03.3 Socio-Economics in the Japanese Occupation.pdf

The Japanese Occupation Module 3 Key Discussion Points World War II in the Philippines Politics during the Japanese Occupation Socio-Economic Conditions during the Japanese Occupation The Hukbalahap Movement The Liberation of Manila Socio-Economic conditions during the Japanese Occupation Module 3.3...

The Japanese Occupation Module 3 Key Discussion Points World War II in the Philippines Politics during the Japanese Occupation Socio-Economic Conditions during the Japanese Occupation The Hukbalahap Movement The Liberation of Manila Socio-Economic conditions during the Japanese Occupation Module 3.3 Our Sources Kerkvliet, Benedict. “Withdrawal and Resistance: The Political Significance of Food, Agriculture, and How People Lived During the Japanese Occupation in the Philippines.” In Autonomous Histories, Particular Truths: Essays in Honor of John Smail, 175–93. Madison: University of Wisconsin, 1993. Cheng Chua, Karl Ian. “The Stories They Tell: ‘Komiks’ during the Japanese Occupation, 1942-1944.” Philippine Studies 53, no. 1 (2005): 59–90. The author and his sources Dr. Benedict Kerkvliet’s is a political scientist whose research interests include everyday politics, the peasantry, and Southeast Asian Studies In Food and Resistance, he used oral sources not centered in Manila: in Northern Mindanao, Leyte, Negros, Panay, Manila, Central Luzon to discuss the Japanese Occupation of the Philippines Talks to non-elites; people with no significant power in governance Is the Japanese Occupation significant in Philippine history? Why the Japanese Occupation is Not significant in Philippine History A shift away from elites, capital cities and governments The Japanese occupation is merely an episode in the “postfrontier society, 1920-present” (Larkin) [The occupation] did not alter the continuity of a long period that begun with the export-crop production (McCoy) …even though the Japanese occupation did not change Philippine institutions nor rearrange society, it made a profound impression on people’s lives and it still remains a vital aspect of their consciousness. (Kerkvliet, 1993) Central Luzon Panay Leyte Negros Northern Mindanao Filipino farmers during the Japanese occupation, The Battle of Buffalo Wallow (www.buffalowallow.com) Propaganda of The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere Why the economic reforms failed 1. The agricultural reforms were short-sighted; 2. The colonial regime prioritized war policy over economic reform; 3. Destruction made agricultural production difficult, even impossible; Economic collapse during the Japanese Occupation Year Price per cavan (56 kgs) 1941 6 or 7 pesos 1942 30 pesos 1943 70 pesos Mid-1944 250 pesos Late 1944 3000 to 5000 pesos 1945 12,000 pesos Wages were low (3 or 4 pesos maximum wage for unskilled workers in 1944) Propaganda of The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere Why the economic reforms failed 1. The agricultural reforms were short-sighted; 2. The colonial regime prioritized war policy over economic reform; 3. Destruction made agricultural production difficult, even impossible; 4. Simply, the Filipinos were uncooperative to the Japanese. Patterns of Withdrawal and Resistance Occupied territories Autonomous or unoccupied territories Manila and other large urban areas where Japanese military presence was prominent regions where the Japanese occupation was hardly felt The Japanese regime was despised, even hated, and resisted. Remedios Gomez Paraiso, also known as Kumander Liwayway of the Hukbalahap, (Photo from Amazons of the Huk Rebellion) From The Stories They Tell: Komiks during the Japanese occupation, 1942-1944 Resistance was both overt and insidious …acts of administrative delay and obstruction [at work], in countless ways of less-than-full compliance with administrative orders, came to be habitually indulged in, and were condoned as moral and patriotic. - Onofre Cruz Many Filipinos withdrew from the formal to the informal economy. Occupation Hazard, Artist: Severino Marcelo, Presidential Museum and Library Archives Survival in the informal economy Food sustainability became a priority; Revival of small-scale manufacturing and a shift away from the export-crop economy; People relied on growing their own food or participating in the black market; Families created trade networks for buying and selling food (vegetables) between rural and urban areas; Robbery, banditry, prostitution Japanese armored barges patrolled inland waters and made inter-island trade by sea risky., Metro CDO Life during wartime A big portion of the population moved from urban to rural areas. Families moved from the cities to the mountains Filipino farmers during the Japanese occupation, The Battle of Buffalo Wallow (www.buffalowallow.com) Manila Philippines during the Japanese occupation, World War II database Around the tenth of September 1944, [I took the children, and] we managed to get passage on a charcoal-powered truck to evacuate to Gerona, Tarlac [where my great-aunt took care of us]. Filipino guerillas surrounded the place. There we bartered old clothes for chicken, fish, and vegetables. Unlike the city there was no gutom [hunger] there. My husband and father stayed on in San Juan. In one incident, my husband was saved by a special card. He was about to be bayoneted but managed to show the card, which said in Japanese that he was a good man. This incident really scared everyone. The next trip to Gerona in October, they joined us. My husband said there was no rice in Manila and now the kamotes were gone and there was no organized transport to bring food from the provinces. (from Doeppers 2021, 327) Movement occurred from occupied to autonomous regions. Around the tenth of September 1944, [I took the children, and] we managed to get passage on a charcoal-powered truck to evacuate to Gerona, Tarlac [where my great-aunt took care of us]. Filipino guerillas surrounded the place. There we bartered old clothes for chicken, fish, and vegetables. Unlike the city there was no gutom [hunger] there. My husband and father stayed on in San Juan. In one incident, my husband was saved by a special card. He was about to be bayoneted but managed to show the card, which said in Japanese that he was a good man. This incident really scared everyone. The next trip to Gerona in October, they joined us. My husband said there was no rice in Manila and now the kamotes were gone and there was no organized transport to bring food from the provinces. (from Doeppers 2021, 327) Guerillas established political and economic systems Guerillas organized the distribution of labor and produce in some autonomous regions They provided protection to the peasantry from the Japanese, from hunger, and even from their own landlords Autonomous regions did nor rely on the Japanese nor the Laurel government for survival Occupied regions relied on the Japanese-sponsored Laurel government for food and survival Manila was gloomy and depressing. People were suffering. They were hungry. There were many beggars. There was despair. People just wondered when the bad dreams would be over. When I moved away, though, to be with relatives, I found that people in the barrios were more confident. They were living better, more organized, more positive about things, more light-hearted, and freer. It’s because there we were far away from the Japanese and we were part of the guerillas. - Conversation with a Filipino now living in Hawaii, in (Kerkvilet 1993, 187) Fluctuation in patterns of movement and migration Japanese military units in the Philippines at the height of the Battle of Manila, Presidential Museum and Library Archives First American raids launched in Manila, Intramuros Administration why the Japanese occupation is significant Filipinos internalized what it meant to be a nation; withdrawal and resistance was taking place nationwide. Motivations and intentions for [withdrawal and resistance] often combined the wish to provide for and defend one’s family and the desire to resist oppression. (Kerkvliet 1993, 188) While many of the elite (not all) floundered and disgraced themselves, the populace (again, not everyone) relied upon themselves to defy, subvert, and survive one of the most adverse and oppressive regimes in the country’s history. (Kerkvliet 1993, 188) …in a broader sense, the Japanese occupation made a major contribution to the development of Philippine nationalism. For the first time in the country’s history, the people defeated a foreign invader… They had defeated a regime they considered unjust. And they had fallen back on their own resources—their land, their labor, their families and friends, their courage and stubbornness—to resist, win, and survive with dignity and pride. (Kerkvliet, 1993) For our next meeting: Lanzona, Vina. “Women at War: Huk Women and the Japanese Occupation.” In Amazons of the Huk Rebellion: Gender, Sex, and Revolution in the Philippines, 21–75. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2009.