For those who are following my opinion pieces here, you may have figured out by now what made me decide to become a historian focused on World War II studies.
The genuine interest I have about the war started when I was kid obsessed with Band of Brothers and Saving Private Ryan. I became even more interested about it in my college years.
The issue of collaborationism – involving locals who opted to collude with the Occupying forces – has always fascinated me due to its complex and nuanced nature.
To be more specific in the case of Negros Oriental, I got interested on the case of Gov. Guillermo Villaneuva, who I labelled as the “misunderstood” governor of the Province. I had written a journal article about him, and his active collaboration with the Japanese forces in Negros Oriental, but even with that to this day, I still try to gather as much information about him.
Recently, I accompanied a friend from Ormoc whom I met during a WW2 International Conference in Manila. He wanted to do some research on the early months of the Japanese invasion, specifically on the defensive campaigns of the 71st and 91st Division. He went to the Silliman University library to gather some sources; then we went to Cata-al Museum in Valencia for a brief tour.
It was actually only my second time there, and my first time to get to talk with the owner, Mr. Felix Cata-al.
The museum houses a lot of weapons, ammunitions, uniforms, and other equipment during the war that were somehow retrieved by the family through the years in the mountains of Valencia.
I would assume these vestiges of war were owned by the men of Col. Satoshi Oie, the last commanding officer of the Japanese forces in Negros Oriental who, along with his men, evacuated to the hinterlands of Valencia to hold their final defense against the combined American and local guerrilla forces.
In my conversation with Mr. Cata-al, I was surprised to hear his story about the “Yamashita treasure” that Japanese forces purportedly hid in some secluded areas in the mountains. He could not pinpoint, however, who the Japanese officers may have been, and where they got the treasures.
I asked Mr. Cata-al what he knew about Governor Villanueva, and he said the Governor was killed by the Japanese forces in the hinterlands. He also said he knows of a worker of the Villanuevas who actually saw the body placed on a large flat stone.
Until now, the body of Governor Villanueva has not been recovered. (I would assume it’s somewhere in the hinterlands of Zamboanguita.)
I then asked him whether he knew about the motive why the Governor was killed, as I was starting to doubt – based on his stories – that it had something to do with the treasures that the Japanese buried. Mr. Cata-al confirmed that killing the Governor may have been because he knew where the treasures were hidden.
Now, we have to remember that these are unconfirmed stories based on oral accounts of purported eyewitnesses. I myself need to corroborate it with other records. It’s just interesting to know there are oral accounts about what happened to the wartime Governor, and why he was executed.
I still have no conclusive evidence as to why the Governor was executed: Was it because he knew too much about the Japanese actions during the war, and that they feared they might get implicated for war crimes? Or was it because he knew the location of the so-called hidden treasure in the hinterlands of Valencia?
For now, we can’t reach a conclusive answer; I guess that’s the beauty of history: we have to investigate further, and try to find out what really happened that time. Soon enough, when I’ll be able to find out the motive for Governor Villanueva’s execution, the history that I’ve written about his collaboration with the Japanese forces will have to be revised. Until then, there is still a lot of work to be done, not only about the lives of these wartime politicians, like Governor Villanueva, but also about World War II in Negros Oriental in general.
A lot of stories and accounts have remained unwritten – say, the liberation of the Negros Oriental from the perspective of the guerrillas, the Battle of Lo-oc in Sibulan, the everyday life of the people in Negros Oriental during the war, the wartime experience of Maj. Bartolome Soledad, a known military collaborator and Valencia puppet mayor, and many more.
I recommend students of Hitory to conduct oral interviews with surviving civilians who experienced the Japanese occupation between 1942-1945 here in Negros Oriental. I’m sure there are still quite a few around here, now in their 80s or 90s who can be interviewed.
Suffice it to say, I hope more students and teachers of History begin to take a renewed interest in World War II studies, and start to document about it to add to the growing literature [or historiography]. In that manner, it will help us better understand how our past has shaped our present, and how we could use those lessons to improve our future.
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Author’s email: JJAbulado@norsu.edu.ph