Touch me not

Lola Hilaria’s hands are gnarled and wrinkled. Her skin is sagging, and her hair is as white as, well, snow. Her eyes are two crinkles of milky blue, and her face is sunburnt, weather-beaten and lined.

I am looking at Lola Hilaria, and her hands are shaking, her eyes unfocused. For a moment, it is 1943, and she’s walking along the rice fields of Bataan. She’s enjoying the sun on her face; she’s picking grains of rice. 

It’s 1943, and Hilaria is fighting for her life. Three Japanese soldiers are holding her down, smashing their fists into her face, breaking her nose as she struggles. One soldier hikes up her skirt and spreads open her legs. He unzips his pants.

Repeat cycle two more times.

Lola Hilaria stops talking mid-sentence. Her hand fumbles for something to tinker with, and she settles for the pieces of scrap cloth lying on the table. She twists it over and over again in her hands.

It’s 1943 and the men keep coming — over and over and over again. Hilaria is in a garrison comfort station of the Japanese army, and it’s nighttime. A few other women are with her in the room, and the men keep coming. One woman screams and makes for the door, five men subsequently pounce on her. There’s more screaming, then the wet sound of flesh smacking against flesh. Silently, Hilaria weeps.

She thinks of them as insects, climbing on top of her, sucking her blood, violating her body. Hilaria shuts her eyes tight. In the morning, body bruised and battered, she is forced to prepare food for the soldiers and wash their clothes. Barbed wires surround all the fences. It is impossible to escape.

It’s 1944, but Hilaria feels she’s aged a hundred years. Everything is swollen, everything is raw and numb. Everything should hurt — but she doesn’t feel anymore. Her hands are rough and dry, cracked from all the scrubbing, but she doesn’t care. The US troops have bombed the garrison and the Japanese soldiers have all left.

It’s 2010, and I am seeing Lola Hilaria in a new light. Suddenly, her hands are slender and smooth, her face is rosy and pink, her eyes are clear and twinkling. Suddenly, she is the most beautiful old lady I have ever seen.

* * *

The thing with rape is that people would rather forget about it, lock it in a trunk and throw away the key. It’s taboo in functional society — not to mention disgusting, shameful and vile. That said, it becomes imperative to pretend it never happened; imperative to convince yourself that maybe it was all just a bad dream. I mean, everyone else would seem to think so. Furthermore, the thing with rape is that some people actually have the gall to say that the victim in question was “asking” for it. Stupidity. It wouldn’t be called rape then, would it?

Now normally, earthly justice for a rape victim would constitute imprisonment of the perpetrator, or in some societies, castration. And while I have no doubt that castration as a form of atonement (not that anything could ever really make up for large-scale rape) would be fine by Lola Hilaria and all the other women forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese, what they have in mind is substantially more humane and dignified on their part.

Lola Hilaria, together with Lila-Pilipina, an organization of surviving Filipino comfort women and victims raped by the Japanese during World War II, demands (and has been demanding from Japan for years now), the following in a nutshell: first, that the Japanese government issue a formal apology to the individual families dishonored by sexual violence; second, that the Japanese government include in their history books the reality of military sexual slavery during World War II as a crime against humanity; and third, the payment of state compensation to the women victims and their families as penalty.

Of course, the system being as it is, none of these demands have received due or just consideration. Though Japan has already attempted to compensate their sex victims with something known as the “Asian Women’s Fund” — which draws from cash donations given by the Japanese public — the set-up is considered by most victims to be a joke, or an insult.

Rechilda Extremadura, current executive director of Lila-Pilipina, calls the creation of the fund a “very deceptive invention.”

“It’s frustrating how Japan tries to avoid responsibility for the past,” she says. “Why can’t the Japanese government pay us directly? What we want is legal responsibility for this war crime.”

Despite some former comfort women refusing to apply to the fund, Extremadura relates that conditions of poverty have forced most to take the money at the expense of their dignity. They can’t be blamed for it. However, there are those such as Lola Hilaria who, up to now, have refused to seek compensation from the Asian Women’s Fund.

I think of these old ladies — well past their prime, into their advanced years, fighting the good fight — and I can’t help but salute them. Let’s face it, World War II was over half a century ago, and most of these women have probably only a few more years left in them. You’d think they’d just take the money and settle peacefully for the rest of their days. But no.

Lila-Pilipina is admirable, in that it continues to fight for what most would consider a lost cause. Indeed, despite letters to the Arroyo administration and various appeals (here Extremadura shudders at the memory of supporting GMA and her phony promises), disregard for the plight of the lolas continues to be the norm.

But they won’t relent. Lola Hilaria says that until her arthritis gets the best of her (or until she kicks the bucket, whichever goes first), she’ll continue to join protest actions and clamor for justice ‘til the bitter end.

I can only hope that the next administration addresses this issue post-haste, lickety-split, pell-mell… and all similar adjectives in between and after.