library of leatherbound books from Europe.  The “Sala” living room featured carved and upholstered furniture which he had brought from Europe, as well as religious and secular oil paintings, pairs of large Satsuma porcelain vases from Japan, and chandeliers and lamps of Bohemian crystal.  His “cabecera” dining table for 36 persons featured silver serving pieces and centerpieces from Europe as well as an ornate dinner service of Paris porcelain by the firm of Mansard.  The “capilla” of the mansion [ beside the "escalera principal" staircase ], which doubled as the guest room, was filled with precious ivory “santos”:  several nearly lifesize and many smaller ones in “virinas” glass domes.  His ten sons played and learned useful crafts with European toys and machines.

My father recalled:  “The elders observed that the brusque, rude, and brutal ‘Japanese soldiers’ were often actually Koreans pressed into service in the Japanese Imperial Army.  Many of the genuine Japanese, specially the officers, were actually educated, honorable, and decent individuals.”

ESCALER

During The War, Tito Willy [ Wilfrido Escaler Gonzalez ] was madly in love with the beauteous society belle Emma Benitez of Pagsanjan, Laguna [ she later married the patrician architect Luis Maria Zaragoza Araneta of Calle R. Hidalgo, Manila ].  Believing that the family would be safer in faraway and inaccessible Pagsanjan, he brought most of the Gonzalez-Escaler family there.  He even managed to convince his aged maternal grandmother, Dona Sabina Sioco de Escaler [ o 1858 - + 1950 ], already in her mid-80s, to brave the transfer.  Imagine the sight of the petite octogenarian Dona Sabina Sioco de Escaler — at that time Pampanga’s single richest hacendera — wearing her characteristically patched up skirt and kimona helplessly and pitifully perched on top of various sacks and baskets on a rickety “do – car” [ a horse  - drawn car, whatever that was  ] making her way under the searing summer sun to distant Pagsanjan, Laguna…

During Liberation [ end of February 1945 ], like so many others, Dona Sabina Escaler’s house on Calle Herran corner M.H. del Pilar in Ermita was torched and burned to the ground.  My first cousin Renato “Ato” Palanca Gonzalez vividly remembers that not only was Lola Sabina’s Ermita altar full of antique ivory “santos” in virinas, it also had several nearly lifesize ivory images, since Lola Sabina seemed partial to such devotional articles.  Dona Sabina Sioco de Escaler was a generous benefactress of the Catholic Church.  She was a principal benefactress of the Franciscans in Intramuros;  she was a devotee of San Francisco de Asis and San Antonio de Padua and always contributed generously during their fiestas.  During PostWar, she even sent a large amount in USD $ to Rome for the restoration of a major basilica there.

ARNEDO

My father’s maternal first cousin, Juanito “Ito” Arnedo Ballesteros, recalled:  “I was about eight years old then.  We were at Lola Titay’s house in Sulipan [ the 1848 Arnedo-Sioco ancestral house ] when the Japanese soldiers came.  They gathered most of the barrio people and made everyone kneel down in the big “sala” [ "Salon de Baile" ] as they lectured.  The group was instructed to bow every so often.  I stayed in the small “sala” [ the real "Sala" ] between the bedrooms playing with old wine glasses, pretending they were cars.  After the lecture, everyone was allowed to leave.”

After that, leaving only a couple to keep watch over the house, Lola Titay and Lola Ines and everybody else left the house to seek refuge in relatively inaccessible Barrio Tabuyuc, which was cut off and isolated from the rest of Apalit town by the wide Pampanga River and the absence of bridges.  They were joined there by many Arnedo and Espiritu relatives as the days passed.

The Japanese soldiers took over Lolo Ariong’s house in nearby Barangay Capalangan and made it their garrison [ former Pampanga Governor Macario Arnedo y Sioco ].  The barbaric soldiers ruined much of the furniture and decorative arts collection so zealously gathered by Lola Maruja [ Don Macario's wife Dona Maria Espiritu y Dungo, o 1876 - + 1934 ].  They chopped much of the antique furniture into firewood for their baths;  slashed the ancestral portraits and the paintings;  smashed the chandeliers, mirrors, marble top tables, large vases, and ceramic pedestals;  broke all of Lola Maruja’s treasured bibelots in their vitrines.  The Barrio Capalangan folk liked to laugh among themselves about the “sakang” [ bowlegged ] Japanese soldiers taking their hot baths in “cauas” iron vats and steel drums over bonfires in the big garden of former Governor Arnedo’s residence.

REYES

When the Japanese troops were approaching, the Reyes-Pangan family in Barrio Paralaya [ poblacion ], Arayat, Pampanga, hurriedly evacuated to a relative’s secluded “casa hacienda” plantation house in a barrio of adjacent Candaba town.  My maternal great grandmother, Maria “Bang” Dizon Pangan-Reyes, tasked her eldest grandson [ 15 years old ], my uncle Emilio “Jun” Quiason Reyes Jr., to carry a rolled-up package of “kacha” muslin containing her silver [ solid silver flatware service engraved with "Maria Pangan" for 18 pax ], and instructed him that he was to carry it everywhere they evacuated, that under no circumstances was he to leave it behind.  However much she prized it for sentimental reasons, she knew that it could serve as hard currency for the family should the absolute need arise.

Back in Barrio Paralaya, Arayat, my maternal grandfather Emilio “Miling” Pangan Reyes and his younger brother Benito “Bito” were taken by Japanese soldiers to the garrison along with other male neighbors on suspicion of being guerrillas.  They weren’t, but they were supplying foodstuffs to the Resistance and helping with logistics.  They feared that they would be executed immediately.  During the evenings, several prisoners would be called, provided with spades, marched some distance away, and an hour later gunshots would be heard.  The prisoners were being made to dig their own graves.  Miling’s wife Pacing and her children would often visit a friend’s house overlooking the garrison, tearfully hoping to catch a glimpse of Miling and Bito.  But after a few days, the two brothers were inexplicably released.  Bito wanted to go back and thank the commander for their release, but Miling refused and insisted on going straight home.  Half an hour later, their remaining male neighbors were executed, shot to their deaths.

Miling’s saintly wife, Paz “Pacing” Aguilar Quiason, occupied herself with the secondhand goods trade in Arayat town.  Along with her young children, she unraveled new “de hilo” cotton material, as well as old clothes and old textiles for their threads, spooled them together, and sold them at the market.  She also rolled cigarettes.  Dealing in used merchandise, Pacing made a decent living throughout The War, although she suffered greatly healthwise from its privations.  She died of cancer of the sinus in 1949.

Miling had promised his pretty eldest daughter Felicisima “Sis” that if she learned the piano accompaniment to her eldest brother Emilio Jr.’s “Jun’s” violin piece, he would reward her with a trip to Manila to visit his only sister Piciang Reyes-Berenguer and her daughters Paquing, Chang, Blanding, and Ched.  Sis did learn the piano accompaniment quickly.  As promised, they set out for Manila…  They rode in the front of a truck filled with cavans of rice for delivery covered by a tarpaulin.  Hours later at nightfall, at a checkpoint in Caloocan, they were stopped by the Japanese soldiers and ordered to disembark.  The soldiers did the same with all the other arriving vehicles.  The Japanese soldiers ordered the men and the boys separated from the women and the girls.  Feisty Miling, a truly fearless man, absolutely refused to be separated from his distraught daughter and threatened to engage the soldiers in a fistfight to the finish.  The soldiers relented and allowed Miling and his daughter to walk away.  Miling later told his daughter Sis that he had been ready to die at that moment rather than give her up without a good, honorable fight.  Afterwards, with no transportation to Manila, Miling and Sis spent the night under a “santol” tree some distance away from the road.  He could only imagine what had happened to the hapless women and the girls separated from the men and the boys by the Japanese soldiers that evening.

Miling and Bito had a widowed sister, Simplicia “Piciang” [ Mrs. Adolfo Linares Berenguer ], who, at 41 years old, was  between them in age.  She had stayed in Manila with her four daughters Francisca “Paquing” [ 20 years old ], Josefina “Chang,” Blandina “Blanding,” and Mercedes “Ched” [ 11 years old ].  Despite Miling’s repeated pleadings that his two younger siblings and their families finally come home to distant Arayat, Pampanga, Piciang and Bito chose to remain in Manila, insisting that it was safe because it was an “Open City.”  Miling countered:  “If Manila is indeed an ‘Open City’ and safe, and that the hospitals will not be attacked… how come most of the Japanese soldiers are concentrated in Manila, and how come they are also in the hospitals???!!!”  Piciang and Bito were unconvinced.  Miling forthwith took his remaining family to Arayat and thus fortunately escaped the Holocaust, which many people had not foreseen.

During Liberation in late February of 1945, as the Americans bombed all the bridges spanning the Pasig River, Piciang was separated from her daughters Paquing and Ched as she was in Sampaloc while the two were temporarily quartered at the PGH Philippine General Hospital.  During the shelling, an incendiary bomb landed in the ward and exploded between Paquing and her first cousin Berting.  Both Paquing and Berting were almost killed and sustained serious, third degree burns.  Paquing was also hit by shrapnel at the side of her head and Ched was hit by shrapnel on one leg.  Both almost bled to death but survived.  The courageous Piciang, desperately wanting to be reunited with her daughters [ and wearing a memorable flaming orange pantsuit made of US Army material ], crossed the Pasig River on pontoon bridges with the American soldiers, rescued a live baby she found by the wayside, and rode in a tank towards PGH amidst Japanese snipers who were shooting relentlessly, where she found her daughters severely injured and in extreme pain but thankfully alive.

In their own words:

“All cars had been confiscated;  all car registrations had been cancelled.  One had to do with a ‘do – car,’ a car body pulled by a horse, or a horse – drawn car body, whichever way you put it, which was nevertheless a luxury during the war.”

“We were making cigarettes and selling them in front of our house along Taft Avenue, right in front of PGH, to augment the household income.”

“Mama operated the ‘Varsity Ladies Hall’ which catered mainly to UP students.”

“During the last days before Liberation, inflation hit the roof!!!  We needed sacks of money, literally sacks of it, to go to the public market.  To buy a bunch of kangkong, one needed 12″ inches — one foot — thick of money!!!”

“We transferred to the PGH, even if we just lived right across Taft Avenue, because one day that early February, one of the six Japanese officers occupying the upper floor of our house told Tata Bito:  “Bito!  Bito!  I take all of you to hospital… now!!!”  Those Japanese officers had been kind to us because they said they too had children back in Japan.  So all of us hurriedly gathered some belongings — rice, canned goods, clothes, shoes, books — and waited for his signal.  Waving a white flag, I cannot remember if it was a Japanese flag, shouting Japanese and constantly making signals in all directions, he led us across Taft Avenue which simply couldn’t be crossed because of the Japanese snipers.  We made our way, jumping over the many dead and decaying bodies which littered both lanes of Taft Avenue.  That was unforgettable!!!  He led us inside the hospital and endorsed us to some people there.  We knew that we would be safe at the PGH because hospitals were no-fire zones.  He did not say goodbye and we never, ever saw him again.  That Japanese officer saved our lives.”

“We actually enjoyed our first days at the PGH.  There were so many people we knew and there was a sense of community.  It was fun!!!  But then the burning began…  when the nearby Ateneo was burning it was so bright at night that we could actually read our books, something which we had not been able to do for a long time because there was no more electricity.  PGH was finally closed off:  no one could enter but then no one could also leave.  We had no idea then that the plan was really to kill everyone inside the compound.  Then the situation really deteriorated:  there was the artesian well at the back of the PGH compound where everyone drew their water… it came to the point that the people going there were being killed too, shot to death.  It all became absolutely dreadful… the ones looking out the windows reported that the people in the streets were already being killed.  Frightening!!!”

“That horrible day was 11 February 1945, the feast day of Our Lady of Lourdes…  We had already been in a ward at the ground floor of the PGH for a week.  We had attended the Holy Mass at 7:00 a.m. at another ward.  We had returned to our ward by 8:00 a.m..  Dionisio the cook and the houseboys were preparing breakfast at an improvised kitchen in the garden.  Suddenly, there were loud explosions and it all became as dark as night!!!  We couldn’t see anything so we were screaming, shouting, and running in circles inside the ward.  Tia Loleng [ Tata Bito's wife ] was hysterical.  The glass windows were all shattering, starting with the clerestory ones at the top of the room.  Then something exploded inside the room!!!  But we were all in shock that we didn’t know what had happened, we just kept running about.  It turned out it was an incendiary bomb fired by the Americans, and everyone in the room was hit by shrapnel!!!”

Paquing recalled:  “It turned out that the incendiary bomb had exploded between me and Berting!!!  I was already burning, but I didn’t know…  The moment Tata Bito and the men saw me, they shouted:  “Nasusunog ka!!!”  They immediately pushed me to the floor and rolled me around and around to put out the fire and then wrapped me in blankets and mattresses, mattresses and blankets and everything else they could get their hands on.”

Ched remembered:  “I was hit by shrapnel — a metal disk bigger than a dinner plate — and it lodged between my stomach and my right leg.  But I also didn’t know…  I was still running.  An old American man, a patient, saw me and just stared at the metal jutting out from my body.  I just sat down on a chair because I was so tired.”

“Dionisio the cook was killed by the shelling.  He was found dismembered later that day.  The other houseboys must have been killed too, because they never turned up again.”

Paquing recalled:  “I was burned badly;  I was black as soot and crisp as a ‘lechon’.  You could knock on my skin and it felt like wood.”

Ched:  “After we were injured, we were put to rest on stretchers by the doctors.  But as the shelling continued, our loyal houseboys hurriedly carried us from ward to ward, wherever there were less explosions.  During shelling, they would voluntarily lie facedown on top of us to protect us from the debris and shrapnel!!!  Unfortunately, they too were killed during the shelling.”

QUIASON

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