The impact of war has widely influenced Asia and I am struck by the remains of it, both physically and emotionally, at the places we have visited. As much as the South Koreans dislike the Chinese, our Filipino tour guide expressed an equally unmasked disdain for the Japanese. An hour’s ferry ride across from Manila, in Manila Bay, lies Corregidor Island which is important in Philippine history as a fortress of defense, a penal institution, and a customs station. In 1902, it was organized as an American military reservation and later used during WWII as Allied headquarters where it played an important role during the invasion and liberation of the Philippines from Japanese forces.

The US forces surrendered to the Japanese at the Malinta Tunnel on March 6, 1945 and General Douglas MacArthur escaped Corregidor by breaking through the Japanese blockade in a PT boat, prompting his famous speech of defiance that declared, “I came through and I shall return.” Today, the ruins left on the island serve as a military memorial to those who served and died on it.

There is also a sobering Pacific War Memorial and Museum which includes the Freedom Torch sculpture and a disk-shaped memorial that is strategically situated to be illuminated by the full eclipse of the moon’s rays through the circular opening in the dome above exactly every year on March 6. There is also a Japanese War Memorial overlooking the sea, which has met with some controversy among locals and tourists.

Returning to Manila at dusk, a big citywide festival was about to begin and the streets were filled with people, lights, parades, floats, and the bright, colorful and infamous “jeepneys”, those makeshift taxis ubiquitous to the Philippines that were originally configured from American vehicles left behind after the war. They remain as an unspoken testament to the resiliency of the friendly Filipino people.

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