The triumphant Filipinos

THE Fall of Bataan on April 9, 1942 was a testament to Filipino valor against all odds taken against the context of most of Southeast Asia falling to the Japanese forces early in the war. But it was painful to see the images of defeat and surrender and thereafter the Filipino-American forces walking the hundred-kilometer Death March for five days under the hot sun and then being incarcerated at the Capas concentration camp. It was followed by the surrender a month later of the Rock, the island of Corregidor, on May 6.

As I said, the Fall of Bataan as the Araw ng Kagitingan holiday should remind Filipinos of our veterans’ valor, but it also denotes how we remember our tragedies more. Worse, the image of US Gen. Douglas MacArthur fulfilling his promise to return on the shores of Leyte Gulf on Oct. 20, 1944 made us think that we owe our liberation only to the Americans.