Foot and Fire

The members of Malaya Lolas who organized themselves in 2007 in order to get justice from the sufferings they went through  as comfort women during the war. Photo taken from a 2010  article. On November 23, 1944, Japanese troops descended on the town of Mapanique in the Philippines. The troops gathered  men and boys in the town and proceeded to castrate them. Afterwards, the men were forced to put their severed sexual organs in their mouths before they were burned to death en masse. Women and girls were marched to what is known today as “Bahay na Pula” (red house) in San Ildenfonso, Bulacan. There, they were interred and repeatedly raped. Lola Isabelita Vinuya is one of the faces of the women of Mapanique, Bulacan who were violated by the Japanese soldiers during the war. Photo taken from a 2010 article. The magnitude of the Japanese cruelty in Mapanique can be attributed to several causes. The town was known to be a hotbed of resistance to Japanese rule....

The Bahay Na Pula in San Ildefonso, Bulacan has been known as haunted house, it having been utilized as set of Abs-cbn horror series, "Oka Tokat," way back in 1997 to 2002. I did not pay much attention to this house when we dropped by because I was told by my host-friend who resides in San Ildefonso, Bulacan that this is the famous haunted house. True to its introduction, the house is famous (or infamous) as haunted house when I searched for it in google. Horror stories perpetuated the relevance of the house today but historically, the house is also a symbol of one sad local wartime event. One article of note that caught my attention and led me to immediately write this story tells of the story of the comfort women who were violated at the Bahay Na Pula and who in 1997 organized themselves and called themselves as Malaya Lola. "It was Nov. 23, 1944. This was their story:  Central Luzon suffered heavily during the war as it was the base of the Hukbo ng B...