This year marks the 50th anniversary since the Philippines renewed diplomatic relations with former World War II conqueror Japan, a milestone recently marked by the successful visit of Japanese Foreign Minister Taro Aso and a series of cultural events ranging from the recent tour of Honda Car’s Asimo robot, a Haiku poetry contest, the August 19-21 Kobudo Japanese martial arts demo in Davao City, the October 24 Toyota classic concert with Nagoya Philharmonic Orchestra, and many others. There are now 60 Japanese youths here as Japan Overseas Cooperation Volunteers (JOCV) – the Japanese version of the US Peace Corps. The Philippines has hosted the largest number of JOCVs in the world.
During his visit last month, Foreign Minister Taro Aso said: "It is my greatest pleasure to speak before you today on this historic day of friendship between our two nations. Since becoming Japan’s Foreign Minister nine months ago, I have given many speeches – some on Japan’s Asia policies and others on global diplomacy – in and out of Japan. But I have never felt as honored as I feel now, standing before you here in Manila. I feel solemn as we, the Japanese and the Filipinos, look back on the past and together envision the road ahead. After all, it was in this country that the history of the 20th century played out one of its most tragic chapters, with my country as your main adversary. Nonetheless, it was also here that Japan’s post-war initiatives were warmly received, her past forgiven, if not forgotten… You appreciate present-day Japan as a nation that values democracy, freedom and respect for basic human rights. You take a future-oriented attitude towards the relations between our two nations…"
Japan should rightly be grateful for the forgiveness that most people in Philippine society have towards its bloody World War II past here in our archipelago, despite the fact that even Westerners have not been totally satisfied with Japan’s wartime apology which wasn’t the same as that issued by Germany in the same war. The British magazine The Economist reported in its July 1, 2006 issue that US House International Relations Committee Chairman and war veteran Henry Hyde wrote to the speaker of the US Congress saying it was inappropriate for outgoing Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi to be invited this year to address the US joint session of Congress standing at the same podium once used by wartime US President Franklin Roosevelt, especially if Koizumi makes good on his public pledge to visit the controversial Yasukuni Shrine on August 15 which is the anniversary of his nation’s 1945 defeat. While in power, Koizumi made five controversial visits to this Shinto shrine which honors Japan’s 2.5 million war dead, including 14 Class A war criminals.
Opinion polls in Japan recently showed a drop in support for politicians’ visits to the shrine after reports last month revealed that the late wartime Emperor Hirohito himself shunned going there because it honored the war criminals. Reports say that Foreign Minister Taro Aso, who is a possible prime minister candidate, also might propose taking away Yasukuni’s religious corporation status so that the government can remove the names of Class-A war criminals from the shrine. Shinzo Abe is the leading contender to succeed Prime Minister Koizumi and he supports officials visiting the shrine. Abe’s rival Finance Minister Sadakazu Tanigaki, who is not as popular in polls, has said he would not go to the Yasukuni shrine as prime minister in order to repair relations with neighboring countries South Korea and China. He even publicly criticized Abe’s stand on officials visiting the shrine.
Japan has emerged as a positive force for good in Asia, with a constitutional democracy, but I recommend that this nation should go further by studying why the Europeans have far better relations with former war aggressor Germany compared to East Asians and Japan. Unlike Japan, Germany officially apologized for wartime atrocities against Jews and European nations, and paid much larger compensations to nations and to individuals who were victims. Starting in 1958, the German state prosecuted 100,000 war criminals over the years, and ensured that school textbooks would clearly reflect Germany’s war guilt. The German state even financed a Holocaust museum in its capital Berlin for the sake of history. In December 1970, then German leader Willy Brandt traveled to Poland to sign a friendship treaty and he spontaneously fell to his knees as he laid a wreath at the memorial for the Jews massacred in 1943 by German SS units in the Warsaw Ghetto. The Germans as a state and as a people have courageously and humbly come to terms with their dark wartime past, thus ultimately liberating them and allowing them to build a greater future with the rest of Europe as their true friends. Japan can emulate Germany.
The Japanese people have done work to repair ties with Asians, but the state has sadly refused to officially compensate individual victims, such as the 200,000 so-called "Comfort Women" all over Asia who were abused by Japanese soldiers. Japan had for a long time refused to even acknowledge their existence, until 1993. Up to this day, those comfort women still seek a public apology and public compensation, refusing a private Japanese firm’s "consolation fund" offered as restitution. I couldn’t forget that one of the aborted movie projects of multi-awarded scriptwriter Ricky Lee was the life story of a Filipina comfort woman, Maria Rosa Luna Henson, who died without seeing her saga immortalized on screen and who failed in her quest to receive compensation from Japan.
It is the good fortune of Japan that the Philippines has as its strength, and also its weakness, our society’s easy tendency to forgive and forget the past – whether World War II horrors or even the most recent 1970s martial law era and the alleged massive looting of the state coffers. Japan is a nation capable of honor and nobility. Hopefully, on this half-century anniversary of Philippine-Japan diplomatic ties, Japan can do more to decisively rectify the errors of the past so that Asia can enjoy peace and progress for all.