Blood on the Rising Sun: A Factual Story of the Japanese Invasion of the Philippines

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Text originally published in 1957 under the same title.

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BLOOD ON THE RISING SUN

A factual story of the Japanese Invasion of the Philippines

BY

ADALIA MARQUEZ

Member of the Counter-Intelligence Corps of General Douglas Macarthur

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS 3

DEDICATION 4

PREFACE 5

I 7

II 11

III 18

IV 24

V 30

VI 38

VII 44

VIII 53

IX 61

X 65

XI 74

XII 82

XIII 91

XIV 106

XV 116

XVI 119

XVII 123

XVIII 137

XIX 148

XX 156

XXI 163

XXII 167

XXIII 181

XXIV 191

XXV 195

REQUEST FROM THE PUBLISHER 200

DEDICATION

TO

THE MARTYRS OF FORT SANTIAGO, THE GROUP AND TONY

PREFACE

From a window of her home in Manila, Adalia Marquez saw the first Japanese planes from Formosa ride across the sky to bring war to her country.

It was incredible that Manila was being attacked, but Adalia took it calmly. With the cool detachment of a reporter she watched the planes come until they were actually over her head.

Such was Adalia who, as one of my reporters when I was editor and publisher of a chain of Manila newspapers, had on many occasions proved she had a stout heart.

At first the bombers had appeared like birds over the distant horizon, then they came in increasing numbers and faster than the eye could follow.

They dropped their bombs and the flame of destruction was upon the land—the same flame that was to spread its black swath from Aparri to Davao. Unmoved, Adalia stood her ground. Deep in her woman’s heart another flame was burning and it said, Never Say Die! (the original title of this book). And soon the Never-Say-Die spirit was sweeping across the country as the protest of a people who refused to be subdued. An arrogant Military had come to conquer and it met rebellion.

So this book came to be written—BLOOD ON THE RISING SUN—by Adalia Marquez. It is her own story against the background of that rebellion and she writes it with the skill of a trained observer reporting on Manila before, during, and after the war.

BLOOD ON THE RISING SUN tells the story of Fort Santiago, Manila’s relic of three centuries of Spanish occupation, which the Japanese found particularly suited to their needs and in which was a place to imprison and torture captured guerrillas and others whom they did not like. Adalia knew the grim story of this prison from outside and within for her husband, the brilliant young attorney and patriot, Antonio M. Bautista, was held by the Japanese in one of its torture cells. Then, after his escape—one of the very few on record—it was the turn of Adalia and her two youngest children to be thrown into the Fort as hostages for the missing Tony. The lawyer had vanished into the mysterious unknown.

In BLOOD ON THE RISING SUN Adalia gives us a cross section of Manila’s life during its martyrdom under the invader. Filipino patriots, American soldiers, Catholic and Protestant missionaries, Jews, Chinese and Japanese officers and guards play important parts in the drama. We recoil as we see the Military Police commit their bestial cruelties, but there are also times when we find Japanese soldiers trying to be human. It is all set down graphically in this rich piece of reporting done by Manila’s first woman reporter.

The characters are as varied as they are many. There is that group of patriots that went underground, known as the FREE PHILIPPINES. Among its most courageous leaders was Antonio M. Bautista, who gave his life for Democracy. He was Adalia’s husband and until now, according to the book, she waits for him. Tony had openly courted Japan’s enmity before the war by taking a leading part in a boycott of Japanese goods in the Philippines. He also advocated an embargo on Japan even before America had thought of it. The Japanese retained a long memory of these incidents and so one of their first acts upon entering Manila was to capture Tony Bautista.

Adalia gives us a faithful account of the colorful Tony and his intrepid group of patriots—Rafael Roces, Jr. and Dr. Ramon de Santos, both executed by the Japanese, the now Senator Lorenzo M. Tanada, Justice Jose B. L. Reyes, Under-Secretary of Justice Jesus Barrera, Dr. Anselmo Claudio, and Collector of Internal Revenue J. Antonio Araneta.

Many incidents in Fort Santiago are portrayed in the book to show how people behave under trying circumstances. There were times indeed when Adalia could have strangled a Japanese guard for beating or torturing half-dead soldiers, but the next minute the same guard would be giving Jackie, Adalia’s baby, his first spoonful of food in days. Together with Jackie, Adalia’s and Tony’s two other children, Throbbie and Marquesito, probably suffered more torture at Japanese hands than any other prisoners’ children in the Philippines.

Adalia Marquez served in the Counter-Intelligence Corps of General Douglas MacArthur, after which she embarked for the city by the Golden Gate, where she wrote this book.

I

IT was December 7, 1941 in the United States—December 8 in Manila—when we learned that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor.

On that afternoon we heard that the planes marked with the Rising Sun had given the same treatment to Clark Field in Pampanga Province and to Camp John Hay in Baguio. Our radio stations in Manila broadcast little else but excited stories of these treacherous attacks. It was so hard for us to believe for we had always considered that these people living to the north of our Philippines were chiefly imitators in the world of engineering and science. How could they dare make such attacks against the forces of the colossal U.S.A.? Well, we thought, even if all these Manila broadcasts are true, it won’t be long until the Americans take care of these sneak Japanese attackers!

It was in such a spirit that we started our accustomed household routine on the following day. My husband, Antonio Molina Bautista, was a member of a well-known law firm and Dean in the Graduate School of the College of Law at the University of Manila. Marquesito, just seven, was our eldest son. He got up early with his father, so that he could hop out of the car at the Jesuit Ateneo de Manila where he attended school. Throbbie, my States-born girl, was almost two years old. Her nurse dressed her and, a little later, took her to nursery school. Jackie, only a year old, stayed home with his nurse. And I—I was practically a lady of leisure, like any other successful attorney’s wife in Manila. So, on this same morning I remained in bed as long as I wished. I had been a newspaper reporter before my marriage. Acquaintances considered me rather an odd person—a daughter of one of Manila’s oldest families, who ran all over the city, day and night—a police reporter. My husband, however, was broad-minded. Even after the birth of our third child he offered no objections to my continuing the career I loved so wholeheartedly. There were, of course, plenty of servants to take care of the children and the housework. I was a helpless sort of person at the time, but later, in the Japanese prisons, under torture, it was different. I had to—survive.

On the 9th of December, 1941 Tony had an important case to try. Late in the forenoon I rose and consulted with my cook, Casimiro. I wanted an especially good dinner for that noonday meal. Then I went through my house, rearranging a few chairs and placing fresh flowers in every room. I was just putting on the finishing touches when I heard an auto horn blow one long blast and two short ones. That would be Tony and Marquesito. They shouted for me to hurry downstairs and their shouts were mingled with a great deal of rather mysterious laughter.

I picked up Jackie, took little Throbbie by the hand, and we ran down to the front door. We waited on the porch until Tony and Marquesito had put the car in the garage. As they came back along the driveway I noticed that my husband’s hands were empty. This was most unusual; he was accustomed to bring me some little gift each day. I pointed to his hands and pouted to show my disappointment. He only laughed and led us to the garage, saying, Just look in the car.

I saw what looked like enough canned and packaged goods to last our family for a year. What’s the idea? I queried. Where are we going?

We are going to eat, my love, replied Tony, and our household and our neighbors are also going to eat, as long as we do.

His tone was quite serious; I knew he meant what he said. But where did he find so much ready cash? Enough to buy out what looked to be a whole grocery stock. Tony must have read the question in my eyes. But his voice held trouble. This morning, he said, President Quezon declared a debt moratorium. It will hold until this desperate situation is cleared up. So I won’t have to pay the bank on the three notes that are due this month until the war—yes, Adalia—until the war is over.

How much did all this stuff cost?

Oh, about eight hundred pesos (four hundred dollars). But the price isn’t the important thing. We’ve got to get all the food into the house and hide it as well as we can—at once.

We called all our help and with them we tucked the stuff up in the attic, in boxes underneath the house, and in other out-of-the-way places, so that any looters would have to work hard to get much.

Ours was a happy family. We sat down to a wonderful dinner on that afternoon of December 9th, laughing and joking as usual. But we had hardly tasted the first mouthful of food when my eldest son said quietly, Listen!

There were planes droning overhead. At first we didn’t think much about them. We hoped they were American planes flying up there to assure the Filipinos that Uncle Sam was on the job—that he would soon chase the enemy out over the ocean and they would never come back. But then the sirens lifted up their mournful voices. We had heard them before, in practice alerts. This time, however, we sensed a different, an insistent note—gripping and nerve-racking.

Then the bombs came!

The Japs were attacking Camp Nichols Airfield, a bare three miles from where we sat in our house at Sandejas. Tony caught up little Jackie. The rest of us, family and servants, followed him out into the yard, under the bamboo trees. We had no shelters; we just crouched there and prayed. We scarcely moved lest the enemy should see us and drop one of their calling cards, just for a joke.

After what seemed an eternity the all clear sounded. The two little ones began crying. I fell to trembling. Utter confusion seized our whole neighborhood.

Tony looked at me and said sternly, Get hold of yourself, Adalia! This is only the beginning. You’ll have to face a lot more than this before it’s over. This is going to be a ‘total war’.

The next day Tony called all the neighbors together and told them that more raids were coming and our Sandejas district of the city couldn’t hope to escape damage. First, he suggested all the men dig fox-holes under their homes. This was a precautionary measure only, until we could build some real bomb-shelters.

As soon as the fox-holes were finished the men came to our large yard to help Tony dig the first real air-raid shelter. It was a little more than five feet high, roofed over with three layers of sacks of sand. We put in a small cot for the two younger children. Tony even managed an electric light and, in case the power failed, we had an oil lamp ready.

Tony told all the neighbors who had helped to construct the shelter that in case of a heavy raid they should bring their families and climb in with us. But he must have forgotten, momentarily, the size of most Filipino families. In our Sandejas neighborhood the average was about six to a family. One neighbor, however, boasted thirteen children, the youngest only a month old. There were more than twenty families in our immediate vicinity. The shelter in our yard was just completed when the Japs staged another heavy bombing raid. The neighbors came running to our shelter. They couldn’t all get in, of course. I, myself, had to crawl out under the bamboo trees. Several other women, with babies in their arms, could find no protection at all. After this frightening experience the digging began again and the men didn’t stop until they had completed four more shelters alongside our house.

Finally, however, the air raids became so heavy and so frequent that Tony took us out into the provinces, away from Manila. He went back into the city to carry on the work of setting up an anti-Japanese underground movement. The situation did not last very long, however. In the last week of December Tony learned that the United States Army was already moving out and that Manila had been declared an open city, which meant it would no longer be bombed. So we returned to our home.

The two nurse girls and myself took the children into the house and I ran upstairs to my bedroom. There, to my surprise, a barber was working on my husband’s hair. He was just about finished and when he stepped back I hardly recognized Tony. The barber had completely changed his style of haircut.

Tony looked at me and said, You’re next!

I got the idea. I sat down and the barber cut off my long hair, close to the head. With a pair of jeans and a boy’s shirt, I would look like a boy. We had heard about the sex atrocities the Japanese had committed in China. My changed appearance would serve a double purpose. Besides being safer, I would be able to work more effectively for the underground in my new getup. So, from that day on, our household was minus one woman.

On December 29th Marquesito, my husband, and I drove to the Intramuros district, Manila’s ancient walled city. We wanted to see Tony’s sister, Perla, who was studying nursing at the San Juan de Dios Hospital. At a distance of about a quarter-mile from the hospital we saw that we could drive no farther; traffic was hopelessly jammed. We left Marquesito in the car with Sebio, the driver, and set out on foot.

We hadn’t gone far when the air-raid siren began singing its dreadful song. There was my seven-year-old son, with nobody but the driver, in an automobile! I started back but Tony pulled me down under the front steps of a nearby house. We could see the targets of the Japanese bombs from where we lay hidden. They were hitting at the boats on the Pasig River and at San Juan de Letran College—so close to where Marquesito was! And we were helpless! We didn’t dare disobey the order which forbade being on the streets during a raid.

After what seemed ages, the all-clear sounded. We ran back to the car. Neither our boy nor the driver was in it. Since there were no places to hide, we climbed the old thick walls of Intramuros, and there, quite unconcerned about the whole affair, with his eyes glued to the pages of a Liberty magazine, was our son. I thanked God for His Mercy, then suddenly was aware our driver was lying alongside Marquesito. We helped him to his feet; he was trembling like someone suffering with St. Vitus Dance. Sebio swore that the Jap planes had dived directly at him and our boy and from that day on he was useless as a chauffeur. But in the Philippines the servants are members of the family, so Tony and I had the added burden of caring for a completely frightened Sebio.

II

IN MANILA we celebrate the New Year for two days—on the last day of December and the first day of January. And, as around the world generally, we prepare a special feast. In our family puchero was the favorite main dish.

Tony and I helped our cook, at an open fire in the yard. In addition to the puchero preparations we roasted chickens for lunch, which we ate under the bamboos. Then, as he always did whenever possible, Tony climbed into his hammock and took a long, lazy siesta. When he awoke I reminded him that he had promised to take us to a show that evening.

Until the Japanese are out of the Philippines we’re going to no picture shows, declared my husband.

Well—that was that! So we all went to bed early on New Year’s Eve, 1941. Tony was taking no chances in the event of a sudden Japanese entrance into Manila. We slept with our clothes on, according to his instructions. We had our jewels and some money tied around our waists. The children had extra blankets folded at the foot of their beds. Food and other necessities were packed in the car, ready for any emergency. It was in this manner that the Bautistas went to bed on New Year’s Eve.

The next thing I remember .was a loud banging on our front door. I sat up, wide awake, and looked at the clock beside my bed; it was two o’clock. Tony ran downstairs. There stood Antonio Prats, a Manila businessman, a close friend of ours. The whole household was wide awake by now and Prats informed us that we must get out—at once. He had come with his car to help us evacuate to Quezon City, where Prats was now Acting Chief of Police.

We drove to the Divine Word Monastery in Quezon City; Prats said that the Superior in charge was a German. He could surely protect us when the Japs marched into Manila. For the Japanese were coming in now—no question about it!

We went into a large hall in the Monastery and found it packed with people. I found a small vacant space and spread out our mats and blankets so that our children and servants could continue sleeping. As for me, there would be no more sleep that night.

About four o’clock in the morning Tony left to get some of his friends who ought also to be in hiding. At daybreak he returned with Dr. Jose B. L. Reyes and family; Claudio Teehankee (Tony’s assistant in the law firm) with his family; along with other Filipino friends—all anti-Japanese, No sooner had they arrived at the Monastery than Tony and Dr. Reyes left to assist Judge Roberto Concepcion and family and the Lorenzo Tanadas to safety in the Carmelite Convent.

At about ten o’clock in the morning Tony returned to the Monastery. He had picked up dozens of loaves of bread and had sneaked back into our Sandejas home and brought a big pot of the puchero, together with a sack of rice which Emerito Ramos had given him. Later on that same day one of my husband’s partners-at-law, Salvador Araneta, visited us and gave us several cases of canned milk and vegetables. The canned milk especially was a life-saver for the children.

A few moments later I was called to the telephone; it was a newspaper colleague of mine calling, Amando Dayrit. He told me to forget about my newspaper work and take care of Tony and my family, adding that the Japs would be in Manila the following day. They were resting, even now, he said, in Paranaque. When I told Tony this piece of news he and Dr. Reyes left at once. First, they drove to our Sandejas home and emptied our whole supply of whisky and wine down the sink. Then they repeated the process at the Reyes home—no invaders were going to enjoy drinks at our expense!

We all slept fitfully that night in the third floor of the Monastery. The Japanese were marching into Manila in the morning!

Early on January 3rd most of our Filipino menfolk went into the business district of Manila. There they took up positions where they would be unnoticed, but about noontime they returned to the Monastery and brought what we thought was encouraging news. They assured us that the Japanese military personnel was not half so fierce-looking as we had heard. In fact, one of our men declared, the Japanese soldiers looked like frightened monkeys and he thought it was going to be fairly easy to get around them. Perhaps we women should not have believed these early reports because they filled us with a spirit of boldness which later brought us many a slapping or beating.

In the middle of the afternoon, while still eagerly discussing the invading enemy, one of the German priests came upstairs. He told us that Japanese officials were going to visit the Monastery. They were, however, not going to make any trouble. The Germans were their allies. The priest assured us that if we would remain quiet they would never go beyond the first floor. So we set about quieting the giggling girls and crying babies. The Japs came and the campaign for silence was successful. But babies had to eat and drink, yet mothers and nursemaids were afraid to go downstairs. We had all heard about Japanese atrocities in the case of Chinese women. So it fell to my lot to do the dirty work. Anyway, I looked like a boy and there were several Filipino youngsters employed at the Monastery to help with the housework.

I started downstairs to fix some milk for the babies and just at that moment I saw the Jap officials arrive and enter the monastery offices. I gave them only a casual glance and went on with my little chores. We managed to keep everyone quiet, up on the third floor, and in about an hour the officers left. We had passed one crisis successfully.

While the Japs had been talking with the German fathers one of the men on our third floor disappeared. He was Dr. Vincente Lava; I had a hunch why he left so mysteriously and later on I found it was correct. Dr. Lava went out into the province to help set up an underground movement, the Hukbalahap, which was soon to give the Japanese forces plenty of trouble.

Tony had been one of the founders of the Philippine Civil Liberties Union, the first organization of its kind in the Islands. In pre-war days, the Union had dedicated itself to the defense of civil liberties throughout the Philippines; to the fostering and continued encouragement of a militant Filipino nationalism; to the struggle for true democracy, economic as well as political; and to fight against Fascism in any and all of its manifestations.

Under Japanese occupation there was no opportunity to fight for civil liberties in any kind of legal manner. During the very first days after their arrival the invaders issued decrees forbidding any sort of meetings without, first, a Japanese permit and, second, Japanese supervision.

Early in January, 1942 a group of Civil Liberties Union members met secretly and decided to go underground. They chose a new name, but I did not learn this new name until much later, when I was in Fort Santiago Prison. Among those who attended this first secret meeting, at the risk of their lives and the lives of their families, were Dr. Ramon de Santos, Lorenzo Tanada (now Senator), Dr. Francisco Lava, Dr. Anselmo Claudio, R. Mamino Corpus, Cipriano Cid of the Manila Bulletin, Columnist Amando L. Dayrit, Jesus Roces, Jose B. L. Reyes (now Supreme Court Justice), Jesus Barrera (now Under-Secretary of Justice), Rafael R. Roces, Jr., and Antonio M. Bautista, my husband. From now on we shall refer to these men and the others who joined them later as the group.

One of their boldest actions was to issue a mimeographed sheet, right under the nose of the enemy, called the Free Philippines. This little newspaper openly named Filipinos who collaborated with the invaders and exposed the hypocrisy of Japanese propaganda. The group did perhaps its most important work in connection with the various guerrilla bands, after the valiant defense of Corregidor by General Wainwright and his men.

The group furnished the guerrillas with information, money, ammunition, guns, and medicines. They refused to be drawn into the sometimes bitter jurisdictional scraps that arose all too frequently between different guerrilla organizations. The group adhered steadfastly to its stated policy that any and all active anti-Japanese organizations were entitled to the aid and co-operation of the group. Beat the Jap was the only slogan important to the group. Consequently it enjoyed the confidence of all the guerrilla bands with which it came in contact. As a matter of fact, this high-minded group of Filipinos was frequently able to iron out misunderstandings among guerrillas when every other underground agency had failed. This was so because everyone realized that the members of the group were not scheming for financial gain or for political preferment or power; they were fighting, in every way they knew, for one purpose—to help drive the Japanese from the Philippines.

To return to what was happening in the Monastery of the Divine Word. After the party of Japanese officials left the premises, we on the third floor scarcely dared look out of the window. No one left the compound. This situation held for two weeks. Then the German fathers began to explain that the Japanese were in Manila to stay, hence those who were hiding there had better go home. Gradually everyone left except the Reyes family and ours. We were stubborn. But if we had had any common sense we would have known such a condition could not last long. One day the Father Superior came up to talk with us. He said they needed the hall where we were squatters and besides, he told us, the Americans aren’t coming back. You might just as well begin to learn how to live under Japanese rule. Go back home and try to live a normal life.

He went on to tell us about the Japanese signboards, programs, and newspaper articles, all assuring Filipinos that the Japanese were their friends. We did not believe that they were our friends and we did believe that the Americans would return. However, there was no alternative; we packed up our belongings and went back to Sandejas.

I was almost afraid to enter our home. A neighbor had gotten word to us at the Monastery that the enemy had thoroughly ransacked it. Well, it was in pretty bad condition, but not impossibly so. Tony and I, with our loyal servants, dug into the cleaning and within a couple of days our home looked quite presentable again. That done, we faced our next and more serious problem—how to feed the members of our household.

After much discussion we decided to sell coffee and bread on the street corner, at the end of the trolley line, about half a block from our home. Tony and I rose at four o’clock the next morning. I made coffee and he hiked to the Divisoria Market to buy the bread. Little did I know then that I would learn to look back at our sidewalk shop days as a comfortably happy period of living.

As soon as the coffee was made I started out with a small table on my head and a bench under my arm. These were necessary articles. I left them at the corner and made two more trips for the coffee and other things needed in our outdoor shop. By this time Tony was back with the bread and we started serving customers. Later on many such pitiful little business ventures sprang up all over Manila. But ours was the first of its kind in that district. We sold our bread and coffee right in front of St. Scholastica’s College, where the invaders had interned United States Navy personnel under heavy guard. At this time the Japs had not forbidden Filipinos to talk to the internees. Tony had given me new instructions one morning, so I walked up to the college fence and called out, Have any of you got some Kools for sale?

A tall, thin man with greying hair stepped up to the fence and replied (as Tony had told me he would), Sure, boy! How much can you afford to pay?

I replied, as Tony had instructed, Ten pesos.

The American passed me the cigarettes. I gave him the money. Still following instructions, I walked over to our little sidewalk store and handed the carton of Kools to our good friend Pablo, our volunteer assistant, who, I suppose, also had instructions from Tony. I didn’t know and I didn’t want to know. I had lost all of my reporter’s insatiable curiosity.

This was my first regular assignment in the service of the group. I was thrilled while carrying it