Agapito del Rosario: An unheralded WWII hero (6)

While he was detained at Fort Santiago, Pitong became friends with one of his Japanese prison guards, a certain Lieutenant Iwaoka. Though many of the Japanese soldiers stationed at Fort Santiago were brutal and beastly, a few of them were decent and honorable. Iwaoka was one of those rare Japanese soldiers who treated their prisoners humanely.

In late March 1942, Iwaoka paid a visit to the Abad Santos family home along Vermont Street in Malate. He had bad news to bring to Felicidad. Iwaoka handed over a note to Felicidad which, very briefly, described how Pitong met his death.

According to Iwaoka, while Pitong was being interrogated by Japanese soldiers at the Luneta Hotel, he tried to escape from his captors by jumping from the third floor of the building. The architectural design of the Luneta Hotel was such that it had high ceilings, so its third floor is roughly the equivalent of the fourth or fifth floors of today’s modern buildings.

Based on existing historical accounts, it appeared that Pitong jumped out of the third floor of the Luneta Hotel after the Japanese, realizing that they could not get any vital information from him, decided that he should be executed by beheading.

No further details about his death were provided by Iwaoka to Felicidad, particularly if he even survived his fall.

Luis Taruc autobiography

“Born of the People”, the autobiography of Central Luzon communist leader Luis Taruc, published in 1953, and widely believed to have been ghostwritten by the noted American communist writer William Pomeroy (who lived in the Philippines for some time) bears this account of Pitong’s, according to the book “Lost Graves, Found Lives”.

“Brought to the Manila Hotel for questioning, he (Del Rosario) could see from the window the statue of Rizal on the Luneta. He made his decision then. He pretended that he wished to urinate. When the guards brought him into the hall, he broke from them and jumped to the pavement from the fourth-story window. The fall failed to kill him. Later, in the hospital, (his uncle) Pedro Abad Santos had an opportunity to speak to him. ‘I could not help myself,’ he said from his pillow. ‘I hate them so completely that I would rather take my own life than be touched by the dirty hands of the fascists. Del Rosario was taken from his hospital bed and shot.”

It is not clear why the foregoing quote, lifted verbatim from the book “Lost Graves, Found Lives”, mentions the Manila Hotel instead of the Luneta Hotel. Although both hotels have a view of the Rizal Monument, the Luneta Hotel provides a more proximate one.

Jose Abad Santos biography

“Honor: The Legacy of Jose Abad Santos”, a biography about Pitong’s uncle, Supreme Court Chief Justice Jose Abad Santos, the Filipino nationalist who was executed by the Japanese in May 1942 for his adamant refusal to collaborate with them, contains the following very brief passage about Pitong’s fate.

“Some people say he committed suicide by jumping out of the third-floor window because of the relentless beatings and tortures, others thought he was pushed out by his torturers in anger, for he was hostile to them until the very end.”

In summary, the aforesaid biography of Jose Abad Santos states that there are only two possible causes for Pitong’s death — either he deliberately killed himself by jumping out of the third floor of a building, or the Japanese soldiers who were torturing him were angry with him and, therefore, pushed him out the window of a building.

Surprisingly, the said passage does not mention the Luneta Hotel, but merely a nameless building. (To be continued)