Liberation of Cebu 8 (Before the Landing)

Like the arrival of Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s troops in Leyte, the landing of American forces in Talisay on March 26, 1995 has become the subject of controversy among historians and social analyst whose views on the way previous celebrations have been treated varied.

The 50th celebration of the Leyte landings even created a furor over the way the role of the American troops in the Philippine-Japanese War have been played up at the expense of the Filipino soldiers whose contributions were unnecessarily downplayed.

The problem however was more on the choice of the part of the war was to be celebrated. Choosing the landing of the Americans on Philippine soil as the high point of the celebration inevitably leads to misrepresentation of the war effort.

This point has been raised by the Filipino war veterans themselves, like lawyer Antonio Paulin, a captain of the United States Armed Forces in the Far East at that time, who believed that the celebration trivialized the Filipino’s contribution in liberating the Philippines from the Japanese.

Thus, the executive committee preparing the 50th celebration of the Talisay landing chose to call the activity the Liberation of Cebu instead of The American Landing.

But while such a move showed an improvement in perception, it was still inappropriate relative to the effort to clarify issues on the liberation of the province.

Liberation of Cebu 7 (Tabunan’s Other Side)

Tabunan was the general headquarters of the Cebu Area Command under Harry Fenton and James Cushing for less than a year, from late 1942 to March 1943, and fell after a Japanese expeditionary force penetrated the interior of Cebu.

The loss also ushered in the gradual falling out of some of the original leaders of the resistance movement against the Japanese resulting in the subsequent execution of Fenton, who was accused by his own comrades of war crimes.

FENTON’S ROLE
To the peasants now residing in Tabunan, the memory of Fenton and not of the more sober Cushing left a lasting imprint upon their psyche. Now, why Fenton?

Teofilo Pador, barangay tanod of Tabunan, was born in 1943, or months after the guerilla base was set up in their barangay. His knowledge of the war was handed to him by his parents and the older residents who have taken the saga of their place to heart.

Pador guided us to a boulder in Ssitio Fenton, also called Ka Fenton, near which the guerilla leader was said to have set up his camp. A few meters above the place was a spring, now inside a cemented structure, that supported the needs of Fenton’s group and his aides during his stay.

Liberation of Cebu, 6a (Untold Story)

(This was written by Col. Manuel F. Segura)

It has been fifty years since World War II ended. Since then events and situations once classified as secret and top secret have been declassified and can now be told.

Many Filipinos, guerillas and civilians alike, were not fully aware of the nature and extent of the guerilla movement in Cebu , more particularly in the activities of the silent service–our intelligence service.

This story has to do with some facets of our many sided intelligence effort.

Liberation of Cebu, Part 6 (Tabunan)

(NOTE: I lost Parts 4 and 5 in my file, so I had to jump to this part. My apologies.–Candido Wenceslao)

“The mystery of Tabunan played on the imagination of many who wondered just where it was in the mountain fastness, what it looked like, and what went on there during the gruelling years of blood and death.”

–Manuel F. Segura, Tabunan: The Untold Exploits of the Famed Cebu Guerillas in World War II

It drizzled the day a team from The Freeman negotiated the winding Transcentral Highway towards the sleepy barangay of Tabunan.

I went there armed only with Col. Manuel F. Seegura’s book to guide me and the memories of the place I only visited once when I was younger. And even that has receded into a haze, affected by the long years of absence.

Tabunan only endeared to the few who knew its role in the resistance movement against the Japanese occupation. Even a schoolteacher in that barangay expressed surprise after browsing through Segura’s book.

Indeed, our very own failure to appreciate the lessons of the past has made sure that places like Tabunan will remain backward and unappreciated.

Liberation of Cebu, 3 (The Unvanquished)

The speed with which the Japanese Imperial Army overran Filipino and American defenders when it invaded the Philippines in December of 1941 proved the invalidity of many initial assumptions.

For one, it exposed the flaws in the strategy and tactics employed by Gen. Douglas MacArthur and the state of unpreparedness of the Philippine army.

MacArthur’s plan called for the defense of the islands by stopping the Japanese on the beaches and this required a mobile and well-trained force capable of slugging it out in places where the landings were expected.

There wasn’t any such force in the Philippines, a reality that Maj. Gen. Jonathan M. Wainwright, then commander of the North Luzon force, admitted when he said thus:

“Few units of any force had been completely mobilized and all lacked training and equipment. No division or force had been assembled or trained in unit maneuvers, staffs lacked organization and trained personnel.”

Liberation of Cebu, Part 2 (The Eve of War)

When the Japanese attacked and bombed Pearl Harbor on Dec. 8, 1941, there already existed in the Philippines the Visayas Mindanao Force (VMFO) under Brig. Gen. William F. Sharp. It was tasked to defend what was loosely called “the southern islands.”

At that time, the Philippines was divided into groups of provinces called Military Districts. Under then Colonel Sharp were the 6th Military District (Aklan, Antique, Capiz and Iloilo in Panay Island), the 7th Military District (Negros Occidental and Negros Oriental in Negros Island, including the sub-province of Siquijor), the 8th Military District (Bohol and Cebu), the 9th Military District (Leyte and Samar) and the 10th Military District (Mindanao and Sulu).

In 1941, Army intelligence had indicated that a war with Japan was inevitable but no one in Cebu or in the Philippines knew when it would start.

Liberation of Cebu, Part 1

“As commander in chief of the forces of liberation, I publicly acknowledge and pay tribute to the great spiritual power that has made possible these notable and glorious achievements—achievements which find few counterparts in military history. Those great patriots, Filipino and American, both living and dead, upon whose valiant shoulders have rested the leadership and responsibility for the indomitable movement in the past critical period shall, when their identities can be known, find a lasting place on the scroll of heroes of both nations—heroes who have selflessly and defiantly subordinated all to the cause of human liberty. Their names and their deeds shall ever be enshrined in the hearts of our two peoples in whose darkest hours they have waged relentless war against the forces of evil that sought, through ruthless brutality, the enslavement of the Filipino people.”

--Gen. Douglas MacArthur, 25 October 1944

On March 26, 1945, American and Filipino forces landed on the beaches of Talisay to complete the defeat of the once mighty Japanese Imperial Army deployed in the Province of Cebu.

But like many important events that happened to us in the past, this one seem to have receded fast into the fringes of the collective memories of generations, remembered only in snatches by those who felt they must.

Another Special Report

One of the memorable experiences I had as a reporter was when I wrote for The Freeman a special report on the liberation of Cebu from Japanese occupation. For that 10-part series, I interviewed World War II veterans, went to the site of the former headquarters of the Cebu guerilla forces in Tabunan, Cebu City and walked/crawled inside tunnels dug up and used during the war. It was a sobering act.

The Cebuano resistance against the Japanese occupation was one proud moment for our people that it should have been retold over and over. Unfortunately, the colonial-minded in us made sure that stories about the bravery of our soldiers would be buried by tales about the exploits of people not our own, especially the Americans. And so students are largely ignorant about Tabunan and what it symbolized for our freedom fighters.