Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Hostilities broke out in the Philippines within minutes of the attack on
Pearl Harbor
in December 1941, as waves of Japanese bombers targeted military bases in Cavite and
at Clark. MacArthur appealed for help from Washington, but it never came. He
declared Manila an open city to save its population and prepared for a tactical retreat to
Corregidor, the island citadel at the mouth of Manila Bay, from where he would
supervise the defence of the strategic Bataan peninsula. Quezon, now increasingly frail
from tuberculosis, went with him.
The Philippines, especially Manila, underwent heavy
bombardment
during World
War II and casualties were high. Japanese troops landed on Luzon and occupied Manila
on January 2, 1942. MacArthur and Quezon abandoned Corregidor when it became
clear the situation was hopeless, but after arriving in Darwin, Australia, MacArthur
promised Filipinos, “I have come through and I shall return.”
When he fled, MacArthur left behind soldiers engaged in a protracted and bloody
struggle for
Bataan
. When the peninsula inevitably fell to Japanese forces, Corregidor
was next. The Japanese launched an all-out assault on May 5, 1942, and the island,
defended by starving and demoralized troops huddled in damp tunnels, capitulated
within days. During the notorious Bataan Death March that followed, as many as ten
thousand Americans and Filipinos died from disease, malnutrition and wanton
brutality. The exact figure is unknown even today.
Two years of
Japanese military rule
followed. Frustrated in their efforts to quell
popular opposition and a nascent guerrilla movement, the Japanese turned increasingly
to brutality, beheading innocent victims and displaying their bodies as an example. The
guerrillas multiplied, however, until their various movements comprised two hundred
thousand men. The strongest force was the People's Anti-Japanese Army, in Tagalog the
Hukbalahap or the
Huks
for short, most of them poor sharecroppers and farm workers
looking for any opportunity to improve their abysmal lot. MacArthur, meanwhile, kept
his promise to return. On October 19, 1944, with Quezon at his side, he waded ashore
at Leyte, forcing a showdown with the Japanese and driving across the island to the
port of Ormoc. The Huks later helped the US liberate Luzon, acting as guides in the
push towards Manila and freeing Americans from Japanese prison camps. No guerrilla
exploited his wartime adventures more than an ambitious young lawyer from Ilocos
who now had his sights set on entering the political arena in Manila:
Ferdinand Marcos
.
The Marcos years
The Philippines received full
independence
from the US on July 4, 1946, when
Manuel Roxas, an experienced politician from Panay, was sworn in as the first President
of the Republic. His government marred by corruption and conflict with the now
outlawed Huks, Roxas died of a heart attack in 1948 and was replaced by his Ilocano
vice-president Elpidio Quirino. The 1950s were something of a golden age for the
Philippines, with the presidency of Ramón Magsaysay (1953-57) considered a high
point: politics was largely corruption-free, trade and industry boomed and the country
was ranked Asia's second cleanest and best governed after Japan. In the early 1960s,
however, the Liberal government of Diosdado Macapagal was crippled by Nacionalista
Party opposition in Congress. It was in these years that
Ferdinand Marcos
came to
power, promoting himself as a force for unification and reform.
1899
1899-1902
1935
Philippine Republic proclaimed
with Emilio Aguinaldo
president, but Spain cedes the
Philippines to the US
Philippine-American War;
US introduces “benevolent
assimilation”
The Commonwealth of the
Philippines is established: Manuel
Quezon is the first president
