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By Perry Gil S. Mallari
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Photo by
Jessie Laureta |
The arrival of Rechilda Extremadura was greeted
by smiles from a dozen elderly women seated on monobloc chairs.
Extremadura is the executive director of Lila Pilipina, a
non-government organization seeking justice for Filipino women
victims of rape and military sex slavery during the Second World
War. The lolas [grandmothers], converging at the Lila Pilipina
headquarters every 30th of the month, are all former comfort women
or jugun ianfu in Japanese.
Located at the far end of a dim alley, it is in
this place that these women try to heal the hideous wounds of war.
“They look forward to this day every month,” explains
Extremadura, continuing, “This kind of social activity proves to
impart emotional therapy on them.” The bustle inside the building
seems to be a surreal juxtaposition of scenes—a group of lolas
engages in karaoke revelry on the ground floor, while two flights of
stairs above, a solitary old woman is loudly reciting the rosary.
Explaining the origin of the organization,
Extremadura narrates, “Lila Pilipina, which literally means
“League of Filipino Women,” was started by Nelia Sancho in 1994
following a national assembly and consultation of members of the
Task Force on Filipino Comfort Women (TFFCW). The Lila Pilipina is
under the umbrella of the women’s group Gabriela. The TFFCW was
founded two years earlier by seven women organization to provide a
national support mechanism for the pursuit of justice for survivors
of rape and sex slavery of Japanese troops during the Second World
War. Extremadura gives credit to the late Maria Rosa Luna Henson,
better known as Lola Rosa, the first Filipino comfort woman to come
out into the open for being the catalyst in the formation of TFFCW.
To date, Lila Pilipina has documented 173 cases
of victims from different parts of the Philippines. Extremadura
discloses that out of this number, 42 lolas have already passed away
as of July 2004. Glancing at the old women clustered around the
karaoke, she says with a trace of sadness, “The monthly gathering
a few years back were usually made of a hundred lolas or more but
now, we can hardly gather twenty.” Extremadura explains that in
addition to the fact that a lot of survivors have died, the majority
of those remaining were too old and too weak to travel.
Fighting for a cause is not something new to
Extremadura. She was an activist during the 1970s at the height of
anti-Marcos protests. “Even in my youth, I had already pondered on
the thought that women should know and fight for their rightful
place in society,” she stresses. Extremadura, who holds a degree
in Education, worked in the Department of Education for 14 years and
ran for mayor in Bicol but lost. She joined Lila Pilipina through
the invitation of Sancho in 1996. Outside her crusade to uphold
women‘s rights, Extremadura has been blessed with a blissful
family life, “I have three children and I would say that my late
husband is a good man,” she narrates with pride.
Just like most NGOs, funding is the most
pressing problem of Lila Pilipina. Extremadura relates that they
have no regular source of funds and were trying their best to
survive on donations of benefactors and the proceeds from their own
income generating projects. “Most of the times we just have to
rely on ourselves,” she points out. Funding is crucial for
sustaining the many operations of Lila Pilipina. For one, the
building rental plus the utilities alone consume a hefty chunk of
their fund. Extremadura reveals that the organization has a resident
psychologist that handles the emotional well being of the lolas. In
addition, the task of Lila Pilipina encompasses varied areas such as
research and documentation; information and media relations; welfare
assistance program; advocacy work and protest actions; international
networking program; emergency shelter; and lawsuit support action.
Extremadura pays extra attention on the social
activities of the lolas. “I encourage sympathizers to really get
to know them because they wouldn’t be here for long. Most of them
were abused when they were just young girls and have lost their
opportunity to grow up normally,” she says, continuing, “I hope
people won’t just hear their stories and just leave afterwards.”
One individual, Extremadura relates, that decided to walk the extra
mile is Vim Nadera, director of the University of the Philippines
Institute of Creative Writing. “He’s a long-time friend of the
lolas,” she says smiling.
Extremadura also expresses her thoughts on the
supposed formal apology made by the Japanese government on the issue
of comfort women and the nature the Asian Women’s Fund (AWF).
Based on records, former Prime Minister Tomiichi Murayama of Japan
has made a statement on August 15, 1995, stemming from a Cabinet
decision, expressing heartfelt apology by the Japanese government
for the atrocities it has committed during the Second World War. A
number of succeeding prime ministers have also followed Murayama’s
example. The AWF on the other hand was set up in June 1995, also
through the decision of the Japan Cabinet, to offer atonement money
and needed assistance to every identified comfort women in Asia. The
AWF money came from contributions of private Japanese citizens and
the state budget.
Extremadura argues that the initiative was only
moral and not legal in nature. “The fact that the Japanese
government coursed the financial assistance through the AWF, which
is a private entity by nature, is an indication of reservation on
its part as far as issuing a full-pledged apology for its war
atrocities is concerned,” she intones. Extremadura stresses that
to give the action a legal backbone; the atonement money and
financial assistance should be transferred direct from the Japanese
treasury to the individual accounts of the former comfort women.
Besides a formal apology to the Filipino people specifically to the
women victims and their families, Lila Pilipina is also adamant in
its demand that the Japanese government should include in its
textbooks and history textbooks the reality of military sexual
slavery, a war crime it so wantonly espoused during the Second World
War.
For the Philippine government, the Lila Pilipina
demands that an official position be issued on the issue of comfort
women; that official investigation and documentation of the victims
be done; that the reality of comfort women and comfort stations
during World War II be included in the country’s educational
textbooks; that historical markers be made for the victims; and that
material support be given to comfort women survivors and their
families.
With just a few years remaining in the lives of
the lolas, Extremadura wonders if it’s still possible to give back
to the victims even a fraction of what was stolen from them. “For
most of them, being a former comfort woman is just a beginning of a
lifetime of woes. They were survivors all right, but culture and
society have ostracized them,” she laments. Extremadura relates
that the stigma attached to former comfort women has caused them to
lose the chance of a happy marriage and the overall opportunity to
achieve greater things in life.
Witnesses, victims and survivors
One of Lila Pilipina’s mainstays, 80-year- old
Pilar Frias bemoans, “Kung hindi sana ako nagahasa ng Hapon, baka
naging titser din ako [I could have become a teacher, if only I was
not raped by the Japanese].” Frias who is a native of Sipocot,
Camarines Sur, shares her harrowing experience in the hands of the
Japanese soldiers, “I was 16 years old when the Japanese entered
our barrio in 1943. I was with my auntie washing clothes when five
Japanese soldiers approached us and accused us of conniving with the
guerrillas. They slapped me and shouted Japanese expletives at
me,” she narrates, adding, “And then they seared my face with a
cigarette.” Frias eyes blink fast, her memory becomes clearer, and
then she continues, “The soldier then unsheathed his knife and
slashed me on the nose. While I was profusely bleeding, he tied me
on a jack fruit tree and raped me.” She says the Japanese soldiers
also raped her auntie before the group left with their chickens.
Later in the war while fleeing the marauding
enemies, Japanese soldiers again captured Frias with three other
women. They were tied and were forced to march for miles with the
troops as they search for guerilla camps in the jungles. Stopping
for a meal at Mount Balagbag, she remembers the Japanese soldiers
ordering them to lie down. “Then they started raping us. Everyday
they raped us,” Frias relates, with tears swelling in her eyes.
She estimated that around 100 soldiers raped her. Frias and her
companions eventually saw freedom when the American military came.
Stooped, with scars of violence on her leathery
face, Frias has braved another session of recalling and narrating
her horrible past. She believes it was the least she can do for her
fellow victims. She has told her story many times to the public.
Many times it was heard. And many times has it been forgotten.
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