Declare ‘Bahay na Pula’ as official WWII memorial

“At nang magsawa na kami’y pinawalan, Halos ang hininga’y ibig nang pumanaw. Sa laki ng hirap na pinagdaanan, Sira na ang isip pati na katawan.”

89-year  old Lola Maria Quilantang led in singing  the 18 stanzas of the  song of the Malaya Lolas  in the style of “pangangaluluwa,” hymn-offerings to the dead.

The Malaya Lolas is associated with the “Bahay na Pula” located in  San Ildefonso, Bulacan, which I first saw on July 2019 after  our Flowers for Lolas group visited them in Mapaniqui, Candaba, Pampanga. My second visit was this month or six years  later.

The Bahay na Pula in San Ildefonso, Bulacan, with its red  walls almost gone,  still   stands as   a house with a dark and  painful history.

Built in 1929, it is a big, ancient two-floor house owned by the Ilusorio family standing solitary on a  hacienda with tall, huge tamarind, camachile and duhat trees that  grew around it

It was made largely out of wood and painted red on the outside, giving it its name.

In November  23, 1944,  the Imperial Japanese Army  attacked Mapaniqui in Candaba, Pampanga a suspected bailiwick of Hukbo ng Bayan Laban sa Hapon (HukBaLaHap).

Communities were bombed, houses were looted and burned.

Women were forced to watch under the sun   the men and boys being  publicly tortured, mutilated, and slaughtered by the Japanese army. Their sexual organs were severed and forced  into the mouths of the victims. When the massacre was over, the corpses were thrown into a large pit and set ablaze.

The women were then  ordered to walk  to the Bahay na Pula in San Ildefonso, Bulacan which became a barracks  where they  became victims of military sexual violence and slavery.

Upon reaching the mansion, the soldiers dragged the women, ranging from 13 to early 20s, into dark rooms and took turns raping them.

Japanese soldiers systematically raped the women as part of the destruction of the village.

Some of the women were taken to San Miguel, Bulacan where they were imprisoned   for at least three months at the “comfort stations.”

As a result of the actions of their Japanese tormentors, the victims  have spent their lives in misery, having endured physical injuries, pain and disability, and mental and emotional suffering.

The Malaya Lolas was  established in August 1996 four years after Maria Rosa Luna Henson made public her ordeal as a “comfort woman.”

Death has thinned the ranks of members of Malaya Lola in the last 30 years. Only 18 now survive from their original number of 96.

With seven other members of Lila Filipina, there are only 25 surviving comfort women and victims of sexual abuse during the Japanese occupation.

About 200,000 women from Korea, China, Burma, New Guinea, and the Philippines were held in captivity and raped as part of one of the largest operations of sexual violence in modern history.

On March 8, 2023, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) released on International Women’s Day a decision which found that the “Philippines violated the rights of victims of sexual slavery perpetrated by the Imperial Japanese Army during the Second World War by failing to provide reparation, social support and recognition commensurate with the harm suffered.”

The CEDAW Committee pointed out that the Philippine government had failed to adopt appropriate legislative and other measures to prohibit all discrimination against women and protect women’s rights on an equal basis with men.

It noted that while Philippine war veterans, who are mostly men, are entitled to special and esteemed treatment from the government, such as health care benefits, old age, disability and death pensions, there was no such action with the comfort women

The Committee recommended that the victims must be provided with “full reparation, including recognition and redress, an official apology, and material and moral damages” proportionate to the physical, psychological, and material damage suffered by them and the gravity of the violation of their rights experienced.

Comfort women advocates Flowers for Lolas, Lila Filipina and Malaya Lolas supported the CEDAW recommendation on the preservation of Bahay na Pula, or the establishment of another space to commemorate the suffering of the victims and honor their struggle for justice.

The  dwindling number of survivors highlights the urgency of achieving a formal, unequivocal apology and appropriate compensation from Japan and ensuring accurate historical inclusion while the survivors’ voices can still be heard.

Until then, the Malaya Lolas will continue singing their song: “Kay lungkot aming kasaysayan. Panahon ng Hapon aming karanasan.  Aming katarungan inyong panagutan. Bigyan lunas dinanas na buhay.”