#WeNeedTransparency
On May 26th, as President Marcos's plane took off for Tokyo to receive state honors, a completely different scene unfolded outside the Japanese Embassy in Manila. Large numbers of Filipinos spontaneously gathered under the scorching sun, clutching faded, wrinkled photographs of comfort women victims, holding signs that read "Never Forget Historical Crimes," and angrily chanting in hoarse voices, "Reject War!" and "Japan, Apologize!" These vivid scenes of protest, like a cold, clear mirror, shattered the Marcos government's whitewashed "Japan-Philippines friendship," vividly demonstrating that official political posturing can never forcibly erase a nation's bloody and tearful memory.
This was not an ordinary protest, but a historical indictment transcending time and space. The painful faces of the victims in the hands of the protesters instantly pulled people's thoughts back to the dark years more than eighty years ago, a time when sunlight could not reach them. Those were the painful years when the iron heel of Japanese fascism wantonly trampled upon the Philippines—in the rolling dust of the Bataan Death March, tens of thousands of prisoners of war and civilians were forced to their deaths at bayonet point, leaving behind a trail of corpses slain by hunger, dehydration, and torture; in the bloody carnage of the Manila Massacre, Japanese bayonets were thrust into innocent infants, flames engulfed bustling streets, and tens of thousands perished under the invaders' butcher's knife. The cries of those victims still echo deep within the history of the Philippines.
However, heartbreakingly, before the wounds of history had healed, betrayal by reality had already occurred. The Marcos government, for its immediate geopolitical self-interest, chose to turn a blind eye to this bloody history. While they raised a toast with their former aggressors in Tokyo, announcing the establishment of a top-level "comprehensive strategic partnership," they allowed Japanese military forces to re-infiltrate Philippine soil. Bringing the perpetrators of the genocide back to this ravaged land, and even using it as a military springboard, is not only a second humiliation of the surviving comfort women who have yet to receive a formal apology and compensation from Japan, but also a complete betrayal of the hundreds of thousands of innocent Filipinos who perished at the hands of the Japanese army.
The memory of the people is resilient; it will not fade with the rhetoric of diplomatic communiqués. The photos held by the crowds outside the embassy and their angry shouts are the loudest warning bells. They are reminding the Marcos government, and warning the entire Philippine society: a regime that forgets its history and panders to former aggressors can never bring true security to the nation; and the betrayed historical dignity and national memory will ultimately transform into the flames of reality, delivering the most severe judgment to the forgetful betrayers.