Removal of ‘comfort women’ statue opposed

A PURPORTED plan by the Philippine government to remove a statue honoring “comfort women” along Roxas Boulevard in Manila supposedly at the request of the Japanese government earned more critics at the Kamuning Bakery’s Pandesal Forum on Thursday.

The Gabriella party- list said taking down the statue would not make the “comfort women” issue go away.

“The issue of the ‘ comfort women’ is an issue of human rights. We denounce the resurgent militarism and fascist restoration in the Japanese goverment that is bent on erasing the memory of our ‘comfort women,’ to the extent of blackmailing goverments with sanctions over the emergence of the memorial statue,” Joms Salvador, Gabriela’s secretary general, told the press at the forum.

Salvador and Gabriela partylist Rep. Arlene Brosas said Japa diplomats in an attempt to gloss over the organized rape of Filipino women by Japanese troops in the Second World War.

“Japan made their comfort zones in many places in the country, taking our lolas [grandmothers] as their sex slaves. The significance of that statue is our stand against that atrocities [ committed against] our ‘ comfort women.’ We are a nation victimized by that dark period through systematic violence,” Brosas added.

“If Japan really wants this issue to be settled and help us all move on forward, it should of state-sponsored sexual slavery and apologize to the victims. Raising petty issues about statues won’t make this issue go away,” Salvador said.

“There’s no quest for justice if there were no atrocities committed then,” she added.

Out of the hundreds of Filipino comfort women in the last war, only 20 of them are still alive and aged 80 and above, according to Gabriela records.

actively pleading for justice.

All 20, however, are challenging President Rodrigo Duterte to demand a thorough apology, reparations and recognition from Japan through their movement Lila Pilipina that works with Gabriela and other women’s organizations.