Ifugao marks 66th year of Yamashita's fall

BAYOMBONG, Nueva Vizcaya, Philippines  – Ifugao commemorated on Friday the 66th anniversary of the surrender of Japanese Imperial Army General Tomoyuki Yamashita, which also marked the end of the second world war.          

The commemoration took place at the Bantayog ng Kiangan in the town’s Barangay Linda, where a war memorial shrine dedicated to those who fought the Japanese invasion in the country now stands.

Local officials led by Gov. Eugene Ballitang, veterans from Northern Luzon and their families, as well as dignitaries from the United States and Japan attended the ceremonies.

Yamashita’s surrender took place on Sept. 2, 1945, in Kiangan’s once entrenched Nabulaguian Hill. The Japanese general was brought the following day to Baguio City, where he formally signed surrender documents before American forces at Camp John Hay.

Ifugao was still then part of Mountain Province, which used to include Kalinga, Apayao, Benguet and the present Mountain Province or Bontoc.

Once dubbed the Tiger of Malaya during the war, Yamashita, 60, was tried and sentenced to death for war crimes in December 1945 by an American military tribunal in Manila. He was hanged to death on Feb. 23, 1946, at Los Baños Prison Camp.