Living with the enemy: A diary of the Japanese Occupation

by Pacita Pestaño- Jacinto

National Book Award - Manila Critic Circle. Excerpt from "...the book is a chronicle of an important period of the history of our country. It is a detailed and moving record of a family surviving under enemy occupation, enduring the countless deprivations and humiliations of war, and doing so with dignity and with grace...it is a woman's story, an account of the determination to carry on, to impose a routine, to keep to the natural rhythm of daily life- regular meals, family rituals, celebrations of birthdays and anniversaries. This theme runs through the war narratives of women....

Genres: History, Nonfiction

248 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2002

Reviews

[Sheila · Rating 4 out of 5]

When the Americans declared war against the Japanese on December 9, 1941, after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the author, Pacita P. Jacinto, was newly-married to a doctor whose child she carried and she relished their independence in a perfect house with air plants in Otis Street in Pandacan, Manila.

The war, like all evil things, was unhoped for. Within three years, Pacita and her husband would be moving in and out of places in Manila to survive the occupation of the Japanese. She detailed the events as they unfold from that fateful night in December. In her diary, she also narrated how they tried to live normal lives, while interpreting other public matters critically. The result is a rich and intimate history of the Japanese Occupation of Manila from the point of view of a young, middle-class Filipina wife and mother.

One of the unforgettable parts in this compilation of diary entries is Pacita's description of the Japanese:

The Japanese Imperial Army has taken over the government of the Philippines. Today (Jan.4, 1941), I had my first good look at a Japanese soldier. He struck me as so comic, straddling a Japanese bicycle, a small, bow-legged figure hardly over five feet, dressed in a soiled khaki-green uniform and a cap with three queer flaps hanging over his ears and neck. He had a bull-like head pushed deep between his shoulders. He looked funny, yet I would hate to face one like him. I think every Japanese soldier feels it, the hatred seething under our surrender. It is hatred that he must match with the might, arrogance, and cruelty of the conqueror.

The most important event detailed here is the Bataan Death March, where Filipino and American soldiers, thinking they were free to go home to Manila after the surrender, were tricked into submission by the Japanese, who moved them into concentration camps in Capas, Tarlac, located North of Manila. Willy, Pacita's brother-in-law, was one of the soldiers who lived to tell the tale:

That night, we stopped on the road. The Japanese would not take any chances of our escaping in the dark. But after all that we had seen on the way, sleep was impossible...Our bodies had become conscious of pain. But we had to go on...

I grew up memorizing the names of our heroes in history class, but I don’t remember much about these soldiers. No teacher told us that Filipinos, ordinary Filipinos, were capable of sacrificing their lives for the common good, never mind that we had to fight together with the Americans, who had their own interests. That’s another story that even the author cannot discuss without some bias. But what I’m happy to discover here is that in the face of a great moral challenge, we can count on ourselves to be brave and honorable-----rare qualities among our traditional politicians.

Today, there's an obelisk standing on the site called the Capas National Shrine, to honor the many Filipino and American soldiers who died after the death march. It was built in 2003, more than sixty years after the unfortunate event. I hope to visit it one day.

Other atrocities reported by Pacita in the diary include the Japanese army's use of comfort women, who remain nameless and faceless and still fighting to get compensation from Japan. This book by Maria Resa Henson, a Filipina comfort woman, can provide a deeper story at the personal level.

My opinion about Japan after reading Pacita's diary is forever changed, though I can't tell yet how this affects me. To hate one country for what it has done in the past is not a value shared by many Filipinos. We are too dependent on another country's economic assistance, opportunistic or not. And that's the sad thing about not knowing much history. You turn a blind eye on injustices.

[Mel · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very excellent book, can make clear pictures of the Philippines during the Japanese occupation, the horrors, the massacre, the ruthless killing of innocent people by the Japanese, pregnant women, children and even babies.
A must read!

[Dawn Tagala · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the 2nd book that I picked which is about WWII in the Philippines. The juxtaposition of their servant boy and the author of the diary's lives is remarkable. Makes you witness the war under two different perspectives--rich and poor.

[Sharren · Rating 5 out of 5]

It pains me to read it in the 21st century. Coming from a citizen of the Philippines who lives abundantly on the nation's rich resources now, our great history goes without saying that it really does affect both micro and minutiae aspect of the next generations to come, because I, the living of the Year 2023 had somehow can feel and bore the despair, hopelessness, inhumanely death and trudges of war that desolate my ancestors from decades passed since I was born. I will never forget. I will continue to walk forward with a steady and determined purpose to live for my country, for beastly cruelty has harvested my ancestors to become what we are now, it is no surprise to be born like this; cries for survival and hopelessness to even live continue through generations, I learned it the hard way.

Since then, I will do my utmost to do what I have to do. I saw this book in a very old used bookstore in my city that changed shapes due to the passage of time, I remember I was still a young child going back and forth to this aged bookstore with my mom. As if things are going according to what the mystics believe is fate, I accidentally found this book on the farthest corner of the old shelves when I certainly wanted to or decided to finally look through our past histories of suffering. I wasn't looking for it in particular and wasn't planning to buy a book for I was just out for an errand to do with the bookstore. Yet I found it.

[Emanuel Veluz · Rating 5 out of 5]

great book