Long afterward, war still wears on Filipinos

By Carlos H. Conde
International Herald Tribune
Published:: Aug. 13, 2005

MAPANIQUE, Philippines: On Nov. 23, 1944, Japanese soldiers stormed through this village, burning down houses and killing all the Filipino men they could find. They then herded dozens of women to a red mansion that had been turned into a garrison.

There, the soldiers took turns violating the Filipinas; they raped a mother and her daughter at the same time in one of the many rooms.

To this day, the women of Mapanique – many of those still alive are now in their 70s – talk about their ordeal with chilling clarity.

“I will never forget that horrible day,” said Maxima dela Cruz, 76, one of the survivors.

In other countries, remembering the atrocities of Japan is a matter of honor. In this village about 60 kilometers, or 37 miles, north of Manila, remembrance is at once cruel and bitterly ironic: Dozens of relatives of the women raped in the red mansion, many of them grandchildren, are toiling today in Japan – in its tofu factories, on its construction sites and in its homes.

In many instances – and this is what the survivors find particularly outrageous – they work there as entertainers, which is often a euphemism for prostitution.

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