Yamashita’s ghost reappears in JLN’s 'surrender'

LETTERS FROM THE AGNO

March L. Fianza

Kiangan has been and always will be a place to be kept close to the heart and memory, considering that it was one of the communities I first visited in the Cordillera in December of 1977, along with Baguio musicians.

This was upon the invitation of then law student Denis B. Habawel who wanted to put books in the libraries of Lagawe, Banawe and Kiangan through live folk music performances. More than 25 years ago, no one had the hunch that Denis would later become Governor Habawel of Ifugao.

            

I was in Kiangan again last week to swap stories with personnel of the Ifugao Provincial Department of Social Welfare Development, together with media colleague Sly Quintos. The accidental visit gave me the opportunity to wander around places that have escaped my memory, but slowly became familiar again as soon as I set foot on them.

There was the more popular Kiangan Shrine that was built in Nabulaguian Hill, an area that was obviously a forest before it was developed into a tourist hub. It is also carries the name “Yamashita Shrine” because many believe that the area was where General Tomoyuki Yamashita and his men fought their last stand for almost one month.  

I heard stories that after Yamashita’s surrender, American generals and government authorities beat each other into looking for the JIA commander’s hidden gold and jewelry treasures.

Even the late Benguet Governor Ben Palispis over a cup of Dainty Restaurant coffee related to me a story that after the war, he also ventured into “treasure hunting” together with his best friend, the late Sinai Hamada. Even an American consultant who was close to the late President Marcos believed so. General John Singlaub, World War II and Korean War veteran according to past newspaper reports after Martial Law, was a covert agent active in the efforts to recover the “Yamashita gold.”

President Marcos, according to Singlaub, was able to “scrape” a little and that left more than a hundred treasure sites untouched. Treasure hunters say Yamashita’s gold treasures were buried in 175 tunnels and caves in the Philippines. If this was true then Yamashita’s gold treasure amounts to billions of dollars in value, a source of wealth and power for Marcos that was why he was spirited away to Hawaii by the Americans.

The flight of Marcos to Hawaii that was stage-managed by the Americans brought back a scene similar to the manner Gen. Yamashita was swiped from Kiangan to the American Ambassador’s Cottage inside Camp John Hay in Baguio.

On September 2, 1945, Yamashita of the Japanese Imperial Army in the Philippines, dubbed as “The Tiger of Malaya” surrendered to American and Filipino allied forces in the Home Economics building of the Kiangan Central School located just below the shrine. General Yamashita stayed overnight in Kiangan with his battle-scarred but extremely loyal soldiers before being flown to Baguio by helicopter the next day.  

Apparently, Yamashita signed surrender documents before American forces at Camp John Hay against his will. His trial in Manila was conducted by a vindictive tribunal.  American lawyer Harry E. Clarke, Sr., a colonel in the US Army fought for the acquittal of Yamashita. Even Justice Frank Murphy questioned the hasty trial, protested procedures in the trial and questioned the inclusion of hearsay evidence. The evidence that Yamashita did not have ultimate command responsibility over all Japanese military units in the Philippines was not admitted in court.

With these, war crimes prosecutor Allan Ryan concluded that by order of the five American generals namely, Gen. Handwerk, Gen. Bullens, Gen. Donovan, Gen. Reynolds and Gen. Lester, along with General Douglas MacArthur and the Supreme Court of the United States, “Yamashita was executed for what other Japanese soldiers did without his approval or prior knowledge.” The two dissenting Supreme Court Justices called the entire trial a miscarriage of justice, an exercise in vengeance, and a denial of human rights. At 60, he was sentenced to death in December 1945 and was hanged on Feb. 23, 1946 at the Los Baños Prison Camp.

US President Harry Truman through his generals kept tab of Yamashita’s trial from October to December. Yet after getting all the information they can squeeze from the Japanese general, they ordered his execution. In the case of Marcos, the difference was that the Americans got information about Yamashita’s treasure from him, but he died of natural causes. What about Janet Lim Napoles who ate breakfast, lunch and dinner with PNoy in Malacanang? Did she cough up vital information about anyone’s PDAF and finances before she was brought to “prison” in Camp Crame in a manner similar to Yamashita’s surrender? Pray that she will not meet the same fate that Yamashita and Marcos did. – ozram.666@gmail.com