Mango tree, toilet: ‘Horrors of war’

TO A retired public school teacher who was about 14 years old when Bataan fell to the Japanese Imperial Army on April 9, 1942, one of the three century old mango trees and a toilet for girls in a public elementary school in Bataan capital town brought her horrifying memories about World War II.

Eighty-eight year-old Maria Cervantes of Barangay Lote in Balanga City, was in Grade 6 at the Balanga Elem. School when the school was turned into a garrison by the Japanese Imperial Army after weakening Filipino and American soldiers under the United states Armed Forces in the Far East (Usaffe) were about to surrender.