<br>Nanette Castillo sleeps in during a grief counselling retreat in Bulacan on November 9, 2019. Her son Aldrin was killed in 2017. Her grief and desire for justice gave her the courage to be an activist. She started joining protests, speaking of her son and his murder. She said, her son’s death still comes back to haunt her every night.

<br> A massacre took place on Halloween in Mandaluyong in 2016. It was not the first nor would it be the last, living spaces forever marked by tragedy. As a child I thought monsters were tales invented by grown ups to scare us but growing up in an old house with our roof made of nipa, every night when there’s a strong gust of wind I sleep in fear of the manananggal and religiously avoided playing near the Acacia tree outside. It’s only as an adult that I came to realize that monsters are real.

<br> Mel, not her real name, has been looking for answers why her brother was killed. On the night of June 20, 2019, her mother got hungry and asked her brother Nonoy to buy instant noodles. He never came home and was later found in a morgue. He was killed by the police. “Justice is a dream that seems impossible to reach,” she said.

<br> Surely a country that punishes and kills its children cannot claim itself as devout and earn the favour of its gods. And that if heaven is real then it’s not here.

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I often wonder how soon we forget history. Is it a choice or is it because we don’t have much time to remember when it’s one tragedy to the next? On how our streets had become different battlegrounds to a war where the only sure thing is bloodshed.

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<br>Philippine Army trainees at marskmanship practice before the war. They came from all walks of life, were 21 years old, and after five and half months of training reverted to civilian life. They were called to active service to the US Army Forces in the Far East (USAFFE) from September 1941. The men fought in Bataan with the same maong or khaki uniforms, with the same guns as depicted here, Model 1917 Enfield rifles from World War I, many of which were defective.

<br> Twenty-five years after the Fall of Bataan, a grateful nation remembered the defense campaign. Fernando Amorsolo painted a classic image, Bataan Maiden, which was printed on a commemorative stamp in 1967.

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Later, in the 1990s, a symbolic pylon was unveiled in the site of the former Concentration Camp at Camp O’Donnell. A fitting memorial was opened in 2003.

Even music scores were inspired by the last stand in Bataan, This was published in 1942 <br><br> 1967 was also when the cornerstone of the Dambana ng Kagitingan was laid, from which the altar, memorial cross and museum would be built on Mount Samat, site of the final battles for the defense of the peninsula. Kilometer posts marking the route of the Death March were also installed.

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Shortly after the fall of Bataan, Hollywood also took note of Bataan, and produced several movies depicting the glory of the Bataan defenders. One was this, A Letter from Bataan, a short meant to inspire Americans to work harder to hasten victory

<br> Another wartime movie was this, which starred Robert Taylor. Another, Back to Bataan, featured John Wayne in an iconic peformance. Filipinos were portrayed only as supporting the Americans.

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A year after the fall of Bataan, in April 1943, the Philippine Commonwealth government, in exile in the US, launched a campaign to rekindle the memory of the gallant defense among Americans. Part of that effort included this dramatic rendiiton of a Filipino soldier, holding the Philippine flag red side up - the sign of the Philippines at war - and ready to throw a grenade. The artist, Manuel Rey Isip, was a Filipino who was working as a movie advertising artist in Hollywood. The image exemplified the undefeated spirit of Filipinos, now fighting as guerrillas.

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Camp O’Donnell was a living hell for the defenders, now prisoners of war. More men would die there of disease and malnutrition than those who died in combat during the defense campaign. This photo shows the burial detail - men bringing the bodies of their dead comrades to mass burial grounds. The line would last the whole day, and some of those carrying the dead would themselves be dead in a few days.<br><br>

cover and sample page of one of four volumes of lists of prisoners of war who died in Camp O’Donnell

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With the surrender of Bataan, the defenders were forced to march to San Fernando, Pampanga, where most of them, now prisoners of war, were jammed into boxcars to Capas, Tarlac. From there they were marched to Camp O’Donnell, in Capas <br><br>

This picture shows mostly Filipinos as they begin the Death March. Many are in maong; a few in shorts and short sleeve khakis.

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<br> The senior American commander of the Bataan force, Major General Edward P. King, Jr., had no choice as the powerful Japanese forces assaulted the main lines and captured important Mount Samat. To try to save lives, he decided to surrender to the Japanese. The surrender was offered in Limay, but details were ironed out in Balanga, where this picture was taken.

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<br>Spiritual services were held under trees, safe from Japanese aerial observers. Mind and spirit were strong even as the physical body was wracked with disease and hunger.

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<br>A morale booster was the Voice of Freedom, broadcasting from Corregidor. Optimistic news about the war and the dispatch of reinforcements buoyed hopes. Here Americans listen to such a broadcast, written and broadcast by Filipinos.

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<br>Unable to break the Filipinos’ spirit, the Japanese tried to use propaganda such as this to convince the Filipino defenders to stop fighting, that the real enemy was the US. But through incidents such as Erlinda, the bombings of Manila and defenseless cities, and the discovery of Filipinos who had been captured and killed brutallty, leaflets like these were thrown away or used as toilet paper.

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<br>Aside from the defenders and residents of Bataan, several thousand refugees sought safety from the Japanese in Bataan. Many were from Manila and surrounding provinces, hoping for a victory against the Japanese. These are some of them in makeshift shelters.

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<br>General Hosptial in Bataan. A FIlipina nurse is visible, dressed in white nurse’s uniform. Most of the patients are stricken by malaria rather than combat wounds by this time. Japanese planes bombed one of the hospitals in the last days of the fighting, causing many casualties.

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<br>General Hospital in Bataan. There were two of these, large but makeshift under trees. Doctors and nurses were both American and Filipino. As the campaign dragged on, many of the defenders were stricken by malaria, dysentery or other tropical diseases. There was not enough medicine for all, and the strength of the defenders was sapped by these sicknesses. The defenders were also lacking food, since during the withdrawal not enough food and medicine was transported. So the defenders also suffered from malnutrition.

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<br>Replica of a British Bren Gun Carrier in the AFP Museum in Camp Aguinaldo. A number of these tracked vehicles was destined for Hong Kong but was caught by the outbreak of war in Manila. They were taken over by USAFFE and several were turned over to Filipino soldiers who learned to operate them. The slogan Remember Erlinda served as a morale booster, the avenge the rape and killing by Japanese soldiers of a young Filipino woman in Bataan. A Filipino patrol discovered her body with a handkerchief with the name Erlinda embroidered on it.

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<br>Capt. Arthur Wermuth and his Filipino aide in Bataan. The Bataan campaign was fought by Filipinos and Americans. Wermuth was dubbed the One Man Army of Bataan owing to his combat record. His Filipino aide is not identified.

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<br>Victorious Philippine Scout men hold war trophies captured from defeated Japanese: samurai swords, bayonets and other items. These men had crushed the Japanese attempt to outflank the front line by staging an amphibious landing to the southwest, in what became known as the Battle of the Points.

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<br>Roll call on Bataan. Note the vegetation. This is a signal corps unit (radios and telephones), mixed American and Filipino.

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<br>A Bataan town (Balanga?) is bombed by Japanese planes. The Bataan residents suddenly found their hometowns to be in the front line and had to evacuate to the rear, where USAFFE headquarters staff provided shelter and food.

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<br>American soldiers duck in a fox hole as Japanese bombs explode. Foxholes were the main defense positions in the front lines. Some were individual, others were for three or more.

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<br>An American soldier in Bataan waits for the chance to hurl it against an advancing Japanese tank.

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<br>Philippine Scout soldiers train with a water-cooled .30 caliber machine gun. This proved very effective against the Japanese. The Philippine Scouts were members of the US Army, and were professional, with long years of training, unlike the Philippine Army, most of whom were reservists who had undergone five and a half months basic training. Japanese soldiers were veterans of combat in China.

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<br>Philippine Scout soldiers on field training just before the war with a 37 mm anti tank gun. They are well camouflaged. Much of the fighting would be close-quarters fighting in the jungles of Bataan, since the US Army Air Force was virtually destroyed on the first day of the war. The defense of Bataan fell on the shoulders of ground troops predominantly Filipino.

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<br>The weapon most feared by the Japanese in Bataan was the USAFFE field artillery. Here Philippine Army trainees work with a 155mm gun, also of WWI vintage, in Pampanga. They are in khaki shorts and short sleeved shirts, with coconut fibre (guinit) helmets.

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<br>Officers and men of the 71st Division, Philippine Army, wait on the dock in Negros as they prepare to board a ship to Luzon. They would see much fighting on Bataan. These are reservists, called to active duty. The men are dressed in the work uniform, blue maong, while the officers are in khaki. For many it was their first trip away from home. Many would not return.

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<br>Men of the Philippine Constabulary take the oath of allegiance ot the US as they are inducted into the US Army Forces in the Far East, late 1941 most probably in Camp Crame. They would become members of the 2nd Regular Division, Philippine Army

What Unknown Soldier Left Behind

Nanay, I call her.<br> She tells me of a man I never knew<br> but whose blood courses through my veins.<br> Slipping in and out of slivers of lucidity,<br> much like piercing light forcing open nonagenarian eyes<br> giving in to midday slumber —<br> blinking, as if to undo that growing globe of grey<br> that peals she has seen it all.<br>

Only rich hacienderos married her, she jests.<br> Only one of them I call Tatay.<br> Yet she utters a name nowhere to be found near mine —<br> a name that belongs to a man I never knew.<br> But his blood courses through my veins<br> as my chest rises, falls with every breath — <br> Perhaps as his once did<br> when he found out,<br> when he was certain<br> that he would not make it<br> past Bataan.<br>

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Epitaph for Unclaimed Bodies

<br> To measure loss<br> where words fail,<br> to aim for inaccuracy<br> looking for the<br> hard hurt of pain.<br> We’re still learning this<br> theory of impossibility.<br><br>

The mother who loses<br> her child to the war<br> will go on an endless search<br> to name her grief.<br> Where she goes there<br> will be no paradise.<br> She will do this<br> until she keels over.<br><br>

A thousand miles away,<br> in a country I once knew,<br> a tank blasts a whole village<br> leaving only scraps of paper<br> and broken-up dreams.<br><br>

Listen, we brought<br> this silence with us<br> we who walk<br> among the dead<br> whose only reprieve<br> an inheritance of sleep.<br><br>

O, child of night<br> who passes for air<br> who glides from room<br> to room unencumbered<br> by heft of shadows<br> who must walk back<br> blindfolded and without feet,<br> help us see death<br> for what it really is:<br><br>

the end of language,<br> the end of frustration.<br>

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A society that muzzles its journalists is damned to suffer atrocities worse than povery. That sounds like gloom and doom but history has shown this truth. Once the silence sets, the public will lose sight of what they wanted: Change or a semblance of it. <br> <br> After all, no one asked for bigoted strongmen to step in to save the day.

<br> [paraphrased from an informal interview] <br> <br> This line brings back one of the saddest moments in my life. <br> <br> Every afternoon, my mother and my uncles would gather on the ground floor of our house in Matimyas street. That floor was only used for storage and served as a hideout in case of air raids. We would tune in to the radio, looking forward to hearing Norman Reyes, whom I idolized for his deep voice. <br> <br> That broadcast from Bataan was a source of hope; it lifted the spirits of the soldiers who were in battle. We would listen in anticipation every day: Are they coming back for us? Will we be saved from the Japanese? <br> <br> That afternoon, we heard the first words: <br>“Bataan has fallen.” <br> <br> We could hear sobs from the background of the radio broadcast. Everyone in the room started crying too.

<br> Flash Fiction<br> <br> These color-coded Disunited States<br> are my flash fiction.<br> Everybody’s welcome here, the breach<br> in the borders is undetected,<br> you can come and go as you please,<br> leave your memory and not<br> feel the cold. We are exiles<br> in the kingdom of the lost and found.<br> But the false doors do not open.<br> The trees are made of polyurethane.<br> My voice is not the same.<br> I am blacker than I’ve ever been.<br> I am writing this story as I go along.<br> America is not a noun,<br> a verb, an adjective. It is empty<br> until you fill it. With yourself. With others.<br> With indignation. With mettle.<br> You have to believe in it to live in it.<br> It’s suspended disbelief,<br> your personal hooker or angel<br> of redemption, part longing<br> and part myth.<br> I believe in the hype, I am good,<br> and good at forgetting.<br> What so proudly we hail<br> is this elusive beauty,<br> this twilight still somehow gleaming.<br> America is a state of mind.<br> I live in it sometimes, nowhere near<br> the America that I’ve seen.<br> <br> <br>

It shows the irony of the final lines. America is still trying to create its own vision of the ideal future, but it will have to reckon with its own problems of inequality, racism, and injustice.

What Unknown Soldier Left Behind

Nanay, I call her. She tells me of a man I never knew but whose blood courses through my veins. Slipping in and out of slivers of lucidity, much like piercing light forcing open nonagenarian eyes giving in to midday slumber — blinking, as if to undo that growing globe of grey that peals she has seen it all.

Only rich hacienderos married her, she jests. Only one of them I call Tatay. Yet she utters a name nowhere to be found near mine — a name that belongs to a man I never knew. But his blood courses through my veins as my chest rises, falls with every breath — Perhaps as his once did when he found out, when he was certain that he would not make it past Bataan.