Meet Marianneth Amper, the “Anne Frank” of the Philippines, a 12-yr-old girl who has lost hope & committed suicide on Nov. 02, 2007.
Days after Mariannet’s suicide, police investigators recovered under her pillow a diary and a letter addressed to a public service television programme asking for a new pair of shoes and school bag, and steady jobs for her mother and father.
In the last two entries in her diary about two weeks before she took her life, Mariannet lamented that she and her brother had been absent from school and they could not go to church because they had no money for fare and their father was suffering from a fever.
‘It seemed as if we were absent from school for a month now,’ she wrote in her diary. ‘We don’t count our absences anymore. I hardly noticed that Christmas is fast approaching.’
The Amper family is just one of millions of impoverished households in the Philippines still waiting to feel the benefits of an appreciating peso against the US dollar, the fastest economic growth in 20 years and increasing foreign investments. (Sept. 11, 2022 – In Sept. 2006, the Philippine peso was valued at least P56 to $1. After Typhoon Milenyo that devastated the Southern Tagalog region including the Metro Manila area, the oligarchs decided to artificially strengthen the Philippine Peso to P43 to $1 a rate that remained until January 2016 when the rate was fixed at P48 to $1.)
See:
According to United Nations data, more than 50 per cent of the Philippines’ 88 million people live on less than 2 dollars a day. A nationwide survey conducted by a local polling firm in September also showed that 21.5 per cent of Filipino families suffer involuntary hunger, up from from 19 per cent in November 2006.
Today, Oct. 20, 2012, is the 68th anniversary of Gen. Douglas MacArthur’s Leyte landing signalling the start of his Philippine campaign, one of MacArthur’s costliest campaigns during World War II. Wikipedia gives a total of 62,514 US Army & Air Forces killed and wounded. This does not include US Navy casualties from the Battle of the Philippine Sea and the Battle Off Leyte Gulf, naval battles attendant to the liberation of the Philippines.
U.S. Army and Army Air Forces
Location Killed Wounded Total
Leyte 3,593 11,991 15,584
Luzon 8,310 29,560 37,870
Central &
Southern Philippines 2,070 6,990 9,060
Total 13,973 48,541 62,514
We all know about the June 6, 1944 Normandy landing. Stories and documentaries have been made about the D-Day in Normandy with movies shown a thousand times.
But what about the Americans who fought and died in the Philippines? What is really amazing is the fact that no celebration or commemoration has ever been held in honor of the Oct. 20 Leyte landing, the liberation of Manila or the end of WWII (VJ day). Filipinos are not ungrateful but no one has taken the initiative to look into why post WWII Philippine governments, the present included, do not express their gratitude and thanks of the people for the enormous sacrifices made by American soldiers, sailors and airmen.
It’s Oct. 20, 2012 the 68th anniversary of Gen. MacAthur’s Leyte landing.
But the Philippines has never really celebrated or shown appreciation of the enormous sacrifices American soldiers, sailors and airmen did to liberate the Philippines.
Why is that? Because the traitors and quislings who worked for the fascist-imperialist Japanese military like Manuel A. Roxas grandfather of Mar Roxas II ended up in power after WWII and to this day the children and grandchildren of oligarchs, traitors and quislings are in power. Forbes’ 40 richest Filipinos on the average are richer than the British Royal Family!
Perhaps setting the traitors and collaborators free would be fine. But putting them back in power? That’s an insult to those who fought, walked the “Death March” and died defending and liberating the Philippines.
Manuel Roxas, Sr. was related to Ayala, Zobel, Soriano, Elizalde, Araneta all of whom are from Panay Island, represented the group of ethnic Spanish oligarchs that would later include Aboitiz and Villar, among others. It should be noted that after WWII, being from Panay Island or connected to the ethnic Spaniard group of oligarchs from Central Philippines was the number requirement for success in the Philippines.
Roxas would later appoint Lorenzo Tanada chief prosecutor who was ordered to exclude Roxas from the list of suspected collaborators. On Jan. 28, 1948, Roxas signed Proclamation 51 granting full amnesty to all collaborators. It did not include Manuel A. Roxas who died an uncharged suspected collaborator and president of the Philippines on April 15, 1948.
MacArthur openly supported a known collaborator in Manuel Roxas who was named Senate president and chairman of the powerful appointments committee. Perhaps MacArthur was hoping Roxas, out of gratitude from ordering his release from prison where some 5,000 Japanese collaborators were held, would appoint him the post-war administrator of the Philippines. Instead Roxas made Gen. Douglas MacArthur an honorary citizen of the Philippines. Calling MacArthur “the greatest soldier of all time”, Roxas ordered that MacArthur’s name be placed among the roster of the Philippine Army “in perpetuity.”
When MacArthur visited the legislature to accept Roxas’ token of gratitude for putting him back in power, he said: “Selfish ambition, unnecessary misunderstanding and petty jealousy must not be permitted to impede the progress and rend your nation.”
MacArthur ordered Manuel Roxas a known Japanese collaborator, probably thinking Roxas would make him the administrator of post WWII Philippines. MacArthur grossly underestimated how greedy and ambitious Roxas and the oligarchs were.
Manuel Roxas claimed was related to Ayala, Zobel, Soriano, Elizalde, Araneta all of whom are from Panay Island, represented the group of ethnic Spanish oligarchs that would later include Aboitiz and Villar, among others. It should be noted that after WWII, being from Panay Island or connected to the ethnic Spaniard group of oligarchs from Central Philippines was the number requirement for success in the Philippines. Even Cardinal Sin, the most powerful Cardinal ever came from Panay Island. The other group of oligarchs are the ethnic Chinese most if not all came from the same village Danding Cojuangco and Cory Cojuangco-Aquino’s grandfather came from.
A damning WWII photo of Manuel A. Roxas who became president of the 1946 post-WWII Philippine Republic. Nothing short of an independent and sovereign Philippines will keep out of prison.
“Bienvenido Macario writes: On 3 December, Istvan Simon reminded us of the Santayana maxim: “those who forget the past, are condemned to relive it.”
We’ve been talking about Europe, but what about the Philippines? What happened in that nation is nothing short of bizarre. Manila was the most devastated allied city of WWII next to Warsaw. The Battle for Manila in February and March 1945 was described as “Nanking all over again,” with civilian deaths of over 100,000. It was ironic that the oligarch-traitors like Manuel Roxas and Benigno Aquino Sr. were safe with Gen. Yamashita in Baguio while Manila was agonizing.
From 1946 to 1950 the US gave over $2 billion in aid to the Philippines under Roxas and Quirino to rebuild the country. But President Truman’s fact-finding mission (Bell Commission) reported that the money is gone. And obviously it went to landowners and unscrupulous businessmen oligarchs who are now richer than ever while the majority of the people’s standard of living has not risen to anywhere near the pre-war levels.
Fast forward to October 2011: Despite 67 years of mismanaged economy, the Word Bank provided $3.7 billion funding to the illegitimate oligarch-supported government of Aquino III, the grandson of an oligarch-traitor. The purpose of the loan was for disaster preparedness; search, rescue & relief programs, none of which was there when Typhoon Haiyan came on Nov. 8, 2013. What is wrong with Washington DC?
Who would imagine with all the death and destruction brought by the war (WWII) and a decimated agricultural sector, the oligarch-traitors would take advantage of the situation and enrich themselves instead?
Regarding the WAIS topic “Collective Guilt and Making Amends,” here are my recommendations:
– Manuel Roxas Sr. and all those who were granted amnesty by Roxas should be posthumously tried for treason.
– Now Cory Aquino & her son Aquino III should be tried for treason, posthumously or otherwise, and other members of her cabinet possibly including Fidel V. Ramos, Juan Ponce Enrile, should be investigated for possible involvement as accessories or witnesses.
– Their children and grandchildren (Aquino III, Roxas II, Raffy Recto, Ayala, Zobel, Soriano, Lopez, Osmena III, Benigno Ramos etc) must be removed from positions of power and authority. Their properties confiscated.
– All Filipinos who are residents of an industrialized G-7 type country will be given Temporary Protected Status.
– For them to earn back their citizenship, they must take and pass a Philippine History re-education course.
In the meantime all international organizations like the World Bank, IMF, ADB and the UN must be required to submit an accounting of all the funds loaned or given to the Philippines.
An investigation of past and present employees of the World Bank, IMF, UN and members of the US Congress Committee on Foreign Relations must be started.
I believe we could all agree that after WWII everyone in the Philippines was poor. So how did the so-called “old money” of today that are in Forbes list of 50 Richest Filipinos became rich? By 2012 they are richer than the British monarchy. Did they steal U.S. taxpayers money intended for the reconstruction of the Philippines after WWII?
Roxas and other oligarch-traitors were in Yamashita’s safe keeping in Baguio while the Battle for Manila raged. Later, in another twist of irony, to divert the people’s attention from Roxas’s power grab, Gen. Yamashita was charged, tried and executed for war crimes he never committed. Roxas never lifted a finger, and he was in fact with his protector Yamashita in Baguio while the Japanese-Korean marines were pillaging and burning Manila. I was wondering that if Yamashita knew he would be charged and executed as a war criminal for Roxas’s ambitions, would he have asked Roxas to commit seppuku as the war was ending?”
From: Collective Guilt and Atonement: Manila (Bienvenido Macario, USA) Thu, Dec 6, 2012 at 6:52 AM
Oct. 20, 2012 – If one is to look at Ayala Ave. Makati Ave. and Buendia (Now G. Puyat Ave.) in Makati, Philippines, it forms a triangle, typical of an airfield. In fact it was the old Nielsen Airfield.
Joseph R. McMicking was the “guiding light in the development of Makati” yet roads, bridges, towns and airports are named after quislings, traitors, oligarchs and their children, not one street or building was named after McMicking in Makati or Metro Manila!
MacArthur the great liberator of the Philippines was a wee bit luckier with MacArthur highway and MacArthur bridge. And let us not forget Roxas’ presidential decree that MacArthur’s name “will forever be on Philippine army rosters.” Wow! That’s it?
Excerpt from a WAIS post:
“In response to Miles’s post of 29 September, I am interested to know more why MacArthur was very much disliked by his troops, because in the Philippines he is worshiped, especially by the oligarchs who continue to enjoy their ill-gotten wealth.
The oligarchs and politicians served the Japanese as soon as Japan took over, something MacArthur ignored when he ordered them released from jail and put back in power. Perhaps MacArthur assumed Roxas and the treacherous collaborating quislings would return the favor by asking him to be the Special Assistant to the president. He seriously underestimated how ambitious Filipino politicians and oligarchs are. At any rate, Manuel Roxas died of a heart attack while having lunch at the Clark Airbase some two and a half months after signing Proclamation No. 51, s. 1948 granting amnesty to collaborators:
Since Manuel Roxas was not included in the list of suspected collaborators, he could not be included in the amnesty. Therefore he died as an uncharged, suspected collaborator and as the Philippines’ president (OIP– Only in the Philippines).
My question concerns Article II of the Japanese constitution, the renunciation of war and the present tension between China and Japan. What was MacArthur’s influence on the Japanese renunciation of war? Does the Japanese constitution or the terms of surrender ending World War II on Sept. 1945 prevent Japan from coming to the aid of the Philippines against Chinese aggression in the Spratlys, another oil, gas and mineral-rich group of islands?
Or because of the way Japan’s constitution was drafted after WWII, the US is the only world power who should intervene in Southeast Asia?
