OLA: Reliving WWII in the Philippines

sunset over the Bataan Peninsula from Battery Grubbs in Corregidor Island

monkeys by the road in Subic

At the end of the Spanish-American War in 1898, Spain ceded the Philippines to the US.  The US then built three major military bases in the country: Subic Naval Base in Zambales, Clark Air Force Base in Pampanga, and Fort Mills in Corregidor. The islands became a major battlefront in the Pacific during WWII. For a Filipino-American couple like Bill and me, this piece of history takes on a significance of more than double proportions. This was how we relived WWII in my home country.

During Bill’s first visit to the Philippines early in 2009 after our wedding, I took him to Subic and Clark.

my friend's  home, a former officer's house in Subic

Subic Base, now a major ship-repair, supply, and rest and recreation facility of the US Navy, was the largest overseas military installation of the United States Armed Forces after Clark Air Base.  Since the bases turnover to the Philippine government in 1991, it has become an industrial park, a tourist resort, and a residential haven.

One of my friends who is also married to an American now lives in a great former officer’s home for a mere $50,000 long-term lease. She works for the Chairman of the Subic Bay Development Corporation which manages the area. The tourist duty-free shops still operate and offer many a bargain, the beaches still look very inviting, and the hills offer good jungle trips.  Regularly, planeloads of Asians are brought to its casinos for a gambling weekend.

Clark International Airport

Goddess of Peace facing Japan
a similar one is in Corregidor

When we went to HongKong, we departed from the Clark International Airport. Unlike Subic, it looked like Clark was dying. But, since the plan to build a major airport (the bus trip to and from Manila was 1 ½ hour-long) had materialized, it has had a rebirth, especially with the base's extensive facilities and land (14.3 sq mi with a military reservation extending north at another 230 sq mi). The base was a stronghold of the combined Filipino and American forces and was a backbone of logistical support during the Vietnam War. In fact, Bill was able to fly a plane with a trainer of a Clark flying school.

an Aeta hut at The Villages

a cow being butchered in the fields

We had a few hours before boarding our plane, so we hired a van to take us around. At the time we found some areas to explore. We discovered a lonely Goddess of Peace memorial from Japan and an empty Expo Center, a former project of President Ramos. But since then Clark Freeport Zone has grown. It was our tour of the Villages, home of the native Aetas in the surrounding hills, that became a highlight. We witnessed wedding rituals, including a cow being butchered.

empty Centennial Expo

Coming back from HongKong, we stayed in Clark for the night, and my girlfriends picked us up. We first had the famous pizzaninis at C! and then took the SCTEX, the new interchange connecting Subic and Clark, and proceeded to Montemar Beach Resort in Mariveles, Bataan, where one of them is a member., It is a beautiful exclusive beach resort from where we were even able to watch the Pacquiao-Mosley fight.

km 00 of the Death March in Mariveles

On Dec. 7, 1941, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Four months after, Bataan fell to the Japanese.  75,000 Fil-Am soldiers were forcibly transferred to the POW camp in Capas, Tarlac. The 60 mi Death March resulted in very high fatalities inflicted upon prisoners and civilians alike and was later judged by an Allied military commission to be a Japanese war crime.

Las Casas Filipinas in Acuzar

It started in Mariveles near Montemar and markers are regularly placed on the road retracing the infamous route. On the way there, we paid tribute to Filipino heroes at Mt. Samat, the huge cross on top of the mountain, a memorial to those who suffered in the march.  In Acuzar, a town before Mariveles is Las Casas Filipinas (Philippine Houses) by the sea, a neat cluster of restored ancestral Filipino homes brought there piece by piece. 

water bikes in Montemar

hydrofoil and tramvias in Corregidor

On our second trip to the Philippines, I took Bill to Corregidor Island at the mouth of Manila Bay. This is why the Americans were prompted to make it an ‘impregnable fortress’.

During World War II, Corregidor played a significant role during the invasion and liberation of the Philippines from Japanese forces. The hydrofoil trip to the island took just 1 ½ hours from the Folk Arts Theatre area in the reclaimed land on Manila Bay.  Colorful tramvias, replicas of the old trollies, took us around the island.

ghost of Mile-Long Barracks

MacArthur's I Shall Return

The skeleton of heavily bombed Mile-long Barracks (the longest single military barracks in the world housing 8,000 soldiers) and the remains of the cross-shaped Hospital which the Japanese destroyed despite war treaties were spectacles of the gruesome battle that lasted five months. And the fitting tributes to the brave soldiers are many…the Pacific War Memorial (with its altar and Eternal Flame), the Filipino Heroes Memorial with 14 murals of Philippine history, and a statue of Gen. Macarthur who escaped to Australia where he declared, ‘I shall return’. Corregidor was retaken 3 years after.

Malinta Tunnel from our room at Corregidor Inn

air passages for a lateral

The Malinta Tunnel Night Tour is the most descriptive of the life of soldiers on the fortress. It is a 2.5-mile network of laterals on Malinta (full of leeches) Hill.  At times bending low to pass through narrower sub-laterals, we experienced utter darkness, felt whiffs of cooler air from the air passages, visited the 1,000 bed hospital that replaced the destroyed hospital outside, and retraced the escape route of Gen. MacArthur, the quarters of President Quezon, the petroleum storage facilities, the quarters, and even the femur bone of a Japanese soldier. 

     

the largest battery in the island

These two trips reminded us again of the closeness of Filipino-American relations. It also gave me memories of my father who fought with Americans and my mother, who was a Philippine-US government scholar to improve the education of the deaf in the Philippines and who learned Japanese to interpret for the Fil-Am soldiers. Taking this trip with Bill, my American husband made it doubly significant. Before the second trip, I became an American citizen. They became more than doubly significant.