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World War II Pacific Theater: the Philippines Japanese occupation -- Filipino Reaction
World War II: The Philippines--Filipino Reactionn
Figure 1.--As with many photographs we are left to intrpret this image. We have seen many pohotograohs of Ameucan servicemaeb with fireign childre, Even in Japana and Germany after the War, both the chilldren and the American soldiers seemn to be enjoying the experience and there is interaction between them. We see none of that here. It is almost as if they were on two separate plannets. No one seem to be enjoyinhg the experience or even reognizing each others presence. In this case we actually have caption. The Japanese officer here, perhaps an appentuce officer, actually wrote a caption oin the back which unfortunately we cannot read. The Japanese and Germand committed terrible atricities in the occuoied territirties. German letters home refer to some of them. As far as we know, the Japanese doldierrd never mentioned what they were doing. The Japanese people unlike the German peopole had no inkling of the terribnle atrocities being committed in their name.
The Japanese puppet regime generated little support among the Filipino people. This is difficult bto assess with any surity. There were no public opinion polls at the time. And any one with any sence would not publically state that they did not like the Japanese and preferred the Americans. It appears that many members of the Filipino elite collaborted with the Japanese. This is basically understandable. If you owned subsatntial property, you had a lot to lose if you did not at least feign support. And unlike average Filipinos, they could afford to buy black market food. As far as we can tell, however, most Filipinos came to resent the Japanese occupation. This was largely because of the behavior of the Japanese occuption troops. First there were few constraints on the behavior of Japanese soldiers. They could rape and pillage without any consequence. We know of no Japanese proceution of soldiers for misconduct. Japanese atrocities against Filpino civilians are well documented. Over 130,000 murders of Filipino civioans were documented after liberation. [Rottman, p. 318] There is every reason to believe that more were undocumented. Such widespead attricities could not help but affect attitudes toward the Japanese.
Second, more than 1,000 women throughout the Philippines, many still teenafers, were forced into prostitution as 'comfort women'--sexual slvery. This was a standard, well doumented practice by the Japanese Army in occupied areas. They were imprisoned in the comfort stations near militry bases to which the Japanese soldiers had access. [Mosbergen] Every Japanese military installation of any importance had a comfort station where women were held against their will. [Yap] One factor here was that Japanese conscripts were not paid enough to be able to afford prostitutes. One of these comfort stations have been described in detail--Bahay na Pula. [McMullen]
Third, Japanese economic policies resulted in food shortages that aadversely impacted the Filipino people, especially the urban population which had to resort to the developing black market. This hit the urban poor very hard. This was in sharp contrast to the situation during the American period.
Fourth, because of the food shortages, the Japanese Army began forays in the country side and seized food from the rural peasantry. Anyone who resisted was shot.
Fifth, the Japanese Army food forays into the countryside of course only caused more severe food shoerrtages. Who was going to plant and cultivate crops if the Japanese were just going to seize it. Many farmers resorted to subsistence farming.
Sixth, we have seen comments like 'most Filipinos remained loyal to the United States'. We are unsure how to measure and confirm this. We do know that as a result of the American occupation that the Philippines had a public health system and was the oly country in Asia, other than Japan, that had a free public education system. And notably the Filipinos showed mo interest in learning Japanese.
Seventh, the strength of the Filipino resisistance is one indicator of Filipino trust and loyalty to the Americans. Despite the seemingly decisive defeat of the Americans. There is no indication that the Filipino took to the Japanese to any extent. Eighth, we are not sure about the effectiveness of Japanese propagnda, especially the offer of independence. Some may well have belived it. But the Americans had already committed to real independence in 1943. It did not take long after the Japanese invasion for most Filipinos to become mistrustful. They already had home rule under the Americans and the Japanese took that and the the rule of law away.
Sources
McMullen, Jane. "The house where the Philippines' forgotten 'comfort women' were held". BBC Our World. BBC News. (June 17, 2016).
Mosbergen, Dominique (29 August 2017). "Harrowing story of Filipina women enslaved in Japan's wartime rape camps," Huffington Post (August 29, 2017).
Rottman, Gordon L. World War 2 Pacific Island Guide (Greenwood Publishing Group: 2002).
Yap, DJ. "PH comfort women remember the horror," Philippine Daily Inquirer (January 29, 2016).
