Freedom March reenacted in Bataan
THE re-enactment of the Freedom March or Death March in Bataan was concluded over the weekend with a cultural presentation depicting Filipino and American soldiers being herded into the internment camp by their Japanese captors.
Mike Villa-Real, vice president for marketing and communications of Philippine Veterans Bank (PVB), announced Friday the start of the re-enactment of the fateful march the previous day. He was attending a forum as a guest of the Capampangan in Media Inc. (CAMI) at the group’s headquarters at “Bale Balita” in Clark Freeport.
As it was in previous years, PVB, comprised mostly of veterans or descendants of veterans of World War II, was the principal sponsor.
Close to 300 Armed Forces of the Philippines reservists led the two-day commemoration march, with history buffs, adventurists, marathon runners, and members of various walking clubs making up the rest. They traced the 160-kilometer trail traveled by the sick and starving soldiers from April 4 to 17, 1942.
The reenactment was done earlier than the actual dates of the events and in less time.
According to Villa-Real, residents along the way offered food and drinks.
“That was what people did when the prisoners of war passed by more than eight decades ago, on the sly, of course, lest the Japanese guards suspect them of being members of the resistance movement and kill them,” Villa-Real, grandson of one of the survivors, said.
He pointed out that the Japanese Imperial Army overran French Indochina, Malaya, and Singapore in a day or two, but it took them a year to conquer the Philippines because of the stiff resistance offered by Filipino soldiers and guerrillas.
“I wish Filipinos take as much pride, as the Americans do, in remembering events that demonstrate their heroism and fortitude in the face of overwhelming odds,” Villa-Real said.
According to Villa-Real, he was invited some 20 years ago to join a re-enactment of the Bataan Death March in, of all places, New Mexico in the US.
“It still gave me goose bumps to see the few American survivors of the infamous death march, who came from all over the United States, being welcomed enthusiastically to the event by tens of thousands of people of all ages,” he recalled.
New Mexico was also the site of the first successful atomic bomb test. (CAMI)
