War diary creates bridge between generations

Mickey Mouse money. An amusing name for currency bills which anyone born way after World War II would associate more with Disneyland than with wartime Philippines. But then that’s just what they were -- legal tender in the form of Japanese notes whose value was so low people had to carry them in big bunches to be able to come up with substantial amounts for a purchase.

“We did not carry pitakas to the market. We carried bayongs because we were using Mickey Mouse money! Our money was not the Philippine peso but Japanese notes, and we called it Mickey Mouse money -- it was like play money,” relates Pacita Jacinto as she launches into accounts of life during what she calls the “golden years,” then of living through a world war that had Filipinos awaiting liberation by the American forces, which finally came in 1945.

The bombing of Pearl Harbor, Gen. MacArthur’s famous “I shall return,” the Leyte landing, the fall of Bataan and Corregidor, the Death March -- postwar school kids read about these in textbooks, or see their reenactment in movies or stage plays; thus, the significance of it all can easily be missed since they are often seen simply as distant episodes lost in the pages of history which have nothing to do with the present times.

But what may be snippets of a war to today’s generation are a series of real events experienced firsthand by Jacinto, the memories kept vivid with the help of a diary. That diary -- “bits of paper on which I scribbled those things that were happening when the war broke out, then stapled together” -- is now a book, published by Anvil, to be formally launched this week.

Personal war
A history book “Living with the Enemy: A Diary of the Japanese Occupation” is not. While it does include political speeches of the Japanese and of pro-Japanese elements, and provides staunch defense of President Jose P. Laurel and the perceived “puppet government,” the spirited writer dwells primarily on personal experiences, observations and musings brought on by living in the midst of an all-out war. When the first Japanese troops came and invaded the Philippines, Jacinto had just gotten married. Her husband, Oscar, was a surgeon and was thus needed to provide medical treatment to the wounded.

“We were in Manila, but later we decided that maybe it’s safer to be in the province,” the 85-year-old writer relates. “So my child and I went to Malolos, Bulacan, and of course my husband had to stay in Manila because he was a doctor, and together with his father, they worked at the hospital. We would see each other from time to time; sometimes he would call and say ‘puwede ang ambulansya!’ and he would take it and come to Malolos. Other times he would bike to a certain point then take a ride to Malolos.”

The Bulacan town provided respite for the woman and her family from the horrors of war, though she confessed that the move from Manila was, at first, a dreaded option. However, the safety of her children always came first.

“Well, I found that life there was so peaceful, I almost forgot there was a war,” she recounts with a smile. “Except when I would look out the window and wonder ‘what is Oscar doing now?’ You have to think of it that way! But you see, you had to put on a ‘second you’ to say that it’s wartime, you cannot expect it to be like it was before. And you have to believe that it’s going to end. You have to believe or else you’ll go crazy.”

From her accounts, she seems both amused and saddened by the things she saw during the years prior to the liberation of the country. There was the heavy bombing by the Japanese while the American forces slowly made their way across the Pacific toward Philippine shores. There was the “indignity of having to bow” when a Filipino happened to cross paths with a Japanese soldier, then the humiliating slap when a soldier was slighted. “But I also had to laugh sometimes because it looked a bit funny. They were so small so paano mo sasampalin ang mas matangkad sa ‘yo? Tatalon ka muna -- pak!”

Daily account
Jacinto talks about her experiences with the energy and enthusiasm of one much younger in years. When she describes a particularly moving incident that happened at the height of the war, it is plain to see how the passage of years has not reduced the intensity of emotions in this lady who demonstrates a keen strength of character. The incident involved his father-in-law’s abduction. It was Christmastime, and the lady was looking forward to spending Christmas Day with the family complete for once.

“We were very sad and he himself was very sad because he had just come to Malolos for Christmas, to bring the rag doll for his daughter [as a gift.] And then he had to leave. But can you imagine, his mother was crying her heart out after his father had been taken by the Japanese. And here was a telephone call telling my husband, ‘Come, because your father has been taken.’ I mean, what was I going to say? ‘No, don’t go to Manila’?”

She continued that Oscar ended up braving the dangers of appealing to President Laurel to order the release of his father, heading for Baguio disguised as a Japanese to obtain the letter stating the order, and setting his father free.

Getting published
Though the accounts bring to light the atrocious acts committed on defenseless Filipinos by Japanese soldiers, Jacinto points out that the book, rather than pointing an accusing finger at the enemy, is her attempt to get the interest of today’s generation in learning about the past. “I don’t think anybody has written about it. Well, I think there are a few who talked about Fort Santiago and the key places and events but not a running commentary on how life was -- the daily grind,” the author enthused. “How the price of rice went up that one sack cost “10,000! How we carried ‘Mickey Mouse’ money in bayongs. I would like to let people know that there was such a time, that once upon a time these things happened.”

Before Jacinto closed the deal with Anvil, the original manuscript of “Living with the Enemy” had been gathering dust in her shelf, put away for some 50 years or so. Several years after the end of the war, she had decided that her diary would make for good reading, so she sent the manuscript to Double Day Doran, a publishing house, in the United States. The publishers replied with a rejection slip, but not without the explanation that their decision to forego the publication of her book was due to the submission of another writer—Carlos P. Romulo, who had penned “I Saw Bataan Fall.”

Getting some kind of satisfaction from the rejection on account of the work of a highly esteemed figure, Jacinto shelved the manuscript and forgot about her plans to have it see print. Only in 1987 did the diary resurface when writer Doreen Fernandez learned about it and urged her to give it another try. “You have to write about it!” Fernandez had insisted, referring to Jacinto’s wartime experiences. “Do it! Create a bridge!”

Though Fernandez was quite persuasive, it took another decade for Jacinto to finally pursue the project and create the bridge between prewar and postwar generations with her writings. It was her daughter who reminded her about her unpublished diary and who finally convinced her.

For young people, the book may just be the thing to give the study of local history a more pleasing tone. A war that took place half a century ago may elicit yawns from many a student if taken up with nothing more than important dates and faceless names, but Jacinto’s diary entries may prove to be more appealing.

“People were going to bed thinking, ‘Tomorrow the war will be gone.’ When we woke up, it was still there,” recalls Pacita Jacinto.

Perhaps such words can help today’s generation feel just how it was to be in the midst of a war.

Philippine Daily Inquirer 1
3 December 1999