The Manila and Balleza Clan Massacre During World War II

The most famous and documented massacre of Filipino civilians by the Japanese Imperial army during World War II was the bombing of Manila. My mother-in-law youngest sister, Blanca Decena Nieva who was an army nurse died during that time. The summary of this massacre as documented in Wikipedia is as follows:

The Manila massacre involved atrocities committed against Filipino civilians in the city of Manila, Philippines by Japanese troops during the World War II Battle of Manila (1945). The Manila massacre was one of several major war crimes committed by the Imperial Japanese Army, as judged by the postwar military tribunal. The Japanese commanding general, Tomoyuki Yamashita, and his chief of staff Akira Mutō, were held responsible for the massacre and other war crimes in a trial in late 1945 in Manila. Yamashita was executed on 23 February 1946 and Muto on 23 December 1948.

In the Battle of Manila from February to March 1945, the United States Army and the Philippine Commonwealth Army advanced into the city of Manila to drive out the Japanese. During lulls in the battle for control of the city, Japanese troops took out their anger and frustration on the civilians in the city. Violent mutilations, rapes, and massacres occurred in schools, hospitals and convents, including San Juan de Dios Hospital, Santa Rosa College, Santo Domingo Church, Manila Cathedral, Paco Church, St. Paul's Convent, and St. Vincent de Paul Church. Dr Antonio Gisbert told of the murder of his father and brother at the Palacio del Gobernador, saying, "I am one of those few survivors, not more than 50 in all out of more than 3000 men herded into Fort Santiago and, two days later, massacred. The Bayview Hotel was used as a designated "rape center".

According to testimony at the Yamashita war crimes trial, 400 women and girls were rounded up from Manila's wealthy Ermita district, and submitted to a selection board that picked out the 25 considered most beautiful. These women and girls, many of them 12 to 14 years old, were then taken to the hotel, where Japanese enlisted men and officers took turns raping them. One Japanese order read, "The Americans who have penetrated into Manila have about 1000 troops, and there are several thousand Filipino soldiers under the Commonwealth Army and the organized guerrillas.

The combined death toll of civilians for the battle of Manila was approximately 100,000, most of which was attributed to massacres by Japanese forces. Some historians, citing a higher civilian casualty rate for the entire battle, suggest that 100,000 up to more than 500,000 died as a result of the Manila massacre on its own, exclusive of other causes.

However, similar events in Panay Island is not well documented including the Balleza Clan massacre in my hometown Barotac Viejo, Iloilo. Philippines, with the exception of the Hopevale Martyrdom of American soldiers in Tapaz, Calinog, Panay Island.(www.us-japandialogueonpows.org/Ibuki%20Kumai.htm)

However, through oral communications, I have received the following FB communication regarding the Balleza clan killings. These were events that I heard from relatives when I was growing up in my hometown of Barotac Viejo in the 1940's. The Balleza family that were killed were closed relatives of my mother, Paz Balleza Katague. I remember very well Noel Balleza, Sr and his wife Nay Edna who was a paraplegic( wheel chair bound)were survivors of the massacre. The following is from the FB page of Freya Tupas Tamon-member of the Balleza clan from Barotac Viejo, Iloilo.

Me and My youngest sister(Amor Katague Gregorio) in front of Barotac Viejo National High School, pointing at the sign showing the Land Donation of my mother (Paz Balleza Katague) and my uncle Jose Balleza-members of the Balleza Clan. This is the school where I graduated valedictorian in 1951.

Freya Tupas-Tamon: "During World War II, Japanese Troops were searching for the well-known BALLEZA CLAN ! But before they reached the House. GOOD that maybe it was LOLO GENARO who let HIS SONS: Tay Noel, Tay Adan,& Tay Alec to FLEE AWAY (Hide in Forest) to SAVED their LIVES... GOD hath MIRACLES !!! Then, Nay Edna, wife of Tay NOEL was placed in the river for she was sickly, and water was her only Medicine. I won't also FORGET the story of Nay COLING (SOCORRO Balleza TUPAS BOQUIREN): It was in Bgry. Gen. Luna that the Japanese ordered them to make two lines: Balleza Family & Workers!! Some workers joined the Group of Balleza w/out knowing that Group of Workers were NOT MASSACRED !!! All the Balleza clan were killed".

The following is my FB communication with one of the grandson of the Genaro Balleza, whose father was saved because he fled from the hideouts of the Balleza clan who were rounded up by the Japanese soldiers.

"All I know from the story was that my father was not there when they were rounded up. He fled to Balaring. My mom was not there too for she could not walk. "Lupog sya". The one who led the Japs was their former servant. All in all there were 17 members of the family killed including servants. Dads two sisters were killed also (Concordia, and the other sister) and one of the husband and their child. I hope this will explain a bit more of that painful tragedy."

Another undocumented massacre by the Japanese of Filipino civilians closed to my heart was the killing of my aunt( youngest sister of My Dad) family in Negros Occidental. I just heard this from another aunt ( first cousin of my Dad) just last year. I have no details of the event.

If you are reading this and have details on the Balleza clan killings please let me know. I really would like to know the exact date of the massacre and how many were killed and who survived to tell the story.

Book Review: The Box of Noli's Bones by Felix Llamido, M.D.

I received a complimentary and autographed copy of Dr. Llamido's book(photo above) last week. It is a story of the Japanese-American War in the Philippines that happened during his childhood. The book is historical fiction or creative nonfiction which contained historical facts and his memories of the war as well as of his relatives and friends. It is well written and an engaging story. I finished reading it in three hours non-stopped with only one bathroom break. It was time well spent and better than watching television.
  
I enjoyed the book very much as it reminded me of my own and Macrine's( my spouse of 62 years) childhood experiences during the Japanese-American War in the Philippines. There are similarities and differences in the events described beautifully in detail by the author in his book and my own and Macrine's childhood experiences.

My experiences and recollections of the war as a child growing up during the Japanese-American War in the Philippines was discussed in detail in my autobiography ( http://davidbkatague.blogspot.com) as well as in my Hubpages.com writing account published on December 8, 2011.

 https://hubpages.com/literature/my-childhood-memories-of-world-war-2

The first major difference is my experience was in Panay Island whereas Dr. Llamido's book venue is in Luzon. Other events in the book that is similar to my own and Macrine are: water boarding ( artisan well vs the ocean high tides involving Macrine's grand father), monitor lizard vs a python encounters and the airplane dogfights hillside and meadows watching.

Dr Llamido and I during our college years in UP ( mid 1950's). Dr Llamido is squatting on the first row holding a newspaper. I am standing at the back row, 3rd from the Left.

For My first review of this book click on:

https://davidbkatague.blogspot.com/search?q=felix+llamido

Two other events in Dr Llamido's book that are very similar to my own are the Palawan Massacre and the Guerilla's methods of messaging. The Palawan massacre  reminds me of the massacre of my Mothers relatives (Balleza clan) in  Barotac Viejo, Iloilo that I discussed in my blog :

https://davidbkatague.blogspot.com/search?q=balleza+massacre

I am rating this book 5 star out of 5 and highly recommend it not only to history enthusiasts but also to all who love to read good books and history.

At the end of the book under Liberation, page 255 , the author was telling us of his encounter with a GI repeating a coded radio message which he did not understand. He was more interested in the Dentyne gum, the GI was distributing to the children.

" It was my first taste of gum--ever.  On the way home Dida asked, What did you do with your gum?  I swallowed it. 

I could see the disbelief in her face.  You are supposed to only chew it.  Now your intestines will stick together.  I did not sleep well that night as I waited to die.  

But I didn't and I am glad. If I had died, who would be around to write this story." 

This gum incident reminded me of my own chewing gum story.  I was enjoying my gum when a neighbor (younger) kid started following me and started begging for my gum. It was the only gum I have left, so with reluctance I spew it out and gave it to him so he would stop begging. Without hesitation, he put it in his mouth and chewed it with gusto.   I am not sure what he did with the gum after he finished chewing ( may be he also swallowed it) as I was just too happy to get away from him. 

For details on this book click on:

https://www.amazon.com/Box-NOLIs-Bones-story-Philippines-ebook/product-reviews/B07VCN67WP/ref=cm_cr_dp_d_show_all_btm?ie=UTF8&reviewerType=all_reviews

Personal Note: Dr Llamido and I were dormates at the University of the Philippines Mens South Dorm ( Narra Hall) when he was a pre-med student and I was a Chemistry student/ Instructor in the early and Mid-1950's. He visited me and Macrine with his son from Los Angeles in November, 2018 here in Northern California. We get reacquainted-thus getting a complimentary copy of his well-written and engaging book. Again, thank you for my complimentary copy of your book. May your book be one of Amazon's best sellers for 2019-2020.

The Japanese-American War in the Philippines-An Update

The War Through a Child’s Eyes- My Personal Experiences-An Update

https://chateaudumer.blogspot.com/2024/11/my-childhood-experiences-during.html💚 

The following is an excerpt and more detailed event from my article listed above. 

I was only a small boy when the Japanese-American War in the Philippines reached our corner of Panay Island, but the sounds and shadows of those years have never left me. Sirens, hurried whispers, the rustle of belongings packed in the dark, these are the fragments that stitched my childhood together as war replaced the ordinary rhythms of provincial life.

When the Japanese arrived, our world shrank to the hills above Barotac Viejo, Iloilo. We left behind our small city (Jaro)  and the comfort of familiar streets and moved into a life of hiding.💚 The grown-ups spoke in low voices about raids and arrests, about men taken in the night, about families who simply disappeared. I did not yet understand strategy or geopolitics; I understood only that we had to be quiet, that light at the wrong time could mean death, and that my father was now part of something both dangerous and necessary.

My father joined the guerrillas (USAFFE)💜, and with that decision our family stepped fully into the shadows. He would come and go at odd hours, sometimes gone for days, returning leaner, more tired, but resolute. We children watched his movements with wordless awe. He seemed to carry the entire war on his shoulders, though he treated us with the same affectionate firmness he had before the Japanese came. The difference was in his eyes, there was a vigilance there, as if he never fully put down his guard, even at home.

One of the earliest lessons I learned in that time had nothing to do with reading or numbers. It was a lesson in survival, distilled into a single instruction: Never say our real surname. My father gathered us and explained that if strangers asked, we were to say we were “Katigbak,” not “Katague.” Somewhere, he said, the Japanese had lists, names of guerrillas and their kin and our true surname might draw them straight to us. As a child, I could not imagine such lists, but I understood the fear in his voice.

From that day on, I whispered the borrowed name to myself like a strange prayer: Katigbak, Katigbak, Katigbak. I repeated it as I walked the narrow paths in the hills, as I tried to sleep on a mat in some temporary shelter, as I listened to distant gunfire roll across the night. I wanted it to be the first word on my tongue if anyone ever pointed a rifle at me and asked who I was. My identity, which should have been simple, became something I had to rehearse, a mask I might need to wear to stay alive.

The war was not just a matter of secrecy; it was also a matter of silence. We learned to lower our voices at the slightest noise outside. I remember nights when the adults froze mid-sentence, faces turned toward the dark, listening. A dog barking somewhere, the echo of boots on a distant path, the faint rumble of trucks, each sound was a question: had they found us? The air itself seemed thinner in those moments, as if even breathing too loudly might betray our hiding place.

Stories of atrocities traveled faster than the wind in those days, and even a child could feel their weight. News reached us of the Noel Balleza clan in Barotac Viejo, relatives on my mother’s side. They had taken refuge in a hideout not far from where we stayed. One day, word came that their entire family had been slaughtered. Only one member of the Family survive and was able to tell the story.  I did not witness it, but the adults’ stunned grief was its own kind of testimony. Their faces, set in a shocked, quiet horror, told me enough: the war was not a distant battlefield; it was inside our own family tree.

Later, I would learn of another massacre of relatives, this time on my father’s side. My aunt, Adela C(K)atague Guillergan, and her family in Negros Occidental were also killed. At the time, these were fragments of information, spoken around me rather than to me. As I grew older and traced the branches of our family, I realized how many of those branches had been cut short in those years. The war, which I had first understood as soldiers and uniforms, revealed itself also as empty chairs at the table, names no longer called during reunions.

Despite the fear, life did not entirely stop. Children find ways to be children, even in the shadow of occupation. We played with improvised toys, chased one another along the mountain paths, and stole moments of laughter when the adults were not looking. Yet even our games were edged with caution. We knew which directions were forbidden, which trails might lead toward Japanese patrols or informers. Our playground was a landscape of invisible borders drawn by danger.

The line between collaborator and neighbor became blurred, even to a child. I heard the word “traidor” whispered with contempt, Filipinos who aided the Japanese, pointing out guerrillas and their families. It was a sobering lesson: fear and hunger could twist some people into betraying their own. As a boy, I did not judge them with the harsh certainty of adulthood, but the knowledge that someone who looked like us, who spoke our language, might lead soldiers to our door added a new layer to the anxiety of each day.

As the war dragged on, the boundaries of time dissolved. There were no reliable calendars in the hills, only seasons and rumors. We knew something was changing when the mood around us shifted, when whispers of American landings and retreating Japanese forces began to filter through. Hope is a dangerous thing in wartime: it glows softly at first, then flares at any sign of confirmation. For us children, hope meant imagining a future where we could use our real name again without fear.

When liberation finally came, it did not arrive as a single, clear event in my memory but as a gradual loosening of the invisible ropes that had bound our lives. Soldiers changed, flags changed, and with them, the quality of sound in our village changed, too. There were still stories of fighting and revenge, but the constant, suffocating tension lifted. One day, almost without ceremony, the name “Katague” could be spoken freely again.

Looking back now, my memories of that “Japanese-American War” in the Philippines are a mixture of sharp images and lingering impressions: my father’s serious face as he taught us to deny our surname, my mother’s quiet efficiency in making a life out of almost nothing, the hushed accounts of massacres that claimed the lives of people I would never meet, and the subtle shift from terror to tentative relief as the occupation ended.

As an adult, and later a father and grandfather, I came to understand that what I experienced as a child was only a small part of the larger history. Yet those years shaped me in ways I still feel. They taught me that identity is both fragile and stubborn, that courage can look like a man slipping into the night to join guerrillas or like a child memorizing a false name to protect his family. They taught me that war does not just redraw maps; it redraws the interior landscape of memory, leaving marks that endure long after the guns fall silent.

In telling these stories now, I reclaim those days not only as episodes of fear but as proof of survival. The boy who whispered “Katigbak” in the dark grew into a man who can sign his real name without hesitation. That simple act, so ordinary in peacetime, is, for me, one of the quiet victories of a life lived beyond war.

💜United States Arm Forces of the Far East ( USAFFE)

Meanwhile, here's the AI Overview on the Above Topic:. 

Key Memoirs and Documentaries

Several books and films provide firsthand accounts of this period:

Child of War: A Memoir of World War II Internment in the Philippines

: Curt Tong, the son of American missionaries, recounts his three years in Japanese prison camps starting at age seven.

Rising Sun Blinking: A Young Boy's Memoirs

: Jose Maria Lacambra Loizu uses his wartime diary to describe the "horror, adventure, and excitement" of being an 11-year-old in occupied Iloilo.

Children of War

: Writer Joan Orendain compiles poignant accounts from witnesses across the country, detailing the lifelong scars left by the occupation.

A Lovely Little War

: Angus Lorenzen offers a child’s perspective on life inside the notorious Santo Tomas Internment Camp in Manila.

Children of the War

: A documentary film featuring reflections from survivors of the 1945 Battle of Manila. 

Common Children’s Experiences

• Internment Life: Children in camps like Santo Tomas often tried to maintain normalcy through structured activities and play, though conditions deteriorated into severe malnutrition and fear by 1944.
• War Games: To cope, children sometimes turned the conflict into games, such as "playing guards" or daring each other to stand still during strafing runs by planes.
• Guerrilla Involvement: Some teenagers and even children as young as 12, like Martin Bantug, joined resistance units to fight for freedom.
• 💚Survival in Hiding: Many Filipino families fled to the mountains to avoid Japanese patrols, facing constant hunger and the threat of discovery. 

My Animated Photo of the Day- Me and Knitz at her Wedding Day, 1976 

https://www.meta.ai/create/1073148365876800