Warrior Pilgrimage: 2021-006 | PURE SURVIVAL CHRONICLES: THE LANIGUID INCIDENT

IN THE COURSE OF MY life’s journey, I have met many people who were survivors of different mishaps and catastrophes, circumstances and deprivations, wars and conflicts, and they lived to tell their experiences, predicaments and fortunes. While others I came across to, are witnesses of, or have been recipient of tales from these survivors, it still are stories worth telling. I am an eager listener and I always remember the stories very well and added these pieces of information into my “library of self-preservation”. This blog is, in itself, a repository of pure survival tales.

One of the saddest misfortunes that befell during conflicts are the wanton killings of non-combatants, especially the civilian population, almost always attributed to both sides without discrimination. It so happened so many times in the past that it is not that rare anymore. One of these massacres happened on a hinterland community of the Municipality of Liloan during the last stages of World War II which was inflicted by units of the Imperial Japanese Army when they made their retreat to northern Cebu.

After Cebu City was cleared of Japanese resistance by the US Eighth Army on April 14, 1945, the Japanese-held lines between the coastal plains and the heights of the Babag Mountain Range were abandoned by their defenders, who escaped over the mountains, hoping to reach Bogo where a Japanese troop ship was supposed to be steaming towards it. It was at this time, a platoon-sized IJA that strayed at Laniguid on a bright full moon. The Japanese soldiers summoned all the civilians they could find and begun killing them.

According to the last living witness, GREGORIA LANCA-AG GEPEGA, female, married, now 94 years old, and a resident of Barangay Mulao, Liloan; a younger brother of hers accidentally discovered the Japanese troops. He was immediately detained and everyone were roused out of their homes, to include evacuees coming from the lowlands of Liloan, who seek refuge here, to stay away from the fierce battles waged on the coastal highway and shorelines.

“I was born on September 28, 1927, here in Mulao, which was then known as Sak-on. I lived with my parents, my eight brothers and a sister. I finished Grade 2 at Sak-on Elementary School and I enjoyed my teen years by watching a ‘comparza’, a form of entertainment, with neighbors. We know there was a war going on but we did not know what it was like because we were living peacefully here…

“I do not even know what a Japanese soldier looked like because, despite all the fearful stories we heard about them, it seemed so distant to us. One day, people from the lowlands, led by a certain Mr. Buhay, arrived. There was an open market fair and they took rest under the makeshift huts and benches. We were so disturbed at the news they brought and it left us wondering what would become of us if the war should come here…

“Like most nights, we retired early. There was a full moon and my younger brother went out to check on his cow. It was quite strange that he took so long to be out. In fact, he never came back at all. We hit our sleeping mats and began dozing off when we were awakened by angry noises muttering strange dialects. Loud bangs pounded our door and the cool breeze of the night entered as we opened it and it sent a chill upon our spines.”

Laniguid is a hilly part of Liloan town and is popular with hikers who spend overnight or just a day. Its peak reaches 500 meters above sea level and a small community still lives on its foothills. It is part of the village of Mulao. There is a cross on the site of the massacre where there used to be mass graves. All the remains of the dead victims were exhumed and given proper burials after the war.

It was on this massacre site where the villagers and the unlucky visitors from the lowlands were dragged and lined. The men, young and old, were separated from the women, the girls, and the nursing infants and small children. The soldiers were talking to the men but nobody could understand them. Under the ghostly light of a full moon, it would cast an impression of a grim ending for all.

“My father and the rest of my brothers were taken away from me by force while another group of soldiers herded me, my mother and my sister, along with all the women and their children some distance away. It was the last time I saw my father and three of my brothers alive and almost everybody that I knew for so long…

“There was this concubine of a Japanese soldier, named Lourdes, who was from the lowlands, and who tried to talk the soldiers out from harming us all. She was with her half-Japanese infant, but the leader grabbed instead her child and thrust the bayonet through, killing the child. Then she was also stabbed to death by the same murderer…

“From afar, I heard cries of pain and shouting for help. Then the Japanese in our own group began killing us with their bayonets thrusting the tips to whomever was nearest them. In the half-light, all of us tried to run or shielded those whom dear to us. I felt a sharp hard object punching painfully on my lower back and in my armpit. I fell down and the same object is thrust again on my upper back and I lost consciousness.”

The indiscriminate murder of innocent civilians took the lives of more than 250 men, women and children. This was the biggest massacre inflicted by the Japanese in Cebu and it is not well-publicized. It took the lives of her father, her mother, her only sister and three of his brothers. By this time of the interview, Gregoria Gepega was in tears, sobbing, and releasing her painful memories away.

Killing without provocation could have been attributed to the fear of discovery by the Americans or by Filipino guerrillas on the routed Japanese troopers. They would probably be suffering from hunger, thirst, great stress, shock, low morale, frustration, anger and fear. The least they could do is being discovered by its enemies or even by innocent locals and that is why they travelled by night during their retreat.

“I regained consciousness when I felt light through my eyelids. Morning had arrived. I was alive and I was left for dead, not only by the Japanese, but also of the surviving villagers. My dead mother was above me. She could have shielded me while I was going down and that is why I was alive. She has saved me! I pushed my dear mother gently aside and I crawled out to seek help…

“The wounds I got were very painful yet I did not have difficulty in breathing. Immediately, first aid treatment was applied on my wounds when they found me, all of it folk remedies since our barrio was very far from the town center. I remembered I took a decoction made from boiling water and a 6-inch nail. Then I passed out again…

“When I regained consciousness once more, I was recuperating from my wounds in an American army field hospital in Jagobiao, Mandaue. I did not have any recollection of when and who brought me here? A local nurse told me that I slept for three straight days. I would go on to stay for another month before they would release me.”

Gregoria would go on to marry her neighbor and suitor, Benito Gepega, now 94 years old. During the incident in Laniguid, he was in Balamban with his family, looking after their farm. All told, there were less than ten survivors and most of them are now dead of old age. One of the survivors is MIGUEL MALABON, male, married, 76 years old and the current village chairman of Mulao. He is the nephew of Gregoria Gepega.

He has no recollection whatsoever of the incident since he was three months old at that time. He was allegedly cradled by his mother when they were separated from the men. He survived the massacre when his mother shielded him from the Japanese but his father was not so lucky. He has a twin brother, which also survived and is now living in Davao.

Days after the massacre, the surviving neighborhood created a search party led by Perio Goc-ong when they discovered that there were three Japanese stragglers sighted in their barrio. All three decided to fight it out to the last man than be taken prisoner. Most of the IJA forces reached Tabogon, harassed on the rear by guerrilla forces and could go no further as the Americans blocked their route.

They surrendered to Major General William H. Arnold of the US Eighth Army, all 9,867 officers, the rank-and-file and their civilian auxiliaries, to include, perhaps, those responsible for that massacre in Laniguid. All were transported immediately back to Cebu City and repatriated under guard to Japan.