The years 1944 and 1945 were dreadful years for civilians living in Dumaguete. There was a heightened sense of insecurity among the Japanese occupying forces, especially the Kempeitai (Secret Police), as they tried to hunt down members and sympathizers of the guerrilla movement.
Matter-of-factly, this was the main reason for the mistreatment and torture of some Dumaguete civilians, as the Kempeitai were scrambling to look for connections between civilians and the guerrilla movement in the hills.
Together with Filipino spies/military collaborators who worked with them, the Kempeitai would usually just nab an individual without reason, and bring him to their headquarters at Channon Hall at Silliman, and later on, by March 1945, at the old house of Ramon Pastor.
The head of the Kempeitai in Dumaguete from August 1944 to April 1945 was a certain Capt. Masatomo Tokunaga who arrived in Dumaguete on Aug. 23, 1944. When he was interviewed by a Counter Intelligence Corps investigator after the war – this was when he was still detained, awaiting the decision for the war crimes filed against him, Captain Tokunaga explained that the Kempeitai was in charge of “…rounding up suspected guerrillas, and also maintaining discipline and order around the area.”
Among the prominent, if not notorious, members of the Kempeitai under his command were: Warrant Officer Nobuo Yamamoto (second in command), Sgt. Maj. Shinpei Yamashita (third in command), Sgt. Kiyoshi Oiese ,and Sgt. Fukuo Naka.
These men, especially Yamashita, Oiese, and Naka, were the ones who primarily investigated – using different torture methods – the local civilians brought to Channon Hall.
The Dumagueteños who were arrested would then be thrown in jail cells at Channon Hall; they were treated inhumanely in these cells – as one victim, Gregorio Diao (arrested on 13 June 1944) recalled, when they were only fed twice a day with only a fistful of rice topped with salt, and were only allowed to drink three small glasses of water in a day.
Another account came from Luis Trebol from Bais (arrested on Sept. 6, 1944) who was brought to Channon Hall on suspicion of working with the guerrillas. Trebol claimed that: “From 7 o’clock in the morning to 7 o’clock at night, all prisoners were made to squat for 12 hours in our cell, with a guard watching us. We couldn’t stand up or move, or talk to each other, or lie down when we were tired.”
Trebol also remembered there was a time when the Kempeitai did not give them water for three days straight; whenever they did, it was mixed with salt.
There was even a time when the Japanese would intentionally wash their hands in the water before giving it to the prisoners to drink.
Trebol’s testimony that they were made to squat for 12 hours in their cell is corroborated by the account of Tirso Uy Tengsu, president of Uy Matiao & Company who, like Trebol, was also tortured on Sept. 19. 1944.
In his account, Uy Tengsu recalled that they were not properly fed — only to be given a “ball of rice, very dirty, smaller than a tennis ball” twice a day, and they were only allowed to urinate once in a day. There were times when they could not control their bladder, so they simply urinated in their cells; however, every morning some Kempeitai soldiers would inspect the cells, and whenever they would find wet spots on the floor, they would almost immediately beat the prisoners using the door bar.
Many varying forms of torture were used against these local prisoners, including “beating, kicking, burning with cigarette butts, ‘water cure’, choking, judo holds, and hanging by the wrists.”
All these heinous torture methods were done to get some vital information about the guerrilla forces, since the prisoners were suspected of having ties with the guerrilla movement.
Channon Hall, the first Kempeitai headquarters in Negros Oriental, was used as a prison cell where the civilians would be detained; but whenever they were to be “investigated” (a term which became synonymous to torture), oft-times around 2 or 3 at dawn, they would simply be brought to three houses across the road, and in front of Channon Hall. After the investigation, they would then be sent back to Channon Hall. Many prisoners of the Kempeitai were beaten until they lost consciousness.
One of the prisoners, Rufino Sun (arrested on 18 March 1945) who vividly attested that he was brought to the new headquarters of the Kempeitai — at Ramon Teves Pastor’s House, for selling Chesterfield and Old Gold cigarettes – both American products that were illegal, as they were believed to be a form of propaganda.
When Sun was investigated by Sgt. Naka, he was told to assume a kneeling position. Then Sgt. Naka got an iron rod about 1 ½ feet long, one inch in diameter, and beat Sun on his head more than 20 times until he fell.
In Sun’s own words: “When I fell, Naka took hold of my shoulders, raised me, and kicked me in the breast. He again beat me with the rod for about 40 times. This made me unconscious for a few minutes.”
Other prisoners were beaten using the saber with its scabbard, baseball bats, or chairs.
Another victim, Leonardo de Jesus (arrested on June 7, 1944) a student from Negros Oriental Trade School, was beaten so hard with a chair that it broke; once broke, the Kempeitai officer continued beating him with his saber for more than 20 times.
The prisoners were also burned with cigarette butts on different parts of their body – the chest, bridge of the nose, behind the ears, legs, neck, and lips.
The Kempeitai investigator would do this until the prisoner would spill out a name, or admit to having any connections with the guerrilla movement.
Most of them were actually ordinary civilians, but others who were investigated (like Eleonora Enrile, Charles Meelheib, Jose Chi, Pablo Paglumutan, Tirso Uy Tengsu) really had, in one way or another, connections with the guerrilla movement. Fortunately, they held their ground, and never spilled anything about the guerrilla movement in Negros Oriental.
One of the most horrific methods used by the Kempeitai in getting information from the local civilians was what they called “water cure”. This is somehow similar to the controversial waterboarding or “water torture” that intelligence operatives perform at present.
Whenever the Kempeitai used this method of torture, they would bind a person’s hands behind his back, and put them down in a lying position on a plank of wood. Thereafter, they would fasten the person’s entire body on the plank of wood, and lean it on a chair. The second to the last step was to gag the person with a piece of cloth, as well as tie the nose to restrict breathing.
When all things were set, the Kempeitai investigator would then slowly pour drums of water (about two feet tall, and one and half feet in diameter) in the person’s mouth and nose for hours.
As Jose Chi (arrested Sept. 25, 1944) attested after getting “water cured” for two hours: “My stomach got full, and the water came out through my mouth, nose, and my urination organ.”
Other torture methods involved the use of judo holds, choking, and hanging by the wrists. Emilio Suela (arrested July 26, 1944) claimed that he was brought to McKinley Hall (behind Channon) by Sgt. Maj. Yamashita who then made “judo practices” throwing him
Suela) on the cement floor several times as a form of interrogation. As a result, Suela’s head bulged and got swollen.
The Japanese also choked local civilians with a piece of rope until they could not breathe anymore. Aside from using ropes, the Kempeitai also used strings. As Alvaro Peypoch (arrested Sept. 8, 1944) remembered, he saw the Kempeitai tie a string around the neck of Luis Trebol, then they “…twirled it slowly until he lost consciousness.”
Moreover, some local civilians were tortured through hanging by the wrists. For instance, during interrogation, Sgt. Naka made Vicente Teves (arrested Nov. 23, 1944), son of Serafin Teves, stand up on a chair with his wrists bound with a rope behind him. Then Naka tied the rope to a rafter, and kicked the chair.
The same method was applied on Pablo Paglumutan (arrested Sept. 12, 1944) as he was forced to stay hanging on his hands for 30 minutes; while hanging, he was also beaten with a piece of wood.
Aside from the physical abuses, the Kempeitai unit in Dumaguete used psychological warfare to their advantage.
After performing the varying torture methods on the prisoners, they would also strip the victims off their clothes, and send the clothes to their wives, making them believe their husbands were dead.
The prisoners were not allowed to go outside often – they stayed within their prison cells for most of the duration they were in captivity.
Moreover, the Kempeitai would intentionally leave the doors of the torture room open so that other prisoners would see their fellow prisoners getting tortured – instilling a sense of fear and dread on what was to come for them.
On Sept. 12, 1944, even when American planes were bombing Dumaguete – with its main target: the Dumaguete Airfield – the Kempeitai still did not let the prisoners out to seek for shelter.
Alvaro Peypoch recalled that the prisoners from Channon Hall begged the Kempeitai to let them go when they heard the American air raid, but the Japanese did not listen to them, and left them there.
After the air raid, the Kempeitai returned to Channon Hall, and jeeringly told the prisoners they might just be killed not by the Japanese, but by the American soldiers.
The American air raids continued the next day, Sept. 13, 1944, but the Kempeitai still rejected the pleas of the prisoners to take shelter. Sgt. Naka returned to check on the prisoners at Channon Hall, and simply told them they should be happy the Americans were bombing Dumaguete.
Local civilians who went through days and months of incarceration, and suffered under the Kempeitai’s varying torture methods could not forget their experience.
As Tirso Uy Tengsu testified: “When I went into the Kempeitai, I was in fairly good health. But during those 11 days, my health was almost ruined. I could hardly stand up, and almost suffered a nervous breakdown.”
The Kempeitai did all these unimaginable atrocities just to “maintain a sense of security” within the area of Dumaguete. There is no doubt the Kempeitai instilled fear among the Dumagueteños.
The manner in which they performed their duty, which was to “investigate” possible guerrilla connections among the local populace in the occupied areas, proved to have been notorious.
Almost anyone can be picked up, if he is suspected by the Kempeitai, or even the local Japanese spies (the military collaborators), as guerrilla members or sympathizers. They needed information about the guerrillas, and in doing so, performed egregious acts toward local civilians – most of whom did not have any connections at all.
The cases mentioned here are just those that happened in Dumaguete; there are still a multitude of other cases in the Province, and maybe nobody has been able to attempt to collate all these accounts for the nonce.
Perhaps, I can only surmise based on my own experience, one of the reasons why nobody may have ventured into writing about it is the effect of very violent content it would have on the historian’s emotional or mental health. [I discussed about this in my previous column here titled No Man is an Island (MetroPost/Dec. 24, 2023]
With enough mental fortitude, as archival sources are readily available, I intend to write all about the Japanese wartime atrocities in Negros Oriental, and how the Oriental Negrenses, especially the surviving victims of these atrocities, were able to overcome such adversities.
This will indubitably give a voice to the muted cries of these victims. That’s a project to look forward to in the future.
Author’s email: [email protected]
Dgte’s muted cries during WWII
The years 1944 and 1945 were dreadful years for civilians living in Dumaguete. There was a heightened sense of insecurity among the Japanese occupying forces, especially the Kempeitai (Secret Police), as they tried to hunt down members and sympathizers of the guerrilla movement.
Matter-of-factly, this was the main reason for the mistreatment and torture of some Dumaguete civilians, as the Kempeitai were scrambling to look for connections between civilians and the guerrilla movement in the hills.
Together with Filipino spies/military collaborators who worked with them, the Kempeitai would usually just nab an individual without reason, and bring him to their headquarters at Channon Hall at Silliman, and later on, by March 1945, at the old house of Ramon Pastor.
The head of the Kempeitai in Dumaguete from August 1944 to April 1945 was a certain Capt. Masatomo Tokunaga who arrived in Dumaguete on Aug. 23, 1944. When he was interviewed by a Counter Intelligence Corps investigator after the war – this was when he was still detained, awaiting the decision for the war crimes filed against him, Captain Tokunaga explained that the Kempeitai was in charge of “…rounding up suspected guerrillas, and also maintaining discipline and order around the area.”
Among the prominent, if not notorious, members of the Kempeitai under his command were: Warrant Officer Nobuo Yamamoto (second in command), Sgt. Maj. Shinpei Yamashita (third in command), Sgt. Kiyoshi Oiese ,and Sgt. Fukuo Naka.
These men, especially Yamashita, Oiese, and Naka, were the ones who primarily investigated – using different torture methods – the local civilians brought to Channon Hall.
The Dumagueteños who were arrested would then be thrown in jail cells at Channon Hall; they were treated inhumanely in these cells – as one victim, Gregorio Diao (arrested on 13 June 1944) recalled, when they were only fed twice a day with only a fistful of rice topped with salt, and were only allowed to drink three small glasses of water in a day.
Another account came from Luis Trebol from Bais (arrested on Sept. 6, 1944) who was brought to Channon Hall on suspicion of working with the guerrillas. Trebol claimed that: “From 7 o’clock in the morning to 7 o’clock at night, all prisoners were made to squat for 12 hours in our cell, with a guard watching us. We couldn’t stand up or move, or talk to each other, or lie down when we were tired.”
Trebol also remembered there was a time when the Kempeitai did not give them water for three days straight; whenever they did, it was mixed with salt.
There was even a time when the Japanese would intentionally wash their hands in the water before giving it to the prisoners to drink.
Trebol’s testimony that they were made to squat for 12 hours in their cell is corroborated by the account of Tirso Uy Tengsu, president of Uy Matiao & Company who, like Trebol, was also tortured on Sept. 19. 1944.
In his account, Uy Tengsu recalled that they were not properly fed — only to be given a “ball of rice, very dirty, smaller than a tennis ball” twice a day, and they were only allowed to urinate once in a day. There were times when they could not control their bladder, so they simply urinated in their cells; however, every morning some Kempeitai soldiers would inspect the cells, and whenever they would find wet spots on the floor, they would almost immediately beat the prisoners using the door bar.
Many varying forms of torture were used against these local prisoners, including “beating, kicking, burning with cigarette butts, ‘water cure’, choking, judo holds, and hanging by the wrists.”
All these heinous torture methods were done to get some vital information about the guerrilla forces, since the prisoners were suspected of having ties with the guerrilla movement.
Channon Hall, the first Kempeitai headquarters in Negros Oriental, was used as a prison cell where the civilians would be detained; but whenever they were to be “investigated” (a term which became synonymous to torture), oft-times around 2 or 3 at dawn, they would simply be brought to three houses across the road, and in front of Channon Hall. After the investigation, they would then be sent back to Channon Hall. Many prisoners of the Kempeitai were beaten until they lost consciousness.
One of the prisoners, Rufino Sun (arrested on 18 March 1945) who vividly attested that he was brought to the new headquarters of the Kempeitai — at Ramon Teves Pastor’s House, for selling Chesterfield and Old Gold cigarettes – both American products that were illegal, as they were believed to be a form of propaganda.
When Sun was investigated by Sgt. Naka, he was told to assume a kneeling position. Then Sgt. Naka got an iron rod about 1 ½ feet long, one inch in diameter, and beat Sun on his head more than 20 times until he fell.
In Sun’s own words: “When I fell, Naka took hold of my shoulders, raised me, and kicked me in the breast. He again beat me with the rod for about 40 times. This made me unconscious for a few minutes.”
Other prisoners were beaten using the saber with its scabbard, baseball bats, or chairs.
Another victim, Leonardo de Jesus (arrested on June 7, 1944) a student from Negros Oriental Trade School, was beaten so hard with a chair that it broke; once broke, the Kempeitai officer continued beating him with his saber for more than 20 times.
The prisoners were also burned with cigarette butts on different parts of their body – the chest, bridge of the nose, behind the ears, legs, neck, and lips.
The Kempeitai investigator would do this until the prisoner would spill out a name, or admit to having any connections with the guerrilla movement.
Most of them were actually ordinary civilians, but others who were investigated (like Eleonora Enrile, Charles Meelheib, Jose Chi, Pablo Paglumutan, Tirso Uy Tengsu) really had, in one way or another, connections with the guerrilla movement. Fortunately, they held their ground, and never spilled anything about the guerrilla movement in Negros Oriental.
One of the most horrific methods used by the Kempeitai in getting information from the local civilians was what they called “water cure”. This is somehow similar to the controversial waterboarding or “water torture” that intelligence operatives perform at present.
Whenever the Kempeitai used this method of torture, they would bind a person’s hands behind his back, and put them down in a lying position on a plank of wood. Thereafter, they would fasten the person’s entire body on the plank of wood, and lean it on a chair. The second to the last step was to gag the person with a piece of cloth, as well as tie the nose to restrict breathing.
When all things were set, the Kempeitai investigator would then slowly pour drums of water (about two feet tall, and one and half feet in diameter) in the person’s mouth and nose for hours.
As Jose Chi (arrested Sept. 25, 1944) attested after getting “water cured” for two hours: “My stomach got full, and the water came out through my mouth, nose, and my urination organ.”
Other torture methods involved the use of judo holds, choking, and hanging by the wrists. Emilio Suela (arrested July 26, 1944) claimed that he was brought to McKinley Hall (behind Channon) by Sgt. Maj. Yamashita who then made “judo practices” throwing him
Suela) on the cement floor several times as a form of interrogation. As a result, Suela’s head bulged and got swollen.
The Japanese also choked local civilians with a piece of rope until they could not breathe anymore. Aside from using ropes, the Kempeitai also used strings. As Alvaro Peypoch (arrested Sept. 8, 1944) remembered, he saw the Kempeitai tie a string around the neck of Luis Trebol, then they “…twirled it slowly until he lost consciousness.”
Moreover, some local civilians were tortured through hanging by the wrists. For instance, during interrogation, Sgt. Naka made Vicente Teves (arrested Nov. 23, 1944), son of Serafin Teves, stand up on a chair with his wrists bound with a rope behind him. Then Naka tied the rope to a rafter, and kicked the chair.
The same method was applied on Pablo Paglumutan (arrested Sept. 12, 1944) as he was forced to stay hanging on his hands for 30 minutes; while hanging, he was also beaten with a piece of wood.
Aside from the physical abuses, the Kempeitai unit in Dumaguete used psychological warfare to their advantage.
After performing the varying torture methods on the prisoners, they would also strip the victims off their clothes, and send the clothes to their wives, making them believe their husbands were dead.
The prisoners were not allowed to go outside often – they stayed within their prison cells for most of the duration they were in captivity.
Moreover, the Kempeitai would intentionally leave the doors of the torture room open so that other prisoners would see their fellow prisoners getting tortured – instilling a sense of fear and dread on what was to come for them.
On Sept. 12, 1944, even when American planes were bombing Dumaguete – with its main target: the Dumaguete Airfield – the Kempeitai still did not let the prisoners out to seek for shelter.
Alvaro Peypoch recalled that the prisoners from Channon Hall begged the Kempeitai to let them go when they heard the American air raid, but the Japanese did not listen to them, and left them there.
After the air raid, the Kempeitai returned to Channon Hall, and jeeringly told the prisoners they might just be killed not by the Japanese, but by the American soldiers.
The American air raids continued the next day, Sept. 13, 1944, but the Kempeitai still rejected the pleas of the prisoners to take shelter. Sgt. Naka returned to check on the prisoners at Channon Hall, and simply told them they should be happy the Americans were bombing Dumaguete.
Local civilians who went through days and months of incarceration, and suffered under the Kempeitai’s varying torture methods could not forget their experience.
As Tirso Uy Tengsu testified: “When I went into the Kempeitai, I was in fairly good health. But during those 11 days, my health was almost ruined. I could hardly stand up, and almost suffered a nervous breakdown.”
The Kempeitai did all these unimaginable atrocities just to “maintain a sense of security” within the area of Dumaguete. There is no doubt the Kempeitai instilled fear among the Dumagueteños.
The manner in which they performed their duty, which was to “investigate” possible guerrilla connections among the local populace in the occupied areas, proved to have been notorious.
Almost anyone can be picked up, if he is suspected by the Kempeitai, or even the local Japanese spies (the military collaborators), as guerrilla members or sympathizers. They needed information about the guerrillas, and in doing so, performed egregious acts toward local civilians – most of whom did not have any connections at all.
The cases mentioned here are just those that happened in Dumaguete; there are still a multitude of other cases in the Province, and maybe nobody has been able to attempt to collate all these accounts for the nonce.
Perhaps, I can only surmise based on my own experience, one of the reasons why nobody may have ventured into writing about it is the effect of very violent content it would have on the historian’s emotional or mental health. [I discussed about this in my previous column here titled No Man is an Island (MetroPost/Dec. 24, 2023]
With enough mental fortitude, as archival sources are readily available, I intend to write all about the Japanese wartime atrocities in Negros Oriental, and how the Oriental Negrenses, especially the surviving victims of these atrocities, were able to overcome such adversities.
This will indubitably give a voice to the muted cries of these victims. That’s a project to look forward to in the future.
__________________________________
Author’s email: [email protected]
