Despite UN order, war victims get little aid

ALLY Sen. Risa Hontiveros meets with the “Malaya Lolas” in Candaba, Pampanga, on Wednesday to hear their stories and assure them of her help. —Tonette T. Orejas

CANDABA, PAMPANGA, Philippines — Except for aid from the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) and the local government, the Philippine government has not complied with a United Nations resolution to assist the “Malaya Lolas” (Free Grandmothers), who are now down from 96 to 18 members, as they struggled for justice from military sexual crimes committed on them during World War II.

Sen. Risa Hontiveros heard this from the 18 survivors and their support group, “Kaisa Ka,” on Wednesday in a dialogue at the covered court of Barangay Mapaniqui, a local village attacked by the Imperial Japanese Army on Nov. 23, 1944.

READ: Malaya Lolas slam gov’t ‘failure’ to meet UN ruling

At the dialogue, Maria Quilantang and Pilar Galang led the singing of the “Awit ng Malaya Lola” that they composed in 1996 when they first made public their ordeal.

No applause came from the audience as silence was heavy. Hontiveros held back tears but some were seen crying.

READ: DSWD: All ‘Malaya Lolas’ to get P1K monthly aid

“Many of us are weak, sick or bedridden. We didn’t get aid from the DOH (Department of Health),” Perla Balingit, Malaya Lola secretary, told the senator. Most of them are now more than 90 years old.

Hearing the extent of the national government’s noncompliance with the March 8, 2023, resolution to enforce the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (Cedaw), Hontiveros said the recommendations should be fast tracked.

Massacre

When the Imperial Japanese Army attacked Barangay Mapaniqui, men and boys were massacred or mutilated, their bodies dumped and burned in a large pit.

Women and girls were forced to loot homes and ordered to carry whatever they took to the nearby village of Anyatam in San Ildefonso town in Bulacan province. They were then held at the “Bahay na Pula” (Red House), a red-brick mansion that was turned into a garrison where mothers were raped, assaulted or abused together with their daughters, four of whom were as young as 9 years old.

“They have waited long enough for justice,” Hontiveros said, adding she would follow up with the Office of the President, Philippine Commission on Women, Department of Health, Department of Education, Commission on Higher Education, Department of Human Settlements and Urban Development and National Historical Commission of the Philippines.

Lawyer Virginia Lacsa Suarez, Kaisa Ka secretary general, said the DSWD gave the survivors P10,000 twice and provided educational scholarships to a number of their grandchildren. The municipal DSWD reported putting eight of the survivors on social pension and facilitated the one-time cash incentive of P100,000 from the provincial government for senior citizens who are 95 years old and above.

Lawyer Gilbert Andres of the Center for International Law (CenterLaw) said the national government, on top of not establishing an effective, nationwide reparation scheme to provide all forms of redress to victims of war crimes, has not helped in ensuring the well-being of the Malaya Lolas like it did to war veterans.

According to Andres, the ordeal and struggle of the Malaya Lolas have also not been memorialized even as it maintains 138 war markers from Bataan to Tarlac, 33 of which are in Pampanga.

This included preserving the Bahay na Pula, which has been “cannibalized” for its old wood and steel windows.

San Ildefonso Mayor Fernando Galvez Jr., in a letter to CenterLaw on May 9, said that he had not signed any demolition order for the structure known to be owned by the Ilusorio family. The owner has not placed off-limits signs or secured the place from unauthorized entry or unlawful demolition.

Treaty obligations

The fight of the Malaya Lolas has not been made part of the educational curriculum in high school and college with the aim of ending sex-based violence, Andres said.

CenterLaw assisted 24 Malaya Lolas in 2016 in bringing their complaints to the UN after the Supreme Court refused to help them.

“The Philippine government has to comply with its treaty obligations,” Hontiveros said, referring to the UN.

Aside from reintroducing her Proposed Resolution No. 539 that urges the government to fulfill its obligations, the senator sought the removal of statues honoring the Kamikaze or Japanese suicide pilots. One such statue stands in Mabalacat City in Pampanga.

Hontiveros said she had joined efforts of a coalition behind the Flowers for Lolas campaign in searching for the “Comfort Woman” statue, which the government removed from its spot along Roxas Boulevard in Manila in 2018.

“It was because of the government’s removal of the statue that bonded our groups together … [W]e want our advocacy to resonate with every Filipino who believes that we never should allow wars of any kind to victimize us again and who believe that Japan has to pay for their atrocities to our ‘lola’ victims and for our own government to recognize, respect and give the survivors the benefits long denied them,” the coalition said in a statement.