Quirino's pardon for WWII Japanese prisoner of wars commemorated on its 70th year

MANILA, Philippines — The Embassy of Japan, led by Ambassador Kazuhiko Koshikawa, on Thursday, marked the 70th anniversary of former president Elpidio Quirino's grant to pardon more than a hundred Japanese prisoners of war (POW) from World War II with a series of ceremonies and programs.

A wreath-laying ceremony was held in front of the grave of Quirino at the Libingan ng mga Bayani in Fort Bonifacio, Taguig City, attended by Japanese and Filipino officials.

The Japanese Embassy also held a program at the Museo ng Muntinlupa, in Muntinlupa City, the location where the Japanese war criminals served their sentences in the 1950s.

Titled "Peace for the Future," the program highlighted the historic gesture of Quirino in 1953.

The descendants of former president Quirino and Tatsuo Kono, the military painter who relentlessly pleaded for clemency, graced the event. 

Koshikawa said that the trusting relationship between Japan and the Philippines would have been impossible without Quirino's amnesty.

The envoy also said that the pardon served as a crucial catalyst for the restoration of diplomatic ties between Japan and the Philippines in July 1956.

"At the time, many Japanese people expressed their profound gratitude for his compassionate gesture which had a decisive and lasting impact on our bilateral ties," Koshikawa said in his speech.

An excerpt from Quirino's 1953 extension of pardon states that his decision is "an act of faith to humanity," affirming that love of one's fellow creatures would always be the supreme law between people and nations, and the basis of world peace.

"I should be the last one to pardon them as the Japanese killed my wife and three children and five other members of the family," Quirino stated in his proclamation.

"I am doing this because I do not want my children and my people to inherit from [my] hate for people who might yet be our friends for the permanent interest of the country," he added.

Koshikawa claimed that 80% of Filipinos now have a positive opinion of Japan and that many of them trust it.

In a move to strengthen the ties between Japan and the Philippines, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida in a summit meeting last February agreed to advance cooperation in the economy, security and people-to-people exchanges. —Intern, Bless Aubrey Ogerio