MANILA, Philippines -- “It’s not true that Filipino soldiers hid and waited for the Americans to liberate Manila. While there were no Americans, the Filipinos were fighting [the enemy],” Col. Emmanuel de Ocampo said Sunday at the commemoration of the Battle for Manila.

Speaking on behalf of war veterans, De Ocampo recalled the heroism of Filipino soldiers and corrected misconceptions about the month-long war between the Allied forces and the Japanese Imperial Army in 1945.

The observance at the Freedom Triangle of the Manila City Hall gathered veterans, Army soldiers, foreign dignitaries, and public school teachers together in solemnly marking the battle that killed more than 100,000 civilians and soldiers.

“The Liberation of Manila was changed to Battle for Manila by the National Historical Institute (NHI) about four to five years ago because Filipino soldiers also fought in the battle,” said Gemma Cruz-Araneta of the secretariat of the Manila Historical and Heritage Commission, which organized the event.

Destruction

The destruction of Manila as a result of the battle (Feb. 3-March 3, 1945) was touted as the worst in the Pacific region and in the same scale as the destruction of Warsaw, Poland (Aug. 1-Oct. 2, 1944).

“Civilians were mowed down, old men, women and children. The Japanese massacred them, shot them, bayoneted them, burned them and raped them. The Japanese rampage in Manila would be remembered in history as one notorious chapter of man’s inhumanity to man,” wrote Peter Jaynul Uckung, an NHI senior history researcher.

A minute of silence, a gun salute and flowers were offered during the ceremony led by Mayor Alfredo Lim and Defense Secretary Gilbert Teodoro Jr., the guest speaker.

“To the veterans: From the bottom of our hearts, thank you very much for fighting for the principles of freedom and democracy. You made the ultimate sacrifice for our dignity,” Lim said to the audience’s applause.

In an interview, Teodoro said the government was working on improving health care benefits for the veterans and cleaning up the list of World War II soldiers with the help of local government units.

“In terms of pensions, naturally it is a matter for Congress to decide. We are increasing slowly the amount of their current pensions and there are a host of other administrative matters that we need to do,” he said.

Photo exhibit

A photo exhibit, titled “Kagitingan at Kalayaan,” was inaugurated at the Bulwagang Rodriguez on the City Hall’s second floor to show how Manila was wrecked by the battle and the fires that ensued 63 years ago.

Narrating his experience with Manuel Colayco, the first-known Allied casualty in the battle, Lt. Diosdado Guytingco said the late captain “exemplified courage” the most on the afternoon of Feb. 3, 1945, when they guided the American First Cavalry to seize the University of Santo Tomas main building.

The building, which was transformed into an internment camp in 1942, held 4,255 civilians. A total of 466 people died in captivity.

Colayco was hit by grenade shrapnel in the fighting and died seven days later “without knowledge of his might,” Guytingco said.

In his speech, Teodoro acknowledged being “one of the few defense secretaries who did not experience World War II” and focused instead on what the battle meant for his generation.

Manila’s vibrance as a city today, he said, could be owed to both the guerillas and the innocents who were determined “to survive, to build up their lives once again to make themselves productive citizens.”

“And the plight of these people, who are the noncombatants, must serve as a vivid reminder to policy makers of the truism that the innocent suffer from the mistakes of those in power,” he said.

Teodoro said blood was spilled for a reason. “I believe they spilled their blood to give us a starting point from which we should work forward … They expect us in our generation, they freed us in order to start us in a race. A race for progress which is not an oval racetrack but a straight road to wherever it may lead us. And that we should do.”

At the end of his speech, Guytingco said: “Sixty-three years is enough time to forgive but certainly not enough time to forget.”