The destruction of a once beautiful city

1945 is a very important year in world history. That was the year when World War II ended, the most terrible war in all human experience. This year, 2005, is the 60th anniversary of that event and there are elaborate celebrations in many cities – in London, Berlin, Moscow, in New Orleans, in Singapore. There are numerous memorials of the "holocaust" in which Hitler tried to exterminate the Jews, succeeding in killing 6 million of them.

Why is the Philippine government not celebrating the 60th anniversary of the destruction of Manila, the national capital, and the genocide in which some 100,000 civilians were brutally butchered by a merciless invading army?

Before World War II Manila was a beautiful city. After February and March 1945 this once "Pearl of the Orient" was a heap of ruins. The private homes had been burnt by the Japanese. The large concrete buildings were reduced to rubble by U.S. artillery. Manila has been described as "the most devastated city, next to Warsaw."

But worse than the destruction of a beautiful city was the massacre of civilians, among them priests, nuns, old people, women, children.

The first book to describe the details of that massacre was compiled almost immediately after the event and published in Spain in 1947, only two years after the massacre. It was entitled El Terror Amarillo en Filipinas. The author, Antonio Perez de Olaguer, a son of the well-known Manila businessman, Luis Perez Samarillo. (The multi-storey "Samarillo Building" was one of the landmarks of pre-war Manila.)

That book has now been translated into English with the title Terror in Manila, February 1945. The translation by Trinidad Ongtangko Regala has been edited by the U.P. professor Bernardita Reyes Churchill. The book is published by the Memorare Manila 1945 Foundation Inc.

The book focuses on the experiences of the Spaniards in Manila. But the Spaniards were massacred in the same action as Filipinos and those of other nationalities, namely in Ermita, Malate, Paco, San Marcelino Street, De La Salle College, and in various parts of Intramuros. But there is a special irony to the massacre of the Spaniards by the Japanese, because those two nations were supposed to be allies. But in the genocide of Manila, the Japanese were killing everybody, regardless of nationality.

The publication of this book by the Memorare Foundation is a real public service. This book is an important contribution to Philippine historiography. And the destruction of Manila and the massacre of its residents was one of the most important events in all Philippine history.

Besides interviewing many of the survivors of the massacre, the book incorporates much information supplied by the Jesuit astronomer and historian, Father Miguel Selga (who was the Director of the Manila Observatory until the Japanese seized the Observatory and installed a director of their choice). With his usual scientific passion for accuracy, he had begun to compile his own notes, about the terrible massacre of Manila. Father Selga focused attention on the ordeal suffered by priests and nuns and the destruction of Churches and religious buildings.

In candor we must admit that this book is not easy to read. Originally written in Spanish, it is in a style that is suited to that language. Translated to English, the florid verbose style is awkward. But what is important is the record of facts, and this the book does very well.

There are important documents in the appendix, among them a sworn statement by a Spanish Dominican friar, Honorio Muñoz. Also an official list of the Spaniards who died during the War.