Remembering the evils of war through a peace memorial

ICOVERED and documented the 50th Anni versary of the end of World War II with the theme of “Never Again” in 1995. I was then with the Philippine Information Agency and my wife who was the youngest regional agency head at that time was on top of the program particularly the exhibit in Baguio that was attended by war veterans including the late Air Force General Ernesto Bueno and our former boss B/Gen. Honesto Isleta who saw action in Vietnam. Ageing American and Japanese former enemies also came and I even took photos of them together with Baguio’s local hero, Col. Francisco Paraan planting trees at the Pine Trees of the World Garden which is located a few meters away from a Japanese Friendship Shrine.

Today, because of health protocols and travel restrictions caused by the pandemic, the 75th anniversary of the end of WW2 this year is passing by without much fanfare plus the fact that the remaining old folks who witnessed the war are no longer around and the living few who are in their twilight years are discouraged to leave their homes.

As of this writing in Baguio, the Jesuits of Mirador Hill are mounting a Memorial Shrine and is expected to be completed this December 2020 to also commemorate the explosion of the atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima on 6 August and of Nagasaki on 9 August 1945.

It can be recalled that on Sep. 2, 1945, Gen. Tomoyuki Yamashita was captured at Kiangan, Ifugao then transported to Baguio on the following day for the signing of the instrument of surrender. According to Fr. Jose Quilongquilong, the memorial shrine will serve as a reminder of that war by putting to peaceful and even spiritual use the pair of bells that was made out of an unexploded and neutralized American bomb dropped on Mirador in 1945.

According to accounts, the Japanese troops that had occupied Mirador’s St. Joseph Villa set up artillery to fire at advancing troops going up via Naguilian. But that never happened because Gen. Yamashita ordered his troops to move north toward Bontoc where they would make their last stand. Most likely, not knowing Mirador was unoccupied, Americans dropped bombs nonetheless, thus obliterating the empty 1907 villa built by the Spanish Jesuits.

Since the 1950s, the two halves of the unexploded bomb hung along Mirador Jesuit Villa’s corridor, rang to call the Jesuits from China to class and prayers. Refugees from the Communist take- over of China, the expelled Jesuits found refuge in the Philippines where they set up Bellarmine College in Baguio for the scholastics. They were in Baguio from 1951 to 1967. At their departure, the bells were rung as signals for Mass and for the assembly of retreatants for meetings and conferences.

One of the bells still hangs along the corridor, but one, the front end of the bomb, where the detonator would be, is now hanging in Mirador’s Peace Memorial. It hangs under a Torii gate inspired mount, which faces west toward the lowland and Lingayen where USAFFE troops landed in 1945. Recently after a mass at the Mirador chapel, Mayor Benjie Magalong carried my grandson Akiboy so the boy could toll the bell.

I reserved a small corner at my media newseum to showcase WW2 mementos and artifacts. I have over the years collected war relics like metal helmets, flags, bayonets, shells of various ammunitions and added a locally made katana, a Japanese sword to add to my presentation.