CITY OF SAN FERNANDO – The promise by the United States of a gratuity lump sum of $9,000 (P430,830) to Filipino veterans of World War II has not erased the wounds of the war.

Aging soldiers like Abraham Regala and Edilberto de Guzman Sr. still feel pain even 67 years after Bataan and Corregidor Island fell into the hands of the Japanese Imperial Army on April 9, 1942.
For Regala, 81, the horrible experiences he had during the war he fought in his teens and his sacrifices to defend the nation from foreign invasion cannot be eased by compensation.
“The fear and hardships in the war are still there,” Regala, who now has difficulty in hearing, said through his wife Ester, 48.
The INQUIRER interviewed the couple by phone as they availed themselves of free medical services in Pilar, Bataan.

“There were nights when I had to wake him up because he was having nightmares. He either screams or moans [from bomb shelling or bullets coming their way],” Ester said.

Perhaps out of boredom or recurring memories of the war, she said Regala translated radio messages, whispering the Morse code by uttering, “dit-dit-da, dit-dit-da.”

Her husband, she said, had not turned senile. “He’s only eaten up by sadness,” she said.

“Until now, he felt the US was unfair. When he was assigned to Okinawa [in Japan, in the posting there of the communications squadron of the 532nd Gun Battalion of the Philippine Scouts], he said he and his Filipino comrades were paid only P50 daily. American soldiers got full payment,” Ester said.

She said that was “not about money but discrimination.”

Regala filed a claim for the lump sum in February, but he did not do it for himself.
“That’s for my children. I’m too old to benefit from it,” said Regala, a father of four from Nabua, Camarines Sur, who had settled in Mariveles, Bataan, after the war.
He has not received any official word from the US Embassy if he was entitled to get the lump sum.
Regala has lived on a P5,000 monthly pension for serving 30 years in the Philippine Army, where he retired with the rank of second lieutenant.

He now serves as post commander of 20 surviving veterans in Mariveles.
De Guzman, 84, said the gruesome memories of the Death March made the war “more brutal.”

As a civilian underground guerrilla, he was herded by the Japanese together with Filipino and American soldiers, forced to walk like the rest from Kilometer Zero in Mariveles to San Fernando, Pampanga, loaded into sugarcane carts there and forced to walk again to Camp O’Donnel in Capas, Tarlac.

“We did not fight in the war because of money,” De Guzman said when asked if the lump sum from the United States would have at least assuaged him.

De Guzman lives on his P5,000 old age pension, P1,700 disability pay, and P500 assistance for his wife. The amounts come monthly from the Philippine Veterans Affairs Office.

Like Regala, he is not certain if he is entitled to get the lump sum.

Both men did not dwell on the government’s neglect of war veterans, saying it was enough that, at least, they were getting some help in their twilight years.

Regala and De Guzman take pride in still being able to participate in the kick-off of the 114-km run by San Fernando Runners Unlimited (Safer Run) that retraces the route of the 1942 Death March as a tribute to WWII veterans.
Began by sportsman and writer Ed Paez after the 1986 People Power Revolution, the Araw ng Kagitingan Ultra Marathon is now on its 24th year.

Like in the past years, Regala will carry the torch in the 5-meter “Walk with the Heroes” portion of the run, which starts at Kilometer Zero.
“My knees are now weak but I will still join,” Regala said. Ester will be behind him just in case he trips.

The run will make a stopover in San Fernando before ending at the Capas National Shrine in Tarlac.