The man’s hatred was turned into action. Every day he fought back. He refused to surrender and did what he could. Early on he found someone with a transmitter, and at night around midnight he’d join him with others who were anxious to hear anything from the outside world. He listened with a certain coolness until one night he heard “This broadcast is coming to you from the studios of station KGUI, San Francisco, California, the United States of America. We’re broadcasting from the Fairmont Hotel, overlooking the Golden Gate Bridge. MABUHAY! MABUHAY! MABUHAY! We are calling a radio station from somewhere in the Dutch East Indies. Now for the world news xxx.” When he heard “MABUHAY! MABUHAY! MABUHAY!” his emotions soared, and he felt what he could only describe as ecstasy. The magical word was “MABUHAY!” With his reason for resisting thus confirmed, he was stunned with joy. (Thus was established the first radio contact after the Fall between GHQ in Australia and the Resistance in the Philippines.) They’d listen each night at the same time around midnight, and over time they received many other messages. There was no television then, so they couldn’t read anyone’s faces, but they heard the world news and through back channels urged MacArthur to not forget them.
The young man never forgot to thank the Black Nazarene for this. He always felt that Jesus Christ was always nearby and that was because the Black Nazarene was something tangible that he could go and touch. This recollection soothed him, when otherwise he might’ve been spooked. Only he feared that his own timidity might someday give him away and discovered that some accommodation suited him better than total resistance. But to not stand up against the forces of evil, to not be a man, to be the projection of someone else, what a humiliation! All people are sometimes filled with self-doubt (they are permitted that), but it’s a problem when it leads to inaction. It was natural then that the young man should fear a future that was filled with so much uncertainty.
The end of his malaise was sudden, though it was something small that made the difference. First (after a long period of self-doubt) there was a rumor that some Filipinos were “eating apples” again; then he traveled all way to Panay to see for himself (before then the thought of guerrillas killing guerrillas added to his uneasiness); finally there surprisingly arrived brand new U.S. carbines and Thompson sub-machine guns. For what was happening was definitely a beginning. Thus began the first in a series of trips by submarines to occupied Philippines. But before he could feel reassured though the young man had to have something inconspicuous that he could hold. For a while, he thought of surrendering, but by then he knew it would mean his death and the end to what he started. One day he walked into a sari-sari store not expecting to find much. But to his surprise he was handed a chocolate bar packaged in a “I Shall Return-MacArthur” wrapper. Then he understood why he had to continue.
The continuing resistance (which became known as the Allied Intelligence Bureau) was composed of an indefinite (and perhaps more than we think) number of people. For all of those we know about, there were many unsung heroes. The underground prior to the war’s end extended throughout the islands, and most of the towns and the cities from Mindanao to many places in Luzon were already liberated by the time the U.S. Amy arrived. Perhaps more than one of the guerrillas envisioned himself becoming president at the end of the war, but only one talked about it almost every night, and that was Marcos. With Marcos at the time was Lieutenant Primitivo San Agustin, who had been a Junior Aide to President Quezon. The president had also been San Agustin’s godfather and a friend of his family. Therefore San Agustin was able wrangle the assistance that they badly need…the carbines, Thompson sub-machine guns, radio TR sets, jungle suits, jungle boots, ammo, chocolate bars (packaged in “I Shall Return-MacArthur” wrappers), copies of Life magazine, the Readers Digest, and first-aid kits. Also it should be noted that their journey to pick up the supplies took them nine months, but it certainly laid the foundation for the Luzon section of the network. One thing led to another, and it can easily be inferred that this was one of reasons why Marcos was able to lead the first group to take charge of Northern Luzon, landing in Sorsogon (let’s not forget Raval, who certainly helped Marcos). People usually inferred from these activities that (if they were true) Marcos was indeed a hero. But hope was provided by many other patriotic citizens who didn’t get the credit that Marcos bestowed on himself. There were those who took to hills and those who didn’t, and because they had no “contact” with the “outside” or with each other, knowledge of what they did was insufficient to turn them into “heroes.”
Randy Ford
