MANILA, Philippines ? Elderly women, who were victims of sexual abuse by the Japanese invaders in World War II, on Monday asked President Benigno Aquino III to take up their cause and ask Japan to apologize and legally compensate the so-called ?comfort women.?

The members of the Malaya Lolas, the remaining survivors of the Mapaniqui Siege of 1944, filed on a supplemental motion for reconsideration of a Supreme Court decision that dismissed their petition to compel the Philippine government to demand apology and compensation from Japan.

The group, through their lawyers Harry Roque and Rommel Bagares, also scored the high tribunal for plagiarizing the decision that dismissed their demand for an official apology and other forms of reparation against the Japanese government before the International Court of Justice and other international tribunals.

?President Noynoy, since you are the one who is now in position, help us. Do not forsake us,? Simang Regala, 81, said at the Supreme Court where she and other petitioners filed their supplemental motion for reconsideration.

Pilar Galang, 80, was more emotional in calling on President Aquino to take up their cause. She recalled the time when Japanese soldiers killed her father, raped the women and burned the houses in their village in Mapaniqui in Candaba, Pampanga.

?Who will listen to us? Are they really in the public service?? Galang said.

She raised President Aquino?s inaugural statement calling the people his ?boss.?

?We are their boss,? Galang cried.

In a 95-page supplemental motion for reconsideration, Roque said the high court lifted portions of its decision from three sources published in Yale Law Journal of International Law, Cambridge University Press and Case Western Reserve Journal of International law without proper attribution.

?Petitioners? counsel is mindful that in raising this matter they bring serious charges against the integrity of this Honorable Court?s deliberations in this case. But if Petitioners? counsel are to take faithfully their duty as officers of the court sworn to uphold the constitution and the law, they realize ? and this, not without much trepidation ? that they only renege on such high legal duty if they choose to keep their peace,? Roque said.

Roque said the decision did not only copy portions of the articles, but also twisted facts to justify the dismissal of the petitioners? case.

?A careful examination of the stylistics of the pertinent portions of the judgment will show the clever way in which the arguments lifted from the plagiarized article were employed; important points on the matter of jus cogens norms ? upon which Petitioners anchored their contention that the State has a duty in international law to prosecute international crimes ? were taken without proper attribution from the article and used as the judgment?s own,? Roque said.

He pointed that if read in its entirety, the articles even will make their case stronger.

The supplemental motion asked the high court to reverse its April 28, 2010 and declare that the Treaty of Peace with Japan does not bar the claims of the Filipina ?comfort women.?

They also asked the high court to espouse the claims of Filipina comfort women, specifically demanding an official apology from the State of Japan and legal compensation for the rapes endured during World War II.

The high court last April said that while they sympathize with the petitioners, it is not the judiciary but the political branches that the petitioners should approach to get support for their claims.

?Of course, we greatly sympathize with the cause of petitioners, and we cannot begin to comprehend the unimaginable horror they underwent at the hands of the Japanese soldiers?Regrettably, it is not within our power to order the Executive Department to take up the petitioners? cause. Ours is only the power to urge and exhort the Executive Department to take up petitioners? cause,? the ruling stated.

Respondents to the case include foreign affairs secretary Alberto Romulo, former foreign affairs secretary Delia Domingo Albert, former justice secretary and now Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez and former Solicitor General Alfredo Benipayo.

The petitioners are all members of the Malaya Lolas Organization, a non-stock, non-profit organization established for the purpose of providing aid to the victims of military sexual slavery and violence by Japan during World War II.

In their petition, the victims argued that the general waiver of claims made by the Philippine government in the Treaty of Peace with Japan signed in 1951 is void.

?For us to overturn the executive department?s determination would mean an assessment of the foreign policy judgments by a coordinate political branch to which authority to make that judgment has been constitutionally committed,? it added.