Lessons on Independence

Emancipation from the Arrogant and Rude American Imperialists:

Lessons on Independence from WW2 Imperial Japanese Propaganda

(Paper prepared for the International Conference on Philippine Studies, PSSC, 23-26 July 2008—not for citation)

Gonzalo A. Campoamor II

Doctoral Candidate, Hitotsubashi University

Abstract

The so-much-longed-for independence from American colonial domination was but one of the promises the Japanese Military Administration presented to the Filipinos since the occupation of Manila in January 1942. It was to be hastily fulfilled in the midst of Allied tactical successes in 1943. With it came a renewed drive to discover what it meant to be an Asian and a Filipino. Using various propaganda materials (posters, leaflets, pamphlets, radio broadcasts, movies, newspapers), this paper aims to analyze how the promise of independence was used as propaganda and explores how the same propaganda could have reinforced a categorized level of emancipatory consciousness among the Filipinos. At the same time, the Japanese idea of “Asia for Asiatics” is considered to be a formidable counter-culture to the dominant American ideological and state apparatuses.

There are two general premises related to the topic. First, that the Second World War was a significant objective condition to the various independence movements in South and Southeast Asia. Immediately after the “China Incident” (1937), Japan intensified its Pan-Asianist propaganda for the new order called the Great East Asia. Before Japanese occupation, Burma and the Philippines have been sharing a long tradition of emancipatory consciousness. In 1943, though widely considered bogus, both countries were to be granted independence by the Japanese. After the war, the USSR was the first among strong nations to call on its American and European allies to abandon their Imperialist intentions in Asia. Indeed, by 1948, the Philippines, India, and Burma would finally be granted their independence.

The second premise, despite being arguably controversial, has never really been adequately discussed by historians. This attributes to it being arrested as something assumed or taken for granted. The premise is that wartime Japanese propaganda was a failure. Agoncillo, the foremost Filipino war historian of his time argues that the Japanese massive propaganda “never succeeded in making the Filipinos believe in the soundness or even in the mere correctness of their views (1965,338).” Most historians echo Agoncillo’s view.

In the course of research for my dissertation, I have come to the conclusion that Japanese propaganda can best be analyzed and evaluated by how it might have mattered in the places it had actually reached (i.e. Manila and other town centers) and how it might have affected the people it most likely appealed to (i.e. the elite and the middle bourgeoisie). Given these, it is hard to imagine how something as important as independence as well as the relatively valid sort of alternative independence offered by the Japanese could not have had any significant appeal and influence to the Filipino leadership in the 1940s. It is true that Laurel, Vargas, Aquino and the rest of the wartime Filipino government never perceived the independence proposition as a genuine political state but as a way to soften the Japanese oppressive apparatuses. But is it really that difficult to imagine the political elite having been drawn to the counter-culture Japan was offering?

Soon after its occupation of Manila, the Japanese forces in 22 January expressed through radio and newspaper (Tribune) the possibility of granting the Philippines its independence. Three weeks later (8 February), President Quezon, whose government was seeking refuge in the island-fortress Corregidor, sends a radiogram to FDR asking to authorize him to issue a public manifesto asking for “immediate, complete, and absolute independence” from America. Just how the January broadcast affected Quezon may not be clear. His radiogram was sent a week after FDR delivered a speech saying that the Filipino freedom is to be redeemed—interpreted by most as America’s expression of its inability to send much needed reinforcements and supplies to Bataan, thus giving up on the Philippines.[1]

However, soon after the January broadcast, Japanese propaganda would appear variable and undecided about granting independence to Filipinos.[2] When Vargas, the Greater Manila Mayor, and other Filipino leaders were demanded a response to the occupation message of the Commander-In-Chief of the Imperial Japanese Forces, the 10 January draft they came up with after several days of debates contained the following:

“We beg to inform the Commander-in-Chief that, as requested and having in mind the independence and freedom of the country, we are ready to assist the [Japanese] Military Administration (Malay, 1967).”[3]

Lt. Col. Maeda Masami, Chief of Staff of Gen. Honma Masaharu, immediately responded against the inclusion especially of the word “independence” in the draft. After two days of less than cordial meetings with the Japanese military officials, a portion of the final copy of the said reply eventually read:

“We beg to inform the Commander-in-Chief that, in compliance with his advice, and having in mind the great ideals, the freedom, and the happiness of our country, we are ready to obey to the best of our ability and within the means at our disposal the orders issued by the Imperial Japanese Forces…”[4]

The word “independence” noticeably was replaced with the less ambitious “great ideals” and the highly subjective and nearly enigmatic term “happiness.” Japanese propagandists were so conditioned in using the term that even after the Philippines was already granted its independence almost two years later, “happiness” was still being used in several propaganda outputs. A poster in late 1943 advertised the slogan “East Asia—Our Happy Home,” while illustrating a parade of flag-bearing men on horses. Japan, riding a white horse, leads the parade of happiness, followed by the Philippines, (the) India(n National Army), Manchukuo, the Nanking Government, Burma, and Thailand.[5]

At the onset of the occupation, Tokyo was unmistakably wary in using the word “independence” despite Prime Minister Tojo’s speech during the 79th session of the Diet where he mentioned Burmese and Philippine independence.[6] Throughout 1942, no propagandist would dare utilize it. The closest would be propagation for the “Philippines for Filipinos” or the “New Philippines.” According to Hitomi Junsuke,[7] a ranking propaganda officer, in the beginning (precisely, up to August 1942), there were orders from Tokyo (Headquarters) to, as much as possible, not talk about two issues: “independence” and “race.”[8] Looking back, propagandists like Hitomi admitted they were “disheartened and got offended”by this order since utilizing those issues should have been obvious—Japan supposedly occupied the Philippines to get rid of Americans and free the Filipinos.

As intimated by Hitomi, propagation to liberate a colonized nation inevitably entails at least a certain level of racial provocation—making race and independence and their mutualism a necessity. In early 1942, occupying forces were luring the Filipinos into the Pan-Asian new order, this time known as the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere (daitōa kyōiken). Japanese propaganda was outright clear on the cultural and ideological means with which this war was to be conducted. It was the united Asiatics/Orientals’ war of liberation against the West (Occidentals). The best representations of this appeal are leaflets dropped over the battlefields of Bataan and Corregidor. One such leaflet illustrates a Filipino soldier guarding the frontline shackled by Death wearing the familiar Uncle Sam’s top hat. An audacious leaflet even contended that “it is true that the Filipino soldier holds the courage to shoot American officers to become free.”[9] This would be evident in several other leaflets asking Filipino soldiers not to fight the Japanese and instead violently turn against their American handlers. Although incomparable with the well-documented atrocities of the Japanese throughout the war, we now know that Filipino soldiers in Bataan received less rations and were, according to numerous accounts, maltreated by American officers and comrades. Such abuses were, oddly enough, factually reenacted in a 1944 Japanese propaganda film Dawn of Freedom and after the war were confirmed by memoirs such as that of Gen. Wainright (1946).

War time propaganda consisted of various themes such as Japan as a small but strong nation, triumph in Bataan, victory in Corregidor, hygiene which meant to give an air of normalization, and, the theme that could have been closest to the war-torn Filipinos, compassion for Filipino prisoners-of-war. None of the various themes of Japanese propaganda can be more glaring than those that touch on the liberation of the Philippines. A certain Shigemura, the administrator on duty at the Bacolod Japanese Administration Office, stepped on a make-shift platform in front of a crowd of hundreds in the town center of Bacolod in Panay island reminding everyone, Japanese and Filipinos alike, that:

“Looking back in retrospection, Japan upon declaration of the Greater East Asia War has completely obliterated the joint forces of the arrogant and rude Anglo-Americans, who have been treating us as an inferior race and who for long have enslaved us Asiatics in the past. By means of powerful and strategic military operations… the Anglo-Americans were completely driven out of the continent of Asia and the Japanese had liberated the Orientals…. Furthermore, Japan is exerting her undivided efforts in the establishment of Asia for the Asiatics. As long as New Asia was born, we Asiatics must be reborn spiritually…if you do not, we shall feel very disappointed if your independence shall become a failure.[10]

Race is not included in the extensional definition of independence, but several propaganda works by both Allies and Axis openly utilized it especially in the latter episodes of the Pacific War. It was because of this tendency of racial imposition why Dower (1986) hastily termed the global conflict as a “Race War.” I do not totally agree with Dower’s formulation.[11] In propaganda studies, invocation of race can only be considered as a rational requisite to the war time rhetoric and not the cause of it. Furthermore, it appears that both Tokyo and Washington had instructed their corresponding regional propaganda units to refrain from creating any racially oriented works. The Office of War Information (OWI) Regional Coordinator for Japan in 14 October 1942 was warned not to attack the Emperor, not to address the Japanese in pidgin English, not to scold the Japanese or speak to them in patronizing fashion (as being talked down by Occidentals will only increase their fighting spirit), and to always remember that “face” is everything to the Orient.[12]

As it turns out, Japanese propagandists were compelled to exploit the racial issue as most of its target territories were colonies of American and Western nations. Despite therefore of Tokyo’s order to refrain from using race as an element to their work, propagandists found it unavoidable. Hitomi and other propagandists sensed that Filipinos themselves felt they were being racially discriminated by the Americans. He related to several instances when Filipinos themselves came to Hitomi to tell stories of discrimination. But Tokyo forbade them to touch on this topic. Hitomi thinks that this was so as not to meddle with Tokyo’s relations with Italy and Nazi Germany (Nihon no Firipin Senryō-ki, 1994, 513) who after all were also Occidentals.[13]

It was widely published by the Japanese that in order for the Filipinos to achieve the so-much-longed-for independence, they had to fulfill the three requirements that Tojo had lined-up during his 1943 visit: peace and order, economic self-sufficiency, and the return to true Oriental spirit (see for example Porter, 1943: 109-112).　 It was during this year that both the guerrillas and the Japanese forces were suffering from tactical and strategic losses brought by the lingering war time social and economic crisis. Of the three requirements, only the third holds no objective leverage to Japanese military strategy. Bulk of the work in the check and balance for the “true Oriental spirit” were left therefore to the propagandists. Towards this end, Japanese propagandists exploited the long history of emancipatory and nationalist struggle of the Filipinos.

One of the first leaflets printed by the 14^th Army Propaganda Corps shows a Japanese soldier lighting a cigarette for a Filipino soldier (indicating confidence in battle and camaraderie) while American soldiers carrying a war torn stars and stripes flag scurry away from battle.[14] A January 1942 poster in Manila proclaimed:

You had been striving with every sacrifice and effort to establish an Independent State…but piratical action of America in 1898 brought your valuable efforts to naught…. [Our] purpose to your country is to drive away American sovereighnity [sic] and to give support to establish the Philippines for Filipinos

Several other posters would consistently invoke the Filipino emancipatory struggle against the Americans. A 1943 propaganda plan by the 14^th Army Information Department designates 16 July to 4 August as the period to prepare for the remembrance of the American military occupation of Manila (beigun senryō-bi senden jōbi, see Watari Shūdan Hōdō-bu, 1996, 287).[15] A late 1944 poster commemorated the 1899 Malolos Congress declaration of War against the Americans. Japanese propaganda though, fell short on stating the incomparable American atrocities during the Filipino-American War of 1899-1902.[16]

Where the anti-American issue was found inevitable, the independence issue took some precious time before it was finally used for practical propaganda purposes. Of all the Japanese, only Tojo was consistent in mentioning Philippine independence to Filipinos. The first time was during the hype created by the unexpected ease at taking out Pearl Harbor. The second was when he visited Manila the second time in May 1943, when the previous hype of victory had all but dissipated amidst continuous Japanese strategic losses starting from mid-1942 (Battles of the Coral Sea and Midway). None of the military leadership understood just how important the issue of independence was to the Filipinos, compared to how they amply comprehended the Burmese clamor for it. As it turns out, being mostly civilians themselves and having been embedded into the Filipino society, only the propagandists became well aware of such emancipatory consciousness. Miki Kiyoshi, considered as the foremost Japanese philosopher of the time, was drafted to the Philippines from March to December 1942 as staff-member of the 14^th Army Propaganda Corps. During his stay, he had grown convinced that to the Filipinos, “independence has been elevated to the realm of a faith and national conviction, not only among the intelligentsia but also among the general populace (Rōyama and Takeuchi, 1967, 211).”

Miki has been a relatively unknown entity in the Philippine academe.[17] Recent research though points to his important role not only in Japanese propaganda but in Tokyo’s war time foreign policy. Tairako (in Kiyoshi et. al., 2008, 319) for example suggests that it is apparent that Miki served as an influential political adviser (seiji komon) to the Military Administration in the Philippines in giving his opinion on how to better run the country. Even upon his return to Japan, Miki would continue to publish articles and engage in forums telling the Japanese the importance of finally settling the Philippine independence issue.

Not until 26 June 1943 would the Southern Military Government (Nanpō no Gunsei) provide a clear “guiding principle” on Philippine independence (Bōeichō Bōei Kenkyūjō Senshi-bu, 1985, 52-53). By 14 October 1943, the Philippines was granted its independence. It was of course widely considered as a puppet regime as all and not excluding any government offices were assigned an omnipresent Japanese “adviser.” Analyzing just how this episode affected the Filipino elite’s conception of Philippine independence is undoubtedly an enormous task. Agoncillo in 1984 (see Burden of Proof, 47) felt from the political elite’s rhetoric some “real” anti-American feelings quoting a manifesto signed by all 23 members of the Philippine Council of State in 26 February 1943.[18] Similarly, in a speech at the Greater East Asia Conference in 5-6 November 1943 a sense not only of pro-Japanese feelings but of affinity to the Japanese Oriental cause can be surmised from Laurel’s sincerity, typical to what Mao (1971, 187) has termed as the “die-hard forces” of the bourgeoisie. He said:

As I entered your reception room, tears flowed from my eyes and I felt strengthened and inspired and said, ‘One billion Orientals; one billion peoples of Greater East Asia! How could they have been dominated, a great portion of them, particularly by England and America? ‘I wonder!’

There undoubtedly had been strong anti-American sentiment in the political elite during the 1940s. Quezon, not so long ago, was a Major in Aguinaldo’s Philippine Independence Army during the Filipino-American War (Enosawa, 1940). Laurel, who was to become the President of the Japanese-sponsored independence, was the son of one of the signatories of the Malolos Constitution in 1899. Sotero Laurel Sr. was captured by the Americans during the Filipino-American War, and died in an American concentration camp. The problem arises though in the fact that most of the memoirs published by the political elite after the war are filled with retractions of their part in the occupation—making it practically impossible to use their war time speeches and writings as reliable texts. But in the same fashion as some historians’ attempt to look for subtle anti-Japanese insertions in their speeches and writings, there undoubtedly was a possibility of Filipino leaders (sans the Japanophiles) having been genuinely open to the Japanese counter-culture.

Works Cited

Abe, Yutaka and Gerardo de Leon. 1944. Dawn of Freedom. Tōhō Productions.

Agoncillo, Teodoro A. 2001. The Fateful Years: Japan’s Adventure in the Philippines, 1941-1945. Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press. Originally published in 1965.

____________________. 1984. The Burden of Proof: The Vargas-Laurel Collaboration Case. Metro Manila University of the Philippines Press.

Bōeichō Bōei Kenkyūjō Senshi-bu (防衛庁防衛研究所戦史部編著, War History Department of the National Institute of Defense Studies, NIDS). 1985. Nanpō no Gunsei Shiryō-shū (南方の軍政資料集, Collection of Materials of the Southern Military Government). Tokyo: Asagumo Shinbun-sha.

Dower, John W. 1986. War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War. New York: Pantheon Books.

Enosawa G.H. (Hisashi). 1940. Manuel L. Quezon: From Nipa House to Malacanan. Tokyo: Japan Publicity Agency. Originally published in Japanese in 1939.

Ienaga Saburō. 1978. The Pacific War 1931-1945: A Critical Perspective on Japan’s Role in World War II. New York: Pantheon Books. The original in Japanese was published in 1968 by Iwanami Shoten.

Kiyoshi Mahito (清真人), Tsuda Masao (津田雅夫), Kameyama Sumio (亀山, 純生), Muroi Michihiro (室井美千博), and Tairako Tomonaga (平子友長). 2008. Isan toshite no Miki Kiyoshi (遺産としての三木清, Miki Kiyoshi’s Legacy). Tokyo: Dōjidaisha.

Malay, Armando J. 1967. Occupied Philippines. Manila: Filipiniana Book Guild.

Mao Tsetung. 1971. Selected Readings from the Works of Mao Tsetung. Peking: Foreign Languages Press.

Maruyama Masao. 1969. Thought and Behaviour in Modern Japanese Politics. Edited by Ivan Morris. Tokyo, Oxford, and New York: Oxford University Press.

Nihon no Firipin Senryō-ki ni kansuru Shiryō Chōsa Fōram（日本のフィリピン占領期に関する史料調査フォーラム）. 1994. Nihon no Firipin Senryō: Intabyū Kiroku (日本のフィリピン占領：インタビュー記録, Japanese Occupation of the Philippines: A Record of Interviews). Osaka: Kitamura Masamitsu.

Porter, Catherine. 1943. “Japan’s Blue-Print for the Philippines.” Far Eastern Survey, Vol. 12 No 11, 31 May. pp 109-112.

Rōyama Masamichi and Takeuchi Tatsuji. 1967. The Philippine Polity: A Japanese View. Monograph Series No. 12. Michigan: Yale University Southeast Asia Studies.

Terami-Wada Motoe. 1984. “The Cultural Front in the Philippines, 1941-1945: Japanese Propaganda and Filipino Resistance in Mass Media.” A graduate thesis for a Masters in Philippine Studies degree, College of Arts and Letters, University of the Philippines.

Wainright, General Jonathan. 1946. General Wainright’s Story: The Account of Four Years of Humiliating Defeat, Surrender, and Captivity. New York: Doubleday and Company, Inc..

Watari Shūdan Hōdō-bu (渡集団報通部, 14^th Army Propaganda Corps). 1996. Daijūyon-gun Gunsendenhan: Senden Kōsaku Shiryō Shū (第十四軍軍宣伝班：宣伝工作資料集, Compilation of Propaganda Materials of the 14^th Army Propaganda Corps). Two Volumes compiled and summarized by Hitomi Junsuke (人見潤介), Nakano Satoshi (中野聡), and Terami Motoe (寺見元恵). Tokyo: Kumatani Shoten.

Yu-Jose, Lydia N. 1992. Japan Views the Philippines 1900-1944. Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press.

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[1] FDR, in a reply to Quezon, quickly reassures its Filipino counterpart American support citing the provisions of the Tydings-McDuffie Law. At the same time, FDR reminds Quezon of the horrible Japanese track record in Korea, Manchukuo, North China, Indochina, and others, in a sense telling him not to believe the Japanese.

[2] No posters, leaflets, and other popular forms of propaganda I found would mention the word independence until mid-1943. Unlike Burma, the Southern Occupying Force did not foresee the importance of granting independence to the Philippines. Even before occupying Burma, Japanese military had already planned on using the strong Burmese independence movement to sway the elite towards the Japanese cause which would be clear in the 10 March 1943 resolution by the Tokyo Headquarters Administrative Liaison Group (Daihonei Seifu Renrakukai) establishing the guidelines for Burma’s independence (see Bōeichō Bōei Kenkyūjō Senshi-bu, 1985, 47-49.

[3] Italics provided by the me. A detailed record of the proceedings of those meetings can be read from Malay, 1967. The inclusion of the term independence was reiterated by Benigno Aquino.

[4] Italics provided by the researcher.

[5] The Japanese term shiawase (幸せ) is different from its closest English counterpart, “happiness”. Shiawase is more closely related to “fate” than to a state of emotion. I am not an authority on this. I believe it warrants a more exhaustive anthropological study.

[6] Tojo also talked about this during the 81^st Diet in 28 January 1943: “Substantial progress is being made in the degree of cooperation…and in the restoration of internal peace and security. Under these circumstances,…it is contemplated to put into effect the statement made previously on the question of Philippine independence in the shortest possible time.”

[7] At that time, Hitomi had the rank First Leiutenant (Chū-i) and was the head of both the External Propaganda Division (Taigai Senden-bu) and the Information Division (Jōhō-bu) of the 14^th Army Propaganda Corps.

[8] Based on an interview conducted by Nakano Satoshi, in Nihon no Firipin Senryō-ki ni kansuru Shiryō Chōsa Fooram, 1994, 481-538.

[9] Original message in Tagalog: “Totoo na ang sundalong Filipino ay may lakas loob para bumaril sa oficiales na Americano upang lumaya.”

[10] Retrieved from a pamphlet, italics are mine. No date was indicated in this pamphlet but I believe the speech was made around July 1943.

[11] My view on the causes of the war is more closely related to what Gluck (1992) refers to as the “view of progressives and mostly Leftists” from 1945 until the 1970s—i.e., the causes of the war as “thoroughly systematic, involving not only state but society, not only Showa but Meiji, imperialism not only reactive but aggressive, and an emperor system not only exempt from responsibility but exemplifying it.” Unfortunately, the book where Gluck’s article is used as an introduction, while attempting to plot the different point of views on the Pacific War, fail to expound or even represent this so-called “Leftist view”. The book though correctly pointed to works of Ienaga (1968) and Maruyama (1969).

[12] This was according to the comments to a draft entitled “Basis for detailed plan for propaganda into the Japanese Empire”penned by the OWI. Document retrieved from the National Archives at College Park, Maryland.

[13] Parameters of racism may be recognized from the mere citation of two different races (i.e. Orientals and Occidentals) to the denigration of a particular race. Both Japanese and American propagandists may be guilty on those extreme parameters especially after the brutal island battles and savage hand-to-hand combats. In fact, it can be surmised that the rate of brutality was directly proportional to the rate of racism in both Allied and Axis propaganda. But this requires a lengthy discussion and deserves a separate paper.

[14] According to Terami-Wada, 1984, 105, 15,000 copies of this leaflet were disseminated in Manila.

[15] Manila was captured by American forces on 13 August. The next day, Maj. Gen. Wesley Merritt, Commander of the United States Army, issued his “Proclamation of Occupation of Manila”. The full text can be retrieved from http://www.msc.edu.ph/centennial/proc-occupation.html

[16] It turns out that Japanese propaganda officers and civilians as well as the entire Japanese forces were not aware of this. Basic texts about the Philippines that were made to be read to officers did not mention any of these atrocities. The two textbooks were Katherine Mayo’s The Isles of Fear: The Truth About the Philippines (1925) and Conrado Benitez’ History of the Philippines: Economic, Social, Political (1926) translated into Japanese as Firipin-shi: Seiji, Keizai, Shakaishiteki Kenkyū (December 1942).

[17] With the exception of Yu-Jose (1992) who briefly mentions of Miki’s work in the Philippines.

[18] This manifesto also appeared in bilingual (Tagalog and English) poster form. The poster measures 106.5X76.5cm and can be retrieved from the University of the Philippines Japanese Occupation Papers Collection.