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Thursday, October 09, 2003
Eguchi: Onoda, a war criminal not a hero
By Hiroyuki Eguchi
Unvisited Viewpoint
His memoir, "Tatta Hitorino Sanjunen Senso," that can be roughly translated as "30-year war just by myself," apparently sold 600,000 copies. I read this book. I felt sorrow and then nausea. I thought I cannot forgive this man's arrogance and boosted egoism as a fellow Japanese.
NOW I must refer to a taboo. The event is the basis for the Japanese perception of the Philippines. I would like to point out that today's distorted relationship between the two countries stems from not properly dealing with the problem or not being able to do so.
In March 1974, a Japanese officer surrendered to the Philippine Army on Lubang Island. His name is Hiroo Onoda, a lieutenant in the now-defunct Japanese Imperial Army, who graduated from the Army's Nakano School for training spies and conspiracy specialists. He did not know Japan had lost the war and hid in the jungle for 30 years, apparently preparing for guerrilla warfare. People were appalled with his cast-iron willpower, or rather militarism. How he came to surrender was widely reported.
What interested me most was how this man spent his 30 years on Lubang Island, his subsequent involvement with the people on the island and other Filipinos outside it and his feelings toward them. His memoir, "Tatta Hitorino Sanjunen Senso," that can be roughly translated as "30-year war just by myself," apparently sold 600,000 copies.
I read this book. I felt sorrow and then nausea. I thought I cannot forgive this man's arrogance and boosted egoism as a fellow Japanese. In the memoir, Onoda brags about how bravely he as a member of the Japanese Imperial Army fought against the US and Philippine forces. He broke into houses of poor villagers to live.
He called his loot "commandeered goods," a military term. He was a serial thief. In this book, he says he seized cattle raised by a villager and made beefsteaks. He also says unapologetically that he broke into a shack belonging to a young couple, threatened them and took sugar and matches from the frightened couple. This is an act of robbery! Onoda even apparently killed a villager. He justified himself by saying he had no choice as he believed the war was still on. He had been with two soldiers, who supposedly were killed in combat as the Philippine forces called for surrender.
Japanese search parties were repeatedly sent to the island. The book says he read letters from his family in Japan and Japanese newspapers brought by the parties but kept ignoring them believing they were a part of the enemy's scheme. This is the result of his blind stubbornness, which evidently shows how abnormal his sensitivity as a human was. Onoda as a commander let the two soldiers die in vain in a meaningless shootout with Philippine soldiers, who were trying to determine their whereabouts.
He, the sole survivor of the fight, became a hero.
When he surrendered, then President Marcos praised Onoda as a model serviceman and pardoned him for his crimes. The president even ceremoniously received a saber from Onoda at the Malacaņang Palace as a symbol of his surrender. What was the theatrical move all about? I suppose President Marcos' intention was to curry favor with Japan, his fund supplier. Everyone concerned had their own ulterior motives, I presume, to herald Onoda as a hero. Still, the question is how could a war criminal who killed people become a hero?
What I would like to denounce most is the fact that Onoda not once apologizes in his book to the Philippine people, especially those in Lubang Island. He did not thank the people who had forgiven him, either. I have read it over and over again but cannot find a passage that mentions apologies or gratitude.
Asked whether he wanted to visit the island again, Onoda adamantly said no. He wrote: "I never want to go there again." The media back then failed to see his arrogance and narrow-mindedness and consciously or unconsciously ignored how the voiceless Philippine people would feel.
Hiroo Onoda is not a hero. He is a war criminal, killer and thief. After WWII, numerous Japanese officers, including Masaharu Honma and Tomoyuki Yamashita, were executed as war criminals. Many Japanese servicemen were detained, served time in Muntinglupa or were executed as war criminals.
Some of them could have been falsely accused or might have committed crimes far lighter than those of Onoda. Still, grievously, those people were executed. In contrast, Onoda became the sole hero among those who fought in the Philippines simply because he successfully hid there for 30 years.
Onoda reportedly became a successful businessman. But I have not heard any stories of him sending any gifts to children on Lubang Island, not even a single pencil.
The mindset of Onoda is related to what lies deep in the heart of numerous ugly Japanese people today, who are criminals or potential criminals dwelling in Manila and other locations in the Philippines or who are brazen enough to join sex tours and take advantage of underprivileged Filipinas.
One of the reasons unwanted Japanese swarm the Philippines is that a tourist visa allowing a 59-day stay is automatically issued to almost all Japanese nationals at the airport. Unless they are on a blacklist, Japanese can enter the Philippines virtually without a visa. On the contrary, Filipinos cannot enter Japan without acquiring a visa in advance. Also, the screening is severe. Why hasn't this one-sidedness become an issue? It is a matter of national dignity. I hope it's not that the Philippines doesn't mind whether these people are unwanted or ugly Japanese as long as they drop money and hence are accepted as fund suppliers. Why doesn't Manila take steps against them, instead of just letting ugly Japanese men do whatever they want to do? No wonder the human exchanges between Japanese and Filipinos became distorted and twisted.
(October 9, 2003 issue)
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