Tweet Clinton Palanca and the dilemma of the (un)hyphenated Filipino How the esteemed writer became a scholar of an evolving identity, from Filipino Chinese to Chinese Filipino. Manuel L. Quezon III | Jun 07 2019 …
Tweet THE LONG VIEW Clinton Palanca By: Manuel L. Quezon III – @inquirerdotnet Philippine Daily Inquirer / 05:04 AM June 05, 2019 The passing of a writer, whether, as they say, in the prime of life or at the …
Tweet Raymond Bagatsing as Manuel L. Quezon Review: ‘Quezon’s Game’ finds its way to the heart of the truth through make-believe Don’t watch it to know about history, writes Manuel L. Quezon III—grandson of the …
Tweet THE LONG VIEW Sa Pulong? Sa Ferdie! By: Manuel L. Quezon III – @inquirerdotnet Philippine Daily Inquirer / 05:06 AM May 29, 2019 It was fun while it lasted. But it’s sabong time. At least, that’s what …
Tweet If you’ve watched the film, “Quezon’s Game” (or even if you never do), hopefully you will become interested in learning more about the rescue of Jews who found a safe haven in the Philippines. …
In the kitchen of his little London flat, some strange-looking vegetables materialized early one afternoon, and I asked Clinton Palanca what they were. “Rhubarb,” he said. Seeing my blank expression, he helpfully added, “I am going to make sinigang for dinner tonight.” Through some sort of culinary sorcery I still don’t understand, rhubarb apparently makes for a pleasing substitute for sampaloc and it turned out to be the most delicious sinigang I’ve ever had in my life.
In 2014, writing in the cookbook My Angkong’s Noodles, Clinton revealed that his time as a scholar in the U.K. was also a period of discovery in terms of food. He recalled that it was only then that he developed “a hankering for Chinese Filipino home cooking.” “Aside from being the taste of home,” he wrote, “Fujianese food had a clarity and purity of taste that the greasy Cantonese stir fries and oil-based Sichuan hot-pots that were available in Chinatown did not have.” He called home for recipes, and discovered something else, too: “I also cooked Filipino food while in Oxford and London and couldn’t help but be struck by the similarity between Fujianese food from the Philippines and mainstream Filipino food. Not only were so many of the ingredients similar, but so were many of the techniques.”
But this discovery, aside from inspiring a potential topic for his Ph.D studies, became “something of a touchy subject,” as he laid out in an illuminating passage:
“A Chinese cultural chauvinist could say there is very little in Filipino food in Luzon and the Visayas that wasn’t influenced (or taught) by the Chinese traders in some way or another. On the other hand a Philippine chauvinist could counter that Fujianese food is a simplistic cooking style that hasn’t been very popular even in its home province, and developed its complexity and was improved upon only in the Philippine setting. Neither would be completely wrong. The only fact we can agree on is that southern Chinese food and Philippine food were intertwined from very early on, from before recorded history when trading ships learned to cross the sea that separated the two cultures. There is ample proof that Filipino culture made an impact in Fujian, one of the few places where chocolate was imbibed as a stimulant, as well as in the architectural style and materials (for example, Machuca tiles) of wealthy traders’ houses. Both of these, however, date from the Spanish colonial period.”
The passage is illuminating because in the midst of his personal testimony about his absence from home finally inspiring an identification with the cuisine he’d formerly taken for granted, Clinton identified what could be “touchy”: extremism –chauvinism, one definition of which is “excessive or prejudiced support for one’s own cause, group, or sex.” In the overlapping circles that comprise the Venn Diagram of our lives, Clinton was, as he himself wrote in 2003 in his book of the same title, a member of the group called Chinese Filipinos. A passage from that book combines an image he would return to, time and again, with the definition he would insist on using for the rest of his life:
“There is a structure that still stands to this day on what was then called ‘Engineer Island’, or Tsui-tsu in Hokkien, where the immigrants who arrived from southern China during the first half of the twentieth century were held while their papers were sorted out. Some of them stayed for a few hours, others for days, and still others for months or years. It was the gateway by which several hundred thousand Chinese, most of them illiterate farmers, crossed the South China Sea and entered what was then known as the Philippine Islands. They did not come to stay, but eventually did; and today they make up the 1-2 percent of the population who are known as the ‘Chinese Filipinos.’”
Photograph from Amazon
Clinton went on to point out that the Chinese Filipinos of today were previously known as something else:
“This group of people was formerly known as the ‘Filipino Chinese.’ The new terminology was used as a catchphrase, in the advocacy arena, to encapsulate the new sort of Sinitic individuals living in the Philippines; primarily Filipino in nationality and allegiance, integrating into the mainstream society without sacrificing their culture and legacy. Chinese Filipinos, in reversing the order of the modifier and the modified, proclaimed they are Filipinos, who happen to be of Chinese origin.”
Engineer Island, introduced in Chinese Filipinos as our sort of home-grown version of Ellis Island, would reappear in Clinton’s other writings in a more personal way, most poignantly, perhaps, in his An Open Letter to F. Sionil Jose which appeared in Spot.ph in June, 2015:
“It would be a poor society that would deem as less of a Filipino one such as my father, who took his chance as a migrant and was held at Engineer’s Island as a young man, hoping to enter the Philippines. He then spent half a lifetime waiting to be given the chance to pledge his loyalty to a new homeland; with the same vigor, it would seem, that many are now seeking to escape it by emigration. To ask him or me to be less Chinese in order to be more of a patriot diminishes not just my humanity but the great diversity and history of integration that is part of the Filipino identity.”
Clinton’s father, Albert, belonged to the second great wave of migrants who came to the Philippines in the 20th Century from 1918-1948, during the era of American colonization to the Commonwealth and the first years of independence. He was a contemporary of my own father, and so through Clinton’s writings I came to appreciate just how different their worlds were, the fundamental division being along racial –and racist—lines. My father had a wicked sense of humor and liked putting arrogant mestizos –who assumed he shared their prejudices—in their place by replying to some private, anti-Chinese outburst from some acquaintance by pointing out he’d traced his family’s origins to the Parian and that if his father (supposedly the supreme mestizo) had any brains, “it was because of his Chinese blood.”
Well-deserved as such rebukes might be, neither he or anyone of his generation could possibly imagine the life of exclusion –and extortion—that was the lot of the migrant generation. The genesis, as I understand it, of Clinton’s Chinese Filipinos book was to describe, in an attractive coffee-table format, the origins and experiences, the difficulties and yet astounding durabilities, of those migrants at a time when their children and grandchildren had become free (because assimilated) enough, to begin forgetting or even dismissing the heritage that had ensured their progenitors’ survival.
The book was necessary not only for the transmission of collective memory but also because the past has an irrepressible ability to haunt the present and inflict itself on the future. Jonathan Fast and Jim Richardson in Roots of Dependency: Political and Economic Revolution in 19th Century Philippines, pointed out that there had been a first great wave of migration to the Philippines, with its origins in the 1830s to 1840s when the Spanish colonial authorities in the Philippines made one of their periodic about-faces in policy and decided to welcome, rather than forbid, Chinese emigration. With typical Spanish efficiency it was only in the 1850s that the policy, meant to attract labor to work on haciendas, really started to kick in: entering high gear from 1876-1886, “when the Chinese population rose from approximately thirty thousand to over ninety thousand. In the early 1880’s, over 10,000 Chinese immigrants a year were landing in Manila.”
This first wave may have been during the twilight of Spanish rule, but it established the social and political conventions that would endure into the second wave when Americans, then Filipinos, were in charge.
A true story: Two scions, one belonging to a venerable Spanish merchant house, and the other, the son of a Taipan, were drinking at a bar. The son of the Taipan bewailed the fact that he was the richest man in the club to which both scions belonged, but for all his billions, why didn’t he seem to get any respect? “That’s because,” his mestizo companion told him, in his best, bored, matter-of-fact manner, “you’ll always just be a Chink.”
Here, in a nutshell, was the traditional pecking order of things, at least at the time the story took place, which was slightly less than twenty years ago. In the nearly two decades since, however, our society has changed, and where there is change, there is tension.
Clinton was fully aware of these tensions but in a manner different from either his fellow Chinese Filipinos, Filipinos in general, or the foreigners who pontificate on our country and culture. If his book, Chinese Filipinos chronicled the formation of an identity, and its manifestations in everything from food, to language, to the urban landscape, the same period in Oxford and London that led him to seriously embrace and explore the cuisine of his Chinese Filipino heritage, led him to apply the scrutiny of a scholar to the tensions he had come to recognize in the larger whole and the subset he had helped label.
In Beyond Binondo and Ma Ling, published online by the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism in July, 2007, Clinton distilled his findings into an essay suitable for ordinary readers. In it he describes what sets Chinese Filipinos apart from communities descended from Chinese migrants in some of our neighboring countries. In a nutshell, the vast majority of Filipino Chinese such as him, belong to a cohesive group (“mostly Fujianese, with just a handful from Guangdong”) in a nation, the Philippines, itself composed of many cohesive groups (Tagalogs, Ilocanos, Capangpangans, and so on). But if the story of how Chinese Filipinos came to be –and coped—has been told (not least in Chinese Filipinos, which came out just four years before this article), change, again, had come, disturbing what had so painstakingly taken generations to emerge. Change, in this case, was represented by the rise (really, the revival) of China’s power and prestige, as well as the influx of a new wave of Chinese migrants to the Philippines. As Clinton put it, “what is at present making the situation that much more complicated is the increasing influx of what are often termed the ‘new migrants,’ more properly known as the xinqiao. These are ‘mainlanders’ who have emigrated from China since its reopening and represent an entirely different generation of migrants.”
In the dozen years since this article came out, what Clinton had already identified and described, the tensions that have arisen in broader Philippine society and even within the Chinese Filipino community, has gotten increasingly impossible to ignore, not least because it has given old prejudices a new lease on life. It led to Clinton speaking out in only the way he could, in a much-noticed open letter to F. Sionil Jose. It was a trend Clinton found reprehensible not least because it needn’t be inevitable; what it demanded, however, was a clear-eyed appreciation of its insidious staying power. Just six months ago, he would reintroduce and update many of the ideas he first introduced in his 2007 article in another piece, Anti-Chinese Sentiment Grows In Philippines, published in the Asian Sentinel in December, 2018.
He closed that piece with an assertion and a warning:
“The Chinese Filipinos are caught in between—not because their loyalty is divided, as pundits such as Monsod would have it. Their loyalty has remained unchanged—but the friends and neighbors they have lived with for years are suddenly looking at them differently. All parties concerned are beneficiaries of a fragile peace that took three generations to build.
“Most Chinese Filipinos identify as Filipino—and many are, in fact, the most vocal critics of the economic colonization by China. But many, especially rabble-rousers in search of a scapegoat, don’t know the difference, or don’t care; and as the economy sours further, so mounts the ethnic tension.”
Chances are, like me, you tried to get through your studies on Rizal with minimal compliance. It was only later in life that I got to appreciate his words of dedication in the Noli: I will do with thee what the ancients did with their sick, exposing them on the steps of the temple so that every one who came to invoke the Divinity might offer them a remedy.
On the penultimate night of Clinton Palanca’s wake, F. Sionil Jose and his wife appeared, to condole, and, as he sat quietly in the front row looking at the urn, I suppose, also to reflect. In the corner where we were seated a writer-friend turned to me and whispered, “Do you remember Frankie’s column and the way Clinton replied?” Of course. “Well, wasn’t that pure Clinton? Firm, yet kind, rational and respectful, but in the end, he put the old man in his place.”
And now here was the “old man.”
Was he returning the sentiments Clinton had expressed to close his open letter from four years ago? His last line had been, “I remain, and always will be, your friend in words and ideals.” I’d like to think so. But there was one additional comment during that huddled conversation in a corner of a wake that has stayed with me: “Clinton was the only one who bothered to leave open the door for dialogue even when he firmly drew the line on the kind of thinking that’s just plain wrong.”
What is a book, Chinese Filipinos, in a nation that might tolerate it as something decorative but hardly as an enduring guide to the future by way of the past? What is an article, whether meant as a contribution to the rigorous analysis of our society in a particular era, or a fraternal correction to a peer befuddled by bigotry, or even as reportage on a troubling trend, if it only serves to build walls instead of dismantling them? It would be pointless –and this is the point of this introduction to what I believe will long endure as Clinton’s most substantial contribution to the continuous puzzlement that is being an (un)hyphenated Filipino. Eloquently, rigorously, fearlessly, he contributed to our self-awareness without succumbing to the temptation to be self-absorbed.
Clinton Palanca showed the way forward, for all Filipinos. Remember that.
The passing of a writer, whether, as they say, in the prime of life or at the end of a long career, is like the dropping of a stone in a pond. There are ripples of grief, radiating out and seemingly tsunami-like in intensity to the small, quarrelsome but ultimately mutually supportive community of writers who take such news seriously; but which quickly vanishes into the vast, placidly indifferent expanse of a society for whom the arts in general, and literature in particular, are less than relevant things.So it has been in the week since he passed. Wonderful words of tribute have been published in the pages of this newspaper and other publications. He was a fictionist, an essayist, a critic, a chef; he was also a teacher, an editor and a mentor to many aspiring writers and restaurateurs.
Rizal, in a famous oration, once declaimed, “genius knows no country.” But he also said that every genius bore the indelible stamp of the country that produced that genius; and that in the creations of that genius, the very nature of the land of that genius’ birth would find expression. Yes, I’ve used that word—genius—five (now six!) times, because that is what Clinton Palanca was. And I emphasize this not out of partisan hyperbole as a friend, but as someone who first came to know him as most others have—through his words.
One instantly got the impression—increasingly validated over time—that he was a writer who always respected his readers, believing both for himself and about them that dumbing things down was as objectionable, demeaning and ultimately lazy as imprisoning one’s thoughts in a prison of jargon.
Just as many aspects of Clinton—as a son, a husband, a father and a friend—must, because of limitations of space, be glossed over, so too have other aspects overshadowed his many other achievements. Let me identify just one: his technical brilliance, which manifested itself literally behind the scenes. As an editor, he was punctilious but not dictatorial; like the best of them, he was a nurturer of talent, adept at the quiet diplomacy and time-outs to provide encouragement the work demands, the mentorship that younger writers require and the collegiality and confidentiality that older ones crave.
And because he was drawn, inexorably, as we all know, to food: as a consumer of both his writing and cooking, I strongly feel the obvious must be said because oddly enough it is sometimes overlooked. His writing on food was informed by his appreciation of, actual competence in, and having grappled with the ruthless, even merciless, nature of the food business, and the physical, not to mention emotional, demands of working in and running a kitchen.
Add to this his study of food anthropology, and you have as well-rounded a capacity to write on food and its place in the human condition as it is possible to have in any one person.
But there were things he could never escape. One conversation I’ve never forgotten.
Acquaintance: “Ah, your friend Clinton Palanca has opened a restaurant?”
Me: “Yes, he has.”
Acquaintance: “What’s it called? Prosperous?”
Me: “No, no. Prospero’s.”
Acquaintance: “Yes, yes. Prosperous. Does he serve sweet and sour pork?”
And all because of Clinton’s ancestry, which therefore somehow limited his options to opening a Cantonese short-order place. The easy, callous—because ingrained—racism of our society has always been there, easily brushed aside when simply a matter of the doltishness I described above. These past few years, when bigotry has become increasingly assertive, Clinton never failed to speak out, not as an attention-seeking polemicist, but as the best kind of citizen, the kind committed to the resistance of the seductions of hate.
Teodoro M. Locsin, in a tribute to his friend Philip Buencamino III who was killed in the prime of his life, described how he, Buencamino, and Jose W. Diokno worked together in a newspaper during Liberation. Diokno, he recalled, kept the paper together even as it threatened to go to pieces every day; while he (Locsin), “thundered and shrilled; that is, I wrote the editorials.” As for the third man in their triumvirate, it was Philip’s “particular pride,” he recalled, “to give every man, even the devil, his due. While I jumped on a man, Philip would patiently listen to his side.”
This passage has always remained with me because even as it was written in remembrance of the unique alchemy that brought those three friends of that era together, it spoke—and speaks—to me of Clinton and his friendships. While I am not alone in being a friend who thundered and shrilled, he was unique in his generation in terms of possessing that ability to listen and be fair.
Review: ‘Quezon’s Game’ finds its way to the heart of the truth through make-believe
Don’t watch it to know about history, writes Manuel L. Quezon III—grandson of the film’s main protagonist—but be entertained, and appreciate how it seeks to tell truths through dramatic nuances
Quezon’s Game opened May 29, and people have been asking me what I thought of the film after attending the premiere earlier this month. I happen to have a good opinion of the director-writer, Jay Rosen and his wife, whose passion-project this film is. As far as I’m concerned, may their tribe—and those of producers like Star Cinema, which has taken a gamble by producing the film—increase. We have too few historical films and I don’t see how we will develop this genre unless more films of this sort are made.
But because I love historical films, I tend to be hypercritical about them. That’s the privilege of being a member of the audience, and what’s more, just because it’s about Quezon shouldn’t automatically mean I should try to self-censor my opinions. So when I was asked to weigh in on the film, I thought, why not—so long as I really say what I feel (and this is just me, this isn’t a family point of view; we’re all too far opinionated as a family to have a party line on this or any other topic).
Let me start with what seems to me especially difficult about making a movie on this topic and with the main character being MLQ.
Here’s a basic problem: you’d have to be pushing eighty to have reached Quezon and his times, since he died 75 years ago come this August. There are very few people who are still in that position—and because of the passage of time, even their memories may have become fuzzy with the passage of the decades. Because of the ravages of time and our climate, we have to rely on snippets of films(most of them without sound) in archives abroad. Hardly anyone alive is old enough to remember his voice; to have seen his famous glare, or the way he gestured during a speech; or saw him review a parade, or who can say they saw him smile oreven wave to a crowd. For that matter, to see him and the people of his era in old films and pictures deprives us of something we take for granted: seeing people and places in color, even for a few seconds.
This film isn’t unique in working within the limitations of time and budget and sacrificing pinpoint-accuracy for something that can be done within limited means. Limited resources, however, doesn’t mean the filmmakers should get a free pass for every judgment call they had to make. Can a movie about past events disregard the facts, and play fast and free with the details, and still be right? The truth is, all historical films do—if they didn’t, they’d be documentaries instead of entertainment.
The gold standard these days when it comes to historical dramas is Jerrold Tarog but even in his films on Antonio Luna and Gregorio del Pilar he had to sacrifice accuracy. Compare a photograph of then-Major Manuel L. Quezon with this publicity still of Benjamin Alves playing his role in Goyo:
Photograph of then-Major Manuel L. Quezon (left), publicity still of Benjamin Alves playing his role in Goyo
Until around 1909, Quezon had what one writer described as “wonderful twirling moustachios” but Jerrold probably decided he’d better get rid of MLQ’s ‘stache because people might wonder why a Mexican bandit wandered into one of his films. Nor does Alves look like MLQ much at all, but there’s more to a role than physical resemblance. Making period films here at home always involves trying to do more with less and the less can be quite comical. Who can forget that even in Marilou Diaz-Abaya’s acclaimed Rizal, our national hero, apparently, was executed by a bunch of anorexic Iranians?
And of course even the West can reduce us to comedy. Forced to finish production in Sri Lanka because of threats of a lawsuit from one of the major figures in the EDSA Revolution, HBO’s A Dangerous Life, which featured Gary Busey as a journalist covering the fall of Ferdinand Marcos, had a climactic scene of Sri Lankans leaping about like lemurs, chanting “Cur-ry! Cur-ry!”
Filipinos were amused by this and aghast over the enormous prosthetic nose of Laurice Guillien who played “Curry” Aquino, or the way Cardinal Sin, played by the late, great, Rolando Tinio, turned out to be as skinny as Palito. But the film, for my generation, at least, contained a scene which silently portrayed in a few seconds, the fall of the Great Dictator better than any historically-based scene or dialogue could ever manage: Ruben Rustia, as Marcos, pausing by his presidential desk as he was about to flee, bending down, and kissing it. Here was a case of artistic license saying more than any factual scene ever could. In those fleeting seconds the finality of the fall of an entire regime was captured.
Bagatsing plays the role of MLQ with such flair.
Definitely you can say Bagatsing makes for a more authentic-looking Quezon. But it’s his acting that carries the film: he plays the role with such flair that in fact there are only two flaws in his portrayal. The first is probably due to a lack of materials to study: like the actor who played Littlefinger in Game of Thrones, sometimes it seemed Bagatsing couldn’t decide on what accent to use for his character, so his MLQ alternates between sounding Filipino or semi-American (MLQ’s accent is the type so extinct we last heard it in the diction of the late President Diosdado Macapagal: heavily inflected with Filipino-Spanish; if you go to Corregidor and beg the people in charge to play the Light and Sound Show put together by the late National Artlst Lamberto Javellana, you can get a good sense of how Quezon sounded, because Javellana knew him: he pronounced “General MacArthur,” for example, “Gen’rral Macarthah”).
The truth is, to carry through an authentic accent might be distracting to modern-day ears and possibly lapse into parody if the actor wasn’t careful. The second fault has nothing to do with Bagatsing at all: Quezon wouldn’t have been caught dead in the clothes provided by whoever was in charge of wardrobe for the production. (Then again, most of the other characters wouldn’t have dressed like that, either: you’ll find a lot of people wearing vests when in those days no one wore vests in the daytime, because who uses vests in a tropical climate?)
Rachel Alejandro as Aurora Quezon is, as always, a total pro except she is playing a character who never existed. By this I mean—and it’s no fault of hers—her portrayal of everything, from the mannerisms and behavior and even the clothing and hair, has absolutely nothing to do with the real Mrs. Quezon. It’s not as if it would have been easy to study for the role; film clips are rare, though a few exist like this view of her listening to her husband give a speech; recordings of her are even rarer, and just as it would have been tough for Bagatsing to copy Quezon’s accent, to portray Mrs. Quezon’s voice and Baler accent would have been exceedingly tough to do, and might easily slip into a caricature, too.
If this movie were a school report I think it’s clear by now I’d give it an “F.” But as a film, I’d give it far higher marks, and not merely for effort. Let me walk you through three scenes which I don’t think will spoil the movie for you, so you can see what I mean.
Rachel Alejandro as Aurora Quezon
In one scene, Quezon has a talk with his wife, who is terribly worried that the stresses of the job are killing her husband. Up to that point, the portrayal of their marriage seemed to me completely inauthentic: they are portrayed as a quarreling couple with the wife throwing jealous fits in the manner of our movies over the past 40 years. But they weren’t a modern couple and what’s more, her character wasn’t the harsh, dramatic type we see in our local films. She belonged to an era you would have seen in LVN or Sampaguita pictures: the long-suffering, patient, soft-spoken wife, quietly enduring her husband’s infidelities until her husband recognized the error of his ways and returned to the spouse who never ceased loving (and praying) for him. Not that she was simply a martyr; she was an effective partner whocould convince him where others failed, for example.
And it’s that context that was captured quite well in that scene, where Bagatsing’s MLQ walks Alejandro’s Aurora on why he needed to keep on pushing his policy on Jewish refugees against all opposition; at one point, she remarks, “I know when I married you that you are married to the country, first,” which was what she genuinely believed. She even plastered it (the Latin means “None higher than his country”) on the bookplate she placed on every book in her library.
Aurora placed this bookplate on every book in her library.
In this single scene, the writers, director, and artists managed to get to the heart of their partnership and by so doing, finally did justice to the characters portrayed. There is another scene, which people unfamiliar with her life story may not get, but it shows the filmmakers did research. At one point she’s shown sleeping in a little nipa house: there was actually such a nipa house in Malacañan Palace. There was also a guest house across the river (today we know it’s concrete replacement as Bahay Pangarap), where she liked to stay because she frankly hated the Palace and much preferred a cottage to it.
Audie Gemora as then-Vice President Sergio Osmeña
In another scene, Sergio Osmeña, who was then Vice President, has a meeting with Quezon and frankly confronts him about the misgivings many of their fellow politicians harbor about being so welcoming to the Jews. There’s a couple of things that provide useful background to this scene. The two men, Quezon and Osmeña, were not just political allies, off-and-on political rivals, but, in a way that is now extinct, old friends dating back to the time both were poor obscure country bumpkins studying in the big city.
This meant that ambition motivated both men, and while one might be president today, and the other his veep, it didn’t always have to be that way: but still, both men understood each other, because they had spent nearly 40 years by this time, fighting for the same thing: independence. One major difference was that one was healthy (Osmeña would live on until 1961) and the other, a dying man (Quezon would be dead by 1944, about seven years after the period portrayed in this film).
Back to the scene: Osmeña lets down his guard and asks Quezon why he’s being so stubborn, and Quezon tells him why: one of them is that he wants to live long enough to see independence happen. For a public figure, a sense of looming mortality is quite a motivation to stick to a purpose. I remember my father telling me, after we watched the movie Gandhi, which featured a scene in which Gandhi was exasperated by the single-minded insistence of Mohammed Ali Jinnah on the independence of Pakistan, that few films portrayed the kind of stubborn dedication that can arise in people with TB: Jinnah, like Quezon, had Tuberculosis and died of it, too.
Along the way, they discuss Osmeña’s real purpose for their meeting, which is to receive instructions for economic negotiations he’s about to conduct in Washington (this was a true event and Osmeña did succeed in his mission). Quezon reminds him of what’s at stake, and gives him two examples of why they had to accomplish what they’d set out to do as young men, which was achieve independence. Now Audie Gemora is far too animated a personality to play the more composed, quiet, Osmeña, but there are flashes of brilliance in his portrayal. There is a moment where, talking with fellow politicians, you see the suppressed ambition suddenly spark back to life: a couple of seconds where you can see him practically salivate over the potential of regaining political supremacy. It is a truthful moment. Hopefully, you’ll spot it.
Then Bagatsing-as-Quezon tells Gemora-as-Osmeña two stories.
The first example Bagatsing-as-MLQ gives, is a story about how even when they visit the White House, they have to use the bathrooms for colored folks. The truth of the matter is even more interesting than its fictional portrayal. For generations, Filipinos worked in the White House in their capacity as Navy Stewards whooperated and served in the White House Mess (that’s kitchen, to us non-navy types). The reason Filipinos served as such was that the U.S. military’s officers felt it was improper for them to be served by African Americans when the entire U.S. Armed Forces were segregated. So, they hired Filipinos to replace the African-Americans. Which is to say that the story of the White House bathroom, while vivid, appears in the film purely for effect: Quezon and his family would, in May 1942, upon arrival to establish the government-in-exile, were overnight guests in the White House, so a color ban couldn’t have applied.
The second example, though, was absolutely true. Bagatsing-as-Quezon reminds Osmeña that even now, during the Commonwealth, Filipinos weren’t allowed in the Army Navy Club at the Luneta and that it had a sign, “No dogs and Filipinos allowed.” We know this to be true because the late Teodoro M. Locsin (Teddyboy’s father) wrote, more than once, of this sign in the prewar Manila of his youth; and in the 1990s a documentary featured an interview of former Vice President Emmanuel Pelaez recalling that as a young law student, he was bodily thrown out of the Army Navy Club after daring to enter its premises.
I once wrote an article for the Philippine Tatleron how even dance clubs were segregated until the 1920s, when Quezon and Governor-General Francis Burton Harrison invaded a dance hall to put an end to the racial line that required Filipinos and Americans to dance separate from each other. Both examples given by Quezon in this scene, while one seems fictitious and the other genuine, strike home because they were connected to an essentially true and important point: we were never considered equals in a colonial system built on racism. After all, in the 1920s even Time Magazine described us as “little brown crickets.”
James Paoleli as American High Commissioner, Paul V. McNutt
I am divided as to my choice of the third scene. Both of my choices are scenes that are pure inventions. One has Quezon dropping by the American High Commissioner, Paul V. McNutt’s (quite well played by James Paoleli) place, but their chat is interrupted by an American official (I wish I knew the name of the actor: he plays the kind of antipatiko White American colonial know-it-all to perfection: such types did exist once upon a time) barging in to lecture McNutt on the stupidity of his taking the side of the Jews when God knows what will happen if the Philippines fills up with Jews. Bagatsing fumes off to one side as the conversation takes place. The scene is an essential one in communicating to the audience the motivations (ignoble ones) of the Americans who opposed helping the Jews.
My other candidate for an informative scene is one in which Bagatsing-as-Quezon finds his options hemmed in by growing opposition from all sides, Filipino and American. He decides to circumvent the opposition by doing something he actually introduced and perfected during his political career: to appeal to public opinion. Again, the scene is entirely fictional, though some of his words are taken from an actual speech he delivered in Marikina when he donated some of his own land for a dormitory for the Jewish refugees. There is an accompanying scene of a protest rally in defense of the Jews—there was one such rally, a truly rare thing, in indignation over Kristallnacht, in which the Nazis unleashed a round of persecutions of the Jews, burning shops and synagogues and arresting Jews. It is one of the best performances of Bagatsing in the entire movie.
But, alas. Quezon’s Gamehas its fair share of howlers. The craziest one is where a fairly competently-played (by David Bianco) Dwight D. Eisenhower, who at the time was assigned to the Philippines as Douglas MacArthur’s deputy in the Military Adviser mission to the Philippine government, has a brief meeting with MacArthur. The MacArthur in the movie seems to have wandered in from his retirement community in Subic where he’d spent the decades since the closing of the U.S. bases getting high on pot when he wasn’t guzzling Pale Pilsen. This version of MacArthur even has a beachcomber’s beard to match, when MacArthur was never anything but cleanshaven. The scene is so absurd that the Eisenhower actor even has to waste a line: “Why General, I almost didn’t recognize you with that beard,” to which the potbellied retiree mumbles something like, “Yeah, go figure, I’m retired yannow,” which is only partially right: by that time, MacArthur had retired from the U.S. Army but he was still a Filipino Field Marshal, and still military adviser. This was a scene that will send the eyebrows of anyone with even the slightest bit of knowledge shooting off into permanent orbit in outer space. Why? Why? Why, God, why?
Raymond Bagatsing with Billy Ray Gallion as Alex Frieder (left) and David Bianco as Dwight Eisenhower (second from right)
Another howler of a scene was one of the most ridiculously wrong in the film if you look at it from the point of view of facts and real events. A ball is held for the sole purpose of trying to strike a deal with the “German Ambassador”—when there was no such thing, because, still not independent, all that foreign governments had in the Philippines were consuls. The whole scene is a surreal combination of Rick’s Café Americain from the movie Casablancawith extras, including a fellow in Nazi S.S. uniform, who seem to have wandered in from an Indiana Jones movie. Everything about the scene is wrong: no one would have behaved the way they do, or talked the way they do, or do any of the things they do, in the scene. At one point Bagatsing makes a proposal to a perspiring fat Nazi more suitable to a Mafia movie in New York (and a terrible one at that). At another point, the sneering S.S. officer takes turns baring his teeth at the “ambassador” and at Bagatsing. There never would have been such a party with people behaving that way but… but… there were Nazis in Manila, and while nothing happened in the way of this scene, you’d have to have half an hour of back-and-forth that might get out of hand or end up utterly boring, just to explain the dynamics involved.
Which brings us to that old observation that no one likes movies about people having conversations in rooms. But let me take a step back and walk you through what the film is supposed to be about. I’ve prepared a Timeline of the Rescue of Jewish Refugeesso you can get a sense of actual events, and how they played out, and some useful background, so we don’t have to go into it in depth, here. I hope you’ll read it, either before or after you watch the movie (or both!), but basically, it sets out to untangle how Manuel L. Quezon, then President of the Philippines, the Jewish community in Manila, which included the Frieders, Jewish-American brothers who owned a cigar factory here, and the U.S. High Commissioner, Paul V. McNutt (who, in those pre-independence days, served as a kind of U.S. ambassador), worked together to do something hardly any country was willing to do: take in refugee Jews who were racing against the clock to get out of Germany and start a new life wherever the Nazis couldn’t reach them.
Make no mistake: the Jews who couldn’t escape faced death. Here is a chilling set of statistics compiled by Ber Kotlerman: a set of 20 letters was found in the Quezon papers, all of them written by Jews in 1938-39 asking to be allowed to come to the Philippines. All except one of the letter writers died in the concentration camps. The equally chilling explanation comes from Philip Frieder in that same year: hundreds of applications for visas had been received, he said, but because of a lack of funds, none could be approved.
The unique status of the Philippines is what allowed this rescue project to happen. American immigration laws were tight, but as a Commonwealth, the Philippines had its own authority to decide who would be allowed to step foot in the Philippines. This meant that American consuls abroad, if told that the Filipinos would accept Jews, could issue visas that otherwise weren’t available if refugees wanted to go to the United States itself. Quezon decided on who could enter the country, and McNutt as the representative of the U.S. government in the Philippines could tell consuls abroad to issue visas.
As practical politicians (McNutt was a former governor of Indiana and at the time in which this movie was set, widely-discussed as a strong candidate for the presidency in the forthcoming 1940 U.S. elections), both knew there was a fine line in the laws of both their countries that they had to follow, and an even finer line in terms of what public opinion would tolerate.
This is where requirements came in. To be given a visa, a refugee would have to have skills or a background considered advantageous by the Philippines, and be assured of having a job and financial support from the Jewish community in the Philippines; so not everyone could be given a visa and even the visas issued would have to be kept to a number that eventually settled on 1,000 individuals a year, for 10 years.
This, then, was Quezon’s game. As the film tries to show, this rescue project wasn’t happening in a vacuum. Actually, Quezon’s dilemma was three-fold, in the year 1938.
First, it was the first mid-term election, ever. His administration would be judged on its performance and the results would be revealed in how his candidates fared in November.
But even if he did well, it might mark his becoming a lame duck. As it was, there were already suggestions to amend the Constitution to restore the senate and allow presidential re-election.
Second, Filipino businessmen were getting cold feet about independence and American businessmen were inclined to either sell off and pull out, or keep the Philippines in some sort of permanent relationship with America. The opinion of businessmen could not be ignored, particularly in an election year that required them to healthily donate to the administration’s campaign.
Third (and this was related to the second), the jockeying to succeed Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was already in his second term, had begun. American High Commissioner Paul V. McNutt was considered a potentially strong candidate for the presidency. But there was also the possibility that the Republicans might win: and if so, as opponents of Philippine independence they could, quite possibly, reverse the plans for independence. So Quezon’s gambit was two-fold: to propose moving the date of independence earlier, or, if the Republicans looked like they might win, to compromise with a permanent association but with independence: in other words, dominion status, like Canada.
On the while, while there are a lot of details that the film gets wrong, the basic issues are vividly exposed in this movie, as were the various motivations of the people involved: knowing what was at stake. When a humanitarian—a moral—crisis confronts the world, nations and individuals are called upon to make choices. When people in authority have to make those choices, they have to balance thinking of the next election and the next generation. What would you do, in such a situation?
The movie begins and ends with that question, actually. “Did I do enough,” Bagatsing-as-Quezon asks his wife. The story unfolds in a way that in a matter of hours, gives you a version—not the textbook version, but an imaginary version—of who did what, and how. This is a film about flawed people trying to rise above their own limitations. It’s worth your time and money, but don’t watch it to learn history. Be entertained with a story that tries its best to get to the heart of the truth by means of make-believe; because the things that matter aren’t in dry catalogs of facts but in understanding what moves and motivates people, from the famous to the obscure.
It was fun while it lasted. But it’s sabong time. At least, that’s what recent goings-on in the congressional Grand Cocker Speakership Derby suggests.
Her Honor, Mayor Sara Duterte, may have teamed up with The Honorable Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, the incumbent Speaker, to seize the speakership and collaborate on Hugpong ng Pagbabago, but it’s time to select a new Speaker. And so, a multiround elimination fiesta has been playing out in the press, with the two formidable ladies backing different candidates.
Her Honor waded in soon after the midterms and, in a dizzying blitzkrieg of comments, smashed the hopes and dreams of at least two speakership aspirants. Round 1 saw the (swift) elimination of Alan Peter Cayetano from the speakership qualifying round. Her Honor declared he was an extortionist, and refused to back him when he supposedly threatened to bolt the ruling coalition if she didn’t back him.
Round 2 featured a declaration of the continuing ineligibility of Pantaleon Alvarez, on the basis of his being a snake and a sneak. With Her Honor declaring him still outside the loyalist kulambo, Alvarez’s continuing ineligibility from consideration also kicked him to the curb in the qualifying round. And what’s more, she reminded the faithful, the man had been caught on video threatening to embarrass her. This was not only a throwback to his earlier boastful indiscretions—remember when he’d bragged he could impeach the President?—but proved he was on the same miserable extortionary level as Cayetano with his threats.
Round 3 was a sibling slugfest featuring Her Honor, the Mayor, daring dear old daddy to back her troublemaker of a brother, congressman-elect Pulong. It was a move increasingly showing the peck-and-slash style she first inherited from dear old daddy, but is making increasingly her own. The dare was this: Fine, we’ve already had to kick that good-for-nothing boy upstairs to the House, but will you put the piggery in the hands of this sibling of mine?
Dear old daddy, who himself once upon a time had said he found the piggery such a sty that he preferred to spend his congressional term snacking in the canteen or malling, had to fold. His finally giving in to Her Honor, by grumbling he’d rather quit if his son made a bid for the speakership, led, in turn, to his disgruntled son making passive-aggressive comments in response. Said Pulong, more or less: “I did not say I want to be Speaker… Someone whispered lies into your ear again, Mr. President.”
What Her Honor’s dare also did, by the way, was further trap the still-disgraced Alvarez, who at one point slavishly announced that, of course, if Pulong sought the speakership, he (Alvarez) would immediately and loyally withdraw his bid. But the way dear old dad got confronted by his daughter just proved to everyone watching that The Decider here would remain Her Honor the Mayor, and not His Former Excellency, the President.
Which brings us to Round 4, currently taking place: the opening of the final round between the last congressmen standing, Lord Allan Velasco in Her Honor the Mayor’s corner as Representative of The Coming Man Squad, and Ferdinand Martin Romualdez in the corner of the (current) Honorable Speaker of the House as the candidate of choice of The Thoroughbred Caucus. And it’s here where Her Honor is now publicly at odds with the Honorable incumbent Speaker over the selection of her successor.
While Inday Sara’s style is to barge in and belt out her opinions, the former president and current Speaker’s style is slicker. She let loose a serpent — Danilo Suarez of the Company Union, known as the House minority bloc — to hiss his deep thoughts to gathered reporters. Suarez first hissed honeyed words of praise: Sara is a dear friend, she’s a maverick with a terrific right hook, she’s the President’s daughter and a contender for the presidency — what she says matters. But this was preamble to what he had to say on GMA’s behalf: Romualdez, he pointed out, already enjoys the support of 126 representatives. GMA herself holds sway over a significant bloc in the House. Of course Her Honor or the President could weigh in, but, he seemed to infer, would that look nice?
Arroyo afterward snapped at reporters that she had no comment on the speakership fight — after all, Suarez had already done the talking. Inday Sara may have pinned down dear old dad, who might still personally prefer an Alvarez comeback, but he won’t run the risk of belying the hyperloyalism (publicly, at least) of his daughter, his only competent child. But he can remain silent, and see if she can tip the balance of power in the House.
If you’ve watched the film, “Quezon’s Game” (or even if you never do), hopefully you will become interested in learning more about the rescue of Jews who found a safe haven in the Philippines.
Frieders with Jewish refugees in Manila; from the Rescue in the Philippines website.
Hopefully the extracts from academic articles and books will help provide a deeper understanding of these events. All errors and shortcomings in attribution are my responsibility alone.
Cast of Characters:
Manuel L. Quezon: “In 1935, Filipinos had elected him as the commonwealth’s first president. At the time, the Philippines were still a colonial possession of the United States. Quezon was an astute politician who used his fluency in English, political acumen, and gift of flattery to win over policymakers in Washington. Most important, Quezon was friendly and socialized with McNutt and the Frieders and visited with them at their homes. As a non-Aryan, he hated the Nazis and sympathized with the plight of Jews in Nazi Germany. He also believed the Jewish refugees would become an asset to the Philippines, especially with their expertise and knowledge of medicine and other professional fields. His endorsement proved significant because the commonwealth’s officials determined who could get off the ships and enter the territory.” According to
Goldstein/Kotlowski: “the Philippine president had made good friends with its Jewish-American community in part because Jews, who were familiar with discrimination, made an effort to be friends with Filipinos at a time when other Americans would not.”
Delmendo:
Despite the monumental tasks Quezon faced during the ten-year Commonwealth period—overhauling the Philippine economy, “Filipinizing” the government, widespread poverty, and the ever-looming threat of Japanese invasion—Quezon, with High Commissioner McNutt, proposed a plan to settle 30,000 refugee families on Mindanao, and 40,000-50,000 refugees on Polillo. Quezon made a ten year loan of the parcel of land he had bought for his only son, Manuel “Nonong” Quezon Jr., to Manila’s Jewish Refugee Committee for the housing of homeless refugees. This parcel was adjacent to Quezon’s own family home in Marikina, which Quezon used as a Presidential retreat when his tuberculosis and other medical issues required short rests and recuperation. Marikina Hall, a large group home and farm, was dedicated on April 23, 1940. One of the inhabitants, Morris Grimm, had been released from Buchenwald concentration camp on the condition he leave Germany.
Paul V. McNutt: “a Roosevelt appointee, had been a professor of law, governor of Indiana (1935-1937), and a prominent figure in the Democratic Party. A decent and humane individual, McNutt learned about the Nazi atrocities from Jacob Weiss, a close Jewish ally in Indiana’s Democratic Party, and from reports he received from Jewish groups. McNutt had long disdained racial hatred and anti-Semitism, and respected Jews, as he said, “for their toughness, resiliency, and success.” He often spoke out and condemned the German government and Hitler, and supported the Zionist goal of a Jewish homeland in Palestine. McNutt realized that any long-term effort to permit large numbers of Jews to enter the Philippines had to be methodical, carefully planned, and in accord with United States immigration statutes.”
The Frieder Brothers
The Frieder Brothers:Alex, Phillip, Herbert, Morris, “who owned a two-for-a nickel cigar business. In 1918, the brothers decided to transfer their cigar manufacturing operation to Manila from New York City, to reduce production costs. The brothers then took two-year turns living in Manila and overseeing their plant. They also became active in Manila’s Jewish community of 150 men, women, and children.” Watch a Frieder home movie of their Brixton Hill, Santa Mesa residence.
Dwight D. Eisenhower: At the time Douglas MacArthur’s chief of staff and No. 2 man in the Military Adviser’s Mission in the Philippines.
In his memoirs, At Ease. he recalled that:
“[By 1937] President Quezon seemed to ask for my advice more and more. He invited me to his office frequently. This was partly because of the office hours General MacArthur liked to keep. He never reached his desk until eleven. After a late lunch hour, he went home again. This made it difficult for Quezon to get in touch with the General when he wanted him. Because I was the senior active duty officer, my friendship with the President became closer.
“Our conversations became broader and deeper.They were no longer confined to the defence problem.Taxes, education, honesty in government, and other subjects entered the discussions and he seemed to enjoy them. Certainly I did.”
1939: at a party, Mamie Eisenhower greets President Quezon as Dwight D. Eisenhower looks on.
As pointed out by Sharon Delmendo:
As relations between MacArthur and Quezon increasingly grew strained, Quezon developed a close professional and personal relationship with Eisenhower. Quezon gave Eisenhower an office in Malacañan, and invited Eisenhower to weekend trips aboard the presidential yacht Casiana.
A popular myth holds that Dwight Eisenhower was centrally involved in Jewish refugee rescue in the Philippines, but extant documentation does not support this legend. Eisenhower kept a voluminous diary of his tenure in the Philippines and published several books after WWII, but never mentioned working on Jewish rescue (other than relating that he turned down a lucrative contract to head Jewish refugee efforts across the Pacific). Eisenhower is never mentioned in hundreds of US government documents relating to Jewish immigrants to the Philippines. Eisenhower was entirely consumed by his duties under MacArthur, building up Philippine defense in the face of increasingly certain attack by the Japanese.
Organizations:
Jewish Refugee Committee in Manila: “In 1937, the Jewish Refugee Committee (JRC) was established. American Jewish organisations – the Joint Distribution Committee and Refugee Economic Corporation – funded the JRC to maximise the number of refugees that could be admitted.”
Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC): est. in 1914, to “provide relief for Jews in Palestine and eastern Europe, was the primary organization for the distribution of funds from the American Jewish community to Jews in Germany.”
Harris: “founded in 1914 to provide relief for Jews in Palestine and Eastern Europe, was the primary organization for the distribution of funds from the American Jewish community to Jews in Germany. It had a virtual monopoly on overseas aid.”
Refugee Economic Corporation: “the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC). The JDC had created the Refugee Economic Corp. (REC), which helped resettle Jewish refugees. The REC worked with the Hilfsverein der Juden in Deutschland (Relief Association of German Jews).“ Harris: “The REC was founded on November 20, 1934 and specialized in creating Jewish settlements in countries that agreed to absorb Jewish refugees.”
According to Sharon Delmendo:
The REC funded the Mindanao Exploration Commission, a panel of experts charged with evaluating Mindanao’s suitability for European (i.e., Jewish) settlement on Mindanao.
Hilfsverein der Deutschen Juden: “This German Jewish organization had been established in 1901 to engage in social welfare and educational activities among needy Jews. After Hitler came to power, the association assisted German Jews trying to emigrate everywhere but Palestine, which was handled by the Jewish Agency.
“The Hilfsverein kept lists of those German Jews who applied to emigrate. The lists included the occupation or profession of each prospective emigrant. The German government allowed the Hilfsverein to exist because it wanted all Jews out of Germany, and the Hilfsverein promoted this goal. After the war broke out, the German government shut it down and assumed its activities.”
The United States’ Immigration Acts of 1917 and 1924 became the dual directives of immigration policies of the U.S. during the first half of the 20th century. However, only the Immigration Act of 1917, which outlined “qualitative” restrictions on potential immigrants, applied to the Philippines during its eras as a territory and then as a commonwealth nation of the United States. This 1917 Act imposed numerous conditions excluding individuals as acceptable immigrants to the U.S., and by extension, to the Philippines. While the U.S. State Department supposedly could not restrict the numbers of Jewish immigrants coming into the Philippines, it could, and did, demand a process that ensured adequate financial support for the refugees….
While the opening section of the 1917 Immigration Act details that its provisions “shall be enforced in the Philippine Islands by officers of the general government,” no such directive appears in the text of the U.S. Immigration Act of 1924 that regulated immigration numerically into the United States with the imposition of immigration quotas. This is extremely important when discussing the rescue of refugee Jews in the Philippines… However, no number restrictions on immigration into the Philippines existed in U.S. Immigration Laws…. Thus… restrictive quotas did not apply. But perhaps even more importantly, neither did U.S. State Department nor consular oversight in approving the issuance of visas to refugee aliens immigrating to the Philippines.
TIMELINE
This timeline is color-coded. Red dates are related to the Holocaust in general, and world events affecting the Philippines in particular: they provide a running reminder of what was happening to European Jews in general and the approaching global conflict. Blue dates apply to dates when news articles came out, and what those articles said: they will help provide global and local context to what was going on. Dates in black are dates more precisely related to the story of the rescue of European Jews.
The appearance of quotations is a guide as well. Information in italics is information from third-hand sources, such as the media at the time, or from people writing after the fact. They help provide background and updates to the emerging story. Material in ordinary text means it was written at the time, representing the actions and opinions of people involved in the story.
In 1933, the Nazis staged a boycott of Jewish-owned business, burned books by Jewish authors and took steps to exclude Jews from the civil service, medical profession and enrollment in universities.
Depending when in the time frame of the pre-WWII era in which refugees left, there were two different major routes that provided transport for refugee Jews from various points of departure in Europe to ports in southern and eastern Asia. From the early 1930s to the mid-1940s, the first route, by sea, carried fleeing refugees from ports mostly in Italy on to Alexandria, Egypt and then through the Suez Canal to ports-of-call in Bombay, Singapore, Hong Kong, Manila, Shanghai, and Kobe and Yokohama, Japan. Other vessels that left from seaports in northern Europe, such as Bremen or Hamburg, usually sailed around the Cape of Good Hope, extending the already four week voyage time to east Asia by another six weeks.] Ships could be booked six months in advance and carry as many as one thousand Jewish refugees per voyage. The other major route of transportation to the Far East was the land route across Russia and Siberia via the Trans-Siberian Railway and Chinese Eastern Railroad that had once brought Russian Jews to Asia two decades earlier.
Jewish refugees escaping Nazi persecutions began arriving in Asian ports as early as 1933, following Hitler’s ascent to power. Some refugees en route to the open city of Shanghai jumped ship in Manila, seeking asylum in an American overseas colony rather than an Asian one. The number of refugees seeking asylum in Asian ports corresponded to the waves of increased antisemitic violence in the Third Reich under Nazism…
Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany arrived in the Philippines as early as 1933, but they were few in numbers and their escape almost entirely undocumented.
Most significantly, the United States Immigration Act of 1924, which established the system of annual quotas, “took no official cognizance of ‘refugees’ and thus made no provision for offering asylum to the victims of religious or political persecution” … And the “Likely to Become a Public Charge” provision of the United States Immigration Act of 1917 prohibited the issuance of visas to anyone who lacked the wherewithal to support themselves….
1934
March 24: Enactment of the Tydings-McDuffie, or Philippine Independence, Act, by the U.S. Congress.
The Tydings-McDuffie Act of 1934, also called The Philippine Independence Act, outlined the terms of the Philippine Commonwealth and its ten year transition period into the fully independent Republic of the Philippines, which was predetermined for July 4, 1946. The Tydings-McDuffie Act authorized the Philippine Legislature, now one body called the National Assembly, to draft a constitution for the government of the Commonwealth
The first German Jewish refugees from Hitler may have been Karl Nathan and Heinz Eulau from Offenbach. They arrived in Manila in June 1934 on affidavits of support from Eulau’s cousin Dr. Kurt Eulau, who had lived in the islands since 1924.
Delmendo:
Ernst Simke arrived in the Philippines in 1932 to take a job offer from Maxime Hermanos of Levy Hermanos, an import-export business. Ernst decided to leave Germany because he found it almost impossible to get a job. In 1937, ES had a German passport issued to him by the Germany embassy in Manila (without the “J” for Jude), good for two years. When it expired in 1939, Simke became a naturalized Filipino citizen. Ernst married another Manilaner, Dr. Rita Broniatowski, who arrived in the Philippines in 1940.
November 20: Refugee Economic Corporation (REC), with headquarters in New York City, established to create Jewish settlements in countries that agreed to absorb Jewish refugees.
Two years later, the so-called Nuremberg Laws defined Jews as non-Aryans, relegated them to the status of a subject class and prohibited them from marrying Aryans.
Delmendo:
On September 15, 1935, the Nazi party publicized two laws during the annual Nuremburg party rally in Nuremburg. Two laws were decreed: the Reichs Citizenship Law, which stripped Jews of their German citizenship and outlined the “racial” classification of Jews, and the Law for the Protection of German Blood and German Honor, which criminalized marriage or sexual relations between Aryans and Jews and prohibited Jews from employing German women under the age of 45. These two laws were the first of many laws and policies which progressively disenfranchised and systematically impoverished Jews in Germany and Nazi-occupied territories.
March 25: Constitution of the Philippines certified as conforming to the Philippine Independence Act by the President of the United States
The executive power of the new government centered in an elected Filipino President, as stipulated by Article VII of the Commonwealth Constitution, which was ratified on May 14, 1935. Another important provision of the Tydings-McDuffie Act was the creation of the Office of the U.S. High Commissioner to the Philippines. The U.S. High Commissioner had no direct administrative powers in the Philippines, but was concerned primarily with protecting American interests in the new commonwealth nation. This office superseded that of the American Governor-General. The relationship between these newly invested offices and the U.S. War Department was never really clarified until Philippine Supreme Court Justice George A. Malcolm composed an official statement to the High Commissioners Office on January 9, 1939. His official opinion clarified “the relationship of the office of the High Commissioner to the Philippine Islands and the War Department.”
Malcolm’s treatise explained that three agencies were provided to act as representatives of the President of the United States in the execution of his duties as the supreme commander over the Islands of the Philippines, as provided by the Tydings-McDuffie Act. In the Philippines proper, that representative was the U.S. High Commissioner to the Philippines. At the U.S. Capital, as pertaining to the foreign affairs of the Philippines, that agency was the Office of Philippine Affairs within the Department of State. Certain other affairs of the Philippines continued to be administered by the Secretary of War through the Bureau of Insular Affairs
June 25: Philippine Magazine:
At a meeting presided over by General Emilio Aguinaldo, the National Socialist Party is formally organized, the Sakdal Party, headed by Jose Timog, and other minority groups including the Radical Party, headed by Rep. Alfonso Mendoza, the Laborista Party, headed by Pablo Manlapit, the Pampanga Communists, headed by Abad Santos, the Philippine Fascists, headed by Miguel Cornejo, and the Civil Union, headed by Vicente Sotto, all taking part.
The worst anti-Jewish demonstration in two years is staged in Berlin, inspired by the Swedish anti Semitic cinematograph film, “Petterson and Binder,” at which Jews whistled and booed.
In spite of Germany’s openly anti-Semitic Nuremberg Laws of 1935, the United States still resisted accepting more immigrants than the quotas for Germany allowed, even after over 500,000 German and Austrian Jews were declared stateless enemies by Hitler in 1935.
November 15: Commonwealth of the Philippines inaugurated. Philippines becomes self-governing except that foreign policy would be the responsibility of the United States. Laws passed by the legislature affecting immigration, foreign trade, and the currency system still had to be approved by the President of the United States.
[Quezon] wrote to [Frank] Murphy [the last governor-general and first high commissioner] and gave his own interpretation of the high commissioner’s powers. He believed that the Tydings-McDuffie Act gave the United States only a limited number of specified powers; in all other areas Commonwealth authority would be plenary. He recognized the American President’s right to act by proclamation in specified matters, once they had been referred to him by the high commissioner. As he saw it, the high commissioner could observe, request information, carry out specified duties, and send recommendations to Washington when he saw something he considered unwise or illegal.6 Very obviously, such an official would stand little chance of interfering meaningfully with the operations of the Commonwealth President. When Secretary [of War, George] Dern came to Manila with a large congressional delegation to participate in the inaugural ceremonies, Murphy made one more attempt to get his instructions modified. Dern was understanding but took no action.
Beginning in 1935, Filipinos received internal autonomy and the right to elect their own president while the United States remained the sovereign power. Washington was represented in Manila by a “high commissioner” appointed by the U.S. president. The responsibilities of the high commissioner were somewhat nebulous as was the commonwealth set-up itself … Immigration policy was a case in point, for the Immigration Act of 1917, which included the “most likely to become a public charge” proviso, applied to entrants to the Philippines, while the Immigration Act of 1924, with its annual quotas, did not. Immigration to the Philippines was riddled with loopholes because immigration policies were not clearly defined. The Philippines had no immigration laws of its own and there was a history of U.S. officials in the Philippines bypassing immigration laws that applied in the continental United States. Chinese and Japanese immigrants were routinely permitted to settle in the islands, despite local Philippine opposition and at a time when these same immigrants were excluded from the American mainland. Enforcement of all types of law in the Philippines had historically been lax at best and corrupt at worst.
The complex and unresolved issue of immigration was among the problems confronting Manuel Quezon when he became president of the Philippine Commonwealth in 1935.
November 19: Philippine Magazine:
The governments of France and Germany send congratulatory messages to President Quezon through the State Department.
Talk in the office with Dr. Schay, a Jewish refugee who escaped from the Nazis; he was the editor of the second largest newspaper in Germany–was sitting with a friend playing chess in a cafe in Berlin, when he heard of the burning of the Reichstag. He telephoned at once to his wife to bring his suitcase to the station, reached Aachen, and walked across the border to Belgium. I asked him; “The Nazis burned the Reichstag, didn’t they?” “Of course,” he replied and added that there was a “will to war” among the Nazis as soon as they could arm; they were then lacking in fortresses, and in heavy artillery; their aviation was now the largest in Europe. They mean to get the Danzig corridor back; Poland was to be “compensated” by annexing the northern part of the Ukraine–war would be made by Germany and Poland on Russia in the Spring of 1937–but things could change before that. Schay means to open a school for Filipinos in Manila.
Should have gone this noon to the German Club for their National Day–and was even anxious to do so, though no doubt, some of their older members were among those whom I deported to the United States detention camps during the war–but I could not stomach the thought of drinking Hitler’s health! Believe I should have vomited!
The time has come when we should systematically proceed with and bring about the colonization and economic development of Mindanao. A vast and rich territory with its untapped natural resources is a temptation to enterprising nations that are looking for an outlet for their excess population. While no nation has the right to violate the territorial integrity of another nation, people that lack the energy, ability, or desire to make use of the resources which Divine Providence has placed in their hands, afford an excuse for a more energetic and willful people to deprive them of their lawful heritage. If, therefore, we are resolved to conserve Mindanao for ourselves and our posterity, we must bend all our efforts to occupy and develop it and guard against avarice and greed. Its colonization and development will require no little capital. But every cent spent for this purpose will mean increased national wealth and greater national security. The present income of the government is quite insufficient to even attempt to do more than carry on its present activities. Were there no other reasons for the creation of new sources of revenue, the need of developing Mindanao alone would make it an unavoidable duty for this Assembly, especially those who visited Mindanao recently with me, are conscious, I feel sure, of our grave responsibility to encourage settlement and develop Mindanao. There are provinces in Luzon and the Visayas that are already overpopulated. There are localities in some of those provinces where the people live on large estates without opportunity to earn a livelihood sufficient to meet the necessities of civilized life, much less to own the land wherein they live and which they cultivate. It is inconceivable that such a situation should exist in a country with extensive areas of fertile uncultivated lands. I invite you, therefore, to give this matter preferential consideration.
The so-called Moro problem is a thing of the past. We are giving our Mohammedan brethren the best government they have ever had and we are showing them our devoted interest in their welfare and advancement. In turn they are giving us their full cooperation. Let us reserve for them in their respective localities such land of the public domain as they may need for their well-being. Let us, at the same time, place in the unoccupied lands of that region industrious Filipinos from other provinces of the Archipelago, so that they may live together in perfect harmony and brotherhood.
November 7: Philippine Magazine:
Due to the British government’s determination not to suspend Jewish immigration into Palestine pending the findings of the Royal Commission, now on its way from London to Jerusalem, the Arabs are reported to have decided to boycott the Commission.
Although American immigration laws applied to the Philippines, the country had no quota system. A financial guarantee from a resident sufficed to obtain an entry visa. If the Jewish refugee who arrived in the Philippines was able to find employment, he met an important provision of U.S. immigration policy: that he not become a burden on the state. McNutt, the Frieder brothers, and Quezon became the active movers of the plan; Eisenhower played no ongoing role in the rescue but served as the group’s liaison to the U.S. Army…
February 17: Philippine Magazine:
News of the appointment by President Roosevelt of Governor Paul V. McNutt as U.S. High Commissioner in the Philippines is generally well taken in Manila although regret is expressed that the appointment did not go to Acting U.S. High Commissioner J. Weldon Jones. Mr. Jones himself expresses his satisfaction and telegraphs his congratulations.
March 1: President Roosevelt appoints Paul V. McNutt High Commissioner to the Philippines
Early in 1937, President Roosevelt named McNutt high commissioner to the Philippines to satisfy a political need, that is, to send… a potential rival, as far from the U.S. mainland as possible.
Delmendo:
On March 1, 1937, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt wrote McNutt a letter of instructions regarding the office of the High Commissioner. In this letter, Roosevelt gave McNutt near broad discretionary authority:
“In the nature of things, situations will arise which will call for sound judgment and sympathetic handling on your part. It is not my intention here to burden you with specific rules for your guidance, for in appointing you to this high office I am confident of your ability to handle the situations which may arise to the best advantage not only of the American people but also of the people of the Philippine Islands.”
March 1: Time Magazine:
The list of candidates for Harry Woodring’s temporary job as Secretary of War was lopped from the top last week when President Roosevelt appointed Indiana’s Paul Vories McNutt to be U. S. High Commissioner to the Commonwealth of the Philippines. In Washington, the New York News’s Columnists John O’Donnell & Doris Fleeson reported the following exchange between two Indianians who had been grooming their handsome ex-Governor for the White House.
First Hoosier: “Oh. well, there isn’t much difference between an $18,000 job in Manila and a $15,000 job in the Cabinet.”
Second Hoosier: “There’s 11,000 miles difference, so far as 1940 is concerned.”
First official act of big, bronze-skinned Mr. McNutt will be to sit in on discussions of U. S.-Philippine trade relations with President Roosevelt and little, brown-skinned Commonwealth President Manuel Quezon, who last week sped across the land from Los Angeles to keep his White House engagement. Informed of Mr. McNutt’s appointment in Chicago, President Quezon tactfully observed that if President Roosevelt had chosen him he must be the best man for the job. But in Manila, the U. S.-owned-&-edited Bulletin declared: “If politics had not been considered, if special fitness had been the deciding factor, J. Weldon Jones [Commonwealth financial adviser and Acting High Commissioner] would have been appointed.”
Paul McNutt may not know much about Philippine economic problems, but in 45 years he has acquired an impressive experience in law, war and politics. Finishing Harvard Law School in 1916, he became an assistant professor at Indiana University Law School, rose to be the youngest dean it had ever had. Meantime he served as instructor in U. S. camps during the War, rising from captain to major in the Field Artillery. In 1928 he was elected national commander of the American Legion, went on from there to become Governor of Indiana in 1933. Blessed with a distinguishing shock of white hair and bold black eyebrows, a gregarious lover of golf, poker and football, he has made many a friend by his forceful, eloquent, ingratiating personality. He has also made many an enemy by his autocratic disposition, his use of militia in labor disputes. The troops, plus his use of the semi-dictatorial emergency powers he won from the Legislature few weeks after he took office, won him the title of “Hoosier Hitler.” Citizens squirmed under his stiff taxes but otherwise it was generally admitted that he did a businesslike job of running his State. He worked hard to deliver it for Franklin Roosevelt last November.
By no means a political blind alley are the Philippines, as the subsequent careers of onetime Civil Governor William Howard Taft, Governor-General Henry Lewis Stimson and High Commissioner Frank Murphy well demonstrate. Far from relinquishing his Presidential ambitions last week, Paul McNutt let slip to the press that it would probably be only a year or so before he was back on the U. S. scene.
April 27: Philippine Magazine:
U.S. High Commissioner Paul V. McNutt arrives in Manila with his wife and sixteen-year old daughter and others of his party. … He states as to his powers that the law and the instructions he has received from President Roosevelt (which were read in part by President Quezon) are clear and that he will not interfere in local affairs.
May 31: Time Magazine:
President Manuel Quezon of the Philippine Commonwealth, junketing in Europe, has not been in Manila since U. S. High Commissioner Paul Vories McNutt arrived there for duty last month. By last week it was already beginning to appear that the 7.091 Philippine Islands might not be big enough for the peppery mestizo politico and the cotton-topped political Adonis from Indiana.
Manuel Quezon, who was not consulted about Mr. McNutt’s appointment last February (TIME. March 1). and who has made no secret of his irritation with U. S. “interference” in the Commonwealth’s administration, has not discouraged various foreign consular officials at Manila—most of them semi-professional—from clearing diplomatic affairs through his Malancañan Palace. Last fortnight Commissioner McNutt advised these gentlemen that the U. S. was still responsible for the Philippines’ foreign relations, that all communication with the Commonwealth should be routed via his office. Particularly irked was he that The Netherlands vice consul had recently been replaced without notification to the Commissioner’s office.
While the consuls were busy cabling home for instructions, Commissioner McNutt sent another tornado of excitement blowing through the bars at the Army & Navy and Elks Clubs (Manila’s best) by transmitting a second message to the consulates. At future consular dinners let the first toast be drunk to the head of the host’s State. Let the second salute Franklin D. Roosevelt, the third his emissary in the Philippines, Paul V. McNutt. The fourth salute should honor President Quezon. The irregular practice of toasting Senor Quezon before Mr. McNutt would have to stop.
At this demotion toward the merrier but less distinguished end of the toast list, Manuel Quezon maintained a dignified silence. But the Filipino-owned Philippines Herald angrily took up his cause, snorted: ”A diplomatic crisis is brewing. Commonwealth dignitaries may decline to attend consular parties. . . . Used to high-riding the political prairies of Indiana with State troops at his beck, McNutt must feel suffocated in the close quarters the Philippine Independence Act allows him. If he conceives it his duty to enlarge American authority in the Philippines despite growing Filipino autonomy, he is certain to encounter difficulties. If his recent activities are a gauge of his attitude, we expect many lively political interludes.”
Said Assemblyman Francisco Lavides: “Frankly, McNutt is an enigma.”
Said President Quezon diplomatically when questioned by newshawks in Manhattan : “I never refuse a drink, toast or no toast.”
At the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War broke on 7 July 1937, the JRC in Manila received a telegram from the Ashkenazi Jewish community in Shanghai asking for assistance for their refugee Jews. The small Jewish community in Manila immediately raised a sum of $8,000, but before the money could be dispatched, the wealthier Sephardic Jews of Shanghai stepped up and cared for the needs of the refugees Jews on their own. The JRC, under the leadership of Philip Frieder and Morton I. Netzorg in Manila, decided to hold the funds in escrow in case a future need arose. That need came almost immediately.
President Manuel Quezon of the Philippines left tonight for Paris after having luncheon with Hans G. V. von Mackensen, Foreign Office UnderSecretary, and about fifty representatives of the government and the German Far Eastern trade.
The role of Jews and Masons in the Philippines was closely monitored by the German consulate in Manila. In a long report to the German foreign office in Berlin, the new German consul, Gustav Sakowsky, warned that local Jews, Masons, and the Catholic Church were stronger in the Philippines than anywhere else in Asia and that they would love to attack National Socialism just as soon as the American authorities gave the go-ahead. In his effort to inculcate the Nazi philosophy among the Germans in Manila (there were only several dozen Party members in the Philippines among nearly three hundred non-Jewish German adult males), he feared his power was faltering in the face of a growing opposition, much of which engaged in business –and often social contact—with non-German citizens. And there were several liaisons between German businessmen and Filipino women, an affront to Nazi racial laws.
However, the first significant influx of European refugee Jews to arrive in Manila did not come directly from Europe, but rather from the Jewish refugee community in Shanghai. With the renewal of hostilities between the Japanese and Chinese in 1937, which resulted in the occupation of Peking by Japanese forces, the four million inhabitants of Shanghai faced the dangers of war in an occupied territory and various civilian communities sought escape from Shanghai’s battle grounds. Germany’s shift of alliance from China to Japan at this time alarmed German Jews in Shanghai, who feared German pressure on Japan to adopt Nazi discriminatory policies against Shanghai’s German Jewish population. The Manila Jewish community shared that fear and organized the Jewish Refugee Committee of Manila (JRC) with the intention of rescuing German members of the Shanghai Jewish community.
…enjoining government agencies in the City of Manila, City of Baguio, the Province of Rizal, and the Mountain Province to extend aid to refugees especially Filipino and American nationals in China who fled to the country.
August 24: Manila Tribune:
WHEN MORE REFUGEES ARRIVE–Scenes taken aboard the S.S. “President Hoover” which brought several hundred refugees yesterday morning. At extreme right, top, is shown Lt. Luis Villa Real, aide-de-camp to President Quezon, conversing with Mrs. Victor Czegka, wife of Admiral Byrd’s mechanical engineer during his polar expedition. Admiral Byrd requested President Quezon to “please arrange accommodations” for the refugees.
… the German government sent a ship to Shanghai to evacuate all German nationals from the war zone to Manila. In the evacuation, they also took aboard about 30 German Jewish refugee families. The Jewish community in Mania took charge of the refugee Jewish families at the request of the German Consul in the Philippines. This spontaneous rescue of German refugee Jews from Shanghai became the impetus for the devised rescue plans that followed, bringing… 1,300… to a safe haven in the Pacific.
Refugee rescuers in the Philippines operated selection and sponsorship programs unlike any Jewish rescue operations executed anywhere else in the world during these years. The plans involved a collaboration of efforts from political dignitaries and businessmen in the Philippines, relief organizations in both the United States and in Germany, and even government officials in the often antisemitic-leaning U.S. State Department.
The Frieders and other Jewish leaders worried that a large influx of refugees would tax the employment market and necessitate extensive welfare services, which their tiny community was unable to provide. They also knew that the long-term success of any resettlement program required the sympathy of the Filipinos. That meant the refugees had to be integrated into the community, secure employment, and avoid becoming public charges. Consequently, they advocated a controlled-entry program.
McNutt proved responsive as well; he asked Leo Gardner, his legal adviser, to find a way to help these refugees. Gardner studied executive orders defining the office of high commissioner and found that McNutt had the power to “waive visa requirements in admitting persons to the Islands” … The high commissioner did so with the encouragement and support of Quezon and Jewish leaders in Manila, notably Philip Frieder and his brothers – Alex, Morris, and Herbert – who were cigar manufacturers from Cincinnati.
September 16: Quezon, to the Secretary of War, Harry Woodring:
I confess frankly that in Washington I made a mistake in my first impression of Commissioner McNutt. The light under which reports from Manila regarding his early acts in the Philippines made him appear, has not only misrepresented him, but has done him an injustice.
Commissioner McNutt is a man—mentally honest, direct, sincere in his dealings with people and courteously outspoken. His sense of justice and fairness is not only evident but impressive. He has tact, vision, human sympathies, high principles and a vast knowledge of public affairs. The President could not have chosen a better man for the difficult and delicate task facing the United States High Commissioner.
September 17: McNutt, to the Secretary of War, Harry Woodring:
I have found President Quezon considerate, fair, frank and cooperative. I am glad to be able to report positively that we will work together in perfect harmony, much to the disgust of those on both sides of the Pacific who sought to promote a fight between us. I have come to like, respect, and admire President Quezon, and feel that it will be possible to solve any problems which might arise in a mutually acceptable manner.
The Office of Philippine Affairs within the State Department was created on December 12, 1936, for the sole purpose of carrying out the directives of the State Department as pertaining to foreign affairs issues in the Philippines. Whenever situations demanded communication between the Philippines and the State Department concerning immigration, the practice was to transmit the message to the War Department via the Bureau of Insular Affairs, who would then forward the message to the designated agency, whether that was the High Commissioner or the Office of Philippine Affairs. In this manner, the Secretary of State advised the High Commissioner of the Philippines on issues of foreign affairs, and “the views of the Secretary of State [were] accepted as conclusive.”
December 16: Philippine Magazine:
Acting Secretary of State Robert W. Moore announcing the creation of a new division of Philippine affairs states that neither particular political nor economic problems are responsible for the move, but solely the desire to coordinate the administration of affairs concerning the Islands. Francis B. Sayre, Assistant Secretary of State, declares that “the gradual shifting of Philippine matters from the War Department to the State Department seems inevitable as the date of independence nears” and that the Department has been increasingly involved in Philippine matters by preparations for the economic conference—which will be “a constructive and not a ‘horse-trading’ affair”. J. E. Jacobs with a background of long experience in the Orient and in the Department has been designated head of the division. The action meets with approval in Philippine government circles.
The situation with regard to immigration into the Philippine Islands was thrown into considerable confusion during the year 1937 by instructions sent out by the United States Department of State, advising United States consular officers that they have no authority to refuse to issue visas for aliens desiring to proceed to the Philippines, except for such aliens whose entry might be considered harmful to the public safety, and pointing out that the question of the admissibility of aliens is one to be determined by the immigration officers of the Philippine Islands upon arrival at Philippine ports. The immigration authorities of the Commonwealth government did not have the experience or training to cope with this situation. Owing to the large numbers of aliens from various disturbed regions of the world who desire to take up residence in the Philippines, the problem is growing more acute. The seriousness of the problem is one which is fully recognized by Commonwealth authorities. It is to be hoped that within the near future such remedial measures of an administrative nature and necessary amendments to existing laws will be undertaken as will enable the Commonwealth government to cope effectively with the situation…
UNITED STATES LAWS ADMINISTERED BY THE COMMONWEALTH
IMMIGRATION INTO THE PHILIPPINES
The Immigration Act of 1924, setting up a system of quota control for immigration into the United States, is not applicable to the Philippine Islands. The ruling immigration law of the Philippines is the act of Congress of February 5, 1917, which contains a proviso that the law shall be enforced in the Philippines by officers of the general government thereof until it is superseded by an immigration act passed by the Philippine Legislature and approved by the President of the United States.
On November 14, 1935, just prior to the establishment of the Commonwealth government, the President of the United States issued an Executive order prescribing the documents to be required for aliens coming into the Philippine Islands. The basic provision of these requirements was that all aliens were required to present unexpired passports or official documents showing their origin and identity and valid passport visas issued by American consular officers. The Executive order was a restatement of previous Executive orders, providing necessary changes in nomenclature resulting from the establishment of the Commonwealth.
The problem of Chinese immigration into the Philippines is one of long standing controlled by laws anterior to that of 1917 and it should be understood that the comment here made does not refer to the question of Chinese immigration, but to immigration of aliens of other nationalities. Until recent years the entry of such aliens has not been a difficult problem, inasmuch as the immigration authorities in the Philippines were disposed to admit without question an alien who presented a travel document bearing the visa of an American consul. However, with the beginning of troubles in Spain, China, and other parts of the world the problem of the entry of aliens who might not be easily assimilated became more acute. Commonwealth authorities expressed a desire that American consuls should refuse visas to certain classes of applicants, but the State Department replied that under the act of 1917 consuls were without authority to refuse visas except in certain cases, as, for example, that of an alien whose entry might be contrary to the public safety. The State Department pointed out that the admissibility of an alien was a question to be determined under the act of 1917 by the authorities at the port of entry. This ruling, while undoubtedly in accordance with the law, created a degree of confusion in the Pliihppine administration of immigration laws. The confusion was heightened by the fact that, effective January 1, 1937, the administration of immigration laws was transferred from the Bureau of Customs, under the Department of Finance, to the Department of Labor. The new officials thus placed in charge were not familiar with the situation and had no experience in the enforcement of the laws.
In view of disturbed conditions in certain foreign countries and relatively prosperous conditions in the Philippines, it may be expected that large numbers of aliens will continue to seek entry into the Philippines and that a thorough reorganization of the immigration system and certain amendments to existing laws will be needed to effect an efficient and just administration. The need is recognized by President Quezon and other officials of the Commonwealth and the matter is being given careful study and attention.
In connection with the administration of immigration laws applicable to those from the excluded areas, both the British and the Chinese consulates general in Manila have frequently requested the intervention of the High Commissioner’s office to facilitate entry of their nationals. Sources of information indicate that these nationals are inclined to suspect favoritism. Complaints of long delays and inadequate provision for the detention of immigrants awaiting decision as to their right of entry are frequently received. The number of British Indians and Chinese desiring to enter the Philippines is large and the task of the Commonwealth immigration authorities is not an easy one. As such matters directly affect the foreign relations of the United States, they become a matter of very real concern to the United States High Commissioner. It is to be hoped that steps will be taken in the near future to remedy the present admittedly unsatisfactory conditions
The administration of existing immigration laws was transferred from the Bureau of Customs to the Department of Labor, effective January 1, 1937, pursuant to Commonwealth Act No. 139 and Executive Order No. 81.
During the year 1937 a greater number of persons arrived in the Philippines than during the previous year. Excluding the enlisted men and persons attached to the military and naval forces of the United States, a total of 44,310 persons arrived in, and 25,331 persons departed from, the Philippines as compared with 37,021 arrivals and 27,648 departures in 1936.
Of the 6,173 Americans, 2,921 went to the United States and other insular possessions and 3,252 to foreign countries; of the 3,208 Filipinos, 704 went to the United States and insular possessions and 2,504 to foreign countries; of the 9,516 Cliinese departures, 2 went to the United States and other insular possessions and 9,514 to foreign countries, of which 1,828 were emigrants and 7,686 nonemigrants ; of the 3,336 Japanese, all went to Japan and other foreign countries, of which 1,935 were emigrants and 1,401 nonemigrants.
One hundred sixteen aliens consisting of 112 Chinese, 1 East Indian, and 3 Russians were deported from the Philippines in 1937 as compared with 272 aliens, consisting of 270 Chinese, 1 East Indian, and 1 Russian in 1936.
Of the 10,620 immigrants for 1937, 5,170 were Chinese, 4,170 were Japanese, and all other nationalities totaled 1,280.
December 31: Philippine Magazine:
A number of democratic and Jewish newspapers in Roumania have been suppressed during the past few days and a decree is issued that no Jews may remain in any newspaper office. Reported that Roumania’s contracts with France and Czechoslovakia for armament supplies have been “temporarily suspended” and that Russia has notified the new government it will abrogate the 1933 non-aggression pact. Stated in Rome that the new situation in Roumania is indicative of the “profound transformation which is taking place in the whole Danube basin.”
In 1938, Hitler’s regime intensified its policy of economic strangulation by requiring the registration of Jewish-owned property. The Decree for the Elimination of Jews from German Economic Life, also issued in 1938, forbade Jews from owning enterprises engaged in the retail and export businesses. ‘By the end of 1938 the economic position of Germany’s Jews was untenable’, the historian David Wyman… has observed…150,000 Jews left Germany between 1933 and 1937. By the beginning of 1938, the international community had resettled about 100,000 of them in neighbouring European countries as well as in Palestine, the United States, South America and the Union of South Africa
Sometime in 1938-39: Dwight D. Eisenhower, writing in his memoirs, At Ease:
“The Nazis were in the saddle and riding hard in central Europe. Among other things, they were persecuting the Jews unmercifully and many of the Jewish faith were fleeing Germany, trying to find homes elsewhere in the world…There was a considerable Jewish community in [Manila] and I had good friends among them..
“Out of the Jewish ordeal in Europe, an unusual offer was made to me. Through several friends, I was asked to take a job seeking in China, Southeast Asia, Indonesia, and every country where they might be acceptable, a haven for Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany. The pay would be $60,000 a year, with expenses. The first five years’ salary would be placed in escrow to be delivered to me if I should be separated from the new job for any cause whatsoever. The offer was, of course, appealing for several reasons. But … I had become so committed to my profession that I declined.”
Sharon Delmendo:
In At Ease, Eisenhower seldom gives specific dates, and that is true of the Jewish refugee contract. But he told the same story to his personal secretary, Ann Whitman, who recorded in her own diary that Eisenhower dated the offer as 1938 or 1939.
Harris:
The rescue of these German Jews from Shanghai came to the attention of the Refugee Economic Corporation (REC), headquartered in New York City and an affiliate of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee…
After hearing that German Jews had found safe haven in Manila, Liebman of the REC initiated contact with U.S. High Commissioner McNutt through mutual acquaintances with two brothers, Julius and Jacob Weiss, the former an associate with the REC and the latter an Indiana State Senator and personal friend of McNutt. Senator Weiss wrote McNutt on behalf of the REC, asking if it were possible to allow 100 Jewish German refugee families to settle in the Philippines. McNutt replied that he would talk to Weiss in a few weeks when he, McNutt, returned to the U.S. McNutt arrived in Washington DC on 23 February 1938.
January 7: Philippine Magazine:
France and Poland declared to have reached an agreement for the migration of some Polish Jews to Madagascar. Neighbors of Roumania strengthen their frontier guards against an influx of Jews it is anticipated will follow the establishment of the the fascist Goga government there.
February 19: Philippine Magazine:
High Commissioner McNutt… was tumultuously welcomed in Indianapolis before Indiana Democratic Editorial Association… Earlier, the editorial association endorsed a “McNutt for President” boom, but McNutt declined to disclose whether he would seek presidency. He emphasized he was not called to Washington but planned to discuss number of things with President Roosevelt. “I am not here on political mission and will remain in Philippines as long as I am needed there.”
February 23: McNutt arrives in Washington D.C. on official business.
February 24: McNutt has meeting with President Franklin D. Roosevelt.
McNutt entering the White House to meet Roosevelt. Library of Congress picture.
Harris:
[McNutt] remained in the U.S. for two months before returning to the Philippines. After meetings with the President [Roosevelt], the Secretary of State, and a dozen other important government officials, McNutt informed Weiss that “it’s all arranged. The visas will be okayed by me and won’t have to clear through the State Department. When I get back to Manila I’m going to arrange for the proper reception of these refugees.” Upon his return to the Philippines, McNutt “organized the Jewish community in Manila” and sent details of a selection plan in a letter to Weiss.
February 23: Philippine Magazine:
Senator Minton states that the presentation of the McNutt reception as intended to announce a bid for the presidency sprang from the fertile minds of newspaper writers. “Although a good many of us regard him as the logical choice for presidential nomination, our political efforts on his behalf will come later.” High Commissioner McNutt himself states, he is not a candidate for any public office and that he is giving his entire time, energy, and thought to American affairs in the Philippines. He stresses the absolute necessity of amending the economic provisions of the Tydings-McDuffie Act, stating that failure to do so would be “economic murder”. The Philippines should be ready to meet all “internal and external” problems before obtaining complete independence, he says. He pays tribute to the new Philippine government, saying his relations with Filipino officials have been “a real pleasure”—”just as pleasant as back in Indiana”.
April 2: In response to McNutt’s objection to a proposal by the German Consul in Manila, Gustav Adolf Sakowski, to conduct a plebiscite among Germans and Austrians in Manila to ratify Hitler’s annexation of Austria, the German consul defies him.
…Sakowski staged a shipboard meeting, beyond Philippine waters, during which three hundred Germans and Austrians pledged allegiance to their enlarged Fatherland.
April 18: Time Magazine:
Almost as soon as the McDuffie-Tydings Bill was passed it began to be reconsidered. Last year a joint committee of U. S. and Philippine experts examined the whole question of how independence would affect the islands. Publication of the committee’s findings is due next month, but meanwhile, Japanese doings in China have given Filipinos a new reason to wonder what may become of them without U. S. protection. Last January Franklin Delano Roosevelt proposed a plan whereby Philippine trade preferences would be reduced more gradually, ending in 1960 instead of 1946. Last month High Commissioner Paul Vories McNutt broadcast his view that Philippine independence be postponed indefinitely. Since independence has been Philippine President Manuel Luis Quezon’s battle cry all his life, he obviously could not applaud this proposal. He went as far as he could by indicating sympathetic indecision.
April 27: U.S. officials revealed the formation of an international committee to deal with Austrian and German refugees.
April 29: McNutt sends a memorandum to Quezon on Philippine immigration suffering from:
..no regulations and the whole thing [being] handled on a purely hit-or-miss system.
Harris:
McNutt’s observation of the ineptitude of the Philippine immigration officials to execute laws and procedures effectively was written …during the time when McNutt and the JRC conferred together on procedures for refugee rescue in the Philippines. McNutt’s office advised Quezon that he hire experts on immigration laws and practices in the U.S. to come and restructure immigration laws for the Philippines.
I am deeply interested in the solution of the problem of caring for political refugees and I am anxious to have any experiment in the Philippine Islands succeed [ . . .] I should be very glad to do anything in my power to assist in handling these matters…
I find that the Commonwealth officials [certainly referring to President Quezon] are quite sympathetic to the idea of receiving those who can be absorbed. With the foregoing in mind I asked a representative committee of Jewish leaders to prepare a list of those who might be absorbed at the present time.
As a non-Aryan, he [Quezon] hated the Nazis and sympathized with the plight of Jews in Nazi Germany. He also believed the Jewish refugees would become an asset to the Philippines, especially with their expertise and knowledge of medicine and other professional fields.
Kotlowski:
[Quezon’s] endorsement proved significant, for although the Department of State issued visas to Jews, and the Frieders helped to ease their resettlement, it was the commonwealth officials who determined who disembarked from ships and set foot on Philippine soil.
Delmendo:
Note: It wasn’t just the Frieders who helped the Manilaners settle in. Norbert Propper, who arrived in Manila in May 1939, recalled that Morton Netzorg, the JRC’s Secretary and #2 man, did much of the detail work getting new arrivals assimilated, getting clothes appropriate to the tropical climate, financial arrangements, getting the newly arrived their first housing and jobs—all of which Netzorg did for Propper.
June 1: Bruno Schachner, assistant secretary of the REC, wrote to the Hilfsverein der Juden in Deutschland (Relief Association for Jews in Germany) in Berlin asking for its help in selecting candidates in a rescue plan for refugee immigration to the Philippines:
Gentlemen:
We are informed by the United States High Commissioner for the Philippine Islands, who is turn bases his opinion on information furnished him by leaders of the local Jewish community, that there could be absorbed in the Philippine Islands, within a relatively short time, the following persons:
20 Physicians, among whom should be one eye, ear, nose and throat specialist, one skin specialist, and one or two surgeons.
10 Chemical Engineers
25 Registered Nurses
5 Dentists, who should have their own equipment
2 Ortho-Dentists
4 Oculists
10 Auto Mechanics
5 Cigar and Tobacco Experts
5 Women Dressmakers, stylists
5 Barbers – men and women
5 Accountants
5 Film and Photograph Experts
1 Rabbi, not over forty years of age, conservative, married and able to speak English.
20 Farmers
We are trying to organize the immigration of these people, and we should be indebted to you if you could meanwhile prepare a preliminary list of people meeting the requirements outlined above. As soon as we have completed arrangements, we will proceed with a final selection. Please let us know, meanwhile, whether all the various classes of persons could be found among the people registered with you, and if not, which ones are lacking. In view of the delicacy of the negotiations involved, we expect you to keep this matter entirely confidential, and under no circumstances to give it any publicity whatsoever. In addition, we would appreciate it if you would not approach the United States High Commissioner on your own behalf, in order not to confuse him by a variety of inquiries.
The Frieders submitted the list of occupations they felt the economy needed and whose practitioners could be absorbed into the Philippine community to McNutt who, as the American High Commissioner, was a key link between the Frieders and the REC. He sent the plan and the list of prospective occupations to the REC. The list contained 14 needed skills and occupations as well as the number of people to be admitted in each category. Most of the occupations were in medicine—doctors, dentists, and nurses. Other categories included chemical engineers, auto mechanics, agricultural experts, cigar and tobacco specialists, men and women barbers, women dressmakers and stylists, accountants, film and photography experts, and even one rabbi, “not over 40 years of age, Conservative, married, and able to speak English.”
The REC and JDC approved the plan and transmitted the list of immigrants to the Hilfsverein. The REC in conjunction with the JDC also advanced funds to support the immigrants. This met with McNutt’s stipulations that the immigrants not become public charges…
June 6: Philippine Magazine:
The famous Jewish psychologist, Sigmund Freud arrives in London, accompanied by American consular officials, having received permission to leave Austria last Saturday; he states he has no plans and merely desires to end the few days left to him in peace and quietness in England—he is 82.
Frank Ephraim:
On June 6, 1938, for example, the passenger liner Scharnhorst of the Norddeutscher Lloyd line brought three German Jewish refugees, bringing the total thus far to about fifty who arrived without the benefit of the McNutt-Frieder program.
June 10: Charles Liebman, president of the REC, writes to McNutt:
[The REC has] taken the liberty of transmitting the list of desirable immigrants to a social-work agency in Germany, which will, in turn, select from among the applicants for emigration those who might be welcome in the Philippine Islands.
June 17: Philippine Magazine:
A new anti-Jew drive in Berlin results in the arrest of over 1000, including men in every profession. Jews are being shoved over the border without passports, money, or clothing. Reportedly the Nazis are demanding a “ransom” of £2,000,000 from Baron Louis de Rothschild, Austrian banker, for his release from prison, the amount fixed being alleged to be the obligations of an Austrian bank of which he was president and which failed in 1933.
June 18: Philippine Magazine:
Jews in Germany are taking refuge in foreign consulates as their shops are looted and wrecked. They find it is difficult to get food because gentiles are afraid to sell to them.
The local Jewish community is comparatively small and few are in a position to support the local fund. The burden actually falls on about five families. Because of the fact that the local group furnished all of the funds to care for the forty refugee families which have arrived during the past few weeks, and will be required to meet the needs of others who come on their own account, I do not feel that the local group should be asked to do more.
July 2: Philippine Magazine:
Fascist officials advise Italian booksellers not to display or promote the sale of books by Jewish authors. The officials admit an anti-Jewish movement exists in Italy.
July 5: Philippine Magazine:
Six Jews are killed in renewed Jewish-Arab riots in Palestine.
July 6: Evian Conference. Delegates from 32 countries hold first intergovernmental meeting on the political refugee crisis in Evian [France]. The meeting ends after nine days with “little or no relief for the refugees.”
As the Jewish refugee problem grew more acute, the United States, along with nations of Europe and Latin America, met in conference at Evian, France from July 6 to 15, 1938 to decide which countries could accept more Jewish refugees.15 When Eastern European countries implied that they would like to deport their Jewish citizens as well, the manageable refugee numbers from Germany and Austria were suddenly augmented by over 3 million potential refugees from Eastern Europe. This was the kiss of death for any serious resolutions at the Evian Conference in favor of Germany’s Jewish refugees. The Depression had strained economies, and the Western world simply could not, or would not, make room for that many more victims.
Delmendo:
Quezon had intended to send Antonio de las Alas to represent the Commonwealth and present the general outlines of his plan to assimilate and naturalize Jews refugees in large numbers, but Quezon needed to reassign de las Alas to other Commonwealth business at the last minute, and so requested the US representative to represent the Commonwealth as well.
July 7: Philippine Magazine:
In Palestine’s bloodiest riot since the World War, 18 Arabs and 5 Jews are killed in a gun-battle at Haifa; 92 Arabs and 11 Jews are seriously wounded.
July 8: Philippine Magazine:
Erich Maria Remarque, author of “All Quiet on the Western Front”, and 68 other German writers, most of them Jews, have been deprived of their citizenship, it is disclosed.
July 12: Philippine Magazine:
The Indiana state democratic convention endorses McNutt as nominee for the presidency. “With him, our party can proceed with full consciousness that every promise will be kept, each platform declaration respected, and the best interests of the people conserved and advanced”. Differences between Sen. F. Van Nuys and the party leaders in the State, arising from his opposition to the court reorganization bill, have been patched up also, it is reported, in the interest of Indiana party unity.
July 13: U.S. State Department sends radiogram to U.S. High Commissioner Paul V. McNutt in Manila:
Have been informally advised emergency entry into the Philippines of several hundred Jewish refugees from Europe being arranged. Please radio all information available.
July 16: McNutt replies to State Department:
Approximately forty families of Jewish refugees, who came to Philippines on own initiative or because of connections here, have been absorbed. Through cooperation leaders local Jewish community and Commonwealth officials arrangements have been made to take one hundred additional families of approved professions and vocations in three groups at intervals [of] sixty days. If this experiment is successful it may be possible to absorb others. In order to prevent attempted entry of more refugees than can be cared for properly it is considered unwise to give any publicity to the movement.
July 17: Philippine Magazine:
Pope Pius deplores such “exaggerated forms of nationalism” as evidenced in the German Nazi anti-Jewish measures, the Pope’s statement being believed to have been prompted by the recent publication in Italy of an official “credo” which excludes Jews from membership in the “Italian race”.
July 24: Philippine Magazine:
A magazine article by Postmaster-General James A. Farley appears which contains critical and apparently unfriendly references to P. V. McNutt’s alleged anti-Roosevelt activities during the 1932 Democratic National Convention.
July 26: Philippine Magazine:
The Arabs declare a general strike in the Jerusalem area and in several other places in protest against the bombing incident at Haifa. Eddie Cantor, American stage, radio, and movie comedian, states in London that during his 2 weeks’ stay he has collected £100,000 for the transfer of Jewish children to Palestine from Germany, Austria, and Poland.
The Hilfsverein kept lists of those German Jews who applied to emigrate. The lists included the occupation or profession of each prospective emigrant..
The REC worked with the Hilfsverein to determine who among those on the list should have the first chance to leave. The Hilfsverein informed the chosen applicants, got their OK, and sent their dossiers, which included photographs, curriculum vitae, educational data, and letters of recommendation to the REC and to the Jewish Refugee Committee in Manila. Alex Frieder and other members of the committee carefully studied the applications and forwarded the names to the Philippine government for approval. Alice Weston, Alex Frieder’s daughter, remembered that “day after day” her father pored over lists of would-be refugees. She claimed it took so much of his time that he neglected his own business.
Italy orders a special census of Jews; school principals have been ordered to eliminate Jewish teachers effective October 1.
August 29: Philippine Magazine:
High Commissioner McNutt confers with German Consul Sakowsky and though no announcement is made it is believed he warned against official interference in the activities of the German Club, Inc., of Manila. A Washington dispatch yesterday said the State Department had instructed the High Commissioner to advise the Consulate in strong terms that it is displeased by the Consul’s action in ordering members of the Club to resign.
The American government guarantees religious tolerance and freedom from persecution to all persons living under its flag.
August 30: Philippine Magazine:
Washington news dispatch states that the Consul sought the removal of certain Jewish members from the German Club in Manila and that disciplinary action may be taken against him if there are any further attempts at coercion. The Consul in a press statement denies that he had demanded such an ouster and states he coerced nobody.
September 1: Philippine Magazine:
Italian government issues decree ordering all foreign Jews residing in Italy, Libya, and the Dodecanese islands to leave within 6 months, regardless of their religion, exemption being made if one parent is not Jewish; some 10,000 out of a total of 44,000 are affected.
September 2:Philippine Magazine:
The Italian government bans all Jewish teachers and students from the public schools. Some 1500 Jewish professors and 8000 university students are affected.
September 6: U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull receives a telegram from the American Consul in Milan, Italy:
…unless otherwise instructed visas will be granted here under the immigration laws of 1917. Please instruct.
September 6, Philippine Magazine:
Hitler in a proclamation read at Nuremberg glorifies the German Reich, rejoices in its friendship with Italy, denounces Bolshevism and the Jews, declares Germany no longer fears any foreign blockade because of the nation’s economic self-sufficiency, but does not mention the Sudeten problem. The British Ambassador to Germany is reported to have stated to the German Foreign Minister when he expressed doubt that Britain would fight to aid Czecho-slovakia: “Then you are mistaken”.
The Dominican Republic offers the International Refugee Committee to accept a substantial number of German Jewish expatriates; the Union of South Africa has indicated it will not allow an immigration of Jews.
September 7: Cordell Hull replies:
…pending the Department’s further instructions, visas should not repeat not be granted.
September 12: Secretary of State Cordell Hull asks McNutt if Philippines will take 500 Jews from Italy:
Please inform the Commonwealth Government in strict confidence that the Department of State has received a telegram from the American Consul General in Milan, Italy saying that the Jewish Central Refugee Committee for Italy proposes to have five hundred non-Italian Jews of whom one-half are merchants and one-quarter professional persons obtain visas and proceed to the Philippine Islands. It is stated that these applicants will be furnished with transportation and landing money by refugee organizations. Information from other sources indicates the possibility of a movement from Central Europe to the Philippine Islands.The Department of State has telegraphed the Consul General at Milan and certain other officers in Europe that the matter is being taken up with the appropriate authorities of the Philippine Islands and that no action in the cases of the persons in question should be taken pending the receipt of further instructions from the Department. The Department of State brings the foregoing to the attention of the Commonwealth authorities for their information and consideration and for a statement of their desires in the matter. The attention of the Commonwealth authorities should be called to the fact that aside from the question of policy involved in the admission into the Philippine Islands of these and similar groups of persons from Central Europe, there are also involved technical questions of admissibility under section 3 of the Immigration Act of 1917 which excluded among other classes of aliens, persons whose passage is paid for by any corporation, association, society, municipality, or foreign government either directly or indirectly and persons likely to become a public charge.
September 15: McNutt replies to Hull: No.
If and when local situation justifies admission of others, visas should be only given to those selected from lists submitted in advance to Commonwealth officials and committee. With such safeguards, the experiment will be successful and maximum number of refugees will be absorbed.
Through intervention of the United States High Commissioner for the Philippine Islands, the Hon. Paul V. McNutt, the Jewish community of the Philippine Islands found employment possibilities for one hundred persons, divided into various occupational groups. This figure is later to be increased to five hundred if initial efforts are successful.
The State Department announces that a note has been sent to Italy recommending that American Jews there be left to pursue their peaceful occupations without molestation, pointing out that Italian nationals in the United States are not hampered by discriminatory laws. The Italian government is reported to be “irritated”.
October 8: State Department to McNutt:
In view of the small sums which it is stated the selected refugees will have in their possession, and in the absence of information that plans have been made for placement of refugees and for their support in the meantime, you may wish to invite the attention of the authorities to the provisions in section 3 of the Immigration Act of 1917 relating to the exclusion of aliens likely to become public charges. This act is applicable to the Philippine Islands and as the Commonwealth authorities are responsible for the enforcement of the Act in the Philippine Islands they will wish in giving tentative consideration to the cases of these refugees to go into the matter of their admissibility or inadmissibility under the provisions of the Act, including those relating to aliens likely to become public charges [. . .] To avoid exclusion under the public charge clause, aliens must establish that they have sufficient means of support or such assurances of continuing support by persons able to support them.
October 12: Philippine Magazine:
Italy forbids the further issuance of shop, cafe?, and restaurant licenses to Jews.
October 14: Philippine Magazine:
Under government pressure to avoid antagonizing the Nazis, Czechoslovakian Jewish, communistic, and masonic bodies disband and various newspapers cease publication.
All refugees now in [the] Islands have been placed satisfactorily. Responsible local committee has undertaken placement and support meantime of all others selected.
First Selection List authorizes visas for—
Harris:
…over one hundred Germans Jews – men, women and children – along with six refugee Jews from Austria. McNutt augmented this list one month later with another forty-six names from Germany and two from Italy, totaling one hundred families in all.
The committee required each refugee to deposit, in a Manila bank, $1,200, a sum “sufficient” to support them for two years. Having proven that they were unlikely to become a public charge, the State Department then issued a visa from the appropriate consular office. The state Department forbade consular officials from granting visas to any refugee except those accepted by the Jewish Refugee Committee and the commonwealth government.
October 27: Philippine Magazine:
Reported that President Quezon has asked the United States government for an expert on immigration matters to advise him. An investigation of corruption in the Immigration Division of the Bureau of Labor is in progress.
October 31: Philip Frieder to the REC in New York:
Every steamer that is coming here from Europe is bringing refugees without visas to enter the Philippine Islands. We do everything possible so that they can stay here but all this requires money as none of them have any funds whatsoever. Last week one of the Italian steamers brought 150 enroute to Shanghai. Fourteen of these remained. About fifteen did the same thing a few days before. We now have so many here that in a short time it will be impossible for us to take care of them. We are advised that another steamer, due this week, is bringing sixteen. We are placing them as fast as possible, but they cannot be absorbed so quickly. Therefore, we must support them and our small community here cannot do this. For this reason, I telegraphed you last week asking for financial assistance. The Philippines are still open, but it won’t be long if these refugees are not taken care of without government assistance.
…one must remember that only six Jewish families, including [Phillip] Frieder and his brothers Morris and Alex, possessed the means to support refugees, that the cost of sustaining each refugee was fifty cents per day, and that the REC had allocated only $5,000 for the venture by the end of 1938.
October 31:Philippine Magazine:
President [Quezon] suspends 21 officials and employees of the Immigration Division of the Department of Labor and designates Judge Luis P. Torres, Malacan?an technical adviser, as acting head.
Harris:
Quezon executed a probe into the allegations of misconduct in his immigration office and as a result suspended twenty-three officers and employees of the immigration service and prosecuted four. It was during this time of upheaval and restructuring of the immigration policies and offices in the Philippines that the unusual empowerment of immigrant selection by the JRC in Manila for the issuance of visas into the Philippines came into being, a process that took the power of visa selection out of the hands of Philippine Port Authority officers, U.S. State Department officials, and American consular officers abroad and put it squarely into the hands of the JRC and Paul V. McNutt.
November 7: German Embassy official Ernst vom Rath is assassinated in Paris by Herschel Grynszpan, a Jewish youth.
Ben Austin, Holocaust educator:
The assassination provided Goebbels, Hitler’s Chief of Propaganda, with the excuse he needed to launch a pogrom against German Jews. Grynszpan’s attack was interpreted by Goebbels as a conspiratorial attack by “International Jewry” against the Reich and, symbolically, against the Führer himself. This pogrom has come to be called Kristallnacht, “The Night of Broken Glass.”
The idea to resettle Jews on the island emerged at the end of 1938 following Kristallnacht, or the “Night of Broken Glass”, when Nazi storm troopers attacked Jews and Jewish-owned property. That pogrom aroused sympathy for Jews in the United States and the Philippines and encouraged officials at the State Department to consider placing European Jews in underdeveloped parts of the globe. In this context, McNutt and Quezon discussed resettlement on Mindanao in December 1938.
Delmendo:
The Nazis arrested and sent to concentration camps 30,000 Jewish men. In the aftermath of the progrom, the Nazis levied a 1 billion reichsmarks fine on Jews to compensate for damage done during Kristallnacht—a fact published by the mainstream Philippine newspapers.
During the past few weeks an increase in Jewish immigration into the Philippines has been manifest. As evidence of the growing number in the country of this persecuted race is the creation of a committee among the old-time Jewish residents here to take care of the new arrivals and help them establish themselves in the business houses.
Another evidence is the enlargement of the Jewish synagogue on Taft avenue…
There are approximately 350 Jews in the Philippines today… Of this number a great majority, approximately 300, are in Manila and environs.
Last month, the first batch of the refugees and victims of persecution in Germany arrived here. According to a report from a prominent members of the Jewish community here, eight were landed at Manila while a great number continued their way to China where they will be welcomed by their brethren.
The Jews who come to the Philippines from central Europe, it was explained, are just a small part of the “thousands that have been scattered like dust and leaves” by the mighty purge of the German government. Most of them have gone to the United States, Palestine, China, and England –wherever they can escape the persecution of the so-called Aryan people…
The Philippine government has not expressed itself or made a definite policy on the Jewish immigration here, but it is believed that good people, characterized by philanthropy, earnestness in work, and religious zeal, will always be welcomed.
The present immigration regulations and for that matter the exclusion laws of the United States do not consider Jews as aliens in the category that the Chinese and Malays are under, and for this reason they are on a status different from other foreigners seeking entry here.
November 18: McNutt send radiogram urging that U.S. consulates in Europe to expedite processing of visas approved by Philippine authorities.
November 19: Approximately 2,000 people attend an “Indignation Rally” protesting the violence of Kristallnacht is held in Manila, supported by the Archbishop of Manila, Protestant leaders, and civic associations, led by Quintin Paredes, Majority Floor Leader of the National Assembly.
Philippine Magazine:
[Manila:] At a meeting representing numerous civic and religious organizations, presided over by Assem. Quintin Paredes, some 18 speakers attack the persecution of the Jews in Germany.
That evening, McNutt, during a speech delivered at the Masonic Temple in Manila:
Within the past few months we have seen the reign of law replaced by sanctification of force, the threat of war adopted as an instrument of national policy, humble men and women denied the freedom to think their own thoughts and to worship God according to their own conscience and the dispersion all over the world of millions of helpless wanderers with no place to lay their heads…
Faith in the law had made the Israelites a people whom forty centuries have not been able to destroy, and forty centuries more will see a virile people.
November 21: Joaquin Elizalde, Philippine Resident Commissioner to the United States, reports to Manila on American public opinion in reaction to Kristallnacht:
There is strong pro-Jewish sentiment all over country in view of recent developments in Europe… prominent officials making public statements.
November 22: McNutt to the Secretary of War:
For the State Department: Local Jewish Refugee Committee and Commonwealth Government Officials have approved a third list of selected refugees. It is requested that instructions be given the appropriate Consular officials authorizing them to issue permanent visas for the Philippines to the following list…
November 25: U.S. Consulate in Singapore asks Washington:
Strict interpretation of the Department’s telegram dated November 22, [1938] 7 p.m., indicates that the procedure outlined may be applicable to all persons proceeding to the Philippines Islands. If not is it applicable to non-German refugees, to non-destitute German refugees, or only to German destitute refugees?
November 26: Editorial in the Philippines Free Press.
It is small wonder that the sympathies of the world have been touched, and that other countries are making unprecedented efforts to find new homes for Jews.
in a pair of editorials [the magazine] tempered its condemnation of Kristallnacht with a sober notation of the dangers of liberalized immigration to the Philippines. The newspaper also conceded the universality of mankind’s capacity for hatred, violence, and murder. With memories still fresh of Chinese immigrants who had been materially successful in the Philippines and of the Japanese who had designs of their own on the islands, the prospect of further immigration troubled many ethnic Filipinos.
November 28: Memorandum of a conversation held in New York between Joseph Hyman, director of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC), and Morris Frieder, brother of Phillip Frieder of Manila. The memo summarizes what has happened, to date, starting in 1937:
The German government sent a boat to Shanghai to remove all German nationals from the war zone. In so doing they also took aboard about 30 German Jewish families. All of these German nationals, including the refugees, were deposited in Manila and the German government signed an agreement with the [Philippine] government to the effect that these people removed from the war zone would not become public charges. At that time the German Consul in the Philippines suggested to Mr. Philip Frieder that it would be well for the Jewish community to take charge of the German Jewish refugees. This suggestion was adopted and the refugees were placed in various Jewish homes and eventually jobs were found for all of them…
Approximately 350 refugees have arrived in Manila independently. Most of these are totally without funds and are constituting a serious problem for the Jewish community there. There are, all told, about 60 Jewish families in Manila, (the American Jewish Yearbook lists the Jewish population of the Philippines as 500) of whom Mr. Frieder says there are only about 6 Jewish families who are in a position to contribute. It costs about .50 cents a day to maintain each of the 350 refugees there…
Mr. Frieder stressed the fact that the Philippines might easily become an important resettlement center for German Jewish refugees if it were handled right.
November 28: McNutt, in response to a decision by U.S. Consul in Singapore, to grant visas to 22 Manila-bound refugees who were, however, “destitute”:
…visas [must] be given only to those on approved lists… or efforts to place deserving refugees in the Philippines will fail.
The instigator behind the consul’s action may have been Frieder, for he had persuaded U.S. officials in Singapore to issue a visa to Ernest Burger, a distiller and winemaker who Frieder later found employment for with the Philippine distributor of Seven-Up.
November 30: Department of State issues “Visa Instruction” regarding “German Refugees Proceeding to the Philippine Islands” for transmission to all American Consulates and Embassies.
George Messersmith, Assistant Secretary of State, to McNutt:
The names of the refugees contained in telegrams no. 811 of October 25, and no. 883 of November 22, 1938 from the High Commissioner have been transmitted by mail to the consular officers in the respective districts of the aliens’ residences. The consular officers have been requested to inform the Department regarding the action taken in the cases of the refugees referred to and upon receipt of the reports the War Department will be informed. The procedure of having the names of the refugees for whom the Philippine authorities have granted authorization for entry into the Philippine Island communicated through the War Department to the Department of State for transmission to the appropriate consular officers is considered to be satisfactory…
[Consular officers in Singapore, New Zealand, Australia, Netherlands, East Indies, India, Egypt, and Shanghai have been notified] …that visas should not be issued to German refugees proceeding to the Philippine Islands without notice of authorization for entry into the Islands having been received from the Philippine authorities through the Department of State.
Seeing that the refugees were unlikely to become a public burden, McNutt endorsed visas for the German Jews who had the desired occupations and passed the screening process and background check. He relayed this request to the State Department’s visa division, which sent instructions to the appropriate U.S. consular officers to issue the visas. The State Department forbade consular officials from granting visas to any refugee except those accepted by Manila’s Jewish Refugee Committee.
By November 30, 1938, approximately 30,000 Jews had been arrested and sent to concentration camps.
December 1: The Jewish Refugee Committee approaches President Quezon regarding a larger resettlement plan in the Philippines. From a December 8, 1938 letter of Herbert Frieder to Bruno Schachner:
[Quezon] heartily approved our plan of resettling as many of the refugees as we cared to in Mindanao. He was willing to give them all the land that they wanted, build roads for them, and do everything in his power so that they could reestablish themselves. He intimated that Mindanao is big enough to support as many people as Luzon has, but he would be happy if we could settle a million refugees in Mindanao.
…[This would be] a bigger project than Palestine. The land is more fertile than Palestine, there are more minerals, timber – as a matter of fact, it is the richest land in the Philippines – virgin soil. This is such an enormous proposition that one can hardly visualize the potentialities of same.
December 2: McNutt met with Quezon and the two worked out the refugee Mindanao settlement plan. The same day, McNutt sent a radiogram to US Secretary of State Cordell Hull heartily endorsing the Mindanao resettlement and urging Secretary Hull to support the project, which will become known as the Mindanao Plan:
President Quezon has indicated willingness to set aside virgin lands in Mindanao for larger groups of Jewish refugees who wish to engage in agricultural enterprises of related activities in the development of community life in underdeveloped and practically uninhabited areas. Soil and climate conditions in Mindanao favorable to development of agricultural industries supplemental to Philippine agricultural economy. Philippine National Economic Council about to improve Mindanao colonization plan for Filipinos. It is believed that this program would be materially aided by colonization plan for Jewish refugees through development by organization directing refugee colonization of sources of supply, medical, and hospital and other services near areas. Local Jewish Committee, in cooperation with Refugee Economic Corporation of New York, will submit plan for colonizing refugees in Mindanao for approval of Commonwealth officials. The situation is now such that the larger program for the colonization of refugees in Mindanao can be successfully inaugurated if a message of approval is received from you. President Quezon is anxious that nothing be done which is not in accord with the policies of the United States. I urge your 257 consideration of the suggestion and strongly recommend its approval if the proposal is in accord with established policies. McNutt.
December 5: In Washington:
Internal draft, State Department, representing opposite view of inquiry that was sent:
…the mere suggestion of such a large number as 2,000 families in one year, and 30,000 families as an ultimate objective – almost one-fourth of all the Jews in Germany – might arouse hopes which later could not be fulfilled, and might deter the other powers, which could better absorb these refugees than the Philippines, from taking as large a quota as they otherwise would agree to take.
Undersecretary Sumner Wells’ response upon being shown draft: Do not send:
Mr. Welles read only the draft of the letter to [McNutt], which contained the moderate program which we [Sayre and Jacobs] had in mind. Mr. Welles said that this draft was not satisfactory to him and that he felt that something more positive would have to be done.
Actual State Department inquiry finally sent to McNutt in Manila:
At the next meeting of the Intergovernmental Committee on Political Refugees, which is expected to be held in London in the near future, a further intensive effort will be made by the powers to find a solution of the German refuge problem. [. . .] It is believed that the question of how many such refugees the Commonwealth authorities believe could be absorbed annually in the Philippine Islands may arise. If, therefore, the Commonwealth authorities feel that they would care to participate in this effort, the Department of State would appreciate receiving at an early date an estimate of how many such refugees could, within the restrictions imposed by existing immigration laws applicable to the Philippine Islands, be absorbed annually over a period of years. The Department would also appreciate being informed as to the approximate number of German refugees who have come to the Philippines since January 1 of this year and have remained there.
December 5: In Manila:
Philippine Magazine:
In the first press conference for some months, President Quezon states…he would favor admitting selected refugees from Europe who could be accommodated here, preferably scientists and medical men who would be an asset to the country. He says he wants the Philippines to be as hospitable as a country as the Filipinos individually. He also points out that the Filipinos can not afford to entertain anti-foreign ideas both because this not right and because it is dangerous. The Filipinos can not afford to provoke anybody, for the country is not strong enough to defend itself against all comers for any length of time and safety must lie in just and fair dealing with all.
“My attitude towards the German Jews is that of cooperation” [but while we refuse] “to close our doors to oppressed people” [we also reject] “the influx of large numbers of people… which will create problems.” [What he wants is for Jewish refugees] “to obstruct Japanese penetration” [of Mindanao].
December 6: Acting Secretary of State Sumner Wells to McNutt in Manila:
there is no objection on policy grounds to the Commonwealth authorities giving considerations to the matter of colonizing in Mindanao refugees from Germany or elsewhere in Europe… [however you are cautioned to avoid situations] which would result if a large number of refugees were hurriedly settled in Mindanao and the colonization plan were found to be unworkable… [Be aware of current legislation as] it may not be possible [. . .] to permit a large group of immigrants, which the plan would necessarily envisage, to enter under the conditions peculiar to their situation.
December 16: McNutt telephones Washington on Mindanao Plan:
…that President Quezon and the Commonwealth authorities are prepared to admit during 1939 some 2,000 families of Jewish refugees into the Philippines for colonization on the Island of Mindanao, and about 5,000 families annually until a total of 30,000 families has been reached.
December 17: Office of Philippine Affairs, U.S. State Department, internally expresses misgivings on Mindanao plan:
[We] had in mind that [. . .] a reasonable number, say one or, at the most, two thousand persons, might be absorbed in the Philippines over a period of years. It [Office of Philippine Affairs] did not, however, have in mind that such a large number as 2,000 families in one year, or 30,000 over a period of about five or six years could be absorbed.
McNutt tells Washington President Quezon intends to send a Philippine representative to IGC meeting; in a few days he will send–
a tentative plan covering number of refugees to be absorbed and conditions to be imposed.
December 21: State Department follows-up details of Quezon plan.
December 22: McNutt replies no plan details yet as Quezon has been taken ill.
December 23: President Quezon to U.S. State Department via McNutt:
…the Commonwealth Government is happy to be able to cooperate [. . .] in an effort to find a solution of the German refugee problem, which this Government realizes must be approached from broad Humanitarian grounds…
[As for] refugee settlement in Mindanao and other sparsely populated areas of the Philippines:
that a responsible committee representing refugees or acting on their behalf shall submit a satisfactory plan to finance such settlement,
that the settlers will agree to engage in subsistence farming and not to grow money crops that now enjoy protection in the American market,
that they shall take out naturalization papers as early as possible thereby expressing their intention to become Filipino citizens,
that until they become Filipino citizens they shall reside in the land reserved for them,
that the number of refugees to be admitted as settlers shall be fixed for the time being by this Government acting upon the recommendation of the committee in charge of the settlement in course of preparation, having in view the committee’s ability to take care of the settlers, provided that the total number shall not exceed 10,000 persons, and
that the plan contemplated and its execution shall be subject to the immigration laws now in force or which may hereafter be passed by the National Assembly.
December 27: J.C. Hyman, Executive Director of the JDC to Col. Julius Ochs Adler of the New York Times:
Dear Colonel Adler: Dr Jonah Wise mentioned to me that you wished some information concerning the settling of a German immigrant in the Philippines. [. . .] immigrants are admitted entirely on a selective individual basis in limited numbers, acceptability being dependent on background and former professional or other activities of the applicant. It virtually lies within the discretion of the High Commissioner to determine who should be admitted and who may not be [. . .] a gentleman by the name of Mr. Frieder, one of the outstanding Jewish leaders, is the chairman, and very largely on his recommendation to the Philippine Immigration Commissioner and Governor McNutt is [application] formally approved.
During the year a number of important questions required consideration. Among these were questions relating to immigration, asylum for political refugees, overseas shipping, matters affecting trade relations with the United States, assistance to Filipinos traveling or residing abroad, the repatriation of Filipinos from the United States, and from China and Spain, and the deportation of undesirable aliens from the Philippines.
The most urgent of these questions is that of political refugees seeking asylum in the Philippines from certain areas of Europe, and an increasing number of Chinese who are seeking to escape the unhappy conditions growing out of the Sino-Japanese conflict. In these matters involving the welfare of many thousands of people suffering the misfortunes imposed by political or war conditions in their homelands, the policy of the government of the Commonwealth has always been governed by generous and humane considerations, and the High Commissioner has given us his unstinted cooperation.
1939
January 3: State Department informed Quezon’s representative would not be able to attend IGC meeting later that month; State Department uses this opportunity to submit Quezon’s December 23, 1938 proposal but amended item number 5:
that the number of refugees to be admitted as settlers shall be fixed for the time being by the Commonwealth Government acting upon the recommendation of the committee in charge of the settlement in course of preparation, having in view the committee’s ability to take care of the settlers and the consequences of large-scale settlement upon the national economy of the Philippines.
State Department explains the change on the following grounds:
[to] avoid a commitment to a definite numerical figure which experience might prove to be either too high or too low. The American delegate might, however, confidentially mention the figure of ten thousand for illustrative purposes.
January 7: State Department asks McNutt, concerning Quezon’s December 23, 1938 message, what did “money crops” mean? McNutt replies:
…’not to grow money crops’ should be clarified as follows: ‘not to grow crops competing with Philippine products now sold in the American market.’
January 10: Oskar Hess from Hagen, Germany, writes to President Quezon. Oskar, Pauline, and Margit Hess were murdered in Auschwitz in 1943.
A letter of January 10, 1939 (see Fig. 2) refers to an article in the Berlin Jewish newspaper Ju?disches Nachrichtenblatt about the Philippine President’s readiness to facilitate the Jewish immigration to his country. The article called “The Planned Emigration: Outlooks” lists several settlement programs: in Australia; in French and British overseas territories such as Kenya, Rhodesia or British Guiana; in the American territory of Alaska; and in the Philippine’s Mindanao province as proposed by President Quezon in December 1938.
January 18: Washington meeting in which Charles Liebman of the REC informed Philip Frieder, Morris Frieder, and Jacobs and Achilles of the Office of Philippine Affairs that he was considering —
sending a mission of experts to Mindanao composed of: a colonizer, a public health expert, an agronomist, an animal husbandry specialist, and an hydraulic engineer.
January 21: Dr. Isaiah Bowman, then president of John Hopkins University and Director of the US Geographical Society, preliminary report at behest of Theodore Achilles in the Office of Philippine Affairs delivered to George Warren of the President’s Advisory Committee on Political Refugees:
Mindanao seems to offer sufficient possibilities to guarantee a successful future for selected groups of European settlers.
Bowman’s report leads to the President’s Advisory Committee of Political Refugees sending a scientific mission to the Philippines. Called the Mindanao Exploration Commission, it is composed of O. D. Hargis, chairman; Dr. Stanton Youngberg, Dr. Robert L. Pendleton, Dr. Howard F. Smith, and Captain Hugh J. Casey, members.
I also desire to submit to your consideration the enactment of necessary legislation for the settlement of sparsely populated regions of the Philippines, especially in Mindanao. This is important not only for obvious political reasons and as a means to promote economic development, but also to relieve the acute congestion of population existing in certain agrarian areas. The National Economic Council has recommended a carefully prepared plan to carry out this objective. The plan contemplates a ten-year program aiming at the settlement in these vacant areas of about 500,000 people on selected lands adapted to subsistence farming and the production of certain money crops. This project will require an estimated total outlay of P20,000,000 which may be appropriated from the proceeds of the excise taxes. The report and recommendations of the National Economic Council on this matter will be transmitted to the National Assembly within a few days…
[The U.S. State Department] has agreed with our Government that political refugees who desire to come to the Philippines shall not be given visas by American consuls without the previous approval of our Government. We owe it largely to His Excellency, the United States High Commissioner, that the State Department was fully appraised of the situation and that this administrative policy was adopted…
To protect the interests of our people and to repair an injustice done to certain races by existing legislation, we should enact a new immigration law. Under our present immigration law passed by the Congress of the United States, Chinese, Indians, and some other Orientals may not be admitted into the Philippines. Ours is an oriental country, and we are an oriental people. We belong to the same racial stock as some of those excluded by our laws. So long as other foreigners are allowed to immigrate to the Philippines, we should admit, under the same terms and conditions, those coming from oriental countries. To avoid, however, a large influx of immigrants from any one country, we should establish a quota that will be the same for all countries.
Announced at Malacan?an that government has informed the U. S. State Department it is ready to receive political refugees from time to time not to exceed total of 10,000, especially farm technologists, engineers, doctors, etc., for settlement in sparsely settled areas provided a responsible committee representing the refugees will submit satisfactory plan of financing such settlements and the refugees agree to become Philippine citizens.
Sometime ago, the President created a committee composed of Cabinet members to study the question of political refugees seeking admission to the Philippines and to make recommendations. This Committee had Secretary [Manuel] Roxas of Finance as its Chairman, and Secretary [Rafael] Alunan of the Interior, Secretary [Jose Abad] Santos of Justice, and Secretary [Jorge] Vargas, members. In view of recent publicity given to this matter, the Committee has, by authority of the President, prepared the following statement for publication:
Recent occurrences in Europe have forced upon the world the problem of providing an asylum for political refugees. These refugees have been estimated at over 500.000, mostly Jews. Under the leadership of Great Britain and the United States, an Intergovernmental Committee on Political Refugees has been organized in London to formulate plans and to raise the necessary funds for the convenient settlement of these refugees in other countries. Yesterday this Committee appropriated $300,000,000 to defray the expenses of transportation of refugees and to provide them with capital to start with in productive enterprises in countries which should express a willingness to accept them.
The interest shown by many governments in the solution of the refugee problem is predicated upon broad humanitarian grounds. These political refugees, regardless of race or religious belief, allege that they have not been free to think their own thoughts, to express their own feelings, or to worship God according to the dictates of their own consciences. Democratic governments, both in Europe and in the Americas, have assured the Intergovernmental Committee of their unstinted cooperation. The Commonwealth Government, upon invitation of the United States, could not turn a deaf ear to the sufferings of these unfortunate people. The Philippine Commonwealth, founded as it is upon justice and righteousness and the preservation of essential human liberties, could not but view with sympathy the opportunity to do its share in meeting the situation.
In line with these sentiments, His Excellency, the President, with the cooperation of the State Department of the United States, authorized the admission of political refugees on a selective basis. Only those whose professional qualifications, particularly in science, could supply needed services in the Philippines, have been admitted. In his inaugural message to the National Assembly, His Excellency, the President, explained fully his action in this matter. He emphasized the fact that the present immigration laws do not inhibit the immigration of such refugees into the Philippines, irrespective of their number or personal qualifications. With the cooperation of the Department of State, however, the President has succeeded in limiting the number of immigrants only to those who would be of advantage to the Commonwealth.
Sometime ago, representations were made to the Philippine Government by authorized spokesmen of these refugees, proposing the settlement of several thousand refugees and their families in Mindanao or other sparsely populated areas in the Philippines. It was indicated that these refugees would be provided with sufficient funds to establish them in farming communities, and that they would be assisted by competent personnel to plan and direct the development of the land that may be assigned to them. It was also intimated that only experienced farmers would go to this settlement, and that they would immediately take the necessary naturalization papers to become Filipino citizens.
The Philippine Government considered this proposition in connection with the project to settle and develop Mindanao. The Government believed that here was an opportunity to cooperate with an international enterprise inspired by a most laudable purpose, and that it could be accomplished in the interest of a national program, without in any way depriving Filipino citizens of the opportunity of enjoying the benefits of that undertaking.
Moreover, the Philippines could gain positive advantages from the execution of this plan. The proposed settlement would provide Filipino settlers in neighboring areas with a practical example of modern farming methods practised in the most advanced farming sections in Europe. Also, these refugees could develop new crops familiar to them and which might be profitably produced here. These settlements would have the advice of competent technical men, agriculturists, land chemists, irrigation experts, and such other technological assistants as are needed in projects of this nature. As this settlement is to be undertaken chiefly on a cooperative basis, Filipino farmers would see a practical application of the principles of cooperative farming and marketing as well as the working of consumers’ cooperatives.
There is, of course, a limit to the number of settlers that can be admitted under this plan. Realizing this fact the Government has advised the Intergovernmental Committee on Political Refugees that it was favorably inclined to a plan for the settlement of selected refugees in Mindanao or other sparsely populated areas of the Philippines, to be determined by the Philippine Government. The number of such settlers is to be fixed from time to time by our Government, having in view the interests of our national economy and subject to the following conditions:
That a responsible committee representing the refugees or acting on their behalf shall submit a satisfactory plan to finance such settlements;
That the settlers shall agree to engage in subsistence farming or such other activities as may be compatible with the best interests of all the Philippines ;
That they shall take out naturalization as early as possible, thereby expressing their intention to become Filipino citizens;
That until they become Filipino citizens they shall reside on the land reserved for them;
That the number of refugees to be admitted as settlers shall be fixed from time to time by the Commonwealth Government acting upon the recommendation of the committee in charge of settlement in course of preparation, having in view the committee’s ability to take care of the settlers and the consequences of large-scale settlement upon the national economy of the Philippines; and
That the plan contemplated and its execution shall be subject to the immigration laws now in force or which may hereafter be passed by the National Assembly.
It is believed that the conditions prescribed by the Government are sufficient to safeguard the interests of the Philippines. Moreover, it is expressly stipulated that the admission of these refugees should be at all times subject to the provisions of the immigration laws now in force or which may hereafter be enacted by the National Assembly.
There is no plan to settle large numbers of immigrants in Mindanao or any other part of the Philippines. It is the policy of the Commonwealth Government to preserve the natural resources of the nation for the Filipinos and their descendants. The areas that may be allotted to the proposed settlement for political refugees wall be insignificant compared with the vast tracts of vacant lands that now exist.
February 16: Statement from President Quezon clarifying Mindanao Plan:
…the policy on the matter declared that those to be admitted not only will be selected for their fitness for agricultural life and for their knowledge of farm technology but that they will be provided with funds in order that they could finance the development of the lands to be assigned them. With the knowledge these refugees of modern agriculture gained from experience in various nations of Europe they should prove of distinct help to Philippine farmers because of the example they will set.
February 16:Philippine Magazine:
Government and local Jewish refugee committee reported to have agreed on plan to survey areas in Mindanao for Jewish settlements, the refugees agreeing not to engage in competitive agriculture such as growing sugar, hemp, and coconuts.
February 17: Refugee Economic Corporation of New York sends a telegram to President Quezon:
Your noble attitude toward unfortunate refugees publicly announced in London will have great influence throughout the world. We take this opportunity of expressing our deeply felt appreciation of your humane spirit and generous cooperation.
February 27: Time Magazine:
Many a big name has been attached to many a plan to get the harassed Jews out of Germany. Last week the big name of the man most responsible for the whole terrible business was attached to still another. His country’s economy sagging* from the serious trade losses that followed his pogroms last autumn, Führer Adolf Hitler last week proposed a truce with the Jews. In a meeting of the Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees, Director George Rublee presented Führer Hitler’s refugee plan:
1) Jews could return to jobs, although not in Aryan enterprises, until a merciful emigration scheme is worked out.
2) Young Jews (said to number 150,000 of Germany’s 550,000 Jews) would be permitted to emigrate at once on condition that they later arranged to send for their parents.
3) No more anti-Jewish legislation against the older Jews would be promulgated in Germany while the emigration plan is operating, barring any “extraordinary event” (i. e., another vom Rath murder).
4) Part of Jewish property in Germany would be pooled into a trust fund from which emigrating Jews would be able to draw for passage, equipment and machinery needed in their new homelands.
To the delegates, the greatest difficulty in carrying out the plan seemed the lack of an offer by Germany to supply the departing Jews with foreign currency. Consensus, however, was that Führer Hitler had promised more than even optimistic Director Rublee had hopes of getting when he first went to Berlin last month. Having submitted Führer Hitler’s plan, Director Rublee resigned, was replaced by League of Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Sir Herbert Emerson.
The resettlement plan hinges upon the finding of homes abroad for the Jews. Last week the Committee heard the most encouraging news since its creation: 1) President Manuel Quezon of the Philippine Commonwealth offered to take 1,000 refugees annually, plus an unstated number of doctors, engineers and technicians; 2) a delegate of the Dominican Republic announced that his Government could admit 100,000 refugees, provided they had funds; 3) Australia offered to admit 15,000; 4) Paraguay a “limited number,” while The Netherlands and British Governments announced investigations examining resettlement possibilities in their colonies.
*The Reich’s foreign trade dropped 12½% last month.
April 3: By this time, word has spread in Europe about the Philippines being willing to accept refugees. Martin Foerder from Breslau, Germany, writes to President Quezon. Martin, Margot, Henny, and Lilly Foerder did not make it to the Philippines and were murdered in 1941 in the Kaunas Ninth Fort.
Martin Foerder
Breslau 13
Ortsstr. 6 Breslau, April 3, 1939
Mr Manuel L. Quezon
Manila,
The Philippines
As I have learned, there is a possibility that some immigrants can still ?nd accommodation in your country. Because of that, I let myself the polite inquiry whether I can be given the possibility to immigrate to your country with my family.
I am 48 years old, married. My wife is 40 years old and my two daughters are 16 and 14. I am a trained shoemaker and I am also good at laying tiles. My wife is an excellent housewife and has also worked with cosmetics in her free time. My oldest daughter is also fully trained in housework. Actually, we are willing to do any work that is o?ered to us.
I have to leave Germany with my family as soon as possible. Please, therefore, let me know the conditions under which the entry may be granted. Please not do make me wait too long for an answer because I would like to know my departure date as soon as possible. I hope that you will assist us in this case.
Waiting for your favourable response
Sincerely yours,
Martin Foerder
I am at your disposal and can send you testimonies about my wife and me
April 6: Alex Frieder reports to Liebman that President Quezon suggests another location for refugee settlements:
…the whole island of Polillo which is due east of Manila. [It] has an area of four hundred square miles, inhabited by only seven thousand Filipinos… he would take great pride in seeing Polillo inhabited by our refugees and if we accepted, he would authorize the appropriation of a sufficient sum of money for the National Treasury for an adequate road system through the island. [Quezon said Polillo residents had asked him to] divert the settlement of refugees from Mindanao to Polillo as they felt they [Jews] could be immensely beneficial to their progress… [We thus have] wonderful prospects of settling both Mindanao and Polillo, which enlarges the quantity of refugees who can be settled.
April 11: Two years before his death (“Tauber, b. 1884, from Vienna, who was deported to Theresienstadt in 1942 and perished in Auschwitz in 1944”), a Viennese Jew, Siegmund (Sigmund) Tauber, writes to President Quezon:
Siegmund Tauber Vienna 11th April 1939
Wien, XX.,
Webergasse Nr. 19
To the President Mr Manuel Quezon,
Manila
Philippine Island
Dear Sir,
Undersigned, a Viennese Jew begs for himself and his family (consisting of 10 persons) for permission of entering the Philippine Island.
We are 4 men and 6 women in the age of 12–55 years, 3 of us were partaking of the Great War . We are all healthy and busy .
In Vienna we were cutters and sewers of body linen for ladies and gentlemen; yet we know to do the agricultural work too, because we had once a small farm and were breeding fowls .
I suppose, that the fate of the German Jews is not unknown to you, Excellence, (we must emigrate) and so I am convinced that you will fulfill my request.
We have no money in the foreign country , but we shall take with us so many agricultural implements as we are allowed by the office of our country. We ask for the deliverance of duty for the things and for our removal goods too.
If your generosity should go still farther and you would allow a greater number of Viennese Jewish families to immigrate and to found settlement of their own to find a new home, I should take pains to put together a society of healthy and industrious families.
Thanking you in advance
I remain yours,
Sigmund Tauber
Enclosed the dates of my family
April 15: Mindanao Exploration Commission secretary Stanton Youngberg informs Bowman of their scheduled “inspection trip to the Island of Polillo.”
April 28, 1939. Emilio Aguinaldo, to a reporter of the Manila Bulletin:
Jews are dangerous people to have around in large numbers. By natural abilities, by their temperament, and by their training in business, they have succeeded in predominating and absorbing the people of places they settled. They are by nature ambitious and selfishly materialistic and are not anxious to help the country in which they live. [. . .] If the Germans, strong, well organized, and well trained as they are in all fields of human activities, find themselves unable to cope with the Jews to such an extent as to cause Hitler to expel them from Germany, how can we Filipinos expect to compete with the Jews? If cultured highly industrialized, strongly organized Germany could not stand the Jews, how can we expect primitive Mindanao to do so?
May 11: Philippine Magazine:
High Commissioner McNutt and family leave Manila after a spectacular send-off by Commonwealth government and City of Manila and United States and Philippine Armies.
Since McNutt wanted to succeed [Franklin D. Roosevelt] as president, he had no intention of staying for an extended period in the Philippines. His campaign for the White House began to organize early in 1939, nearly two years before the election…
In fact, during the second half of 1939 right up until the Democratic convention in July 1940 he [President Roosevelt] said nothing publicly on the matter. Whenever a reporter tried to question him on his intentions, Roosevelt told him to put on a dunce cap and stand in the corner or he found another way to laugh off or ignore the question. Journalists and cartoonists began depicting him as a “sphinx” who wouldn’t reveal his secrets.
Quezon, writing to the American publisher, Roy Howard:
I can truthfully say that, in my opinion, he [McNutt] has been one of the best representatives of the United States in the Philippines… My association with him, both official and personal, has been in every way satisfactory. We have never had the slightest unpleasant experience and we have always been able to find a common ground for a compromise when we did not agree entirely. Poker, of course, has been helpful in making a personal association very enjoyable.
In June 1939 the Jewish Refugee Committee had applications on file for 2,500 Jewish refugee families and had forwarded, to the Department of State, lists of 313 people approved for visas.
June 2: Philippine Magazine:
German liner St. Louis is refused permission to land 917 German Jewish refugees at Havana because Hamburg-Amerika steamship company had previously been warned refugees would not be permitted to land, and ship now cruising about looking for other place to land them.
June 4: Los Angeles Times publishes AP story from Washington DC:
[The] settlement of tens of thousands of German Jewish refugees in the Philippines [is meant] to offset the influence of Japanese there [who already own] more than 50 per cent of the arable land, [and] 70 per cent of the abaca production. [Plus] more than 50 per cent of the lumber, copra, hemp, and fish exports, [and] 95 cent of Davao’s exports to the United States… [Since the Japanese consider Mindanao] as a vast and potential field for immigration and settlement [the advantage of Jewish settlement would be] to compete on equal terms with the Japanese and not be utilized by them.
June 9: Philippine Magazine:
German ship St. Louis still cruising in American waters. Jewish-American Committee in Washington has informed Cuban government it will put up cash guarantees for the refugees if it will admit them.
June 10: A. M. Warren, Chief of the the Visa Division to Mr. Stephen Skodak of Lorain, Ohio:
I have your letter of June 2, 1939 requesting to be advised of the procedure to be followed by two chemical engineers, subjects of Hungary, in affecting their immigration into the Philippine Islands. The Philippine authorities have requested that advance authorization for entry into the Islands be obtained from the Philippine authorities at Manila before visas may be issued. It is understood that the names of persons desiring to proceed to the Islands may be submitted to the Philippine authorities by the Jewish Refugee Committee, Post Office Box 2233, Manila, Philippine Islands.
June 19: Sigmund Tauber in Vienna sends another letter to President Quezon:
Vienna, June 19, 1939
To the President Mr. Manuel Quezon
Manila
Philippine Island
Dear Sir,
At the 15 of April a. c. I took the liberty to send you personally a petition begging you for a card of permission to enter the Philippines and to remain there with my family. I am convinced you have already decided in favour, but the discharge could not yet come to my hands in consequence of the formalities of your offices .
Sir! You certainly know perfectly well the sad situation of the German, the Vienna Jews. I appeal once more at your heart and your humanity to accelerate the permission (for me and my family) to enter your dominions.
I and my family are accustomed to work . We are well known in producing of finest Vienna body linen for ladies and gentlemen. I am sure, I can employ many native people.
Repeating once more my prayer to hasten the settlement to allow us to come.
I am, dear Sir,
Your obedient servant
Zsigmond Tauber7
Vienna XX.
Webergasse 19.
Germany
June 23: Philip Frieder to the JDC:
[JRC was] receiving hundreds of applications for visas from people who undoubtedly would be desirable persons for settlement in the Philippines, but it was unable to approve any of them in view of its present financial circumstances.
In Germany he saw Schacht, but not Hitler… About Hitler [Quezon remarked]: “That’s not my idea of a leader.” …
Quezon and Paul V. McNutt, the present high commissioner, are not intimate friends, but relations between the governments are quite correct. Quezon hoped that another man would be appointed and that in any case he should be consulted on the appointment; McNutt’s name was rushed through before Quezon got to Washington, and for several days he sulked, refusing to call on McNutt until Roy Howard smoothed the matter over. Quezon says that nowadays he likes to see McNutt in order to get away from the local politicians. He records that his friendship with him was cemented by a poker game, in which both were winners – Quezon, however, by a bigger margin.
Quezon and MacNutt, from the website of Rescue in the Philippines.
Immigration Service. — The ruling immigration law of the Philippines is the act of Congress of February 5, 1917, which contains a provision that the law shall be enforced in the Philippines by officers of the general government thereof until it is superseded by an immigration act passed by the Philippine Legislature and approved by the President of the United States.
During the years numerous complaints against procedures in the enforcement of the immigration laws were made to this office. In many cases these complaints would not have occurred had the local government been in a position to issue regulations adapted to conditions. Enforcement had not been improved by the transfer of the immigration service from the Philippine Bureau of Customs to the Philippine Department of Labor. The situation called for investigation and reorganization which it appeared could only be advanced by bringing to the Philippines immigration experts from the United States. The subject was placed in conference with President Quezon. As a result, President Quezon requested that 2 men, 1 from the Department of Labor and the other from the Department of State, be detailed to the Commonwealth for the purpose of recommending steps for the reorganization of the service and drafting a general immigration bill. At the same time President Quezon ordered an investigation of the immigration service which resulted in the suspension of 23 officers and employees and the prosecution of 4.
Mr. Irving P. Wixon, Deputy Commissioner of Immigration and Naturalization, Department of Labor, and Mr. George L. Brandt, Foreign Service officer, State Department, arrived in Manila on December 12, 1938. In addition to valuable and acceptable recommendations for the reorganization of the service, these men in consultation with appropriate officers of the Commonwealth government drafted a general immigration bill designed to supersede the United States Immigration Act of 1917. The draft of the proposed bill was given to President Quezon. As of June 30, 1939, final action had not been taken…
Colonization in Mindanao by Jewish refugees. — In connection with the colonization of Mindanao which is being undertaken by the Commonwealth, some of the prominent Jewish residents of the Philippines approached President Quezon with a recommendation that a limited number of worthy and adaptable Jewish refugees be admitted to take part in the colonization. President Quezon, after a number of conferences with me, attended by Mr. Philip Frieder and others, extended an invitation for 10,000 refugees, to be selected by the organization in the United States having charge of the relief of Jewish refugees under the auspices of the President’s Advisory Committee on Political Refugees. These refugees are to be selected for their aptitude for agriculture, to take part in the colonization of Mindanao or any other suitable part of the Philippines.
The Commonwealth, among other conditions, stipulates that the refugees shall take out naturalization papers as early as possible, and that until they become Filipino citizens, they shall reside in the land reserved for them. Also, that the execution of the plan shall be subject to the immigration laws now in force, or which may hereafter be passed by the National Assembly.
A scientific mission, under the auspices of the President’s Advisory Committee on Political Refugees arrived during the first half of April 1939, to study the possibilities of refugee colonization in Mindanao and any other places in the Islands that may be suitable. I conferred with the mission on different occasions, and have endeavored to facilitate and expedite their studies. The mission completed its investigation of the Island of Polillo in the early part of May, immediately after which they proceeded to the Island of Mindanao in the hope of completing that survey by the end of June.
A stricter policy of restriction has been followed with a view to preventing the admission of aliens who are not entitled to enter and stay in the Philippines. This strict policy has contributed largely to the decrease of alien immigration into the Philippines, with new landing certificates of residence being issued to only 475 Chinese immigrants, as compared with 3,525 in 1938 and 2,024 in 1937.
Measures have also been initiated by the Commonwealth Government for the purpose of reorganizing the immigration office and amending the present immigration laws. On December 12, 1938,two immigration experts arrived from the United States to advise the Government on immigration matters. They have since made recommendations and suggestions toward the reorganization of the immigration division of the Department of Labor and the enactment of new immigration laws that will be practical and suitable in regulating the admission and exclusion of aliens.
Excluding enlisted men and persons attached to the military and naval forces of the United States, a total of 10,482 persons arrived in, and 12,076 persons departed from, the Philippines. Among the arrivals were 1,756 immigrants, consisting of 393 Chinese, 779 Japanese, 182 Jews, and 397 belonging to other nationalities; while non-immigrants numbered 4,366, consisting of 2,831 Chinese, 1,540 Japanese, and 214 subjects of other countries; departing non-emigrants totaled 3,623, of whom 1,962 were Chinese, 408 Japanese, and 1,253 of other nationalities.
During the 6-month period under review 175 aliens were deported from the Philippines, namely, 143 Chinese, 17 East Indians, 2 Japanese, 9 Russians, 1 Korean, 2 Czechoslovakians, and 1 Hebrew (German).
More than twenty letters of European Jews to the President of the Philippines Manuel Quezon, sent to apply for entry visas for over four dozen people, were recently found in the Rare Books and Manuscripts Department of the National Library of the Philippines in Manila. The letters written in English, German, and Spanish are dated Spring-Summer 1939, when escape from Europe was still possible. Though several hundreds of Jewish refugees came to Manila via various ways during 1937–1941, the letters in question remained unanswered. All of them provide the exact time of the short-lived Mindanao plan, which proposed to establish an agricultural colony of European Jews in the Philippines, but got stuck in the very beginning. The databases of the Yad Vashem World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington reveal the tragedy, which many Jews anticipated: all of the Philippine visa seekers, except for one person, found their death in various concentration camps, ghettos, and labour battalions.
July 1: Jurisdiction over the Philippines transferred to the U.S. Department of the Interior from the U.S. War Department.
Within just a few months of Malcolm’s official opinion, the functions of the Bureau of Insular Affairs were transferred to the Department of the Interior on July 1, 1939, and combined with those of the Division of Territories and Island Possessions. It was nearly 40 years after the cessation of hostilities between United States forces and revolutionaries of the Spanish-American War that the Philippines were no longer under any jurisdiction of the U.S. War Department.
July 2: Philippine Magazine:
Commission of American experts, after 6-week survey of sparsely populated areas as possible sites for Jewish colonization, returns to Manila and issues statement expressing thanks for help received from government agencies and declaring it was greatly impressed by magnificent scenery, immense virgin forests, “fertile soils, and splendid climate of Mindanao, and foresees a great future for it. Of outstanding importance is government’s road program . . .” In accordance with its instructions, commission must forward findings and recommendations to principals in United States who may release them for publication.
July 7: Confidential information in the Mindanao Exploration Commission report:
Frequent opposition has been expressed toward this settlement in the press and still more often to members of your commission in private, and no doubt more often still by influential people to various members of the President’s cabinet and quite frankly to the President himself. At least we can infer the latter from the statement that Mr. Jorge Vargas, the President’s secretary, made to Dr. Youngberg. The general sentiments expressed have been to the effect that the Philippines should be reserved for the Filipinos.
On this date, the Nacionalista Party convention approves proposing three amendments to the Constitution: changing presidential term from 6 years to 4, but allowing re-election; restoration of senate; creation of Commission on Elections.
Paul V. McNutt, retiring U.S. High Commissioner for the Philippines, told a Jewish Telegraphic Agency correspondent here that 500 Jewish refugees have found a new home in the Islands and that plans for settlement of thousands more on the Island of Mindanao were progressing.
Commissioner McNutt, who on his departure from Manila was presented with a parchment by the Jewish Refugee Committee expressing its gratitude for his efforts in behalf of the refugees, was enthusiastic on the prospects of Mindanao. He said the island, whose colonization possibilities are being examined by an American experts’ commission sent by the Roosevelt Advisory Committee on Refugees, was “definitely the most fertile part of the Philippines.”
“So far,” he declared, “the Islands have taken in 500 Jewish refugees, and every one of them, through the cooperation of the fine Jewish Community of the Philippines, is at work at self-supporting jobs. As soon as room is made for more, the list of applicants is scanned for the necessary qualifications and without any visa difficulty they are speedily brought to Manila.”
Referring to Mindanao, he said the work there would have to be “from the very bottom, but the Island boasts plateaus equal in fertility and natural wealth to any other section of the world. It has vast untouched mineral wealth and definitely has the finest climate of the Philippine Islands.”
Commissioner McNutt revealed that he had convinced President Manuel Quezon that a change should be made in the Island’s laws to allow free entry of refugees without the formality of visas and passports. He also gained from President Quezon permission for refugee physicians to practice in the Philippines without examination. The president’s personal physician, he disclosed, is a refugee.
July 17: Philippine Magazine:
Columnist Walter Winchell quotes anonymous friend of President Franklin D. Roosevelt as stating President had told him positively he would run for third term and Paul V. McNutt is his choice for Vice-President. Norman Thomas, Socialist Party leader, warns Roosevelt that McNutt’s appointment as Social Security Commissioner may jeopardize whole machinery of security legislation, asserting that as Governor of Indiana he used the State’s pension legislation “entirely in interest of himself and his party”…
Army and Navy Journal mentions Maj.-Gen. Douglas MacArthur and Maj.-Gen. Malin Craig for post of High Commissioner.
July 24: President Quezon, letter to Herbert Frieder:
[Concerning our] humanitarian work…every effort will be made to accommodate a number of Jewish refugees, not exceeding 10,000 over a period of ten years, under the condition that they shall settle in such portions of Mindanao as may be agreed upon between this Government and your good selves.
August 3: Philippine Magazine:
Fascists in former Czechoslovakia propose death penalty for marriage of “Aryan” Czecks to Jews.
August 5:
Philippine Magazine:
President Quezon states in press conference… he has offered International Jewish Refugee Committee large tract of land between Bukidnon, Cotabato, and Davao, but told committee of experts here they could not have certain site in Lanao, desirable because of its altitude of 1200 feet, as Lanao is small province and he wants to reserve this site for Moros of the region and will not even permit Christian Filipinos to settle there.
When Quezon, before the war, granted permission to 10,000 Jews to settle in the Philippines at the rate of 1,000 a year, the Jewish Committee picked out, as the best farming land–Lanao! Quezon says he refused this, since they wouldn’t be alive at the end of a year. Quezon tells me that Lanao has as many rich and wonderful Moro farms as has Jolo nowadays.
Pres. Manuel L. Quezon, of Philippine Islands, declares only Cotabato Province of Mindanao Island is suitable for refugee settlement…
August 18: Morris Frieder recounts what his brother Alex reported to him, about Quezon’s response when he was told of growing anti-Semitism in the Philippines:
He assured us that big or little, he raised hell with every one of those persons and made them ashamed of themselves for being a victim of propaganda intended to further victimize an already persecuted people; He immediately told us in unequivocal terms that we could have all the land we needed, not only for the 10,000 persons, but for 30 or 50,000 and that he would personally see to it that thousands of hectares more of private leased lands would be surrendered to us by transfer [. . .] He again repeated that he could see in this development a distinct benefit to the country as well as a haven for the refugees [. . .] and he asked me not to be depressed by any subversive rumors.
August 19:
Gerald Wheeler:
As a birthday present for Quezon, the National Assembly on August 19, 1939 voted to change the presidential term from one of six years without immediate reelection to a four-year term with one immediate reelection allowed. Quezon strongly desired the change, and his Nacionalista Party desired it even more strongly. The first election under the amendments (and the existing law) would come in November 1941, at the close of Quezon’s initial six-year term, and if reelected he could serve until 1943, a total of eight years. The vice president would then take over for the remaining two years, until the elections of 1945. It was assumed that Quezon would run again in 1945 and thus be president in July 1946 when the Philippines became a fully sovereign republic. There were two other amendments that were less important. The National Assembly and the unicameral form of government would be replaced by a House of Representatives and a Senate. The Senators would be elected at large. Quezon fully supported this amendment, particularly the provision for electing senators at large. Finally there would be legislated a Commission on Elections to take care of this matter.
August 26: President Quezon, in his capacity as acting Secretary of Public Instruction (today known as Education) authorizes “certain Jews” to take board exams in medicine. Executive Secretary Jorge B. Vargas replies on the President’s behalf to an objection from the head of the Philippine Medical Association:
This decision was motivated by what His Excellency considered broad humanitarian grounds. Realizing, however, that the legality of his action is a matter upon which honest differences of opinion may be entertained, His Excellency would welcome any step to bring the question before the courts…
Ber Kotlerman:
Later, a judge turned down the German Jewish doctors’ request for medical practice.
This evening we have been listening to broadcasts of Chamberlain’s speech stating that Great Britain was at war with Germany .… Hitler’s record with the Jews, his rape of Austria, of the Czechs, the Slovaks and now the Poles is as black as that of any barbarian of the Dark Ages….
This crisis has made me more than ever anxious to get home.
I want to be back with my own army to watch and be a part of our own development and preparations; also to keep in closer touch with the daily record of the war as it is made. We’re too far away in Manila…
September 15: National Assembly adopts a resolution proposing amendments to the Constitution.
McNutt to Secretary of State Cordell Hull:
…commonwealth officials and local committee [the JRC] think it unwise to attempt absorption additional refugees at this time [. . .] visas should be given only to those selected from lists submitted in advance to Commonwealth officials and committee. Commonwealth officials concur in opinion that, with such safeguards, experiment will be successful and maximum number of refugees can be absorbed.
September 18: Philippine Magazine:
President Quezon sends message to Assembly… asking authority to reorganize the immigration division of the Department of Labor.
September 30: McNutt, to State Department:
Initial request and placement of refugee families in the Philippines came from the Refugee Economic Corporation [. . .] and was submitted to Commonwealth officials and to a Committee of Representatives Jewish Citizens headed by P.S. Frieder. [. . .] All concerned agreed to absorb 100 families of approved records in designated professions and vocations in three groups at intervals of sixty days [. . .] Selections based on these records now being made by Commonwealth authorities and committee. Suggest that when lists are complete, they be forwarded to Department of State in order that appropriate consular officers be authorized to give visas. Commonwealth officials request that visas be given only to them on approved lists.
October 9: As detailed by Harris: An interesting story revealing how internal opposition to the Philippine plan manifested itself. Conversation was between Joseph E. Jacobs and Robert Pell. Jacobs:
In 1938, he’d been instructed by Undersecretary Sumner Wells to ask Philippine government how many refugees they could take.
Reply from Philippines was 1,000 persons, which Wells found “inadequate.”
Wells said President Franklin D. Roosevelt had asked him “to inform President Quezon of the interest of the President and to express the hope that a better offer could be made than that of 1,000 persons.”
When Wells urged Quezon, via the Philippine Resident Commissioner in Washington, to increase the number of refugees to be accepted, only then did Quezon increase the number to 50,000.
Wells then called Jacobs into a meeting with Francis B. Sayre which became heated:
Mr. Sayre took a very strong line against the settlement project. Mr. Welles argued back heatedly and there was no definite conclusion. Mr. Jacobs then remarked that in his opinion the settlement of a large number of refugees in the Philippines could not be justified on social, economic, or political grounds. The major question of policy was whether the United States wished to remain in or leave the Philippines. Jacobs said that he believed that the United States should get out, hook, line and sinker. The settlement of these people, (italics added) who would be financed by a New York group, would mean a further call on the United States to stay in the Islands.
This was a total misstatement of the chain of events. Quezon’s offer to admit 2,000 refugee families in 1939, and then 5,000 families annually until 30,000 or more families had been reached was deliberately squelched back in December 1938 by [Joseph E.] Jacobs and [Francis B.] Sayre. Jacobs neglected to tell Pell that it was he, Jacobs, who had suggested a far more moderate number of even 500 refugees total over many years, to which Welles then responded that it was not enough.
A favorable report on prospects for settlement of refugees from Central Europe in the Philippines has been turned in by an experts’ commission sent to the islands by President Roosevelt’s Advisory Committee on Refugees, it was learned today.
The report, which was completed several days ago, will be considered by the President’s committee, which is headed by James G. MacDonald, at a meeting in New York on Friday and will be transmitted to officers of the Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees when they meet at the White House on Oct. 16 and 17 on President Roosevelt’s invitation.
Manuel Quezon, president of the Philippine Commonwealth, indicated before the commission sailed from Manila last March that his Government was agreeable to accepting refugee immigration if the commission found the Commonwealth would support them. At the time, he mentioned a figure of 10,000 as the number he believed the islands could accommodate.
The experts’ commission included O.D. Hargis, chairman, agricultural expert of the Goodyear Rubber Company, who conducted experiments on the island of Mindanao; Dr. Stanton Youngberg, director of the Philippine Bureau of Agriculture; Dr. Robert L. Pendleton, for many years advisor to the Government of Siam; Captain Hugh Casey, of the United States Army Corps of Engineers, and Dr. Howard F. Smith.
October 21: Philippine Magazine:
High Commissioner Sayre arrives in Manila. In impromptu speech of welcome, President Quezon praises him for his keen mind and humanitarian heart, and for his part in securing needed help for this country from United States, and expresses hope “he may be the man to turn over to first President of Philippine Republic the authority and sovereignty of the United States over these Islands
See: Sayre arrives, Philippines Free Press, October 28, 1939
December 12, 1939: President Quezon, speech at farewell luncheon for Dwight D. Eisenhower:
Among all of Ike’s outstanding qualities… the quality I regard most highly is this: whenever I asked Ike for an opinion I got an answer… It may not have been what I wanted to hear, it may have displeased me, but it was always a straightforward and honest answer.
Farewell luncheon for Eisenhower. Quezon awarded the Distinguished Service Star to Eisenhower and asked Eisenhower’s wife, Mamie, to pin it on her husband. A biography of Eisenhower said it became her favorite photo of her husband. (Photo from the Eisenhower Presidential Library)
December 28: Philippine Magazine:
Dr. Stanton Youngberg arrives in Manila to supervise Jewish colonization project; reported from private sources that cattle ranch of late Dean C. Worcester in Bukindon will form nucleus of colony site.
1940
January 18: U.S. State Department drafts a response to Sayre to suggest to the President Quezon a new immigration law may be needed by the Philippines if it wants to pursue the Mindanao Plan.
In her forthcoming book, “When the Time of Need Came”: Manuel Quezon and the Philippine Holocaust Refuge, Filipino-American scholar Sharon Delmendo examines this and other aspects of the US government/Philippine Commonwealth negotiations over Jewish refuge in the Philippines. The US sent immigration officials to the Philippines, ostensibly to “assist” the Commonwealth “revising” its immigration policy. Imposing national quotas for immigration to the Philippines would impose limits on potential Jewish refugees (as did the 1924 US Immigration Act). However, President Quezon fought for and won for Executive power which allowed the President to set aside quotas for humanitarian reasons, an Executive power which continues today and has supplied asylum for thousands of refugees over the decades.
Kotlowski:
The first draft of the act featured a quota permitting no more than one thousand immigrants from each nation to enter the Philippines annually. Under the guise of such uniformity, it sought to restrict the influx of Chinese and Japanese immigrants, who exceeded the one thousand figure each year. The quotas did not contradict the Mindanao Plan, which permitted one thousand Jews, presumably from one nation –Germany—to enter the islands annually. The law also gave the Philippine president wide latitude to admit nonquota immigrants, such as those with needed skills or those seeking refuge for political reasons.
I recommend the enactment of immigration laws that will place limitations upon foreign immigration thus protecting Filipino labor from alien competition. We should, however, do away with the existing discrimination against Orientals, it being unjust and unfair to close our door to races which are akin to ours.
In the same speech, Quezon formally endorses the holding of a plebiscite to approve three amendments to the Philippine Constitution.
January 29: President Quezon meets personally with Judge Clyde DeWitt, senior partner of the DeWitt, Perkins and Ponce Enrile Law Firm, to inquire about legal complications regarding making land grants for Jewish refugee settlement in Mindanao. Quezon also offered legal arguments in favor of granting land in Mindanao to Jewish refugees.
February 17: Alex Frieder to Robert Pilpel, reports four rented community houses in operation; in addition:
the fifth one in the course of building [. . .] which is situated on a conveniently located farm owned by President Quezon. [It] will house forty to fifty persons [who] will work on the farm and so provide themselves with fruits, vegetables, poultry, etc., so that their living costs will be reduced.
February 18: Item in Manila Bulletin:
The high level quotas in the immigration bill now before the assembly’s labor and immigration committee, bringing up pictures of a “flood of aliens,” is understood to have aroused opposition within the committee. Informal discussion of the present draft of the bill disclosed alarm at such a quota of 1,000 annually for nationalities affected by the measure. Some committeemen argued that it would nullify the nationalization program, add to the unemployment situation and, after five or ten years, flood the country with more foreigners than could be absorbed. [. . .] Several committeemen were reported yesterday in favor of either abolishing the quota system altogether or placing the quota at, say, 100 or 200 for each nation whose nationals would be subject to immigration rules. Another provision they propose is that if any quota is established, the immigration commissioner should be given ample power to suspend it if in his opinion further admission of the nationals of a particular country would endanger domestic security or create a problem, social or otherwise.
February 23: Dr. Stanton Youngberg, secretary of the Mindanao Exploration Committee (engaged by the REC to be the general manager of the Mindanao Resettlement Project) informed Liebman that the Philippine National Assembly drafting the Immigration Act opposed the proposed annual quota of 1,000 Jewish refugees per year. But, Youngberg points out,
[Quezon has] acted impulsively and without sufficiently consulting other members of the government or leaders of the national assembly. [His entire cabinet is opposed to it.]
Harris:
When Youngberg inquired of an “old Filipino friend,” who had been a member of the Philippine Senate, if the opposition stemmed from anti-Jewish sentiments in the Assembly, the retired Senator told him “that there is and that it is deep, quite extensive, silent but powerful.” According to this Senator, the opposition in the Assembly believed that Quezon had acted impulsively when he offered Mindanao lands for a massive Jewish resettlement plan because he had not sufficiently consulted with the leaders of the National Assembly.
March 9: Alex Frieder, President of the Jewish Refugee Committee in Manila, writes to President Quezon on various agreements concerning Mindanao Jewish agricultural colonization.
Francis B. Sayre, who succeeded Paul McNutt as US High Commission, opposed allowing large numbers of Jewish refugees to enter the Philippines, and therefore opposed Quezon’s Mindanao Plan.
Sayre, skeptical of the venture from the outset, was loath to “create any nasty minority situation” in the islands, referring to the challenge of assimilating European Jews… Jewish refugees, he claimed, “tended to congregate in Manila” and compete with Filipinos economically.
A well known Manila weekly magazine is currently publishing what appears to be a series of articles which serves to introduce the spirit of antiSemitism in its crudest form into the Philippines. The articles are being published without explanation, and the uninformed can only speculate as to their origin and their general aim. Their content and form of presentation, however, can leave no doubt as to their foreign origin, and their falsety and malice as to their reprehensible character. The material in these articles is taken chiefly from an ill-reputed book, “ The International Jew”, and has been refuted ten thousand times. A clumsy effort to give the articles a local touch is made by referring, among other things, to the mortal dangers that would arise for the people of this country if the project of settling some thousands of Jewish refugees in Mindanao were carried out. In connection with these dangers, the articles cite a document —“ The Protocols of the Elders of Zion” — in which the alleged plans of the Jews to dominate the world are described. This document was long ago proved to be a falsification, the sources and authorship of which are known. The main source was a satire which a Paris attorney, Maurice Joly, published in 1864, accusing the French Emperor Napoleon III of aspiring to world domination through various crafty and ruthless measures. The Secret Service of old Russia later caused a booklet to be printed in which the words “the Jews” were substituted for “Napoleon” in order to deflect popular hatred of the Czarist regime to the Jews and prevent a threatened revolution. The spuriousness of the “ Protocols” has been confirmed in numerous court decisions in various countries, but reference to the document still makes good propaganda in a country like the Philippines where the subject is entirely new.
April 1: J. Weldon Jones, writing to High Commissioner Sayre:
[Quezon has] cooled off [on the Mindanao Plan]… [Quezon now thinks the Mindanao plan is] impractical… [and] a harbinger of troubles in the future…Some of Quezon’s advisers suggested that he let the scheme bog down, practice delay and obstructions… He is following this advice to a certain extent. His decision to secure legislative action on the venture was a part of this program.
(Manuel) Quezon had his own way of gauging public opinion, of taking a poll survey. He would say something preposterous or do the completely unexpected to find out what the people thought of a political leader, or to measure their opposition to religious instruction in schools. If the act aroused a bigger rumpus than he had calculated, he would institute an appropriate measure. Thus to the uninformed, Quezon often appeared inconsistent, mercurial, unreliable, a man whose word could not be trusted. No greater mistake can be made. When Quezon had studied a problem and made up his mind, no earthly force could stop him.
April 12: Philippine Magazine:
Assembly passes administration immigration bill on second reading after reducing quota of 1000 for each nation to 500.
April 15: U.S. High Commissioner Francis B. Sayre writing to U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt:
[The revised law is an attempt] to limit immigration so as to prevent the creation of racial difficulties [that might arise] if unlimited numbers of immigrants should pour into the country at too rapid a rate to allow the immigrants to be digested.
April 22: Philippine Magazine:
High Commissioner Sayre states in Shanghai… As to Philippine immigration bill, he states United States policy is not to interfere in Philippine domestic concerns.
Sayre supported the change and urged Quezon to go along with it.
April 23: Inauguration of Mariquina Hall, housing forty refugee families in a farming co-op on a three-hectare farm provided by President Quezon in his own land in Marikina.
From President Quezon’s remarks at the event:
What a blessing to the Filipinos it should be if we learn from these few refugees who come to these Islands how to make even the rocky land of Mariquina produce enough quantities to support 40 persons. What a magnificent lesson we can get from that! That would simply mean that the Filipinos have no reason to fear; that if 40 people can raise enough to support them on four hectares, we with a population of 200 million people will be well off , if we can learn to do just that. So I think the Filipinos are going to realize that in allowing these few refugees to come to these islands, we are not only performing a humanitarian act, but we are, in the end, going to profit from this humane act as is always the case. [. . .] It is my hope, and indeed my expectation, that the people of the Philippines will have in the future every reason to be glad that when the time of need came, their country was glad to extend to a persecuted people, a hand of welcome.
April 23, Philippine Magazine:
At dedication of small farm home built to house number of Jewish refugees on 3-hectare site in Marikina donated by him, President Quezon states that on query from State Department, Commonwealth government agreed to permit settlement here of as many as 10,000 Jewish refugees but over a period of “many years”; he states that if country can stand more than 200,000 Chinese, from 20,000 to 25,000 Japanese, and many thousands of Spaniards, Englishmen, Italians, and others, he sees “not slightest ground for concern” over admitting these refugees; fear of some that Jews will be merchants and monopolize commerce is offset by their plan to become farmers; reason why Jews have not been farmers in some countries is that they were forced to live in restricted districts; they have been very successful as farmers in Palestine and elsewhere and may be able to teach Filipinos how to make presently unproductive lands fruitful. “It is my hope and expectation that people of Philippine will have in future every reason to be glad that when time of need came, their country was glad to extend hand of welcome to a persecuted people”.
THE MARIQUINA HALL, built in a three-hectare farm in Quezon City, is occupied by 40 Jewish refugees who will cultivate the land. The building was dedicated to President Quezon yesterday. The acquisition of the land was made possible through the generosity of President Quezon. Top picture: the President delivering an extemporaneous speech before about 50 Jews. At his right is Alex Frieder, chairman of the Jewish refugee committee. The middle picture shows the crowd that attended the dedication ceremony. Below is the Mariquina Hall.
President Manuel Quezon of the Philippine Islands on April [23] dedicated Mariquina Hall, a house for Jewish refugees at Quezon City near Manila, it was announced here today. President Quezon donated the land, on which was situated a building, which the Jewish Refugee Committee enlarged.
In his dedicatory speech to the committee and about 250 refugees, the President made a plea on behalf of refugees and endorsed the proposed Mindanao colonization project. “Your experience in Palestine demonstrates what your race can do to make the most arid soil produce abundantly.” About six months ago the committee had requested 25 copies of the Palestine Economic Corporation report for 1938 for distribution among Philippine officials.
April 24: German Consul in Manila, Dr. Hans Lautenschlager, reports to Berlin about the inauguration of Mariquina Hall:
The Jew, of American citizenship, Alex Frieder… could not resist… directing insults against the Führer and the German people.
April 30: Refugees attend dinner at Frieder’s home in Brixton Hill, Santa Mesa
April 30: Philippine Magazine:
Domei reports High Commissioner Sayre as stating United States “had no finger in Philippine immigration bill pie; I think immigration bill is intended to prevent minority race question from arising. . . I personally believe independence will be realized in 1946 if nothing untoward happens.”
May 3: Philippine Magazine:
Assembly passes immigration bill in third reading by vote of 67 to 1, Assem. T. Oppus being only voter against bill; Floor Leader Q. Paredes states he voted previously for quota of 1000 but that as bill contains provision authorizing President of Philippines to raise quota of any nation on justifiable grounds, he votes “yes” on amended bill. Secretary to the President, Jorge Vargas states bill would permit President only to admit, as non-immigrants, aliens not otherwise provided for in the act and for temporary period only; and also, for temporary period only; and also, for humanitarian reasons, religious and political refugees when this is not contrary to public interest.
Note: the statement of Paredes, who had led the big Manila rally against anti-Semitism in 1938, and who was Majority Floor Leader responsible for getting the law passed according to what the leadership wanted, reveals Quezon’s priority: to retain the “loophole” allowing the president to waive immigration limits for humanitarian purposes. This provision remains the basis for all subsequent actions to permit refugees to arrive in the Philippines.
May 4: Editorial Cartoon, Philippines Free Press:
From the editorial accompanying the cartoon:
The problem is to keep immigration within bounds, to preserve the Philippines for the Filipinos. It’s simply a case of charity begins at home.
May 7: Alex Frieder to JDC giving details on the Mindanao Plan:
I am pleased to report that both the American and Philippine governments have agreed in principle to a resettlement project in Mindanao for 10,000 refugee immigrants. The Refugee Economic Corporation made possible a thorough and exhaustive survey by a highly competent committee of lands desirable for European colonization. The committee determined upon tracts located in the Province of Bukidnon, Mindanao. Negotiations with government entities necessarily involve long delays. This has been the condition which we have gone through. But I am happy to state that at a conference this week, all differences were ironed out and that contracts for all land under option to us and contracts for the utilization of these lands well be terminated within a few days. This project, when in operation, should mark one of the great milestones in the history of the resettlement of our coreligionists, necessitated by the terrible Diaspora of the Twentieth Century…
The work of our committee in selecting immigration [. . .] has been such facilitated by our cordial relations with the Office of the United States High Commissioner, as well as with many branches of the Philippine Government, not only with the Office of the President of the Commonwealth. These look to this committee as the sole source of information and advice, and recommendations for permitting any immigration of any refugee from any part of the world to this country. All such applications arriving in this office of the US High Commissioner or in any of the various branches of the Philippine Government are routed to our committee for service and action…
We are duty bound to give conscientious consideration to all cases alike, thus our “approved lists” have contained names of non-Jews. The harsh laws of the Reich were leveled against Jews on the grounds of race and not religion, hence many professed Catholics and Protestants of Jewish origin have been cast forth and we count a large number of these in our community. In addition to this should be mentioned the numerous cases of intermarriage, so that a really considerable percentage of our immigrants is non Jewish. I feel positive that I speak the complete truth in stating that we have shown absolutely no discrimination when offering assistance, although it must be admitted that most non-Jews after arriving in this country, do not look to us for aid.
May 11: Philippine Magazine:
Malacan?an announces that President Quezon has accepted invitation of Gen. Emilio Aguinaldo to address Veterans of Philippine Revolution on 42nd anniversary of Philippine Proclamation of independence on June 12; announcement hailed as indicating reconciliation.
President approves immigration and number of other bills.
June 10: Italy joins WWII in partnership with Axis allies Germany and Japan. According to Frank Ephraim, this resulted in “the closure of the Mediterranean shipping route—the main gateway for refugees to the Pacific at the time.”
June 12: Philippine Magazine:
At 42nd anniversary of proclamation of independence of first Philippine Republic attended for first time in years by President Quezon and celebrated on Luneta instead of at Kawit, Gen E. Aguinaldo, in introducing President, states he is forgetting bitterness of past…
June 18: A plebiscite approves three constitutional amendments: it cut the term of the president from 6 years to four, but allowed reelection for another 4; it restored the Senate; and it established the Commission on Elections.
Other legislation by the Commonwealth Government included an immigration act which was designed to curtail the large flow of immigrants from neighboring countries by providing that not more than 500 quota immigrants might enter from any one country. This act, which was to become effective on January 1, 1941, was before the President of the United States for approval at the end of the fiscal year under review.
When asked whether it was likely that President Roosevelt would approve the Philippine immigration bill, the High Commissioner said that he could not predict the President’s action. He added, however, that the general policy of the United States Government is not to interfere with measures which the Filipino people, the National Assembly, and the President of the Commonwealth approve…
FOREIGN AFFAIRS
THE IMMIGRATI0N BILL
The immigration law of the Philippines in effect up to the end of the period iuuKm- report was the act of Congress of February 5. 1917, which contains a proviso that the law should be enforced in the Philippines by officers of the Philippine Government until superseded by an immigration act passed by the Philippine Legislature and approved by the President of the Ignited States. For the purpose of assisting in drafting such an act President Quezon arranged in 1938 for the loan to the Commonwealth of two officers of the United States Government, Messrs. Irving P. Wixon, Deputy Commissioner of Immigration and Naturalization in the Department of Labor, and George L. Brandt, a Foreign Service officer.
The immigration bill drafted by these two men in accordance with the desires of the Commonwealth Government was introduced as an administration measure in the regular session of the Philippine Assembly of 1940. It passed the second reading in the National Assembly on April 12, with certain alterations. The only significant change was the reduction from 1,000 to 500 of the number of quota immigrants permitted annually to enter the Philippines from any one country. The assemblymen were presumably motivated in making this reduction by apprehension of the political and social consequences of admitting into the Philippines large numbers of aliens, especially Chinese and Japanese.
Publication in the press of reports that Japanese officials and the Tokyo press would regard passage of the bill in its revised form as “an unfriendly act” discriminatory against Japan caused considerable resentment among Filipinos; nor was this resentment lessened by the report that Japan had approached Washington for the purpose of having pressure brought to bear upon the Commonwealth authorities to effect revision. Subsequent reports that the United States Government would not attempt to influence the immigration legislation were favorably received by Filipinos.
The Assembly passed the bill on May 2, with the quota at 500, by a vote of 67 to 1. It was signed by President Quezon and was before the President of the United States for final action at the close of the period covered by this report. [This act was signed by President Roosevelt on August 26, 1940, and became effective on January 1, 1941.]…
In order that the greatest possible care should be- exercised in the admission of aliens into the Philippines, the Commonwealth Government, in July 1939, expressed the desire that — pending the enactment and approval of an immigration law — all alien immigrants coming into the Philippines for the first time, whether for temporary or indefinite stay, excepting tourists or travelers for pleasure or business, transients, and bona fide employees of firms of long standing in the Philippines, should obtain from the Commonwealth authorities prior approval of their application for admission to the Philippines. It was requested that visaing of the travel documents of such applicants should be withheld until their applications had been passed upon by the Commonwealth immigration authorities. This arrangement was made the subject of an instruction by the Department of State to American consular officers, dated August 22, 1939. It is believed that this procedure was beneficial both to the prospective immigrants and to the Commonwealth Government…
The Office of the High Commissioner continued to work in harmony with the authorities of the Philippine Commonwealth Government in the matter of the entry of Jewish refugees. The practice, instituted during the incumbency of High Commissioner McNutt, of requesting the recommendations of the local Jewish Refugee Committee, was continued with satisfactory results. During the fiscal year 1939-40, permission was granted by the Commonwealth Government for the immigration of 211 Jewish refugees, and 257 actually arrived in the Philippines. Since the inception of the arrangement with the local Jewish refugee committee in August 1938, a total of 521 refugees sponsored by that organization have been admitted to the Philippines. Of these, 448 are still resident in the Islands, 29 have reemigrated to the United States, 39 to other countries, and 5 are deceased.
The mission [i.e. the Mindanao Exploration Commission] which arrived in the first half of April 1939, to study the possibilities of refugee colonization in Mindanao and other places in the Islands that may be suitable, concluded its work in July 1939. The majority of the mission returned to the United States in the early part of August and presented the mission’s report to its principal, the Refugee Economic Corporation of New York. The Refugee Economic Corporation has kindly furnished this Office with a copy of this exhaustive report. The mission found that refugee settlement would be possible in certain of the highland regions of Mindanao and that successful colonization could take place provided the project were adequately financed from the start and operated under competent technical supervision.
The local Jewish refugee committee and a representative of the Refugee Economic Corporation of New York held consultations during the year with Commonwealth officials in an effort to reach an agreement in connection with the proposed settlement of 10,000 Jewish refugees on agricultural projects in the Island of Mindanao.
The enactment of the new immigration law, which was approved recently by the President of the United States, and the creation of the Bureau of Immigration in place of the Immigration Division of the Department of Labor, will be most valuable in regulating the admission and exclusion of aliens here.
Excluding enlisted men and persons attached to the military and naval forces of the United States, a total of 22,988 persons arrived in, and 22,358 persons departed from, the Philippines. Among the arrivals were 1,735 immigrants composed of 698 Chinese, 329 Japanese, 202 Jews (German), and 506 belonging to other nationalities. The incoming nonimmigrants numbered 10,910 consisting of 7,919 Chinese, 1,373 Japanese, and 1,618 of other nationalities. Among the departures were 5,607 emigrants of whom 1,863 were Chinese, 3,137 Japanese, 2 Jews (German), and 605 subjects of other countries.
The departing nonemigrants totaled 9,645 of whom 7,276 were Chinese, 690 Japanese, and 1,679 of other nationalities. A total of 729 aliens were deported from the Philippines; namely, 641 Chinese, 25 British Indians, 23 Russians, 15 Japanese, 3 English, 3 Jews (German), and 19 of other nationalities.
The emigration of Filipino laborers to the Territory of Hawaii has ceased to be a problem to the government. This is due to the limitation imposed by the Tydings-McDuffie Act as regards Filipino emigration to Hawaii, and the existence there of a sufficient labor supply to meet the needs of its sugar and pineapple industries. The Hawaiian Sugar Planters’ Association today has practically stopped recruiting laborers from the Philippines.
During the fiscal period under review, 456 Filipino repatriates returned from the United States.
Now, therefore, I, Manuel L. Quezon, President of the Philippines, by virtue of the powers vested in me by law, do hereby enjoin all branches, subdivisions, agencies, and instrumentalities of the Commonwealth Government and every inhabitant of the Philippines to cooperate in extending whatever aid may be necessary for the safety and care of these refugees. The owners of hostelries and houses for rent are particularly enjoined not to take undue advantage of the influx of these refugees by charging exorbitant rentals or fees.
July 1:Philippine Magazine:
President Quezon returns to Manila and issues proclamation enjoining all government entities and public to “cooperate in extending whatever aid may be necessary for safety and care of refugees”; hotel and house owners are warned not to charge unduly high rent.
July 18: Franklin D. Roosevelt nominated for an unprecedented third term as President of the United States.
Goldstein/Kotlowski:
McNutt’s presidential campaign was cut short by President Roosevelt’s decision to seek a third term.
August 13: Filipino officials derail sale of lands for refugee purposes in Mindanao.
Harris:
An August 13, 1940 letter from Kenneth Day, co-owner of the ranches on Mindanao, to his friend Richard Ely in the Bureau of Philippine Affairs, attested to the problems arising in the acquisition of his properties. Day related how just after the papers had been signed and he was about to be paid, lawyers halted the transaction until “the question of transferring Philippine lands to foreign owners” could be settled. Important and powerful members of the National Development Company (NDC), the government corporation that served as “landlord” over large tracts of leased lands, “were not kindly disposed towards the project.” They managed to stall the transaction for the acquisition of the Day and Worcester Ranches by the REC for many months, until Quezon finally stepped in after his reelection [in November, 1941], with enough new political clout to demand the NDC finalize the contracts. But as the saying goes, it was too little too late.
Ephraim:
The National Development [Company]… had never viewed the Jewish refugee settlement project with favor. They were able to stall almost at will, because Quezon’s eyes were on Japan… Philippine presidential elections were scheduled for a year hence –they were an important “distraction” for Quezon, who was determined to deal with what appeared to be serious opposition.
August 26: Commonwealth Act No. 613, “An Act to Control and Regulate the Immigration of Aliens into the Philippines” is approved. Quezon’s proposal for a quota of 1,000 was reduced to 500 but the President of the Philippines would be granted authority to make an exception for “humanitarian” purposes:
Sec. 47. Notwithstanding the provisions of the Act, the President is hereby authorized –
(b) For humanitarian reasons, and when not opposed to the public interest, to admit aliens who are refugees for religious, political, or racial reasons, in such classes of cases and under such conditions as he may prescribe.
September 3: Philippine Magazine:
President Quezon proclaims Immigration Act; will become effective Jan. 1, 1941.
September 4: Philippine Magazine:
President orders Immigration Bureau placed directly under his own office.
November 5: Franklin D. Roosevelt wins an unprecedented third term as President of the United States.
November 8: a memorandum points to the importance of the humanitarian exception clause in the Philippine Immigration Act:
The Commonwealth enacted a quota immigration bill which limits immigration to 500 persons per country annually. However, it empowers the President to permit extra-quota immigration for so-called social and humanitarian reasons [. . .] The bill has been approved by the President of the United States and becomes effective January 1, 1941. The Frieder Brothers are satisfied that the refugees will be permitted to come in as extra-quota immigrants, they [Frieders] having been instrumental in securing the inclusion of the provision in the law.
President Quezon appoints Serafin P. Hilado Commissioner of Immigration; was sent to United States last year to study immigration questions.
May: Ber Kotlerman:
The last recorded escape to Manila was that of the Kaunas born Abraham and Gusta Lipetz and their three sons, who reached the Philippines in early May 1941 via Belgium, France, Algeria, Morocco, Portugal, the US and the Panama Canal. This fantastic journey became possible without any connection to the rescue plans of the Philippine government, but just because Abraham Lipetz had a brother in Manila who sent him an affidavit, and another brother in New York City who helped the family to acquire the US transit visa.
Germany invaded the Soviet Union, closing all the ways to escape Europe-in-war. After the invasion all real hopes for rescue of substantial numbers of European Jews from the hands of the Nazis collapsed.
July 24: Ber Kotlerman:
Quezon wrote in a letter to the Jewish community leaders about the “humanitarian work” to settle Jewish refugees in Mindanao that “every effort will be made to accommodate a number of Jewish refugees, not exceeding 10,000 over the period of ten years…”
Morton Netzorg, secretary of the Jewish Refugee Committee of the Manila Jewish community, estimated the number of the Jewish immigrants in the Philippines in September 1941 to be about 900, but only 736 were registered: 494 from Germany, 140 from Austria, 59 from other countries and 43 held the Nansen League of Nations passports.
The refugees who came to Manila had a difficult time adjusting. They did not know the language; the heat and humidity were overpowering; and the mosquitoes were gigantic. Many lived in crowded community housing, which led to tensions and fights. But the young Jews saw the Philippines as a new adventure. Children climbed mango trees, swam in the bay, and learned Filipino songs.
November 10: Update on the “Status of the Philippine Project”:
Negotiations with the Philippine government have been going on for a long period due to the fact that the new immigration bill was pending in the Philippine legislature. With the passage of the bill, negotiations were resumed as to details, and recently President Quezon instructed the officials of the Immigration Department to follow through on the contract, and at the present time the various details are being discussed. It is expected that in a comparatively short time all outstanding questions will be resolved. However, the increasing gravity in the Far Eastern situation has naturally raised certain questions as to whether it would be desirable to undertake the settlement project at this time.
November 15: Quezon elected to a second term. After his re-election, he intervenes to reverse the August, 1940 blockage by officials of the National Development Company, of the sale of ranches in Mindanao for refugee purposes.
When the 14th Army of Japan, commanded by Lieutenant-General Homma Masaharu (1887-1946), occupied Manila on January 2, 1942, martial law was proclaimed and enemy aliens were required to register. Their future depended heavily on the passports in their possession. Enemy aliens whose countries were now at war with Japan, including the United States, Britain, Holland, and the British Commonwealth of Nations, were interned in two detention camps: one on the campus of Santo Tomas University and the other in Los Bagnos near Manila. Among the detainees were 250 Jews. Others not arrested were 1,300 German Jewish refugees (even though they lost their nationality in late 1941) and Jews who held passports belonging to Germany’s allies, such as Austria, Italy, Vichy France, Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, Croatia, and Iraq. The third group of Jews living in the Philippines consisted of Russian Jews who held a variety of passports issued in the 1920’s by the Committee for International Refugees (the so-called Nansen passports) or by the Far Eastern Republic that existed briefly in Siberia and later by the Soviet Union.
Ber Kottlerman:
In the beginning of 1942, a demand to send all the Jews to Mindanao, where they should work as farmers, appeared in the local press, arguing that the Jews were admitted to the Philippines under this condition. Following this, some community leaders, such as Morton Netzorg and Stanton Youngberg, were investigated by the Japanese regarding the Mindanao question. It was probably the last mention of Mindanao in the Jewish context. Meanwhile, about one hundred of the Jews who owned the citizenship of the countries-in-war with Japan (USA, UK, Poland, etc., but, ironically, not those who held the German citizenship) were sent to internment camps, such as Santo Tomas Internment Camp on the grounds of Santo Tomas Catholic University in Manila. About six dozen Manila Jews died during the Japanese occupation or were killed in the street fighting, but the majority survived until the American liberation in February–March 1945.
April 9: Fall of Bataan, the largest military surrender in US history. General Edward P. King surrendered around 78,000 (approximately 66,000 Filipinos and 12,000 Americans) USAFFE (United States Armed Forces in the Far East) to the Japanese. This surrender led to the infamous Bataan Death March.
May 2: Philippine Commonwealth Government-in-Exile established in Washington, D.C.
[Quezon] was very much aroused because of the proposed showing of an old film depicting the Philippine Constabulary in process of being cut to pieces by Moros until rescued by an American Army officer. Protested to J. Davies who is head of one of these propaganda organizations. Davies said he would at once look into it. But Quezon sat down and wrote a hot letter to the film director. Quezon denounced this attempt to show the Filipinos as cowards, (after this war in the Philippines) and added that he understood the director is a man “of Jewish race,” and that he, Quezon, considered this a poor return for his having opened the shores of the Philippines to the Jewish refugees, and for having himself given several acres of his own land to the Jews to help them to make a living. The movie director replied saying that he had withdrawn the film.
January 26: News item in Manila Tribune: “Jews Given Stern Warning.” Meron Medzini:
In 1943 a number of antisemitic articles appeared in the local press, and some antisemitic broadcasts were aired on the local radio station. Still, the Japanese authorities did not go out of their way to discriminate against the Jews, mainly because the local Jewish leadership was able to persuade them not to. While the Japanese authorities did threaten the Jews to discourage them from engaging in black market activities, no steps were taken to molest Jews as a people or to curtail the existence of the communal institutions. While some people lost their homes and businesses and a number were abused, beaten, or on occasion imprisoned, the main physical harm suffered by the Jews as a group was illness and starvation.
Manuel Quezon signing a document brought to him by Col. Romulo. (Photo by Ed Clark/The LIFE Images Collection/Getty Images)
In his statement today, replying to the Japanese anti-Jewish allegations, President Quezon said: “Translated from the crude tongue of Nazi-Japanese propaganda, these words are a tribute, unintended, to be sure, to the Jewish citizens and residents of the Philippines. They testify to the fact that the Jews are standing loyally and firmly at the side of the other groups in the Philippine population, risking their lives and their goods in opposition to the Japanese invaders. I am proud of this evidence of the rightness of the Philippine principle of religious freedom. It proves that all the religions in my beloved country are helping each other and fighting together in the cause of freedom.
“The people of the Philippines have never been guilty of the barbarous and divisive error of religious bigotry. Ever since the commonwealth was established, the majority of the Filipinos, who are Catholics, have lived peacefully and in friendship with their non-Catholic neighbors – whether Protestant, or Jewish, or Mohammedan, or Pagan. The small number of Jews in the Philippines is a respected section of our population. After Hitler introduced official persecution into Germany, we offered our hospitality to a number of refugees, who came to the Philippines and quickly adjusted themselves to our way of life. These people were quiet, energetic and productive. They have become a welcome and loyal part of the Filipino population.
“Now the Japanese are aping Nazi Germany by manufacturing their own anti-Jewish propaganda and persecution. I am convinced that Tokyo has announced this policy as a cheap way of pleasing the fanatical Nazis who are its allies, and as a trick to destroy the unity of Philippine resistance. The Nazi propaganda machine is undoubtedly exploiting this story to justify its brutal philosophy among those of its own citizens who are beginning to doubt.
“There is a sharp contrast between the principle of equality as practiced by the Filipino people, on the one hand, and the principle of prejudice and discrimination practiced by the Nazis and Japanese, on the other. This contrast marks one more sector in the moral conflict underlying this war. We shall be victorious in this as in every other sector. I look forward to the day when all the peoples of the earth are again able to work together peacefully and fruitfully to build a better world.”
The main attack on Jewish property occurred during the fighting between invading American forces led by General Douglas MacArthur (1880-1964) and the Japanese army at the end of 1944 and early 1945. In the battle for the liberation of Manila in February 1945, Japanese soldiers committed atrocities in which some 100,000 civilians were killed, among them seventy Jews. Some of the victims were murdered by Japanese soldiers in a massacre committed in the Red Cross hospital in Manila. But this massacre was carried out against all foreigners, not just on Jews. The local synagogue that was used as an ammunition depot by the Japanese was destroyed during the fighting. The majority of the Jews in the Philippines survived the war and reported that during the occupation they rarely encountered antisemitic expressions on the part of either the Japanese occupying forces or the local Philippine community.
The war took a toll on the community, and the majority of its members did not have the financial means and emotional stamina to remain and rebuild their community the way the Jews of Singapore, Hong Kong, and even Shanghai did. The majority opted to move to the United States, Australia, or (after 1948) to Israel, and a few even went back to Germany. By late 1948, fewer than 300 Jews remained in the Philippines.
In November 1947 the newly independent Philippines voted in the United Nations General Assembly for the partition of Palestine and the creation of a Jewish state there. It was the only Asian country to do so, and the vote was the result of American pressure and the feeling of some Philippine leaders that the Jews deserved their own state. The Philippines was among the first Asian nations to recognize Israel and establish diplomatic relations with it.
During the Battle of Manila in February and March 1945, 79 individuals, or approximately ten percent of the Jewish community, were wartime casualties, a rate similar to that of Manila’s overall population. The Japanese arrested, tortured and murdered several Jews at Fort Santiago, alleging that they collaborated with anti-Japanese resistance. Some, such as ritual slaughterer Israel Konigsberg, were indeed active participants in the anti-Japanese resistance. Several Jewish refugees were butchered in cold blood by Japanese marines during a rampage in the Manila Red Cross Hospital on February 10, 1945.
June 17: McNutt, serving for the second time as U.S. High Commissioner, writes to President Roxas asking that Jewish refugee doctors, refused licenses before the war, be given medical licenses.
The Philippino delegate, General Carlos Romulo, was very active in the special Assembly in April and May. He was impressed with the quiet dignity and moderation of both the Jewish Agency and Higher Arab Committee representatives. He stated that although the Philippines were far away from Palestine it would not be neutral on this issue if neutrality meant indifference. He also mentioned the possibility of an eventual ultimate independence for Palestine. While being quite active in the discussion on the terms of reference for UNSCOP, he made no commitments on core issues. As the time drew near to the crucial vote, it was clear that Romulo was going to oppose partition. In early November Eban reported that the Arabs promised the Philippines their support for a seat on the Trusteeship Committee if they opposed partition. On November 24, the Zionist delegates noted there was a problem with the Philippines and pressure would have to be exerted by Washington. Two American Supreme Court Justices, Frankfurter and Murphy, wrote to the Philippine Ambassador in Washington Joaquin Elizalde to press President Rojas to support partition. They also cabled Rojas, whom they knew personally, saying that his country will lose millions of American friends if they continued their policy of opposing partition. However, on November 26, Romulo announced that it would oppose partition; by then there were fifteen states who opposed partition.
The legal adviser of the Philippine Embassy in Washington, Oscar Cokes, told Eilat that Elizalde was furious with Romulo who failed to coordinate his Palestine policy with the Embassy fearing adverse reaction by American public opinion. Elizalde cabled Rojas warning that if Manila did not support partition it would arouse much criticism in America; he asked how a country that was occupied by Japan during the war could not support Holocaust survivors, at the time when Zionist Federations and Zionist Diplomacy in Asia 115 the Philippines were in dire need of American economic aid. The American pressure worked. A day before the final vote, Clark Clifford, Truman’s closest adviser, met with Elizalde. He advised that contact be made with McNutt, the last American High Commissioner in the Philippines. McNutt suggested that contact be made with Julius Edelstein, a close friend of Rojas. He was contacted in London and probably spoke to Rojas. Chaim Weizmann also cabled Rojas, seeking his support. At the last moment Romulo was instructed by Rojas to vote for partition.
Emigration from the Philippines to Israel and elsewhere reduced the Manila community from an immediate post-war peak of perhaps 2,500, which included the refugees, to 1,000 in 1946, 400 in 1949, 250 in 1968, and to approximately 100 families in 2013.
Sharon Delmendo, “Ike and the Jews: Was Dwight D. Eisenhower involved in Jewish refugee rescue in the Philippines during the Holocaust?”
Sharon Delmendo, “When the Time of Need Came”: Manuel Quezon and the Philippines Holocaust Refuge book-in-progress (forthcoming, De La Salle University Press)
It took the resignation of Kiko Pangilinan as Liberal Party (LP) head (on the principle of command responsibility) for the desiccated coconut known as the presidential spokesperson to bounce with joy over the administration’s victory. Sadly, the Vice President’s refusal to accept Pangilinan’s resignation, while charitable in its intention, deprived the party and the people of what would have been a perfect teaching moment: not only about party leaders taking responsibility for the success or failure of the campaigns they lead, but also to throw the question of whether to accept or decline the resignation to the party itself, instead of it just being yet another top-heavy ritual.
But back to the real surprise: Why has it taken so long for the chest-thumping and crowing to take place in the Palace? Despite being able to prove he can hold up a newspaper long enough to have a photo taken, the prime beneficiary of the midterms, the President, has been unusually quiet, even apparently unwilling to take credit where everyone else has already given it to him as his due. Why such official modesty?
The answer may lie in the numbers when you start to dissect what we already know so far. Getting back to near-peak levels of popularity doesn’t seem to have translated into a rush to the polls to give a ringing endorsement to the administration. Overall turnout, midterm-to-midterm, was lower (77 percent in 2013 versus 75 percent in 2019; 81 percent voted in 2016 but that was a presidential election year). Overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) seemed content to proclaim devotion only online; only 21,368 OFWs (20.66 percent out of 1,822,739 registered voters overseas) bothered to vote.
The Comelec said the barangay elections led to a spike in voter registrations for people below 39 years of age (30.5 million in 2016, 33 million in 2019). But did they show up? Two demographics did not get turned on enough to turn out to vote: millennials and Gen Z (Comelec says there are almost 23 million voters ages 25-39, and 10 million voters ages 18-24). Early on, the Comelec said it was the older 31-59 demographic that had the biggest turnout.
Overall, administration control of the House of Representatives is unchanged. But beneath the surface, something seems not right. At present, the handiest number-crunching is in Wikipedia stats on the midterms, which suggests that the biggest losers were: the Partido Demokratiko Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan (PDP-Laban), which lost 11 seats; and the National Unity Party (NUP) and the LP, which lost three seats each.
As for gainers, the Lakas–Christian Muslim Democrats led with six seats gained, the Nationalist People’s Coalition gained five, the Nacionalista Party and the Federal Party gained four each, and Hugpong ng Pagbabago gained three. In other words, in a case of intra-administration cannibalism, Hugpong gained little from PDP’s losses, and it was the least loyal coalition partners that did best. While this may blunt a Pantaleon Alvarez comeback bid, it also suggests the best-positioned are less-president-dependent candidates like Martin Romualdez.
And there are symbolic defeats that should trouble the President. Close associates such as Jun Evasco lost; so did Tonyboy Floirendo and the Del Rosarios. Imagine, Hugpong was trounced in Davao del Norte where whatever Her Honor Sara Duterte wants, she should be able to get.
Still, the referendum part of a midterm is how the administration senatorial slate does. The problem was, there were so many claiming administration bonafides that when some of them lost, it was embarrassing. The first candidate to literally cry foul was Glenn Chong, beloved of the truly personally loyal to the President, followed by other candidates like Mocha Uson, who tweeted about computerized fraud. Larry Gadon, another loyalist icon, likewise bellowed fraud. Not only did they have their own constituencies, but theirs are people so loyal to the President that they mistrust the establishment figures who they strongly believe are only fair-weather allies.
Indeed, aside from Bato dela Rosa and Bong Go, of the winning administration senators, everyone else can be identified as not really the President’s loyal follower, but someone else’s. Or in it for themselves. Worse, if you look at voting results on the precinct level, enough bastions of the middle and upper classes voted strongly opposition (Magallanes, Forbes Park, San Lorenzo, Bel-Air, Greenhills, Loyola Heights, UP Village, New Alabang Village, to cite a few) to suggest: The loyalty to the President that had endured even when his ratings slid in other sectors is going, suggesting the Church’s growing criticism has had some effect.
These places do not elect presidents, but remove them, as one politician told me a long time ago. A colossal victory on a mountain of sand.
Where the President, his backers and the non-opposition are united, is in ensuring a permanent end to the dilemma they, as a group, have faced time and again: reform-minded interruptions to business-as-usual that run the risk of their going to jail. This has to stop permanently.
That, ultimately, is what’s at stake both in 2019 and in 2022. What’s always made it easier is what I mentioned early on — the one thing that will not change in 2019 is who controls the House of Representatives or local governments from governors to barangay chairs. In that sense, regardless of whether there’s a Senate inclined to play ball or investigate the current President, the House and local governments are thoroughly and permanently in the hands of people just like the President. And who can keep future presidents tied down in having to make deals with them.
Except for the same thing that showed the current President his limits, just as it did all his predecessors: public opinion. The 20-point drop from Kian’s killing to the opening of the campaign required a lot of movement to recover, which tired out the President and also, along the way, encouraged his allies to act more independently than in any presidency before. Example? Gloria Macapagal Arroyo being the first Speaker in our history who became such without the blessing or permission of the sitting President. And the way the House treated the President’s economic team.
Killings and inflation were a double whammy that took out steam from the administration when it was geared up to steamroll its way to a new Constitution, among other things. But the President and his people reclaimed popularity and thus clout in time for the midterms, which meant critics faced a public too frightened or, worse, that had recovered its formerly shaken blood-lust significantly enough that the President’s blasting the opposition directly had an effect despite various non-opposition slates being too in it for themselves to do it.
Still, as the President becomes a lame duck, the fear factor he relied on to keep local officials in line will start to evaporate. But there is one semipermanent legacy the President’s indifference to most of the usual requirements of his job will have. It can be seen in what replaced his formal ruling party, Partido Demokratiko Pilipino–Lakas ng Bayan (PDP-Laban): Hugpong ng Pagbabago, which is not a party but a coalition of provincial and urban barons united to achieve what I pointed out earlier. They’re used to carving things up between them, and not putting together something national in scope.
In fact, there was a down-and-dirty fight for what sort of political landscape would be the legacy of this President, and it was fought between Bong Go, representing the traditional provincial warlord point of view, and Leoncio Evasco Jr., who represented an equally sinister but national one.
Evasco proposed a national movement, with an ideology, structure and the use of government agencies committed to making this movement a permanent national force, with agents in all government departments. Go systematically opposed this, representing the existing local leaders.
Of course, no one paid attention to this fight because, except for occasional public showdowns like rice, it was fought through presidential issuances: the signing and revoking of executive orders, etc., representing the seesaw of influence at any given time. Evasco lost. Totally.
Which means that Go’s victory and graduation to the Senate is not just as the last “patakbuhin” of the standing President, but also the candidate of the local barons who want nothing more and nothing less than to be left to their own devices, which is the extraction of fees.
The top two vote-getters for the Senate, if the surveys are to be believed (and why not?) tells us why the President’s indifference, even hostility, to a national perspective is significant in its aftereffects. Grace Poe is a personality without a party, while the much-despised Liberal Party or PDP (which remains the ghostly survivors of when parties were primarily political vehicles), the communists and all the other major parties are actually subsidiaries of the large corporations or their owners (Ramon Ang’s Nationalist People’s Coalition, Manny Villar’s Nacionalista Party, Enrique Razon’s National Unity Party, etc.)
Arroyo found the PDP so worthless she preferred to work through and with, and be part of, Hugpong, which is setting itself up as the future: one that puts the local ahead of the national, viewing the national whole as a pie to simply subdivide among its leaders. The future!
Movies about politicians are tough to make and sometimes even tougher to watch. Arturo Rotor — besides being a well-known writer and botanist, he served as executive secretary in the Commonwealth government-in-exile — helps explain why in something he once wrote about the main character in tonight’s movie:
“(Manuel) Quezon had his own way of gauging public opinion, of taking a poll survey. He would say something preposterous or do the completely unexpected to find out what the people thought of a political leader, or to measure their opposition to religious instruction in schools. If the act aroused a bigger rumpus than he had calculated, he would institute an appropriate measure. Thus to the uninformed, Quezon often appeared inconsistent, mercurial, unreliable, a man whose word could not be trusted. No greater mistake can be made. When Quezon had studied a problem and made up his mind, no earthly force could stop him.”
Tonight we’re going to see one studio’s take on one such problem: the Jewish Question, as the Nazis put it. You would be a fool if you were to consider the film we’re about to see as the Gospel truth or an objective source of facts. But just as I’m sure there are plenty of details and portrayals we could debate ’til kingdom come, so am I convinced that there is an essential truth that this movie can help us comprehend and understand.
That essential truth can be found in a response Quezon gave in a gathering similar to this one.
It was 82 years ago, on Feb. 15, 1937. It was a banquet thrown in Quezon’s honor by Louis B. Mayer of MGM, attended by studio stars and the mayor of Los Angeles.
Quezon began his response, as all politicians do, with pleasantries, saying, “We who must deal with the realities of a workaday world know that reality is not always pleasant. And today I am in the land of make-believe and it is indeed an oasis in the desert of a public man’s life.”
He continued: “You and I may be working in different spheres of human life, yet you and I are working toward the same goal. A life led without achievement is worthless, and only that life is livable that is dedicated to the achievement of a noble aim. We want to die leaving something behind us so that those who may come after may think of us kindly. That life which ends with death only is a life of frustration and futility, and that is not the life of the artist nor of the public man.”
We consider politics ignoble, but grudgingly have to admit it can sometimes be used for noble aims. Take an incident 83 years ago, on June 13, 1936. Manuel Quezon and a boatload of assemblymen were sailing past Palawan on their way to Mindanao, which Quezon wanted the assemblymen to tour so they would understand why it was important to develop the Land of Promise. Along the way, they passed by a small island called Culion.
Today, we know Culion as a tourist spot, but back then, it was a forbidden place where up to 7,000 lepers were forcibly detained under a policy established by the Americans. As the ship full of congressmen prepared to dock at Culion, Quezon, looking at the island, became emotional, and quoting Dante’s famous lines about Hell, exclaimed, “Abandon all hope, all ye who enter here.”
Perhaps it was because of his own tuberculosis, but Quezon had felt strongly about imprisoning lepers on this island for more than a decade. As president, he would systematically establish a new system to bring treatment closer to where the patients were instead of tearing them apart from their families.
By 1940, there would be a leprosarium in Tala, Caloocan, one of several. Even two years later, in the damp yet dusty Malinta tunnel in January 1942, Quezon would receive a telegram with an appeal — the lepers in Culion were starving! And somehow, in the midst of the Japanese invasion, he made arrangements with the International Red Cross to try to find a way to ship food to Culion.
What do lepers — Hansenites, they are called today — have to do with tonight’s film? If he believed no one should be an exile in their own land, how much more that there should be no exiles from foreign lands?
Tonight’s film will try to tell a story of how some faced fear and bigotry and said no to it being used to justifying terror and inhumanity. The question is whether after tonight, this story will still seem so strange, because so detached from what we are as a people today, as to remain a passing moment of make-believe.
[Remarks at the premiere of Star Cinema’s “Quezon’s Game” last night. The film opens on May 29.]
What the senatorial campaign has proven so far is the old truism that, in a national campaign, incumbency is a practically insurmountable advantage. Familiarity does not breed contempt with the electorate, which may have a short memory but is all the more wedded to incumbents and recently incumbent to the exclusion of most other alternatives.
None of these incumbents present a problem for the President in the closing half of his term, though they will, because of their durability before and after him, prove fickle allies—particularly in terms of the possibility of abolishing a nationally elected Senate, or establishing a unicameral parliamentary system, before 2022.
The President lavished energy and resources on his man Friday, Bong Go, and his personal Himmler, Bato dela Rosa. It is even possible that Francis Tolentino has framed himself as the continuing revenge of the local barons, worming himself within spitting distance of the winning margin. While Go can be expected to serve as the liaison between the Senate and the Palace, and Dela Rosa will be the attack dog in the Upper House, the most they can do is watch the back of the President for the remainder of his term and into half of the next administration. But beyond that, they are outnumbered and will be outfoxed by the returning incumbents, who will start plotting for 2022 as soon as the results of 2019 come in.
Grace Poe was poised to be the rallying figure for what many have hoped to achieve for quite a few electoral cycles, which is the creation of a “third force” distinct from the reformists versus the populist-loyalists that dominated confrontations over the past 30 years. But the limits of her political persona, which revealed itself in 2016, manifested again in 2019. Just as she could not fully commit to the reform coalition in 2016, splitting it instead and thus defeating both herself and Mar Roxas in 2016, she has been unable to stand firmly enough over the past three years to distinguish either herself or any coalition that could potentially rally around her.
So, while she can possibly do a repeat performance of proving to be a top senatorial vote-getter, there is a difference between being popular enough for that, and demonstrating the mettle to take on all comers in a post-Duterte era.
What she’s done, instead, is to prove to be yet another pliable politician lacking firmness of purpose: She revealed her loyalist colors by praising the Marcoses in Ilocos, returning to the pre-2004 identity of her parents; though she couldn’t hit as hard and with the tactical cunning of a Panfilo Lacson, who has more adeptly played the role of the loyal opposition. Lacson collaborates with the administration in most things and takes it to task seldom, but often enough to carve out an identity as a smarter, even tougher, version of the President — all the better to make a bid for his constituency in 2022.
The President was used tactically to heap scorn on the few oppositionists they actually considered a threat, which reveals the administration’s own estimates concerning potential risk: Roxas and Chel Diokno, primarily, but also Pilo Hilbay, to the extent of ensuring he remained in electoral obscurity. Roxas himself continued to bear the burden that helped sink his campaign in 2016: carping from the elements who’d helped split the then administration in 2016, and who straggled into the ranks of the opposition in 2019 to continue sabotaging his campaign.
There are personal triumphs for the veteran and tyro in the opposition: Returning to Roxas, he is a father again at 61, which transcends the grime of politics; Hilbay found love on the campaign trail in the person of Agot Isidro, a happiness that surpasses the intrigues of political life.
But to Diokno belongs the most significant achievement: bringing back to the public’s consciousness not only the stellar record of his father, but also introducing the broader public to his personal virtues as a lawyer and a person, serving as a bridge between the middle and the left who have found common cause and a space for dialogue and cooperation in his campaign.
The closing weeks of the campaign, as measured in the polls, suggests that the ratio of administration (say, three: Go, Dela Rosa, Imee Marcos) is 25 percent solidly for the President to the opposition’s (say, two: Bam Aquino, Roxas) 16 percent. The “loyal oppositionists” (or “critical collaborators”—say, Poe, Cynthia Villar, Sonny Angara, Pia Cayetano, Lito Lapid, Nancy Binay, Jinggoy Estrada) represent 58 percent and consider themselves “neutral,” though actually for the President. This squares with public opinion as the surveys have measured it.
Arranging the different articles, gives an insight into how the story, as it was reported, developed at the time, particularly in terms of eyewitness accounts and which ones remained consistent or which ones changed; the excerpts from Gwekoh’s book, written by a newsman, gives a fair representation on the consensus on events, a year after the events transpired.
The most recent published retelling was by Manuel F. Martinez in Assassinations & Conspiracies: From Rajah Humabon to Imelda Marcos, Anvil, 2002, which, however, leaves a lot to be desired. A deeper dive into the event, in particular the differences in eyewitness accounts, still remains to be done. To give just a few examples of where the record remains problematic, there are some details that were correctly reported at the time, such as Mrs. Quezon having one earring when her body was recovered, the body (or bodies) having been dragged through the dust by the killers, the place where Maria Aurora Quezon’s body was found (beneath the steering wheel), while, however, her having been killed not by a gunshot wound, but by being bayoneted, is not mentioned in any press reports; this would tie in with one account of one of the gunshot wounds of Philip Buencamino having been done at such close range that it left burn marks. What these facts (and details that require some sort of corroboration) suggest is that the ambuscade was conducted with a ferocity that the press reports gloss over to large extent.
The details and variations on details also give an insight into the reportage of the period, and what editors and reports found interesting and of note. The views of some writers who knew the victims, is also included to round-out this look back at the events of 1949, seventy years later.
A note on the times given: unless specified in the source, the times given are estimates, based on conjectures from other details or estimates provided in the various testimonies.
April 26, 1949
Baby’s friends from the YLAC recalled that she had been unusually gay ay the YLAC meeting over which she presided last Tuesday [April 26, 1949]. That night she bubbled with enthusiasm as she showed to Gin Mata an evening dress to which she meant to wear to a dance… –Rosalinda Orosa, “Grieving Hundreds Crowd Funeral Parlor to View Mrs. Quezon’s Body,” Manila Chronicle, April 29, 1949
Friends of Baby, especially YLAC girls who swarmed the Quezon residence, believed Baby had several premonitions about the impending disaster. She told friends several days ago that she did not know what it could mean, but that she had been having dreams about her father for three nights. –Manila Times, “Nini, With Child, Bears Up Bravely In Triple Tragedy,” April 29, 1949
In the dream President Quezon was beckoning to her: “Come with me, hija.”
Baby didn’t put much stock in dreams. But she was troubled enough to confide details of this particular dream to friends, who counselled her not to give too much thought to it. . –Rosario Mencias Querol, “Premonitions: Beads, Dreams,” Evening News, April 29, 1949
The last time I saw Philip was two days before his death. Linking his arm to mine with a gay laugh, he dragged me to Astoria for a cup of coffee. We joined a boisterous group of newsmen who flung good-natured jibes at Philip when he announced that he was quitting the government foreign service to settle down to a life of a country farmer. Somebody brought up the subject of a certain Malacañan reporter who always made it a point to take a malicious crack at Philip and his influential family connections, and Philip agreed the guy was nasty. It was typical of Philip, however, that when I curtly suggested that he punch the offensive reporter on the nose, he smilingly shook his head saying: ‘How can I? Every time I get sore, the fellow embraces me and tells me with that silly laugh of his ‘Sport lang, Chief.’ I can’t get mad at him.’
“That was Philip. He couldn’t get mad at anyone for long. He liked everybody, even those who, regarding him with envious eyes as a darling Child of Fortune, spoke harshly of him. He was essentially a nice, friendly guy. It was not in him to harm anybody, including those who tried to harm him.” –-Arsenio Lacson, Star Reporter, May 3, 1949
April 27, 1949
There were several civilian captives who were being used as pack carriers and cooks. These civilians were taken near barrio Calaanan the previous night [April 27, 1949] where they also collected rice and some cash. –Manila Times, “Eyewitness Story of Ambush Told by Captured Huk,”Saturday, May 7, 1949.
Manantan told investigators that prior to the ambuscade he and his companions had waylaid around 30 freight trucks and jeeps. The ambuscade, according to Manantan, planned jointly by Majors Paredes, Liwayway and Ramson and Commanders Luningning, Aladin and Marzo. –Manila Bulletin, “Ambusher Pleads Guilty to Charge,” May 19, 1949
According to Dr. Victor Buencamino, his son Philip had no intentions of making the trip. Up to 9:30 the previous night [April 27, 1949] he had made no preparations for the trip. His wife nini (Quezon) was very much against his going. Friends of Baby said last night [April 28] that Nini cried bitterly when her husband bade her good-bye. –Rosalinda Orosa, “Grieving Hundreds Crowd Funeral Parlor to View Mrs. Quezon’s Body,” Manila Chronicle, April 29, 1949
April 28, 1949
5:00 AM
On that particular day Doña Aurora woke up very early in the morning and, together with her daughter, Maria Aurora (Baby), she heard an early mass and received the Holy Communion. In her preparation for this trip, she did not forget to place her old rosary into her bag as she always subscribed to the belief that this rosary, with several beads already missing and which she had inherited from her mother, had great power against harm as had been demonstrated many a time in the past.—Sol Gwekoh, Aurora Quezon Her Life And Deeds, 1951
There was, however, a hint that she [Baby Quezon] knew she would die. Yesterday morning [April 28, 1949], before making the fateful trip, she gave a picture of herself to one of the maids –a thing she had never done before, her friends said. –Rosalinda Orosa, “Grieving Hundreds Crowd Funeral Parlor to View Mrs. Quezon’s Body,” Manila Chronicle, April 29, 1949
Before setting out on that fatal trip to Baler yesterday [April 28, 1949] morning, Mrs. Quezon and Baby heard early mass and received holy communion.
“Then,” Mrs. Dolores Buencamino, mother of Philip Buencamino III told me last night, “Mrs. Quezon placed an old rosary, several beads of which were missing, into her bag. She believed the rosary had stood between her and certain harm many a time.”
It was an old, old rosary which seemed to go to pieces every time one touched it. It belonged to Mrs. Quezon’s mother and had (so Mrs. Quezon believed) great power against harm. –Rosario Mencias Querol, “Premonitions: Beads, Dreams,” Evening News, April 29, 1949
5:30 AM
The Quezon party of thirty-eight persons was in a motorcade of ten cars and two jeeps bearing Constabulary officers and soldiers on security detail. They were bound for Baler, the hometown of the Quezons which is located in the remote northern strip of Quezon province, to witness the ceremonies for the unveiling of the historical marker at the birthplace of the late President Manuel L. Quezon, to inaugurate the Baler memorial hospital, and to attend the traditional town fiesta…
The party left the Quezon home on Gilmore Avenue in Quezon City as early as 5:30 o’clock in the morning of that eventful day. It was due to return after May 2 as Doña Aurora wanted to attend on that day the celebration marking the second anniversary of the rebuilding of the Baler Catholic church which was mainly done through her help.—Sol Gwekoh, Aurora Quezon Her Life And Deeds, 1951
As Mrs. Quezon and Baby stepped aboard Mayor Ponciano Bernardo’s car at their residence on Gilmore avenue, the atmosphere was jovial. There was even room for a cynical remark or two. “I’m glad our party is big,” said Baby. “There’s safety in numbers.” . –Rosario Mencias Querol, “Premonitions: Beads, Dreams,” Evening News, April 29, 1949
7:30 AM
“There were about 80 Huks whop held us up,” said one driver. “That was about 7:30 a.m.” The drivers said they were made to join other captives, some of whom were held up the day previous. –Gregorio G. Niespla, “Ambush Was Intended For Quirino, Claim,” Evening News, May 2, 1949
9:00 AM
Silayan says he was saved from certain death by two blowouts on the way. He said his car was third from the Quezon car when he suffered his first blowout and had to change a tire. This delayed him and put him back several cars behind. About a half hour later another blowout occurred and the second accident relegated him again further down the line, placing him seventh in the line of cars…
At the start of the trip, Mr. Quisumbing’s car was second in the entourage but was elbowed out later by two PC jeeps, in one of which was Primitivo San Agustin and his driver, both of whom were killed. –Manila Times, “Quezon Murder Shocks Nation; Felipe Buencamino, III, Dies,” April 29, 1949
9:30 AM
They said the party stopped at Calaanan, near the junction of the road branching to Bituloc in Laur, and asked constabulary personnel stationed there whether the way was safe. They were assured hat the road was comparatively clear of possible danger from dissidents, so the party resumed its way up to Baler. –Manila Chronicle, “Survivors Recount Treacherous Attack on Mrs. Quezon’s Party,” April 29, 1949
10:00 AM
Desiring to avoid the cloud of dust from the dirt road. Doña Aurora preferred to be ahead of the other cars — ahead even of the security guards’ jeeps. In Mayor Bernardo’s Buick sedan, between Jalandoni on the right and Bernardo on the left, Doña Aurora sat, with no thought of danger. At the driver’s seat were, from left, Lieut. Col. Antonio San Agustin, assistant manager of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes Office, who was at the steering wheel, Felipe Buencamino III, and Maria Aurora (Baby) Quezon. —Sol Gwekoh, Aurora Quezon Her Life And Deeds, 1951
[Mrs. Amparo Aragon de Angara]: “I remember telling our driver not to drive too fast because the dust made it hard to see what was ahead. But that was our order when we left for Baler, as far as I can remember: Mrs. Quezon, an automobile, two jeeps, our station wagon and several other vehicles…
“I was unable to tell the precise spot where it began. I remember the terrain looked rough and forebidding: thick underbrush and trees ranged along the course we followed. We had to draw in deep within the station wagon to keep away from the dust churned up by the vehicles in front of us.” –Manila Chronicle, “Survivors Recount Treacherous Attack on Mrs. Quezon’s Party,” April 29, 1949
In the leading car, Col. Antonio San Agustin was behind the steering wheel. Immediately to his right was Felipe Buencamino, III while Miss Baby Quezon sat next to Philip.
In the back seat were Mrs. Quezon, who was behind Antonio San Agustin. Next to her sat General Jalandoni, who was in the middle, and Mayor Ponciano Bernardo. –Manila Times, “Dna. Aurora, Baby Quezon, Ten Others Murdered,” April 29, 1949
Mrs. Quezon was in the first car, a Buick sedan owned by Mayor Ponciano Bernardo of Quezon City. At the wheels was Lt. Col. Antonio San Agustin, assistant manager of the Philippine Charity Sweepstakes office. Seated on his right was Philip Buencamino III and to Philip’s right was Baby Quezon.
Seated in the rear were Mrs. Quezon, who was right behind San Agustin, Maj. Gen. Rafael Jalandoni, retired AFP chief of staff (in center), and Mayor Bernardo. –Evening News, “The Ambuscade: How It Happened,” April 29, 1949
10:30 AM
At about 10:30 a. m., the motorcade was crossing the Nueva Ecija border on the steep winding road leading to Quezon province. As they reached the Villa Aurora bend of that solitary place whose thick underbrush and tall shaggy trees made it an ideal site for a man armed with a rifle planted himself in the middle of he road and menacingly motioned them to stop. When the leading car was about 15 feet from the man, Mayor Ponciano A. Bernardo of Quezon City, sensing some danger ahead, got out of it, then raised his hands in token of surrender and shouted in Tagalog, “This is Mrs Quezon’s party ” His plea, however, was only answered by an intense attack concentrated on his car, resulting in the death in cold blood of all, except Major General .Rafael Jalandoni, retired chief-of-staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines. Shot dead himself, Bernardo’s body fell from where he had stood and was soon covered with thick dust. —Sol Gwekoh, Aurora Quezon Her Life And Deeds, 1951
Accounts of the ambush said Mayor Bernardo, at the first volley, tried to shout at the attackers that they were shooting at Mrs. Quezon. The cry failed to stop the splutter of machine-gun fire. –Gonzalo Cuizon, “Huks Kill Mrs. Quezon, Baby Quezon and Mayor Bernardo,” Evening Chronicle, Second Extra, April 28, 1949
General Jalandoni, somewhat incoherent from shock, was able to recall that the motorcade carrying the Quezon party was approachinf the Nueva Ecija-Quezon boundary, a desolate, mountainous region, when the car he was riding in with Mrs. Quezon suddenly met a heavy hail of machine gun bullets as it was rounding a curve on the highway. The car was leading the motorcade and in it were Mrs. Quezon, Baby Quezon, General Jalandoni, Philip Buencamino III, Mayor Ponciano Bernardo, with Lt-Col. Antonio San Agustin at the wheel.
All the occupants of the car except General Jalandoni, were hit by the fusillade and killed. Jalandoni related how the car stopped dead and how he went for his revolver as he saw a group of Huks approaching. Before he could shoot, he was struck on the face with a rifle butt by one of the assailants. He lost consciousness and was apparently given up for dead by the Huks. –Gonzalo A. Cuizon, “Eyewitnesses Tell of Attack”, Manila Chronicle, April 28, 1949
General Rafael Jalandoni, former chief of staff of the Philippine army and lone survivor in Mrs. Quezon’s car, said the group of outlaws fired a volley of shots at the defenseless occupants of Mrs. Quezon’s car which was way ahead of the motorcade.
Gen. Jalandoni reported also that after the first volley Mayor Bernardo got out of the car and with raised hands yelled to the attackers: “Doña Aurora Quezon is in this party.” The Quezon City executive was shot down and the attack was intensified, Jalandoni said.
“The ambush was so sudden that the Philippine constabulary escorts were not able to fire even a single shot,” Jalandoni recounted. He said the car immediately stopped after the first volley of fire from the dissidents.
“I was about to draw my gun when a member of the gang hit my right face with the butt of his gun,” he recalled, adding “I was the first in the party to be knocked down.” He saiud the impact was so hard it rendered him unconscious. –Manila Chronicle, “Survivors Recount Treacherous Attack on Mrs. Quezon’s Party,” April 29, 1949
The place of the attacks, according to the general, was in Nueva Ecija a few miles from the Quezon boundary on the of Bongabon. Col. Antonio San Agustin, sweepstakes official, was at the wheel. Baby Aurora Quezon sat beside him, and Philip Buencamino III was at the opposite end in the front seat. The car was owned by Mayor Bernardo.
After the sudden barrage from outside, Tony San Agustin was first hit and he slumped dead, General Jalandoni narrated. Mrs. Quezon and Mayor Bernardo mortally wounded, fell on Jalandoni who presently lost consciousness when he was hit in the head by the butt of a gun presumably from one of the ambushers on the road…
General Jalandoni said Mayor Bernardo told the attackers in Tagalog Mrs. Quezon was with the party. Notwithstanding the admonition, the barrge continued. –Manila Times, “Dna. Aurora, Baby Quezon, Ten Others Murdered,” April 29, 1949
Cabanatuan, April 28 –…As one of the dissidents approached, General Jalandoni drew his gun in an effort to kill his attacker. Before he could draw, he was hit on the head with a rifle butt. Jalandoni slumped behind the wheel, unconscious. Believing he was dead, the dissidents ran to the other cars to see the rest of the members of the party. –Manila Times, “Dna. Aurora, Baby Quezon, Ten Others Murdered,” April 29, 1949
The party was approaching Villa Aurora, still on Nueva Ecija soil, and was passing through a zig-zag road on hilly terrain when the leading cards were subjected to heavy enfilading fire.
Quezon City Mayor Ponciano Bernardo, who was in the leading car with Mrs. Quezon, Baby Quezon, Maj. Gen. Rafael Jalandoni, Philip Buencamino III and Antonio San Agustin, left the car with his hands up in token of surrender and shouted: “This is Mrs. Quezon’s party.” He was shot dead as he yelled.
As all cars screeched to a stop, men swarmed around the leading car. When Gen. Jalandoni saw the outlaws, he grabbed a .45 caliber automatic pistol and was cocking it when an outlaw struck him on the check with the butt of a rifle. As he dropped to the floor of the car, he heard volleys fired into its occupants. –Manila Bulletin, “Mrs. Quezon, ‘Baby,’ Nine Others Die in Huk Ambush,” April 29, 1949
Cabanatuan, Nueva Ecija, April 28. –…General Jalandoni is the lone survivor in the car of Mrs. Quezon. He related that when the ambushers came near the car he was given up for dead also because he was buried under the bodies of the Quezons, Mayor Bernardo and Tony San Agustin. –Jovito N. Reyes, special to the Manila Bulletin, April 29, 1949
General Jalandoni said that he and Mayor Ponciano Bernardo of Quezon City, who were then riding with Mrs. Quezon, immediately jumped out of the besieged car with hands up in the air. Mayor Bernardo shouted to the attackers that Mrs. Quezon was inside, probably in the belief that she would be spared by them.
Before he could gather his wits, however, Jalandoni stated that he was rendered unconscious by a gun butt blow on the right cheek. –Star Reporter, “Survivors’ Account of Ambuscade,” April 29, 1949
Cabanatuan, May 6 –The captive, Pedro Manantan, 26, an escaped convict from the Nueva Vizcaya provincial jail… confirmed previous reports that Mayor Ponciano Bernardo shouted to the Huks “Don’t shoot, Doña Aurora is here.” But Mayor Bernardo was heard only by the outposts who apparently without orders from Col. Viernes started firing at the vehicle for fear of being first fired upon by the PC escort in the jeeps following the car of Mrs. Quezon. –Manila Times, “Eyewitness Story of Ambush Told by Captured Huk,”Saturday, May 7, 1949.
Cabanatuan, May 10 –…Pedro Manantan, who participated in the ambuscade… declared that the ambush band did not know beforehand that Mrs. Quezon was with the party. “The first car in which Doña Aurora was riding was machine-gunned when it tried to turn back upon being stopped by our companions,” he said. He himself fired four times at the Quezon car with his Garand…
When the first car attempted to get away, he declared, the Huks deployed along the road fired simultaneously at the motorcade. –Manila Times, “Huk Prisoner Gives Details of Quezon Massacre Near Baler,” May 11, 1949
10:35 AM
The dissidents, totalling* about 100 heavily armed jungle fighters, were strategically deployed about 15 meters further on the high embankments ol the zigzag road which was firmly barricaded of cut timber. Ihey continued firing from all directions on the different cars as these approached the bend until the arrival of the re-enforcement of Constabulary soldiers from Nueva Ecija when they started to flee to the forests and disperse in small groups. —Sol Gwekoh, Aurora Quezon Her Life And Deeds, 1951
Mrs. Quezon was hit in the temple and her daughter in the chest. Buencamino was wounded also in the chest. –Gonzalo Cuizon, “Huks Kill Mrs. Quezon, Baby Quezon and Mayor Bernardo,” Evening Chronicle, Second Extra, April 28, 1949
Buencamino was hit in the chest and thigh but remained alive for a few hours after he was brought to the provincial hospital here [in Cabanatuan]. Mrs. Aurora Quezon was hit in the head, while most of the others received fatal wounds in the chest. These were Baby Quezon, Quezon City Mayor Ponciano Bernardo, Col. Primitivo San Agustin and Lt. Col. Antonio San Agustin. Lt. Juan Molina, a driver in the party, was hit in the abdomen, and Pedro Payumo, Quezon family cook in the neck. –Enrique Santos, “Buencamino Dies in NE Hospital,” Manila Chronicle, April 28, 1949
Alandy said… Buencamino was fatally shot in the left arm pit with a high caliber gun. The weapon must have been pressed against his chest by his assailant because the flesh around the entry point of the bullet was burned, he added. –Manila Chronicle, “Survivors Recount Treacherous Attack on Mrs. Quezon’s Party,” April 29, 1949
Mrs. Quezon, Baby Quezon and Mayor Bernardo were killed on the spot in the first volley. –Manila Times, “Dna. Aurora, Baby Quezon, Ten Others Murdered,” April 29, 1949
After the first volley which crippled the leading car Huk fire was concentrated on the constabulary guards. Capt. Manalang and Cpl. Silverio were able to escape death by jumping out of their jeep and taking cover under the vehicle. Manalang was wounded in the left leg and arms while Silverio, who said he feigned death, was wounded in the right leg. –Evening News, “The Ambuscade: How It Happened,” April 29, 1949
Cpl. Raymundo said in a statement here the attackers were in a roadside ditch and opened up on the Quezon party with a machinegun. The Quezon car was followed by a PC jeep in which he, Capt. Manalang, Lazam and two other soldiers were riding. Three of them were killed instantly but Manalang and Raymundo managed to jump out of the vehicle.
Raymundo said there was a brief exchange of gunfire. He believed he was able to kill three of the attackers.. –Gonzalo A. Cuizon, “Eyewitnesses Tell of Attack”, Manila Chronicle, April 28, 1949
The second vehicle was a jeep with a constabulary guard detail under the command of Captain Olimpio Manalang. Pedro Payumo, Mrs. Quezon’s cook, was in this car together with Cpl. Raymundo Silverio and other constabulary personnel.
Third came a jeep with Juan Molina as driver. Beside him was seated Col. Primitivo San Agustin, chief of the military intelligence section, G-2, AFP. Seated behind were five constabulary men.
The fourth vehicle was a station wagon owned by Mrs. Quezon with Teodulo Villadelgado, Nonong Quezon’s driver, and two passengers whom the driver was unable to identify…–Evening News, “The Ambuscade: How It Happened,” April 29, 1949
[Joaquin Villadelgado ]: He said there were three others with him in the jeep, which was the fourth vehicle from Mrs. Quezon’s car.Two of his pssengers were killed but one, whose name he did not know, survived.
The youthful chauffeur said the convoy was going up a hill along a zig-zag road at Kilometer 168 when the ambuscade took place. Firing was from the elevated ridges on both sides of the road, but the chauffeur said “bullets came from all directions.” In the first volley he saw Col. San Agustin and his lone companion in the jeep just ahead of his, killed instantly. –Manila Chronicle, “Survivors Recount Treacherous Attack on Mrs. Quezon’s Party,” April 29, 1949
[Teodolo Villadelgado] “I remember we were driving near kilometer 168 (from Manila) when we were attacked. The road was winding up. Without any warning, I heard machine gun fire from the top of an incline overlooking us and from all around us.
“The first casualty I saw was Col. Primitivo San Agustin who was in the jeep in front of me. He died instantly with a bullet in the head. His driver was killed, too.
“When I saw the dead around me, I got scared stiff. I jumped out of my jeep and prepared to hide my watch while I was seeking cover. I thought if the bandits did not find any valuable in my possession, they would not kill me. –Manila Times, “Quezon Murder Shocks Nation,” April 29, 1949
Driver Juan Payumo of the third car was seriously wounded. Occupants of the fourth car, Dr. Alandy, Dr. Bigornia and Dr. Quisumbing, and Mrs. Angara, an elder sister of Doña Aurora, managed to escape unhurt. Seeing the cars ahead came to a dead stop as bullets pierced their sides, Car No. 4 backed out and then made a U-turn, speeding away from the scene. The dissidents were apparently determined to kill every member of the party in the first three cars. –Manila Times, “Dna. Aurora, Baby Quezon, Ten Others Murdered,” April 29, 1949
Dr. Luis Alandy, personal secretary of Mrs. Quezon gave a more coherent account of the ambuscade. He was in the fourth car and was able to turn back while the attackers were concentrating their attention on the first three cars.
Alandy said the assailants fired at close range with machine guns, instantly killing all the occupants of the first three vehicles. Machine guns raked the Buick in which the Quezons following. In the second jeep were Col. Primitivo San Agustin with five PC escorts.
The PC escort was unable to fire a single shot, so sudden was the attack. –Gonzalo A. Cuizon, “Eyewitnesses Tell of Attack”, Manila Chronicle, April 28, 1949
The fourth car was occupied by Dr. Eduardo Quisumbing, Dr. Francisco Bigornia, Dr. Luis Alandy, and Mrs. Ampara A. Angara, Mrs. Quezon’s sister. –Evening News, “The Ambuscade: How It Happened,” April 29, 1949
Mrs. Amparo Aragon de Angara, one of Mrs. Quezon’s two living sisters, told a tale of sudden death climaxed by a spectacular dash back to Bongabon in a jeep crowded with 13 persons.
“We were fourth or fifth in the motorcade,” she said with little indication of the harrowing experience she had only recently gone through. “It must have been 10:30 a.m. when it began.
“Our station wagon carried five persons – Dr. Eduardo Quisumbing, Dr. and Mrs. Francisco Vicuna, the driver and myself. In front of us was a jeep loaded with soldiers. There was another jeep said to have been cruising ahead of the former vehicle, another car and finally at the head, Mrs. Quezon and her family…
“I think it was around a bend when the first warning shots reached our ears.
“There were two or three heights well above our motorcade, and even while we heard the vehicles in front screeching to a stop bullets began to whine from those heights.
“There were shouts and loud cries, punctuated by staccato reports in rapid succession. Our station wagon lurched to a stop; and somehow we were were able to crawl out of it. Bullets were kicking up dust all around as we sought cover in ditches and shallows along the roadside. I was too frightened to even think of what was happening ahead and around us. It was plain to see that that people were being killed; there were many voices raised in pain and anguish.” –Manila Chronicle, “Survivors Recount Treacherous Attack on Mrs. Quezon’s Party,” April 29, 1949
Dr. Quisumbing said he was in a car about 15 yards behind Mrs. Quezon’s car and that he did not see the attackers… He was aware at the time, however, that the raid was conducted at close range and the brief battle was almost a hand to hand encounter…
When the firing started, Quisumbing said, he crawled under his car for safety, and after some fifteen minutes or so, managed to gather about twelve persons, including Mrs. Amparo Aragon Angara, Mrs. Quezon’s sister, inside one jeep and drive further down the zigzag trail. –Manila Times, “Quezon Murder Shocks Nation; Felipe Buencamino, III, Dies,” April 29, 1949
The driver of the fourth car was quick enough to back up his vehicle, make a U-turn and speed away to safety and brings news of the tragedy to Cabanatuan. –Evening News, “The Ambuscade: How It Happened,” April 29, 1949
Manantan estimated that there were around 200 well armed Huks in the vicinity when the Quezon ambuscade occurred. . –Manila Times, “Eyewitness Story of Ambush Told by Captured Huk,”Saturday, May 7, 1949.
10:40 AM
So sudden was the attack of a heavy hail of machine-gun bullets on the party that the escort guards did not have time to fire back even a single shot. Everybody immediately scampered for safety. —Sol Gwekoh, Aurora Quezon Her Life And Deeds, 1951
[Mrs. Amparo Aragon de Angara]: “As we lay around trying to burrow deeper away from the maddening fusillade which ripped into our area from the mountain tops and along the sides of the road, some soldiers rushed up from the rear.
“They ordered us to abandon our positions and to take to the rear and return to the town. Somehow an empty jeep was found.
“All five persons in our party piled inside and eight others from other vehicles joined us. The firing grew more intense as as we groped past the litter. Someone took the wheel and in a short time we were speeding away from the scene of the ambuscade.
“I don’t think there were any injured in our party.” –Manila Chronicle, “Survivors Recount Treacherous Attack on Mrs. Quezon’s Party,” April 29, 1949
Mrs. Amparo Aragon de Angara, sister to Mrs. Quezon, declared that she was riding in a station wagon some four or five cars behind that of Mrs. Quezon. Among those with her were Dr. Eduardo Quisumbing, director of the national museum, and others.
Then all of a sudden, they heard machine gun fire way up ahead followed by shrieks and yells of pain. In a sudden dash for life, she and companions rushed out of their car and hugged the nearby ditches to escape the bullets which menaced them from all directions.
Shortly afterwards, their PC escorts caught up with them from the rear and instructed them to return to Bongabong awaited the arrival of casualties. She said she was too confused and dazed to be able to determine who their ambushers were. Star Reporter, “Survivors’ Account of Ambuscade,” April 29, 1949
Several other cars at the tail of the party also were able to make a getaway. In one of these was Director Silayan who sped to Bongabon and was able to ask Capt. Dominador Alo’s A Company, 1st combat battalion, PC to rush to the scene. –Evening News, “The Ambuscade: How It Happened,” April 29, 1949
Francisco D. Marquez, administrative officer of the department of agriculture and executive officer of the food production campaign, and P.C. Guevarra of the bureau of public works said they missed the shooting by about 20 minutes.
The two officials, who were riding in separate cars, said they got lost on the way. They recalled that when they were about to arrive at the scene of the shooting they met constabulary soldiers in a jeep who were on their way to get reinforcements from the Bongabon detachment. They said the soldiers told them to return. –Manila Chronicle, “Survivors Recount Treacherous Attack on Mrs. Quezon’s Party,” April 29, 1949
According to Francisco Marquez, administrative officer of the department of agriculture… he was riding in the seventh car from Mrs. Quezon’s. After the party had reached the boundary separating Quezon and Nueva Ecija, they heard a volley of shots and a PC courier came rushing to them. “Si Mrs. Quezon naharang” he breathlessly announced to them. This was between 10:30 and 11 o’clock yesterday morning. –Rosalinda Orosa, “Grieving Hundreds Crowd Funeral Parlor to View Mrs. Quezon’s Body,” Manila Chronicle, April 29, 1949
Silayan’s car was the seventh in the motorcade, and it was about two kilometers behind when the shooting took place. Silayan said he and his companion in the car, Arturo Nitorreda, district engineer of Nueva Ecija, heard the rat-tat-tat of machine guns.
A few minutes later they saw the cars in front of them returning and warning all the rest to turn back. –Manila Times, “Quezon Murder Shocks Nation; Felipe Buencamino, III, Dies,” April 29, 1949
…Hilarion Silayan, member of the Philippine presidential committee on social amelioration… said that he owed his life to the fact that his car had dropped back to seventh place in the caravan.
Silayan said that one rebel leaped out onto the road and ordered the first vehicle to stop. The bandit ordered Maj. Gen. Rafael Jalandoni, former chief of staff of the Philippine Army, out of the auto, and struck him in the head with the butt of his rife.
Gen. Jalandoni collapsed, Silayan related, and this was followed immediately by burst of machine gun and small arms fire from men hidden in bushes along the side of the highway.
The gunfire instantly killed the occupants of the first few cars of the group, Silayan reported, while the other motorists fled towards the rear of the caravan. Firing continued for several minutes between the bandits and constabularymen before the bandits were driven off. –Evening Chronicle, “Asistio Heads PC Expedition,” April 29, 1949
10:45 AM
From their victims the dissidents stole whatever they could. Robbed from Doña Aurora were her money and all the jewelry she wore —an engagement ring, a wedding ring, a diamond studded wrist watch, and a necklace closely resembling the rosary beads. Later the Constabulary recovered her bullet-ridden residence certificate for the year 1945 when taken from the body of an unidentified dissident during an operation of the famous Nenita commandoes in Nueva Ecija on the lawless elements, and a black bag of alligator skin which still contained the unfinished bed- spread which she had started to knit in Manila. —Sol Gwekoh, Aurora Quezon Her Life And Deeds, 1951
It was believed that the ambush perpetrators dragged the victims on the ground after they were killed. –Gonzalo A. Cuizon, “Eyewitnesses Tell of Attack”, Manila Chronicle, April 28, 1949
After the ambush, the dissidents filed onto the road, stripped the dead of jewelry and valuables, and robbed the survivors, Raymundo said he feigned death probably saving his life, and was picked up by PC rescuers 15 minutes later. –Gonzalo A. Cuizon, “Eyewitnesses Tell of Attack”, Manila Chronicle, April 28, 1949
Indications are that the bodies of all the occupants of the first car were dragged outside and shorn of all jewelry. —–Evening News, “The Ambuscade: How It Happened,” April 29, 1949
The former army chief of staff said the band looted the dead wounded. He said the outlaws stripped Mrs. Quezon of all her jewelry and took his own wrist watch and gold identification wrist tag. –Manila Chronicle, “Survivors Recount Treacherous Attack on Mrs. Quezon’s Party,” April 29, 1949
The general also disclosed that the bandits stripped Mrs. Quezon’s body of the jewels she wore. The gang also robbed Jalandoni of his signet ring while he was unconscious. –Manila Times, “Dna. Aurora, Baby Quezon, Ten Others Murdered,” April 29, 1949
Mrs. Quezon was shorn of everything except an earring in the right ear. –Manila Chronicle, “Mrs. Quezon Funeral Today; 11 Others Slain In Massacre,”April 29, 1949
…in addition to looting their bodies of money and jewelry, he [Jalandoni] heard some of the killers shout, “Buhay pa iyan. Todasin ninyo silang lahat.” (That one is still alive. Wipe them all out). –Manila Times, “Ex-Chief of Staff Givs First-Hand Story of Massacre,” April 30, 1949
“After a while,” he continued, “we stopped firing and our companions, mostly Huk officers, approached the cars and started relieving the victims of their money and valuables.” –Manila Times, “Huk Prisoner Gives Details of Quezon Massacre Near Baler,” May 11, 1949
11:00 AM
The dissidents, totalling about 100 heavily armed jungle fighters, were strategically deployed about 15 meters further on the high embankments ol the zigzag road which was firmly barricaded of cut timber. they continued firing from all directions on the different cars as these approached the bend until the arrival of the re-enforcement of Constabulary soldiers from Nueva Ecija when they started to flee to the forests and disperse in small groups… Sol Gwekoh, Aurora Quezon Her Life And Deeds, 1951
Dr. Quisumbing said the… Huks fled, however, he said, when the constabulary soldiers arrived. Dr. Quisumbing recalled that all those in his car immediately got off when the shooting had cleared and assisted Gen. Jalandoni and PC soldiers in placing the bodies in one car. –Manila Chronicle, “Survivors Recount Treacherous Attack on Mrs. Quezon’s Party,” April 29, 1949
11:30 AM
When Jalandoni regained consciousness later, he found the life- less bodies of Doha Aurora and her daughter, Maria Aurora, piled on top of him. The wounds inflicted in her head caused the instant death of Doña Aurora… Sol Gwekoh, Aurora Quezon Her Life And Deeds, 1951
General Jalandoni said that when he recovered consciousness, all the Huks had gone. He looked around and saw that all the occupants of the car and jeep were either dead or seriously wounded. The bodies had been stripped of valuables. Pedro Payumo, a Malacañan driver riding in the third jeep was seriously wounded. –Gonzalo A. Cuizon, “Eyewitnesses Tell of Attack”, Manila Chronicle, April 28, 1949
Jalandoni said that after regaining consciousness, he saw the lifeless bodies of Miss Maria Aurora “Baby” Quezon, Mrs. Quezon and Mayor Ponciano Bernardo piled on top of him. He said he did not know how he came out alive. –Manila Chronicle, “Survivors Recount Treacherous Attack on Mrs. Quezon’s Party,” April 29, 1949.
[Jalandoni] said he regained consciousness when the PC troops led by Major Burgosino Fausto started firing at the outlaws who then retreated in disorderly fashion towards the Sierra Madre mountains. –Manila Bulletin, “Mrs. Quezon, ‘Baby,’ Nine Others Die in Huk Ambush,” April 29, 1949
When he came to, after several minutes, Jalandoni found that all his companions in the automobile were already dead, except Philip Buencamino, III, who was seriously wounded. On closer scrutiny the retired army boss further discovered that the attackers had also relieved Mrs. Quezon and the other victims of their jewelry and valuables. –Star Reporter, “Survivors’ Account of Ambuscade,” April 29, 1949
[JVilladelgado ]: The chauffeur said that when he realized it was an ambush he jumped out of the car into a ditch on the side of the road. After the firing had died down, an armed man came and stood right over him and poised his rifle to shoot. At that moment, however, one of the ambushers yelled: “The PC’s are coming” and the man ran away.
Checking up after the outlaws had withdrawn, the chauffeur said that he thought every one in Mrs. Quezon’s car had been killed but later he saw that Gen. Jalandoni was alive. –Manila Chronicle, “Survivors Recount Treacherous Attack on Mrs. Quezon’s Party,” April 29, 1949
“While I was in the act of hiding my watch, I saw men about two steps away from me, looking down at me fron an elevated position. One of them wanted to kill me and prepared to aim. Then I heard someone shout, “Don’t kill him!”
“Suddenly a man shouted at the top of the voice, “PC! PC! PC!”
“The bandits withdrew hurriedly when PC reinforcements started firing back at them. When the soldiers arrived, I gathered enough courage and stood up. I rushed to Mrs. Quezon’s car and saw her dead, hit at the back of her head. They also killed Mayor Ponciano Bernardo. The only passenger in the death car who escaped unscathed was General Jalandoni.
“Col. Antonio San Agustin, who was driving the car, was killed on the spot. I saw Philip Buencamino III at San Agustin’s right, slumped on his seat, while Baby Quezon remained sprawled on her seat.” –Manila Times, “Quezon Murder Shocks Nation,” April 29, 1949
Seeing the reinforcements come, the attackers scampered away. The bodies of the dead and wounded were then gathered and taken to Cabanatuan. –Evening News, “The Ambuscade: How It Happened,” April 29, 1949
Adiong, the youthful-looking Quezon family driver, was left to live during the ambush, because the murderers, in an unexplainable stroke of charity, thought him too young to die. Rushing to the front car when the ambushers had gone, Adiong found Philip lying on the front seat, his side dripping red blood. Philip smiled at Adiong and in his usual confident way said clear, natural tones “Malakas pa ako” – “I am still strong”. To demonstrate his strength Philip said, “Tingan mo” – “Look”, and dipping his finger in his own blood wrote on the back rest of the front seat the words “HOPE IN GOD”.
When they placed him on the jitney for Cabanatuan, Philip’s bloody hands were fingering his rosary and his parched lips were moving in prayer to Mary, the Mother of God. –Raul S. Manglapus, “Philip Buencamino: A message spelled in blood,” The Cross, May, 1949
11:45 AM
The ambushers were later identified by the drivers and passengers of several trucks to be a gang of marauders. The former were herded together under a tree about 200 meters from the spot where Dona Aurora was murdered and detained until the attack on the Quezon party was over, when one member of the gang told them, “Go now as your white-haired Mrs. Quezon is already dead.“ —Sol Gwekoh, Aurora Quezon Her Life And Deeds, 1951
Cabanatuan, Nueva Ecija, April 28. — Reports that the Huks were waiting for the party of Doña Aurora were brought here by drivers of the Cabanatuan lumber company who were held up near the scene of the ambush early this morning reached this capital.
The drivers, who were stripped of all valuables, were not released until after the ambuscade of Doña Aurora was over.
The Huks, before releasing the drivers said: “You can go now as your Mrs. Quezon with the white hair is already dead.” –Manila Chronicle, Friday, April 29, 1949
The identity of the ambush gang as Huks was confirmed by drivers of the Cabanatuan Lumber company who were ambushed on the same spot earlier. The drivers said that they were detained by the Huks until the attack was over, following which they were released. One of the Huks the drivers said, told them: “Go now as your white-haired Mrs. Quezon is already dead.” –Evening News, “The Ambuscade: How It Happened,” April 29, 1949
12:00 PM
Several cars and jeeps following behind the two cars were able to return to Bongabon before noon today. –Gonzalo Cuizon, “Huks Kill Mrs. Quezon, Baby Quezon and Mayor Bernardo,” Evening Chronicle Final Second Extra, April 28, 1949
[Mrs. Amparo Aragon de Angara]: “We reached Bongabon crushed and bruised. Someone helped me out; I felt very weak since Dr. Quisumbing and other equally hefty persons sat hard by me or on top.” –Manila Chronicle, “Survivors Recount Treacherous Attack on Mrs. Quezon’s Party,” April 29, 1949
News of the ambuscade reached Col. Angel Magallanes, provincial commander, while he was conferring with Governor Juan O. Chioco yesterday noon [April 28, 1949]. Magallanes immediately left taking along all available reinforcements and rushed to the scene of the ambush.
Chioco wired Secretary Sotero Baluyot for a reconnaissance plane to be dispatched to the area. –Evening News, “The Ambuscade: How It Happened,” April 29, 1949
Captain Hernandez said that when he arrived on the scene of the ambuscade, he saw only Captains Manalang and Burgosino Fausto exchanging shots with the Huks, the other members of the escort guard having either been killed or wounded.
Badly wounded, Captain Manalang, his ammunition exhausted, reserved his last bullet for any of the Huks who might have come near him. Captain Fausto made it hot for the Huks, fighting savagely behind a big trunk of a tree. –Manila Times, “Ex-Chief of Staff Givs First-Hand Story of Massacre,” April 30, 1949
1:00 PM
[Mrs. Amparo Aragon de Angara]: “I remember saying we should all go to church for prayer. We prayed for a long time. It was past noon when we emerged to find the bodies of Mrs. Quezon and others in the group had already been brought to town. Philip was not yet dead then. There were many whose clothes were stained with blood. But I could not tell nor count the dead and the wounded. I was too exhausted.” –Manila Chronicle, “Survivors Recount Treacherous Attack on Mrs. Quezon’s Party,” April 29, 1949
The victim’s vehicles, including the Buick car of Mrs. Quezon, were all left on the scene of the ambush as they were all riddled with machine gun bullets, including the vital parts of the machines.
The bodies of the victims were rushed to the provincial hospital in a station wagon and an army ambulance. The bodies of Mrs. Quezon and her daughter Baby were placed inside the station wagon, while those of the two San Agustin brothers and driver Molina were tucked on the rear compartment with their feet sticking out to the rear.
The exposed dead bodies attracted immediate attention as the vehicles rushed through this town…
All the bodies could not be recognized with thick dust which enveloped the faces and exposed parts. –Gonzalo A. Cuizon, “Eyewitnesses Tell of Attack”, Manila Chronicle, April 28, 1949
The former PA chief of staff said that after the smoke had cleared, the bodies of the victims together with the wounded were rushed to Cabanatuan. –Manila Chronicle, “Survivors Recount Treacherous Attack on Mrs. Quezon’s Party,” April 29, 1949
2:00 PM
News of the tragedy was immediately communicated to the surviving children. Maria Zeneida (Nini), who was first contacted at her Gilmore Avenue home, was prostrate with shock upon getting the information. She in turn notified her brother, Manuel, Jr. (Nonong), then vacationing at the home of Mrs. Consuelo Cuyugan in Baclaran, Rizal, about the massacre. Upon learning of the tragedy, Mrs. Cuyugan’* recalled that during Doha Aurora’s visit to her home the previous Monday, Doha Aurora told her “to look after Nonong who is not so strong.” She wondered if Doha Aurora had any premonition that something fatal would happen to her soon. —Sol Gwekoh, Aurora Quezon Her Life And Deeds, 1951
Philip Buencamino III arrived at the provincial hospital at 2:00 o’clock this afternoon still alive, but died after two and half hours of agony. He sustained four fatal wounds. Gen. Jalandoni was desparately looking for a plane to carry Philip to Manila for the necessary blood transfusion but there was no available plane.
Gov. Juan O. Chioco and Board Member Sixto Lustre, who were the first provincial official to reach the hospital this afternoon, also tried to aid in locating a plane. Gov. Chioco even wired for blood from the Manila Red Cross bnlood bank. –Gonzalo A. Cuizon, “Eyewitnesses Tell of Attack”, Manila Chronicle, April 28, 1949
The wounded arrived at the Cabanatuan provincial hospital by mid-afternoon. A serious problem of blood plasma supply faced the doctors. –Evening News, “The Ambuscade: How It Happened,” April 29, 1949
Baguio, April 28. –President Quirino was shocked by the news of Mrs. Quezon’s tragic death. It rendered him speechless for some minutes just after he had awakened from his siesta this afternoon. The news was breached to him by his son, Tommy, in the presence of Chief Justice and Mrs. Manuel V. Moran, Mrs. Nila Mendoza, Mrs. Filadelfo Rojas and his physician, Dr. Fernando Martires.
Dr. Martires, who stood by ready with coramine ampule, saw no need for injection, however, when he saw the Apo recover from paleness. –Manila Chronicle, “The President’s Day,” April 28, 1949
Physicians who attended to Felipe Buencamino III, recalled having been informed by Mrs. Quezon’s son-in-law, before expiring, that the men who committed the massacre were Huks. –Manila Times, “Ex-Chief of Staff Givs First-Hand Story of Massacre,” April 30, 1949
3:00 PM
Philip Buencamino III’s last words were “Dios ko!” He lapsed into a coma after uttering this cry and expired at 3 o’clock this afternoon.
Earlier he had asked that his father, Dr. Victor Buencamino, be notified by telegram to Manila. “Call a priest, I am dying,” he said. He was given the last sacraments of the Catholic church. –Enrique Santos, “Buencamino Dies in NE Hospital,” Manila Chronicle, April 28, 1949
Mrs. [Miss] Amador said she was beside Philip when he died. His last words were: “Enriqueta, please take a good care of my darlings”, referring to his wife, the former Zenaida Quezon, and baby. –Manila Times, “Dna. Aurora, Baby Quezon, Ten Others Murdered,” April 29, 1949
3:15
Buencamino died at 3:15 p.m. and Payumo three hours later…
Blood plasma intended for him arrived in Cabanatuan aboard a Philippine Army headquarters plane two hours late. –Manila Chronicle, “Mrs. Quezon Funeral Today; 11 Others Slain In Massacre,”April 29, 1949
3:30 PM
Buencamino however expired at around 3:30.
Mrs. Enriqueta de Amador who was at Buencamino’s bedside till the last said that as Philip was about to die he said: “Enriqueta, please take good care of my darlings.” Then he gasped, “My God,” and died. Earlier he asked for a priest. –Evening News, “The Ambuscade: How It Happened,” April 29, 1949
4:00 PM
As the merciless murder was perpetuated about 168 kilometers away from Manila, the capital city of the Philippines, nothing was known about the fateful event until late in the afternoon when the metropolitan newspapers issued their first “extra” closely followed by a second, and the radio broadcasting stations made special news flashes at regular intervals of the tragedy.
The Manila Times Extra of that day carried the banner, Dna. Aurora, Baby Quezon, Eight Others, Killed by Huks, while the Evening Chronicle Extra ran this streamer, Huks Kill Mrs. Quezon, Baby Quezon and Mayor Bernardo. Both the newspaper readers and the radio listeners were stunned, shocked by the news! —Sol Gwekoh, Aurora Quezon Her Life And Deeds, 1951
The death of Mrs. Quezon, her daughter Baby, and Mayor Ponciano Bernardo of Quezon City was reported to Manila by Governor Juan Chioco of Nueva Ecija in a telegram received at 4 o’clock this afternoon by Dr. Herminio Yanzon, manager of the Philippine Red Cross. –Gonzalo Cuizon, “Huks Kill Mrs. Quezon, Baby Quezon and Mayor Bernardo,” Evening Chronicle, Second Extra, April 28, 1949
When news of the ambuscade was flashed and Philip was reported only “slightly wounded,” Nini remained in a state of dry-eyed disquiet. “Are you sure you are not withholding anything from me?” she asked friends. “If he is only slightly wounded, then why doesn’t he wire or phone me?” She insisted on flying to Bongabon, but they wouldn’t let her go. . –Rosario Mencias Querol, “Premonitions: Beads, Dreams,” Evening News, April 29, 1949
Mrs. Nini Quezon Buencamino, here in Manila, learned of the tragic incident through a phone call. Wanting to vertify she called up Mansion House, and was informed that her mother and siser Baby were dead. She then relayed the news by phone to her brother Nonong who had gone to spend the day with Mrs. Consuelo Cuyugan, whom the family calls “Ninang.” . –Manila Times, “Nini, With Child, Bears Up Bravely In Triple Tragedy,” April 29, 1949
4:10 PM
…Villadelgado was driving Mrs. Quezon’s jeep bearing plate No. 7470, with two members of the party he could not identify…
The two members of the party who rode in Villadelgado’s jeep were killed. After his miraculous escape from the ambuscade, the driver turned back his bullet-ridden jeep to Cabanatuan. He left Cabanatuan at 4:10 p.m. and arrived at Malacañan at 7:30 in the evening,
Villadelgado, who is known as Master Nonong Quezon’s driver, reported to Secretary Evangelista upon arrival at Malacañan. His khaki pants and shirts were stained with blood, which he said must have come from his passengers who were killed. –Manila Times, “Quezon Murder Shocks Nation,” April 29, 1949
4:30 PM
At 4:30 p.m. the Red Cross was able to dispatch a Philippine Army plane to Cabanatuan bringing with it 20,000 cubic centimeters of plasma and 5,000 cubic centimeters of fresh blood. –Manila Times, “Rush To Give Blood To Massacre Victims,” April 29, 1949
4:50 PM
[M]ore than 200 persons persons… presented themselves at Philippine Red Cross headquarters and offered to give their blood in response to a radio appeal which had been broadcast shortly before 5 p.m. yesterday… [April 28, 1949]. –Manila Times, “Rush To Give Blood To Massacre Victims,” April 29, 1949
5:00 PM
As the funeral cortege went through Nueva Ecija and Bulacan yesterday [April 28, 1949], people in towns and barrios looked in silence at the three coffins being brought by a funeral car and ambulance to Manila… –Enrique B. Santos, “Bulacan, Nueva Ecija Folk Aghast Over Shocking Murder,” Manila Bulletin, April 29, 1949
7:10 PM
Seven bodies, including those of Doña Aurora, her daughter, Baby; Philip Buencamino, Mayor Ponciano Bernardo, Cols. Primitivo San Agustin , and a driver arrived in Manila at 7:10 o’ clock last night. They were taken directly to the Funeraria Nacional in Rizal Avenue.
A large crowd went to the funeral parlor to view the remains and talk to the members of the party. So large was the crowd that the police had to suspend the traffic on Rizal Avenue and to close the Funeraria. –Manila Times, “Dna. Aurora, Baby Quezon, Ten Others Murdered,” April 29, 1949
7:30 PM
Hundreds of shocked mutely grieving people poured into the Funeraria Nacional last night in the hope of catching a glimpse of the bodies of their beloved Mrs. Aurora A. Quezon and her daughter “Baby.” The sad news of their deaths had spread with such rapidity and had so electrified Manilans that by 7:30 the doorway of the funeral parlor had become almost impassable.
People from all walks of life came and went for hours on end. There were the rich, the poor, and the middle classes. There were Chinese in undershirts and Spaniards impeccably dressed. There were the old and the fretting young. And in that motley group were expressions which ran the gamut of emotion. Men cried unashamedly while women sat huddled together sobbing and moaning. –Rosalinda Orosa, “Grieving Hundreds Crowd Funeral Parlor to View Mrs. Quezon’s Body,” Manila Chronicle, April 29, 1949
The bodies of seven victims, including the Quezons, were brought back to Manila at 7:30 last night [April 28, 1949] in motorcars, escorted by Governor Juan O. Chioco of Nueva Ecija and a detachment of Constabulary armored cars. –Manila Chronicle, “Quirino Will Be at Rites,” April 29, 1949
7:45 PM
As soon as the seven caskets bearing the bodies arrived, they were immediately rushed to the morgue behind the parlor and guards barred the curious from its doors. Observers went home disappointed. –Rosalinda Orosa, “Grieving Hundreds Crowd Funeral Parlor to View Mrs. Quezon’s Body,” Manila Chronicle, April 29, 1949
Joaquin Villadelgado, chauffeur of Mrs. Quezon since 1946. After the shooting, he drove the jeep he was driving to Cabanatuan and later from Cabanatuan to Manila alone.
He arrived at Malacañan shortly before 8 p.m., his khaki shirt and pants splattered with blood stains. –Manila Chronicle, “Survivors Recount Treacherous Attack on Mrs. Quezon’s Party,” April 29, 1949
8:00 PM
The bodies of the Quezons arrived in Manila late in the night of that ill-fated Thursday, accompanied by Jalandoni. Upon instructions of the living children, the remains were immediately sealed in bronze caskets, so the eager hut sorrowing public was not allowed a view of them. Then, as the remains were brought to the Santo Rosario chapel of the University of Santo Tomas a large crowd of people from all walks of life not only followed but kept vigil day and night until the hour of interment on Friday afternoon…
At the chapel a small group of distinguished women and selected Red Cross workers stood guard at the casket containing the body of Dona Aurora. It was draped with the flag of the Philippines, “symbolic of the nation’s ac-knowledgment of her greatness.*’ The thick lei of fresh sampaguita and ilang-ilang blossoms, placed by her family on top of the casket, reminded the persons closed to her of the flowers that she was fond of wearing in her life time. —Sol Gwekoh, Aurora Quezon Her Life And Deeds, 1951
[Mrs. Amparo Aragon vda. de Angara] was remarkably composed while was relating the unfortunate incident broke down completely when her sister Mrs. Emilia Aragon Vda. de Angara [Amador] arrived at the parlor. The two who are the only remaining sisters of the late Mrs. Quezon embraced each other and fell into pitiable weeping. –Rosalinda Orosa, “Grieving Hundreds Crowd Funeral Parlor to View Mrs. Quezon’s Body,” Manila Chronicle, April 29, 1949
Funeral arrangements were made according to the request of the children of the deceased. Jose Yulo is taking charge of all arrangements, and these include early mass at the Quezon home in Gilmore, which is a personal request of Nonong’s…
The bodies will most probably not be embalmed as Nini and Nonong wish they they be buried as soon as possible without much fuss. She also requested that the coffins remain covered as she had known her sister Baby to dislike such a practice. . –Manila Times, “Nini, With Child, Bears Up Bravely In Triple Tragedy,” April 29, 1949
9:00 PM
The casualty list as officially reported in Malacañan as of 9 o’clock last night [April 28, 1949].
Known dead:
1. Doña Aurora A. Quezon
2. Miss Maria Aurora (Baby) Quezon, Mrs. Quezon’s daughter.
3. Philip Buencamino III, Mrs. Quezon’s son-in-law.
4. Mayor Ponciano Bernardo of Quezon City.
5. Col. Primitivo San Agustin, chief of the army military intelligence service.
6. Major Antonio San Agustin, assistant manager of the Philippine charity sweepstakes office.
7. Juan Molina, relative of Mrs. Quezon.
8. Pedro Payumo, President Quezon’s cook and driver.
9. Lt. Diosdado Lazam, PC
10. Corporal Quirino Almarines, PC
11. Corporal Brigido Almarines, PC
Known wounded:
1. General Rafael Jalandoni, former army chief of staff.
2. Captain Olimpio Manalang, PC.
3. Captain Raymundo Silvero, PC.
Reported missing Antonio Arabejo, driver of Col. Primitivo San Agustin.
The survivors included: General Rafael Jalandoni, Dr. Eduardo Quisumbing, former Governor and Mrs. Maximo Rodriguez, Mrs. Sixto de la Costa, Dr. Luis Alandy, Mayor and Mrs. Pedro Alcantara, Dr. and Mrs. Francisco Vicuña, Mrs. and Mrs. Ciceron Guerrero, Francisco D. Marquez, Jose Alejandrino, P.C. Guevarra, Cesar Valenzuela, David Valenzuela, Jose Salvosa, Engineer Nitoreda, Mrs. Amparo de Angara, Mrs. Enriqueta Amador and Mrs. Calara de Zubia.–Manila Bulletin, “Mrs. Quezon, ‘Baby,’ Nine Others Die in Huk Ambush,” April 29, 1949
10:00 PM
Up to 10 o’clock last night more than 200 persons of all nationalities, with Filipinos and Americans predominating, had presented themselves at Philippine Red Cross headquarters and offered to give their blood in response to a radio appeal which had been broadcast shortly before 5 p.m. yesterday [April 28, 1949]…
Although many offered to give blood, a considerable number was rejected due to the fact that what was desired was only Type O blood, the universal type. Of the total number of persons who were examined by Red Cross doctors, only about 50 had been accepted up to shortly before 10 o’clock last night.
To Francisco Ortigas, Jr. belongs the honor of being the first successful donor of Type O blood. –Manila Times, “Rush To Give Blood To Massacre Victims,” April 29, 1949
11:00 PM
The bodies of Mrs. Quezon, Baby Quezon and Philip Buencamino III were transferred last night [April 28, 1949] to the Santo Tomas University chapel from the Funeraria Nacional, where they were first taken. . –Manila Chronicle, “Quirino Will Be at Rites,” April 29, 1949
April 29, 1949
As Dona Aurora was buried on that Friday afternoon, the Philippine official tricolor flew at half-mast at all public buildings and government offices throughout the country “in memory of the great and noble lady.” —Sol Gwekoh, Aurora Quezon Her Life And Deeds, 1951
April 29. –[T]he body of Lieut. Deogracias M. Arabejo was recovered from the scene of the ambush this morning and was transferred to Manila. It was further learned the body of Lieut. Joaquin R. Lasam, one of the PC escorts killed, was looted by the Huks of P700. The automobile of Mayor Ponciano Bernardo, where Mrs. Quezon was killed, was towed to Cabanatuan. It was riddled by more than 30 bullet holes. –Manila Times, “Ex-Chief of Staff Givs First-Hand Story of Massacre,” April 30, 1949
At the second PC dispensary, the body of Lt. Diosdado Lasam lay in a silk-lined coffin, dressed in his white gala uniform. He was brought home to his mother this morning, One of his enlisted men told me that the night before the ambuscade, the lieutenant had invited two of his men to go around the town with him. These two, Pfc. Brigido Valdes and Corp. Quirino Almarines, were also killed with him the jeep of Capt. Manalang.
The bodies of the PC enlisted men and Lt. D.M. Arabejo were also in the dispensary. Each had at least five bullet holes in different parts of the body. –Enrique B. Santos, “Bulacan, Nueva Ecija Folk Aghast Over Shocking Murder,” Manila Bulletin, April 29, 1949
Arrangements for the funeral of Mrs. Quezon were made by a committee created on direction of President Quirino, composed of former Speaker Jose Yulo, chairman; Dr. Manuel Lim (Red Cross), vice chairman; and Miss Manuela Gay (Catholic Women’s League), Mrs. Francisca T. Benitez (Civic organizations), Secretary of Labor Primitivo Lovina (cabinet), Delfin Buencamino (government corporations), Senator Lorenzo Tañada (senate), Congressman Tomas Morato (congress), Mayor Manuel de la Fuente (Manila), Aurerlio Intertas (labor), Felipe Buencamino, Jr. (family),. Mrs. Trinidad F. Legarda (National Federation of Women’s Clubs), Maj. Gen. Mariano N. Castañeda (armed forces), Dr. Antonio G. Sison and Minister Ramon Fernandez, members.
The committee will meet at 8 a.m. today at the council of state room, Malacañan, to mke arrangements on the vigils and the funeral details.
The VSAC, YLAC, and Girl Scouts of the Philippines will take charge of the vigil and funderal arrangements for Baby Quezon. The Ateneo Alumni Association, Malacañan Press Association and the department of foreign affairs will be in charge of the vigil and funeral arrangementsfor Philip Buencamino III.
From 6 a.m. today there will be masses at the University of Santo Tomas chapel, the final mass to be at 9 or 9:30 a.m. when the President will be in attendance, Bishop Rufino Santos, of Manila, will say the last mass and will give the last blessing at the cemetery during interment. –Manila Bulletin, “Mrs. Quezon, ‘Baby,’ Nine Others Die in Huk Ambush,” April 29, 1949
More than 5,000 people from all walks of life lingered in grim silence inside the jam-[acked chapel and the adjacent grounds of the university…
President Quirino will be the principal pall bearer from the altar of the UST chapel to the door of the chapel in the funeral of Mrs. Quezon and her two children, which will be held at 4:30 this afternoon.
Other pall bearers from the chapel to the door are Acting Senate President Mariano Cuenco, Speaker Eugenio Perez, Chief Justice Manuel Moran, Mrs. Francisca Benitez.
The pall bearers for “Baby” Quezon are: representatives of the YSAC, the Girl Scouts, the YLAC, Assumption, and UST.
The pall bearers for Philip Buencamnio will be Undersecretary of Foreign Affairs Felipe Neri, and representatives from the Ateneo Alumni association, Malacañan Press Association, UST, and USAFFE veterans.
The route of the motorized cortege is as follows:
UST chapel, P. Noval, P. Campa, España-P. Paredes, Quezon Boulevard, Azcarraga, Rizal Avenue, Blumentritt, North Cemetery…
The coffins will be taken out of the funeral cars in front of the veteran’s mausoleum in the cemetery, and will be carried by members of the Quezon and Buencamino families from that spot to the funeral lot. –Evening Chronicle, “Quirino Here for Quezon Last Rites,” Friday, April 29, 1949
9:26 AM
The President in a white linen suit, with a black tie and a black band around his left arm, entered the chapel about 9:26 a.m. today with his daughter Vicky. A hush fell on the chapel as he came escorted by aides. He had just arrived by plane from Baguio a few minutes before…
Almost at the same time, Nini and Nonong Quezon appeared at the altar, to which they had quietly slipped by a backdoor. Nonong, his eyes red, immediately proceeded to pray. Nini looked at the caskets for a while then told a friend, “I want to know where they are,” meaning she wished to findf out which body was in what coffin. She refused to have the caskets opened.
The caskets of Mrs. Quezon and Mayor Ponciano Bernardo were draped with Red Cross flags. Quezon City policemen stood vigil over Bernardo’s casket, Red Cross personnel over Mrs. Quezon’s, and Girl Scouts over Baby’s and Philip Buencamino’s…
Many of those who went to the chapel were disappointed at not having been able to have a last look at Mrs. Quezon. They said they had no opportunity to see the late President’s widow in person in her lifetime. –Evening News, “Quirino Mourns at Quezon Bier,” Friday, April 29, 1949
12:00 PM
[T]he cabinet, with President Quirino presiding, yesterday [April 29, 1949] noon heard the first eye-witness account of the tragedy… by Major General Rafael Jalandoni… who had been summoned by President Quirino. –Manila Times, “Ex-Chief of Staff Givs First-Hand Story of Massacre,” April 30, 1949
2:00 PM
As early as 2 o’clock in the afternoon, thousands upon thousands gathered at the UST grounds, lined up both sides of the streets where the funeral would pass and filled the North Cemetery. The blazing sun beat down mercilessly on the milling crowd. But they stood their ground patiently. –Manila Chronicle, “Thousands Grieve as Bodies of Quezons Are Laid to Rest,” April 30, 1949
4:00 PM
Although the funeral ceremony was scheduled at four o’clock in the afternoon, yet long before that hour the mourners and the general public had started gathering at the chapel. By the time the religious rites had begun, the chapel became so crowded that guards of honor were posted by the different organizations to which Dona Aurora and her daughter, Maria Aurora (Baby), had belonged, like the Philippine National Red Cross, the Girl Scouts of the Philippines, the National Federation of Women’s Clubs, and the Young Ladies Association of Charity (YLAC). —Sol Gwekoh, Aurora Quezon Her Life And Deeds, 1951
The three bronze caskets were in a row just in front of the chancel rail, with Mrs. Quezon in the center. The coffin containing the body of the of the former first Lady was draped in the flag of the Republic of the Philippines. Lying on top was a thick lei of sampaguita and ilang-ilang blossoms, like those she was always so fond of wearing. It had been placed there by her family… Baby Quezon’s casket was draped in the red and white YLAC banner and the gold and green flag of the Girl Scouts of the Philippines. –Manila Bulletin, “Mrs. Quezon Laid to Rest; Quirino Wars on Outlaws,” April 30, 1949
Three hundred thousand people turned out yesterday [April 29, 1949] either to take part in or witness the funeral cortege as it wended its way slowly and solemnly from the University of Santo Tomas chapel to the cemetery… A great number of cars, estimated at no less than 1,000, formed part of the procession. –Manila Chronicle, “Thousands Grieve as Bodies of Quezons Are Laid to Rest,” April 30, 1949
4:30 PM
After the 25-minute religious ceremony in the chapel, the casket was moved from the altar to the chapel door with President of the Philippines Elpidio Quirino acting as one of the principal pallbearers.
As the casket was lifted into a motorized unit outside the chapel, the Philippine Army band played Nearer My God To Thee. The pallbearers accompanied the casket to the university campus gate where the procession was formed. The solemn funeral cortege which inched slowly passed P. Noval, P. Tampa, Espana, Quezon Boulevard, Rizal Avenue, and Blumentritt, and then proceeded to the North Cemetery.
At the head of the cortege were the Philippine flag and a motorcycle escort ; then followed closely the three funeral coaches loaded with floral tributes, a contingent of uniformed Manila policemen, a detail of the city firemen, and the Philippine Army band led by Major Laureano Carino.
The leading car was a black Packard limousine in which rode President Quirino with his daughter, Miss Victoria (Vicky) Quirino, and his senior aide. Trailing behind were car No. 12-J which was occupied by the Quezon family, the car of acting Senate President Cuenco, and that of Speaker Perez which had the widow ot the President of the Philippines Manuel Roxas in it. —Sol Gwekoh, Aurora Quezon Her Life And Deeds, 1951
5:00 PM
Near the corner of Rizal Avenue and Bambang street, the hearse bearing the casket of Dona Aurora broke down,so that the hearse bearing the casket of her (laughter had to push it all the way to the cemetery. From the Filipinoveterans’ mausoleum in the cemetery, members of the Quezon family relieved the honorary pallbearers up to the Quezon burial ground.
While the crowd at the University of Santo Tomas chapel filled every available space and others hung through the windows to witness the ceremonies, the bigger number of people at the cemetery perched atop neighboring mausoleums. boys clung to the huge and standing crosses of nearby tombs while women pressed against the wrought-iron railings enclosing the Quezon family lot to view the mortal remains of Dona Aurora for the last time.
As the cortege was nearing the Quezon lot, the mournful crowd was startled by the sudden flash of two successive lightnings that had forked against the sunset, followed by rolls of thunder, which heavenly phenomenon set the people “to thinking dark forboding thoughts.” —Sol Gwekoh, Aurora Quezon Her Life And Deeds, 1951
Somewhere at Bambang along Rizal Avenue, the hearse bearing Mrs. Quezon’s casket broke down and had to be pushed all the way to the cemetery by Baby Quezon’s. –Jim Austria, “300,000 Line Route; Sobs Break Silence,” Manila Times, April 30, 1949
5:30 PM
Unmindful of the overcast sky that afternoon, a sorrowing throng conservatively estimated at 300,000 people from all walks of life lined the long funeral route from the University of Santo Tomas chapel to the North Cemetery and bowed their heads in grief to pay her their last tribute as the hearse bearing the body of Dona Aurora rolled past them. —Sol Gwekoh, Aurora Quezon Her Life And Deeds, 1951
6:00 PM
At six p. m., the casket of Dona Aurora arrived at the burial site preceded by mournful dirges. As the last notes of Chopin’s Funeral March died away, the Most Reverend Rufino Santos, auxiliary bishop of Manila, prepared to conduct the last religious rites for the adored dead.
There was complete silence as the bishop took his place at the head of Dona Aurora’s bier, and then opened his missal. The brief rites lasting two minutes ended as he reached for the font and blessed the departed lady. All this time the people bowed their heads in reverence and sorrow.
Then the flag-draped casket of Dona Aurora was carried to its permanent resting place inside the lot by Speaker Eugenio Perez, acting Senate President Mariano Jesus Cuenco, former Speaker Jose Yulo, Dr. Manuel Lim, cabinet secretaries, and congressmen. The flag removed, the bronze casket was slipped into the new concrete crypt a few yards to the left side of the marble tomb of her illustrious husband. Then President Quirino, with face frozen with grief, laid a sprig of flowers on the tomb and later knelt down for a moment as he said a prayer together with his daughter. —Sol Gwekoh, Aurora Quezon Her Life And Deeds, 1950.
Preceded by mournful dirges, the three caskets arrived at the cemetery at the precise hour of six, minutes after two successive lightnings had forked against the sunset, followed by rolls of thunder which set the people to thinking dark forbidding thoughts. –Jim Austria, “300,000 Line Route; Sobs Break Silence,” Manila Times, April 30, 1949
6:04 PM
Mrs. Zeneida Quezon Buencamino and Nonong Quezon, Jr. survivors of the triple tragedy which stunned the nation only a little less than they, were absent from the grounds.
At 6:04, Msgr. Rufino took his place at the head of Mrs. Quezon’s bier and opened his missal. Two minutes later, he reached for the font and blessed first Mrs. Quezon, then Baby then Philip. –Jim Austria, “300,000 Line Route; Sobs Break Silence,” Manila Times, April 30, 1949
6:15 PM
After the biers were blessed, the pall-bearers once more lifted Mrs. Quezon’s casket and carried it to the niche that was still wet and soft built beside that of her husband. At exactly 6:15 it was slowly pushed in the crypt. –Manila Chronicle, “Thousands Grieve as Bodies of Quezons Are Laid to Rest,” April 30, 1949
6:20 PM
Then with their eyes dimmed by tears, Baby’s co-members of the Ylac, lifted her bier and slowly carried it to her assigned place on the far end of the lot. Philip’s turn came later. Baby’s and Philip’s tombs were built side by side.
At 6:20 the crowd slowly dispersed… –Manila Chronicle, “Thousands Grieve as Bodies of Quezons Are Laid to Rest,” April 30, 1949
April 30, 1949
The late Pedro Payumo, Malacañan chauffeur who was one of the victims of the Huk ambuscade of Mrs. Aurora Quezon’s party, April 28, was laid to rest at the North Cemetery at 4 p.m. last Saturday [April 30, 1949]. Payumo was the cook and chauffeur of the Quezon family before the war. –Evening Chronicle, “Palace Driver Is Laid To Rest,” Monday, May 2, 1949.
The site on which Mrs. Aurora Aragon Quezon died will be converted into a national forest preserve to be known as the Aurora Memorial Park.
The measure was taken up by the cabinet at its special meeting Saturday (April 30) as a further step to honor the memory of the late former First Lady.—Sunday Times, “Quezon Murder Area Designated National Preserve,” May 1, 1949
May 1, 1949
Constabulary soldiers recovered from fleeing Huks after an encounter last Sundy night [May 1, 1949] part of the jewelry and other articles looted from the Quezon party. –Manila Chronicle, “Fleeing Huks Abandon Jewelry,” May 3, 1949
May 2, 1949
Mayor Bernardo, one of the victims in the ambush of Mrs. Quezon’s party by Huks on the Nueva Ecija-Quezon boundary, was laid to rest in the North Cemetery at 12:25 p.m. –Manila Bulletin, “QC Mayor Bernardo, Victim of Huk Ambush, Is Buried At North Cemetery,” May 2, 1949
Immediately after the ambush, the band proceeded eastward towards Rizal where half of the group staged another daylight hold-up on April 30, two days after the Quezon ambuscade. The other half stayed in barrio Tamale, several kilometers west of Calaanan.
Manantan revealed that during the following days of intensive manhunt conducted by the government forces, the group which was left behind in Tamale holed up in small creeks and dense undergrowth, eating nothing but wild roots and fruits.
The PC raid on this hideout four days ago [May 2, 1949] caused heavy casualties among them. Since then, they were ordered to disperse towards the lowlands in small groups. Manantan was captured while trying to force a farmer near Rizal to give him food.. –Manila Times, “Eyewitness Story of Ambush Told by Captured Huk,”Saturday, May 7, 1949.
May 3, 1949
Internment of the San Agustin brothers, Primitivo and and Antonio… will take place Tuesday morning at the Cementerio del Norte. –Sunday Times, “San Agustin Brothers Laid To Rest Tuesday,” May 1, 1949
May 5, 1949
There is not yet a very definite plan for the disposal of the things of Baby Quezon, although it is one thing sure that all will go to the poor… one gesture which Nini believes would be in accordance the devotion that Baby had kept for the poor. The things may be given through some charitable institutions, say the leper colony, or some other… –Manila Times, “Potpourri,” May 5, 1949
May 7, 1949
Pedro Manantan, 26-year-old escapee from the Nueva Vizcaya provincial jail, was the first of the Quezon killers to be caught alive. –Evening News, “Ambusher,” Saturday, May 7, 1949
I knew Philip slightly before the war. We were together when the Americans entered Manila in February, 1945. We were given a job by Frederic S. Marquardt, chief of the Office of War Information, Southwest Pacific Area, and formerly associate editor of the Free Press. Afterward, Philip would say that he owed his first postwar job to me: I had introduced him to Marquardt.
Philip and I helped put out the first issues of the Free Philippines. We worked together and wrote our stories while shells were going overhead. Philip was never happier; he was in his element. He was at last a newspaperman. He had done some newspaper work before the war, but this was big time. We were covering a city at war. Afterward, we resigned from the OWI, or were fired. Anyway, we went out together.
Meanwhile, we had, with Jose Diokno, the son of Senator Diokno, put out a new paper, the Philippines Press. Diokno was at the desk and more or less kept the paper from going to pieces as it threatened to do every day. I thundered and shrilled; that is, I wrote the editorials. Philip was the objective reporter, the impartial journalist, who gave the paper many a scoop. That was Philip’s particular pride: to give every man, even the devil, his due. While I jumped on a man, Philip would patiently listen to his side…
…Philip, he was eager to work, willing to listen, and devoted to the ideals of his craft. He was always smiling—perhaps because he was quite young. He had no enemy in the world—he thought.
After the paper closed up, Philip went to the Manila Post, which suffered a similar fate. Philip went on the radio, as a news commentator. He had a good radio voice; he spoke clearly, forcefully, well. He married the daughter of the late President Manuel L. Quezon, later joined the foreign service. But he never stopped wanting to be again a newspaperman. He would have dropped his work in the government at any time had there been an opening in the press for him…
…He had all the advantages, and he had, within the framework of the existing social order, what is called a great future. He was married to a fine girl and all the newspapermen were his friends. They kidded him; they called him Philip Buencamino the Tired, but they all liked him. He wanted so much to be everybody’s friend. he got along with everyone—including myself and Arsenio H. Lacson.
When he returned from Europe to which he had been sent in the foreign service of the Philippines, he was happy, he said, to be home again, and he still wanted to be a newspaperman. His wife was expecting a second child and life was wonderful…
…I remember him as a decent young man who tried to be and was a good newspaperman, who used to walk home with me in the afternoon in the early days of Liberation, munching roasted corn and hating no one at all in the world. –Teodoro M. Locsin, “One must die,”Philippines Free Press, May 7, 1949
May 8, 1949
“Tell them I am Viernes.”
Yes, you are Viernes. You are a little god with a great big gun on your hip. Originally you had a Cause with which few of us, considering ourselves decent, had quarrel: but you have grown bigger than your cause and now you are Viernes and you boast of woman-killing. Off and on there is drivel that “it was not the Huks.” No, it very likely was not the Huks as an organization, but certainly it was some of the Huks in an organization running amuck for lack of leadership control. Definitely it was Viernes, so proudly claiming credit for his armed prowess.
Down here in the lethargic lowlands, Viernes, there is a moral and mental evasiveness which avers we didn’t do it, you didn’t do it, “they” did it… “they” indicating the imaginary margin for banditry. Thus we play politics with the devil. Thus we avoid saying anything nasty about the likes of you lest we ourselves get a bullet in the back. The word for this, of course, is cowardice, the language not having changed since the days the guerrillas scouted for and held the camps you now use. But the people can become only so afraid, Viernes, then no more; once the saturation point is reached, you will still be Viernes, yes, but the people will be The People.
Though we of small stature cannot answer for a nation, each human, in the name of humanity, can answer for himself, and by that token I for me. You acclaim yourself one of the “little people” –the exploited tenant, the underpaid laborer, the nameless men and women in millions of as against the unjustly favored few. As one of the “little people,” you have spoken with blind and final hatred in the merciless murder of Mother Quezon, Baby, Philip, Bernardo, the others I may not have known personally but whose lives were equally precious. Nor have their human rights been more savagely denied, than the lives of men, women and childrenslain in bloody continuity through four years of pretended peace.
Think you, Viernes, that all the “little people” are you? How about me, and millions like me? We have known labor in the fields, dishwashing in restaurants, the picking and packing of fruit. We are the little people too, come earlier to maturity perhaps than you. Perhaps our fight for the same things is longer and harder but, God give us strength to keep it so, cleaner. We reason with ideas, not with bullets. Bullets are for defense against aggressors, not for our brothers, not for the few truly noble in an admittedly contemptible landlord class, certainly not for those hundreds of simple, ignorant, struggling workers men like you have killed as atrociously as your ambush of Mother Quezon and her party. For yours has hardly proved itself a class war, Viernes: it’s just a war, shooting blind, more for the establishment of your own ego than the cause of the workers. By what you have done for your own brutish satisfaction, you have lost most of the gains made by labor and peasant unions throughout the country, inch by inch, “two steps forward, one step backward,” they were getting somewhere. You have robbed them of gains… and what have you substituted? –the unremitting enmity, resistance active and passive, contempt of hundreds of thousands of people of which the “big shot” class is a small and not very admirable percentage. I, who never loved the tenant system, have nowhere to go now, for I hate the likes of you as much as the cacique and his usurious wife… Essentially you are the same kind, both of you abusing power, he the power of money, you the power of a gun. You’re both ruthless, both cruel, both violently egoistic. I hope it gives you surprise to discover to whom you are blood-brother. I am even willing to admit, while claiming neither of you has the right, that you, Viernes, dispose of your victims swiftly while your landlord-brother in vicious inhumanity kills by a slower process.
In your ego, you naturally think you accomplished your ambush all by your little self. Never will you realize that the landlords and the tycoons are your real commanders, that it is less inconvenience to them to have you fighting and dying in the hills than driving them to their wits’ end with strikes, court cases, fairer laws. And they do not weep too greatly nor at long length over Mother Quezon’s death, for she was your friend more than theirs. Believe me, they are even pleased that you have made this horrible deed that finally gets the field action against you that they themselves have never been able to marshal. Where they lie, Mother Quezon knows this, Baby knows it, Philip knows it, and if the dead can weep, and this I wish I did not know, they weep for you. Hesitating on Nini’s doorstep, fumbling for words of comforty, needing to receive as give it, I cannot find the kind word of explanation, I cannot tell her why this had to happen, why a maniac by the name of Viernes takes pride in slaughter, why the grieving is short-lived. For what you have done to Nini, which equals what you did to all the rest, I hate you. Believe me, you can never hate me as I hate you. And hating you, I bless the memory of Colonel Roberto Mata who hunted down and killed in a cornfield one of us who committed highway robbery. I cherish the memory of Colonel Leon Z. Cabalhin, who tried and executed a rapist; I am even humble before Marking whose headquarters was not only a guerrilla military school and hospital but also a reformatory where he personally by a combination of persuasion and force made his followers into “gentleman fighters or I’ll break your goddam head.” I might quarrel with his language but never with his results.
If Quezon were alive he would rip down the fence, toss the sitters to their sides, talk votes with voters, say it with bullets to killers. For crime, corruption, for the distressing bad behavior found in the highest offices in the land, he would turn this our beloved country upside down to set it right again. And it would not have needed the death of Mother Quezon to pinpoint the raging of a civil war. Anybody’s violent and unmerited death would have sufficed.
Who first fought for Social Justice? Who went to you under the burning Pampanga sun, through the Muñoz floods, to the furthest outposts to see you, hear you, help you? Who had long conferences with that other great man, Pedro Abad Santos, and for hours stood before a hundred thousand of you at a time in simple, honest debate? It was neither politics nor patience: it was for love of you.
He knew about the creek dammed by a rich man to make a fishpond at the expense of living water for hundreds of your families along the dried waterway… He knew about the cacique’s usurious wife and the 10-centavo bottle of mercurochrome she debited against you for P2.00. He knew how insufficient your share of the crops and too, how barren the earth for so many mouths… I know he knew, for he allowed me to study reports meant only for him and his Cabinet and to study them only under Vargas’ watchful eye lest I make off with one he would himself study further: many times I studied until 11 o’clock or midnight in Vargas’ Malacanan office. And who was I? – just a cub reporter, for a long time with more of a haircut than a name, yet I could ask this great man questions, even if I could quench the thirst for knowledge with a President’s secretary my librarian.
None of us was too humble for his attention, neither you nor I. As he helped an ignorant, eager girl, so did he valiantly help you. He knew what you wanted, the familiar, but barren land under your feet, was at best an empty heritage, so he pointed you to new land, to virgin land, and he loaned you the money to go, gave you NLSA supervision, focused national interest on you. Do you think the landlords were happy to have him ease you out of bondage? He stood strong and alone in his humanity, and for this you slew his family. Your own revered Pedro Abad Santos would cry out against your savagery. Wherever the gentle old bachelor lies in his hero’s grave surely his heart must ache for his political children who have become what?
All through a great President’s years of service, Mother Quezon helped her husband and in that capacity was our first, and last, Lady of the Land. Wherever there were those in service to country she was there, not in self-glorification but in assistance to him and to them… among the teachers, the nurses, the writers, the doctors… and among the factory workers rolling cigars by hand, the students timidly choosing a walk of life, the mothers in the puericulture centers, the workers who had built the bridge… ever among the poor, to whom she gave her life, only to have it taken by force.
Baby was the girl who should have been a boy. For her who is dead and cannot herself ask, in what way did Baby harm you? – by blasting public indifference toward the lepers’ misery? Sweating for funds for the Ylac slum schools? Cramming law into her head, the better to carry on her father’s work? A fragile body, driven by an untiring spirit? Baby’s sharp tongue and cutting wit were only for us inured to it, understanding and loving her for it. Never did she jab at you, to whom she was fiercely loyal. It is even possible that she was a friend to me because she considered me one of you. “Hi,” she would say, “How’s Yay the Underprivileged? Madrigal still overworking and underfeeding you?” And if I mourned my financial state, she would jibe, “Don’t be stupid! Strike!” Through the years, I was grateful for her frankness, for her rough, unpitying, challenging friendship, for her equality and because once, when we quarreled, and she stamped her foot and I stalked out in anger, when I reached the office she was on the telephone to apologize.
Philip, too, is dead. What dramatic irony that you butchered him. For Philip and Baby were your open door to a half-million hectares of free virgin land… Only one other person knows that there was a place for you to go, land for you, a new start. That person is Judge Barrera. Ask him.
It started in the time of President Roxas, the time when people, despite atrocities, gave you the benefit of the doubt. They could not see what Roxas saw then, that the language you understand is the language of violence. They had no quarrel with your cause, and only doubt as to your methods. Fatuously they thought that secretly siphoning you out of congested areas, spiriting you away under the noses of the soldiers, leaving them with nothing to fight and thereby saving their lives too, would rescue you from circumstances of injustice and hunger which justified your desperate rebellion.
It was so agreed. Baby and Philip would let you know if and when… I would point where. All your problems were being considered –food, tools, instruction, free medicine, schools, markets for your produce, immunity from the past…
It is your friends you have killed, your friends more than mine, more than anybody’s. You snatched a necklace, and lost a loving heart. You tore a jewel from the one ear in the Philippines that would still listen to you. You poured bullets into frail Baby at the dawn of a legal career for the underprivileged. You mowed down a man who called out to you, not for himself but those who defended you where you could not defend yourselves. There is little loss in hating you: you cannot do worse to your enemies than you have done to your friends. —Yay Marking, “Message to the Mountains,” This Week (Sunday Magazine of the Manila Chronicle) May 8, 1949
May 9, 1949
Gentle Aurora Aragon Quezon was a well-loved figure in the Philippines. The wife of the late Manuel Quezon, first President of the Philippines, she had long led a quiet, austere life devoted to charities and the rearing of her family. When the President died, she turned down the pension awarded her by the government, so that the money might be used for needier war widows and orphans. Even the Communist-led Hukbalahaps, who spread terror through the hills of Central Luzon, could find no word to say against Doña Aurora.
Last week, with her eldest daughter Maria Aurora (“Baby”), her younger daughter’s husband and a handful of Filipino officials, Mrs. Quezon traveled by car from Manila to Baler, where she was to dedicate a memorial to her husband. Riding in a station wagon with her relatives and Major General Rafael Jalandoni, she led the party through the mountains northeast of Manila where the Huks are thickest. All her companions felt that there was no danger involved where Mrs. Quezon was concerned.
Then without warning, in a rocky cleft 88 airline miles northeast of Manila, the mountains were rent with the splat of machine-gun fire. Mayor Ponciano Bernardo of Quezon City stood up to shout, “Doña Aurora is in our party!” A slug from a Garand rifle brought him down.
More bullets riddled the station wagon. General Jalandoni threw himself in front of Mrs. Quezon and drew his revolver. A rifle butt slammed into his cheek, he fell unconscious. Before the police escort riding behind could open fire effectively, the attackers had seized what valuables they could and melted into the green hills. Soon afterward, General Jalandoni came to. About him were twelve dead, including the Philippines’ first lady, her daughter, and her son-in-law, whose pregnant wife had stayed at home.
“I can’t believe the Huks did it,” said shocked President Elpidio Quirino, when he heard the news. “Mrs. Quezon was loved too much.” Police assured Quirino that the Huks were responsible, all right. At Doña Aurora’s funeral, the sobbing President placed a single flower on the grave of the widow. Then, over the Philippine radio, he called for an all-out campaign against the terrorists.
As a nine-day period of national mourning was declared, Filipino planes and government troops combed the mountains in search of the slayers. From his hideout, Huk Leader Luis Taruc issued a statement which would scarcely comfort or reassure the bereaved islanders. If, he said, his own investigation revealed “a breach of Hukbalahap iron discipline,” punishment of the guilty party would be carried out swiftly. –Time Magazine, “Murder in the Mountains,” May 9, 1949
May 10, 1949
Cabanatuan, Nueva Ecija, May 10. — T]he revelation of Corazon de los Reyes, 23, widow of Cpl. Patricio Delag of the 2nd PC light tank company who was executed by the Huks… limped into the command post of Capt. Tommy Misayas, commanding officer of the 24th PC company in the town of Rizal in this province [Nueva Ecija].
Here is her story:…
She declared that in one of their conversations she overheard the outlaws talk about how they divided the spoils of the ambush attack on the Quezons.
There was some talk about a certain Luningning getting Mrs. Quezon’s ring and one, Kulafu, getting Maj. Gen. Rafael Jalandoni’s signet ring. –Evening News, “Division of Quezon Ambush Spoils Told,” Tuesday, May 11, 1949
May 12, 1949
Fifteen top Huk commanders headed by Colonel Mauricio Razon alias Ramzon, were accused of multiple murder… for the cold-blooded murder of Mrs. Aurora A. Quezon and 11 members of her party along the Bongabon-Baler highway last April 28…
The defendants in the multiple murder complant were identified by Pedro Manantan, who, in an affidavit before the PCs, gave his version of the Quezon party massacre.
He identified some of the defendants as Colonel Razon, Col. Alexander Viernes, alias Stalin, Majors Paulino Viernes, alias Liwayway, and Crisanto Marzo, Commanders Guerrero, Viray, Langit and Aladin. All the defendants except Manantan, who was included in the complaint, are still at large. –Manila Chronicle, “Quezon Killers Accused in Court,” May 12, 1949
The accused, among them including top Huk commanders, are Majors Paredes, Paulino Viernes alias “Liwayway,” Crisanto Marzo, Alexander Viernes alias “Stalin,” one identified only with the alias “Viray,” one with the alias “Mulong,” Commanders Luningning, Aladdin, and Ramson, one with the alias “Langit,” Guerrero, Douglas, one with the alias “Pablo,” another with the alias “Sagasa,” and Huk Pvt. Pedro Manantan. –Manila Times, “15 Known Huks in Murder Rap,” May 12, 1949
The personal effects of Mrs. Aurora A. Quezon, Maria Aurora (Baby) her daughter, and those of three others who perished in Bongabon, Nueva Ecija, ambuscade last April 28, were delivered by the Philippine National Red Cross yesterday afternoon [May 18, 1949] to Nini Quezon Buencamino at the Quezon residence at Gilmore Avenue, Quezon City. Dr. Manuel Lim, acting PNRC chairman, headed the Red Cross delegation.
A total of ten bags were recovered and delivered yesterday, two of which belonged to Mrs. Quezon, one to Baby Quezon, two to Mayor Ponciano Bernardo, one to Col. Primitivo San Agustin, one to Col. Antonio San Agustin, one to Lt. D.M. Arabejo, while one was identified as belonging to Hilarion Nebril, driver of Mayor Bernardo. Nebril is one of the survivors.
One of the bags of black alligator skin, originally marked unknown when brought to the Quezon Gilmore residence, was finally identified by Nini when she opened it, as belonging to her mother. “It belongs to mother” Nini exclaimed upon opening the bag and tenderly pulling out an unfinished bedspread which Mrs. Quezon had apparently started to knit even while in Manila. Presumably, Mrs. Quezon expected to finish the embroidery in Baler. Another previously unidentified small bag was also found by Nini as belonging to Mrs. Quezon.
It was further learned yesterday that the personal effects of Philip Buencamino had been brought to Manila earlier. Nini said that what Philip must have lost were his watch, wallet, camera, and their wedding ring. The jewelry of Mrs. Quezon too is still unrecovered. –Evening Chronicle, “Mrs. Quezon’s Bags Recovered,” Thursday, May 19, 1949
May 19, 1949
A posthumous son was born to Mrs. Philip Buencamino III (nee Nini Quezon) early this morning at the Our Lady of Lourdes hospital. Attending the mother was Dr. Constantino Manahan. The child is the second boy of Mrs. Buencamino. –Evening News, “Second Son Born to Nini Buencamino,” Thursday, May 19, 1949.
By some coincidence I got to know both Doña Aurora and Baby Quezon well at about the same time, on Corregidor. I had met them before that, of course, but it was only during the first days of that historic siege that I had the privilege of more than a casual acquaintance. I was on Corregidor at that time awaiting an assignment from General (then Major) Romulo, and President Quezon was kind enough to give me a berth in his own tunnel. They were days of very great strain and tension. The enemy was bombing Corregidor continuously and the news from the front was bad. The enormous burden of responsibility, together with the dank air of the underground tunnel, made the President haggard and worn. But I never saw Doña Aurora lose her poise. She was a very pious lady, with a profound faith in God and His saints, and I daresay she found in religion a secure refuge that even the whine of enemy bombs could not penetrate. She had a small chapel put up at the end of the lateral tunnel where we were staying and there was Mass every day.
The last time I saw her before I left for Bataan, she was sitting serenely in the midst of the chatter and clatter of the hospital tunnel, reading the life of Saint Elizabeth, Queen of Hungary. She smiled when I said goodbye and told me to pray that God should keep and bless us all. I was very deeply moved because I suddenly remembered my mother in Manila; it was just exactly what she would have told me and my mind gave a start of recognition, made a brief but tender identification between my mother and this pious lady quietly reading the life of a saint.
Baby –she hated to be called Baby– was the child of her father, whom she adored. I have often thought that she never married because she never did find anyone who could measure up to that vivid and gallant genius. She was quarreling with him at that time. She wanted to go to the front. Baby hated hypocrisy and histrionics, and she meant what she said. “She should have been a man,” the President told me. I could see he was pleased with her. If it had been left to the two of them probably he would have let her go and he would have gone with her. But to headquarters it was unthinkable. Baby never did get to the front. I was fatuous enough to tell her once she had a masculine mind. She was frank, uncompromising, even ruthless. If she learned anything from her father, it was to have a mind of her own and to say it out loud.
In Bataan I shared the same tent with Philip Buencamino, who was later to marry Nini Quezon. He was the aide of General de Jesus, the chief of military intelligence, to which I had been assigned. I remember distinctly that one of the first things Philip and I ever did was to ride out in the general’s command car along the east coast out of pure curiosity. The enemy’s January offensive was turning the USAFFE flank and all along the highway we met retreating units. Then there was nothing: only the open road, the dry and brittle stubble of the abandoned fields, and in the distance the smoke of a burning town. We turned back hurriedly; we had gone too far. I am afraid we never got any closer to the front lines. Our duties were behind the lines. We were quite close during the entire campaign until I was evacuated to the Corregidor hospital, and I developed a sincere admiration for Philip. He was a passionate nationalist who could not stomach racial discrimination, and I remember him best in a violent quarrel with an American non-commissioned officer whom he considered insolent toward his Filipino superiors.
Nationalism was a trait of all the Quezons; it was the secret of their greatness. There was nothing personal in the feeling for they themselves were never in a position where they might be subject to discrimination. But for them it was a matter of principle that the Filipino was just as good as anybody else. Even the serene and gentle Doña Aurora had an intense feeling for the dignity of the race. She insisted for instance on the independence of the Philippine Red Cross.
That was a great part of the tragedy of her death, and of the deaths of Baby and Philip. Surely it is a bitter and shameful irony that they should have died at the hands of their own countrymen, whom they loved so uncompromisingly. But their death is also tragic because it was dealt to them by those who considered themselves victims of social injustice. For the administration of Manuel Quezon as first President of the Commonwealth was devoted precisely to the cause of social justice. There is in every man a secret and obscure instinct that gives him a warning of his fate, and it is possible Quezon had a premonition of tragedy that intensified his great crusade. He came from the poor and he knew the blind rage that can blaze in the dry and shriveled hearts of the dispossessed. Perhaps, in the stately halls of Malacañan, he foresaw in a flash of prophecy that bend in a narrow road, the cruel talahib tall as a man, the thorny forest, the sombre mountains, and then suddenly the ripping slash of a machine-gun.
There are still many things we do not understand about the tragedy of the Quezons. Was the ambush intended for them or for another? If for them, to what purpose? Was it to shock the country into remembrance that it was still at war, civil war? Was it to complete the discredit of the administration? Was it purely robbery or indiscriminate reprisal?
Luis Taruc was a frequent visitor in the Quezon house before he took to the field. He had long hours of conversation with Baby, who admired his mind and his inflexible will, so rare among the men she knew. Taruc denied that the Huk high command had any designs against the Quezons and pledged the punishment of those who had broken their “iron discipline”. The local Huk commander, for his part, declared that the ambush was only an ordinary hold-up and that he would have stopped the massacre, if he could.
One thing was sure. We could no longer under-estimate the emotional drive behind the peasant rebellion. Most people, when they heard of the Baler murders, asked themselves in sincere confusion: “But why? How could they do such a thing? How could they shoot down a lady like Doña Aurora and rob her lifeless corpse? She never did them any harm. On the contrary, she tended to their needs. She begged for them. She fought for them. How could they do it?”
People who has this have never been hunted. They have never starved and shivered in hiding. They have never felt that the hand of every man was turned against them. But the outcasts of society, or those whom society has made outcasts, no longer recognizes any duties to it. Humanity is their enemy. All those who have homes while they lack a roof over their heads; who have food on their tables while they must pick the fruits and berries of the forest; who have clothes on their backs while their own rags are torn in the underbrush; who can sleep secure while they must start with panic at the sound of every twig breaking in the night -all these are their enemies. And they watch for the time when they can hit back, briefly, blindly, but enough to soothe their wild envy and humbled pride; they watch the laborers clearing the winding road; they watch the bright banners of welcome waving in the forbidden towns -an enemy comes, one of the happy and secure- they watch the long rich plumes of dust sweeping across the gorges from the road –their hand is eager on the smooth barrel of the gun– one more chance to get back at them, no matter who, no matter if the gentle lady in the official car is a friend, for they have no friends, and so they press the trigger. –Leon Ma. Guerrero, “Mrs. Quezon,” (originally published under the byline of Ignacio Javier, The Sentinel, May 19, 1949 and reprinted under the author’s name in We Filipinos, 1953)
May 20, 1949
The car in which Mrs. Aurora A. Quezon, Baby Quezon, Mayor Ponciano A. Bernardo and others met their death in Bongabong, Nueva Ecija, will be preserved as an object of historical interest in the Quezon Memorial, according to a spokesman of the Capital City Planning Commission. –Manila Bulletin, “Gov’t Car In Which Quezons Met Death To Be Preserved,” Friday Morning, May 20, 1949
Mrs. Philip Buencamino III, is resting well at the Lourdes Hospital following the birth yesterday of her second son, Jose Antonio. –Manila Bulletin, “Jose Antonio Born to Nini Buencamino,” Friday Morning, May 20, 1949
May 21, 1949
Benjamin Castillo was picked up yesterday by agents of the Nenita unit at barrio Macapsing, Rizal municipality. Last Thursday, Antonio Reyes, 21, another member of the ambush gang was caught by the constabulary at barrio Salubsob, Bongabong…
…Castillo readily admitted he was with the band that murdered Mrs. Quezon and her companions. He claimed, however, that he was far from the firing line and therefore could not furnish any details.
…[Reyes] admitted that he was with the ambush party. He claimed, however, that he was not a real Huk since he was kidnaped last April 27 and forced to join the squadron of Commander Paulino Viernes.
Reyes claimed he was armed with a Garand rifle at the Quezon ambuscade and that he fired a while clip of bullets but aimed his gun where he could hit nobody. –Manila Bulletin, “3 Ambushers of Mrs. Quezon Caught; Taruc Escapes PC Encirclement,” Saturday morning, May 21, 1949
May 26, 1949
Nini Buencamino and baby are back to the Quezon home on Gilmore Avenue having left the hospital yesterday. But before leaving, Nini saw to it that her boy was baptized first and so there was the rites performed at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital…
The baby, by the way, was christened Jose Antonio in fulfillment of a promise made by Nini to Saint Joseph and Saint Anthony even before she got married… –Esther S. Asuncion, “Potpourri,” Manila Times, Thursday, May 26, 1949
…Federico Cachuela and Vicente Marquez were captured by a PC patrol at Sabani Estate, Laur, Tuesday, and admitted their participation in the massacre. This brings to five the number of members of the ambush gang now in custody of the constabulary…
The two captured Huks admitted they were with the Quezon ambush party but declared they took no part in the shooting as they were merely carried away their share of the loot. –Evening News, ”PC Nab 2 More Men For Quezon Ambush,” Thursday, May 26, 1949
Because we started at it a generation or two ahead of our neighbors, the level of political organization we’d achieved prior to World War II was achieved by our neighbors between the 1950s and 1960s. But what would become common—one-party rule in our neighbors—had been fractured by the war in our case, so that the unintended (because an accidental offshoot of the guerrilla versus collaborationist divide in our society) two-party system we had in the ’50s to the ’60s is something our neighbors have only begun to experience since the 1990s.
Where our entire region seemed to converge was in the experiment with dictatorship in the ’70s and ’80s, but with us being the outliers once again. It led, in our case, to the creation of an urban nation within a nation, with Metro Manila and other cities developing civil society while the rest of the country became balkanized, with armed barons controlling provincial fiefdoms. After the dictatorship fell, we rewound things to where they stood in the early ’70s, as far as trying to imagine (and institute) a more liberal-democratic setup, but without understanding the effects of abolishing the old party system and replacing it with a free-for-all, which assured neither stability nor a means for an orderly succession.
On the other hand, our neighbors, not all of whom had competent dictators, had at least managed to crush the Communist threat, while in our case we failed to do so. And so dictatorial incompetence and institutional decay were compounded with a low-intensity conflict that continues to this day.
For 30 years then, our neighbors, with varying degrees of success, have been trying to move forward, while the best we’ve been able to manage is to dog-paddle in place, or get swept backward, for a time, until we can dog-paddle again to try to inch forward against the tide of populism and dictatorial nostalgia. Then in 2016, the dog-paddling came to an end, and we have been swiftly moving backward in a sort of national fit of renouncing any further attempt at trying to cope with the discomfort (and sacrifice) of modernizing our society, politics or economy.
It is the dying gasp of an identity we’d tried to assume since the time of the Propagandists, who’d hoped for a society and government along Western, rational (Enlightenment-inspired) lines. We are thus saying goodbye, not just to the Edsa era (1986-2016), but the much longer one from 1896-2016 that kept on colliding with the precolonial datu mentality of both the leaders and the led.
In the first three years of the new-old era we now live in, we have a President who acts no differently from the calculating rajahs of old who engaged in blood compacts, and in what has been described as the “raiding, trading and feasting” that was the precolonial occupation of those who held power in their locales. Slowly at first, but increasingly swiftly, every vestige of the political and institutional culture built up in the 20th century, when this country came to be as it currently is, is being abandoned. To be sure, much of that culture was already a parody of its former self; but so long as lip service was paid to what once was, there was the slender hope that what was could be, again.
So, these days, the President raises the hands of one faction not belonging to his nominally ruling party, his daughter then raises the hands of the candidates of that supposedly ruling party, though she herself presides over a coalition of local barons that has displaced the ruling party her father had formally associated himself with. In the past, when a president could not fulfill the expected role of arbiter of contending local contests, a “free zone” would be declared, at least calling a spade a spade.
Confucius, to stray away from the West and its habits for a moment, had insisted that the first duty of orderly government was to attach the appropriate names to things. Where we are thoroughly Asian and not Western is the expectation that the primary duty of presidents is to maintain order; yet if there is a guiding principle of the current dispensation, it is to spread disorder: The very essence of premodern living was the unpredictable, and thus highly malleable, condition in which chiefdoms rose and fell. Where, since the reason for things being the way they are was not understood, omens, gestures, whims, plots, raids, superstition, division, cruelty assured tribal loyalty.
There is no discernible design for the whole; there is not even much of an effort, on the part of observers, to try to identify patterns. We watch a parade of headlines, but aren’t being told what the story is. The local is ignored, while the national has lost all meaning.
As soon as the President signed a bill providing for a plebiscite that could possibly split one province into three, the jokes started. We will soon have Palawan, Palatu and Palatri — though they will, of course, be more boringly called Palawan del Norte, Palawan del Sur and Palawan Oriental.
Interestingly, the residents of Puerto Princesa will be prohibited from voting in the referendum. Even more interestingly, the following list started becoming buzz-worthy online, with people claiming it was a list of the four prospective candidates for the governorships of the three new provinces: (1) Jose Chaves Alvarez (governor); (2) Franz Chicoy Alvarez (representative); (3) Antonio Alvarez (former representative); and (4) Pie Alvarez (mayor of San Vicente, Palawan).
Which only serves to underline the wisdom of the late Lorenzo Tañada when he appealed to his supporters in 1951 to oppose the possibility that the then subprovince of Aurora might become separated from Quezon Province. As I pointed out in 2010, back then Tañada argued that dividing the province was not the solution to charting its future or a way to improve the prospects of progress for the whole province, as it would only create what he called a new homegrown principalia interested only in their personal economic advancement.
Our former colleague in the Opinion section, Juan Mercado of Cebu, used to strongly argue that subdividing provinces is a form of gerrymandering — redrawing political lines on the map for the benefit of its proponents. What it fosters is the political dominance of the political class that engineered the creation of the new province.
We’ve gone from 52 provinces in 1951 to 81 provinces in 2019, and from 61 chartered cities in 1996 to 117 by 2004. By way of contrast, Indonesia had 10 provinces when it became independent, and today, 33 (seven of which became provinces since 2000). Since independence, Malaysia has created only two additional states to its original 11. Thailand has reduced its provinces from 83 in 1915 to 76 (provinces were actively merged from 1915 to 1950, and since then, only about 10 new provinces have been created).
Even the President, in a veiled sort of way, seems to refer in nostalgic terms to the old undivided province of Davao, which once comprised what are Davao del Norte, Davao del Sur, Davao Occidental, Davao Oriental and Compostela Valley today.
To be sure, not every instance of winking and backslapping that leads to gerrymandering gets carried out. Efforts to divide Isabela, Cebu and Quezon, for example, failed in their respective plebiscites. By all accounts, the threefold cutting up of Palawan seems to have stirred up strong opposition in the province. But if the public has put on the brakes to some schemes, consolidation, on the other hand, is opposed by the powers-that-be, because it would create either too strong a territory or deprive too many dynasties of their turf.
Consider the obvious need to consolidate the local governments of Metro Manila:
Doing so would, on one hand, eliminate the fiefdoms of too many ruling local barons, while possibly creating an official — say, a governor of Metro Manila — of such potential stature as to give presidents sleepless nights. Perhaps a similar sense of insecurity led the President to immediately dismantle the Negros Island Region established under the previous administration.
The French, when they mounted their revolution and attempted to establish the government along scientific and rational lines in all things (giving us the metric system, for example), immediately set about abolishing all prerevolutionary provincial boundaries and established new departments, which aimed to break up historical regions and create political units that could be governed effectively. Borders were established so that component settlements would be within a day’s ride of the capital of the new department, which would have a name unrelated to old locations, adopting the names of natural features instead.
Not even the various confused (and confusing) federalism schemes dare, however, to take an axe to the cunningly gerrymandered provincial map of the country.
Raymond Bagatsing as Manuel L. Quezon
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Jun 07
Clinton Palanca and the dilemma of the (un)hyphenated Filipino
Clinton Palanca and the dilemma of the (un)hyphenated Filipino
Manuel L. Quezon III | Jun 07 2019
In the kitchen of his little London flat, some strange-looking vegetables materialized early one afternoon, and I asked Clinton Palanca what they were. “Rhubarb,” he said. Seeing my blank expression, he helpfully added, “I am going to make sinigang for dinner tonight.” Through some sort of culinary sorcery I still don’t understand, rhubarb apparently makes for a pleasing substitute for sampaloc and it turned out to be the most delicious sinigang I’ve ever had in my life.
In 2014, writing in the cookbook My Angkong’s Noodles, Clinton revealed that his time as a scholar in the U.K. was also a period of discovery in terms of food. He recalled that it was only then that he developed “a hankering for Chinese Filipino home cooking.” “Aside from being the taste of home,” he wrote, “Fujianese food had a clarity and purity of taste that the greasy Cantonese stir fries and oil-based Sichuan hot-pots that were available in Chinatown did not have.” He called home for recipes, and discovered something else, too: “I also cooked Filipino food while in Oxford and London and couldn’t help but be struck by the similarity between Fujianese food from the Philippines and mainstream Filipino food. Not only were so many of the ingredients similar, but so were many of the techniques.”
But this discovery, aside from inspiring a potential topic for his Ph.D studies, became “something of a touchy subject,” as he laid out in an illuminating passage:
“A Chinese cultural chauvinist could say there is very little in Filipino food in Luzon and the Visayas that wasn’t influenced (or taught) by the Chinese traders in some way or another. On the other hand a Philippine chauvinist could counter that Fujianese food is a simplistic cooking style that hasn’t been very popular even in its home province, and developed its complexity and was improved upon only in the Philippine setting. Neither would be completely wrong. The only fact we can agree on is that southern Chinese food and Philippine food were intertwined from very early on, from before recorded history when trading ships learned to cross the sea that separated the two cultures. There is ample proof that Filipino culture made an impact in Fujian, one of the few places where chocolate was imbibed as a stimulant, as well as in the architectural style and materials (for example, Machuca tiles) of wealthy traders’ houses. Both of these, however, date from the Spanish colonial period.”
The passage is illuminating because in the midst of his personal testimony about his absence from home finally inspiring an identification with the cuisine he’d formerly taken for granted, Clinton identified what could be “touchy”: extremism –chauvinism, one definition of which is “excessive or prejudiced support for one’s own cause, group, or sex.” In the overlapping circles that comprise the Venn Diagram of our lives, Clinton was, as he himself wrote in 2003 in his book of the same title, a member of the group called Chinese Filipinos. A passage from that book combines an image he would return to, time and again, with the definition he would insist on using for the rest of his life:
“There is a structure that still stands to this day on what was then called ‘Engineer Island’, or Tsui-tsu in Hokkien, where the immigrants who arrived from southern China during the first half of the twentieth century were held while their papers were sorted out. Some of them stayed for a few hours, others for days, and still others for months or years. It was the gateway by which several hundred thousand Chinese, most of them illiterate farmers, crossed the South China Sea and entered what was then known as the Philippine Islands. They did not come to stay, but eventually did; and today they make up the 1-2 percent of the population who are known as the ‘Chinese Filipinos.’”
Clinton went on to point out that the Chinese Filipinos of today were previously known as something else:
“This group of people was formerly known as the ‘Filipino Chinese.’ The new terminology was used as a catchphrase, in the advocacy arena, to encapsulate the new sort of Sinitic individuals living in the Philippines; primarily Filipino in nationality and allegiance, integrating into the mainstream society without sacrificing their culture and legacy. Chinese Filipinos, in reversing the order of the modifier and the modified, proclaimed they are Filipinos, who happen to be of Chinese origin.”
Engineer Island, introduced in Chinese Filipinos as our sort of home-grown version of Ellis Island, would reappear in Clinton’s other writings in a more personal way, most poignantly, perhaps, in his An Open Letter to F. Sionil Jose which appeared in Spot.ph in June, 2015:
“It would be a poor society that would deem as less of a Filipino one such as my father, who took his chance as a migrant and was held at Engineer’s Island as a young man, hoping to enter the Philippines. He then spent half a lifetime waiting to be given the chance to pledge his loyalty to a new homeland; with the same vigor, it would seem, that many are now seeking to escape it by emigration. To ask him or me to be less Chinese in order to be more of a patriot diminishes not just my humanity but the great diversity and history of integration that is part of the Filipino identity.”
Clinton’s father, Albert, belonged to the second great wave of migrants who came to the Philippines in the 20th Century from 1918-1948, during the era of American colonization to the Commonwealth and the first years of independence. He was a contemporary of my own father, and so through Clinton’s writings I came to appreciate just how different their worlds were, the fundamental division being along racial –and racist—lines. My father had a wicked sense of humor and liked putting arrogant mestizos –who assumed he shared their prejudices—in their place by replying to some private, anti-Chinese outburst from some acquaintance by pointing out he’d traced his family’s origins to the Parian and that if his father (supposedly the supreme mestizo) had any brains, “it was because of his Chinese blood.”
Well-deserved as such rebukes might be, neither he or anyone of his generation could possibly imagine the life of exclusion –and extortion—that was the lot of the migrant generation. The genesis, as I understand it, of Clinton’s Chinese Filipinos book was to describe, in an attractive coffee-table format, the origins and experiences, the difficulties and yet astounding durabilities, of those migrants at a time when their children and grandchildren had become free (because assimilated) enough, to begin forgetting or even dismissing the heritage that had ensured their progenitors’ survival.
The book was necessary not only for the transmission of collective memory but also because the past has an irrepressible ability to haunt the present and inflict itself on the future. Jonathan Fast and Jim Richardson in Roots of Dependency: Political and Economic Revolution in 19th Century Philippines, pointed out that there had been a first great wave of migration to the Philippines, with its origins in the 1830s to 1840s when the Spanish colonial authorities in the Philippines made one of their periodic about-faces in policy and decided to welcome, rather than forbid, Chinese emigration. With typical Spanish efficiency it was only in the 1850s that the policy, meant to attract labor to work on haciendas, really started to kick in: entering high gear from 1876-1886, “when the Chinese population rose from approximately thirty thousand to over ninety thousand. In the early 1880’s, over 10,000 Chinese immigrants a year were landing in Manila.”
This first wave may have been during the twilight of Spanish rule, but it established the social and political conventions that would endure into the second wave when Americans, then Filipinos, were in charge.
A true story: Two scions, one belonging to a venerable Spanish merchant house, and the other, the son of a Taipan, were drinking at a bar. The son of the Taipan bewailed the fact that he was the richest man in the club to which both scions belonged, but for all his billions, why didn’t he seem to get any respect? “That’s because,” his mestizo companion told him, in his best, bored, matter-of-fact manner, “you’ll always just be a Chink.”
Here, in a nutshell, was the traditional pecking order of things, at least at the time the story took place, which was slightly less than twenty years ago. In the nearly two decades since, however, our society has changed, and where there is change, there is tension.
Clinton was fully aware of these tensions but in a manner different from either his fellow Chinese Filipinos, Filipinos in general, or the foreigners who pontificate on our country and culture. If his book, Chinese Filipinos chronicled the formation of an identity, and its manifestations in everything from food, to language, to the urban landscape, the same period in Oxford and London that led him to seriously embrace and explore the cuisine of his Chinese Filipino heritage, led him to apply the scrutiny of a scholar to the tensions he had come to recognize in the larger whole and the subset he had helped label.
In Beyond Binondo and Ma Ling, published online by the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism in July, 2007, Clinton distilled his findings into an essay suitable for ordinary readers. In it he describes what sets Chinese Filipinos apart from communities descended from Chinese migrants in some of our neighboring countries. In a nutshell, the vast majority of Filipino Chinese such as him, belong to a cohesive group (“mostly Fujianese, with just a handful from Guangdong”) in a nation, the Philippines, itself composed of many cohesive groups (Tagalogs, Ilocanos, Capangpangans, and so on). But if the story of how Chinese Filipinos came to be –and coped—has been told (not least in Chinese Filipinos, which came out just four years before this article), change, again, had come, disturbing what had so painstakingly taken generations to emerge. Change, in this case, was represented by the rise (really, the revival) of China’s power and prestige, as well as the influx of a new wave of Chinese migrants to the Philippines. As Clinton put it, “what is at present making the situation that much more complicated is the increasing influx of what are often termed the ‘new migrants,’ more properly known as the xinqiao. These are ‘mainlanders’ who have emigrated from China since its reopening and represent an entirely different generation of migrants.”
In the dozen years since this article came out, what Clinton had already identified and described, the tensions that have arisen in broader Philippine society and even within the Chinese Filipino community, has gotten increasingly impossible to ignore, not least because it has given old prejudices a new lease on life. It led to Clinton speaking out in only the way he could, in a much-noticed open letter to F. Sionil Jose. It was a trend Clinton found reprehensible not least because it needn’t be inevitable; what it demanded, however, was a clear-eyed appreciation of its insidious staying power. Just six months ago, he would reintroduce and update many of the ideas he first introduced in his 2007 article in another piece, Anti-Chinese Sentiment Grows In Philippines, published in the Asian Sentinel in December, 2018.
He closed that piece with an assertion and a warning:
“The Chinese Filipinos are caught in between—not because their loyalty is divided, as pundits such as Monsod would have it. Their loyalty has remained unchanged—but the friends and neighbors they have lived with for years are suddenly looking at them differently. All parties concerned are beneficiaries of a fragile peace that took three generations to build.
“Most Chinese Filipinos identify as Filipino—and many are, in fact, the most vocal critics of the economic colonization by China. But many, especially rabble-rousers in search of a scapegoat, don’t know the difference, or don’t care; and as the economy sours further, so mounts the ethnic tension.”
Chances are, like me, you tried to get through your studies on Rizal with minimal compliance. It was only later in life that I got to appreciate his words of dedication in the Noli: I will do with thee what the ancients did with their sick, exposing them on the steps of the temple so that every one who came to invoke the Divinity might offer them a remedy.
On the penultimate night of Clinton Palanca’s wake, F. Sionil Jose and his wife appeared, to condole, and, as he sat quietly in the front row looking at the urn, I suppose, also to reflect. In the corner where we were seated a writer-friend turned to me and whispered, “Do you remember Frankie’s column and the way Clinton replied?” Of course. “Well, wasn’t that pure Clinton? Firm, yet kind, rational and respectful, but in the end, he put the old man in his place.”
And now here was the “old man.”
Was he returning the sentiments Clinton had expressed to close his open letter from four years ago? His last line had been, “I remain, and always will be, your friend in words and ideals.” I’d like to think so. But there was one additional comment during that huddled conversation in a corner of a wake that has stayed with me: “Clinton was the only one who bothered to leave open the door for dialogue even when he firmly drew the line on the kind of thinking that’s just plain wrong.”
What is a book, Chinese Filipinos, in a nation that might tolerate it as something decorative but hardly as an enduring guide to the future by way of the past? What is an article, whether meant as a contribution to the rigorous analysis of our society in a particular era, or a fraternal correction to a peer befuddled by bigotry, or even as reportage on a troubling trend, if it only serves to build walls instead of dismantling them? It would be pointless –and this is the point of this introduction to what I believe will long endure as Clinton’s most substantial contribution to the continuous puzzlement that is being an (un)hyphenated Filipino. Eloquently, rigorously, fearlessly, he contributed to our self-awareness without succumbing to the temptation to be self-absorbed.
Clinton Palanca showed the way forward, for all Filipinos. Remember that.