Ignoring the harsh monsoon weather, the sons and daughters of World War II veterans celebrated the 81st year since Imperial Japanese Army Gen. Tomoyuki Yamashita formally surrendered at Camp John Hay, ending the Pacific leg of the global war in September 3, 1945.
Baguio Rep. Mauricio Domogan said the war was a terrible experience for Filipinos who suffered the brutality of Japanese military occupation for four years, particularly in Baguio which became Yamashita’s last stronghold when Allied Forces began liberating towns that was invaded.
Recently dubbed as ‘Victory Day,’ September 3 is memorialized for Yamashita signing Japan’s surrender documents in the presence ofAmerican Generals Arthur Percival and Jonathan Wainwright.
Historians recently pointed out that Camp John Hay was also where the Pacific War began, when it was attacked by Japanese fighters on December 8,1941 shortly after Japan’s attack at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 – making Baguio pivotal to the Pacific War.
The battles did not end with Yamashita’s surrender after he was cornered by indigenous Filipino guerrillas and Allied soldiers in Ifugao’s Kiangan town on September 2, because ‘mopping operations’ took days here and in the Visayas, said Miguel Villa-real, Philippine Veterans Bank First Vice President for Marketing and Communications, and a veteran’s son.
The 66th Infantry Regiment, composed of Igorot soldiers and guerrillas who served as the Resistance in this part of the country, proved instrumental in freeing Baguio and other Cordilleran towns from the Japanese, Domogan said.
Before the celebration at Baguio’s Veterans Park in front of Burnham Park, the group unveiled a repainted monument and a marker at Naguilian Road which represents one of the three gateways opened by the Igorot Infantry Regiment and American soldiers as they battled to liberate the summer capital.
Domogan said the end of the Pacific War and the end of World War II as a whole led ‘to the (global) realization of democratic principles, and affirmation of human rights and the dignity and self respect among nations which we have been aspiring for after centuries of colonial domination.’
Villa-real and Domogan again urged Malacañang and Congress to make Victory Day a national non-working holiday. ‘September 3 is not just about Baguio. It is about the whole nation,’ the lawmaker said.