Makati, Philippines – The Ayala Museum opened its doors to the media today to commemorate the 70th Anniversary of our Freedom after the Japanese invasion in 1945, during the World War 2. It was known as the “Second War” which was a global war that lasted for six long years.
It involved the vast majority of the world’s nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. It was the most widespread war in history, and directly involved more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. In a state of “total war”, the major participants threw their entire economic, industrial and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, erasing the distinction between civilian and military resources. The Empire of Japan aimed to dominate Asia and the Pacific and was already at war with the Republic of China in 1937,but the world war is generally said to have begun on 1 September 1939 with the invasion of Poland by Germany and subsequent declarations of war on Germany by France and the United Kingdom.
Japan has colonized the Philippines during this period and many filipinos had suffered a lot from starvation, became rape victims, prisoners in our Country.
Retired Col. Emmanuel V. De Ocampo, President of the Veterans Association of the Philippines, narrates his story during the War when he headed the command of the ROTC Hunters, a group of young men who were trained to combat the incoming Japanese Army.
He and his team was stationed to cover the territory down South from Laguna, Quezon and Batangas. He recalls and told the story that they travelled by foot from Quezon to Batangas, then also Laguna until the boundary of Rizal. Since the country is poor and unprepared, they had no means of transportation.
The ROTC trainees, he says were just kids, 17 to 19 years of age, and was trained to fight war only for 5 months. And he notes that during the whole period, a trainee was only able to fire 5 bullets. How can you make sharp shooters out of that, kiddingly Col. de Ocampo says.
There were also 2 other foreign nationals who narrated their story during their childhood when the University of Santo Tomas was also used as a prison camp for the sick and how the Japanese soldiers maltreated our fellow filipinos.
A filipino photographer also shares his discoveries of what was pre-war, how the Philippines looked like from a Leica lens photographer, as he shows some of his collections of black and white photos. It was hard for Filipinos to have covered the war before since Leica was a very expensive german camera, and second, film was not allowed to be sold in the Philippines during the war.
As Col. de Ocampo parts his last words on the event, the Filipinos don’t want any foreign country over us, “Touch us and we’ll fight until the last drop of blood falls”.
