Aguinaldo's

Aguinaldo's is back open and jammed with customers. The report is Goldenberg is out too.

"Filipinos told to remember Sacrifices of their War Dead." Vargas made the usual long speech, as did the Chief of Staff, Imperial Japanese Forces Philippines — the latter's was cleverly worded to deflect any blame for deaths in captivity.

Led by your American masters you took up arms and heroically fought against our armies in the fields of Bataan and the fastness of Corregidor. You suffered unjust acts of racial discrimination from their hands but patiently bore them. You were sent to the front lines, exposed to the mercy of our gunfire, and kept there throughout the hostilities without receiving relief or reinforcements — half starving ... and clothed only in rags.

Your bodies weakened and your spirits enfeebled; and thousands of you died there from gunfire and disease....

We welcomed you and placed you under the generous care and full protection of the Imperial Japanese Army, with the status of prisoners of war as sanctioned by International Law.

But alas, for you, providence had other plans.... Worn out in body and soul from your long sufferings in the battlefields; wrecked and ravaged with fever and disease contracted in the malaria infested swamps of Bataan and Corregidor, all the medical and nursing care that the Japanese Army gave you could not save you from the hands of death.