Friends, ladies and gentlemen.

It is indeed a great pleasure for me to be invited to speak before you today.

At the outset, I would like to congratulate the officers and members of the Veterans Federation of the Philippines’ Sons and Daughters Association, Inc., for organizing this Balderian Day. With this activity, you formally elevated the late Major Alejandro Balderian to the pantheon of heroes. You have done a noble act that possibly no provincial or national administration has ever done over the past 54 years since the successful conclusion of the Battle at Leyte.

Major Balderian was truly a people’s hero, whose admirable wartime legacy is still remembered by his own people. And it is presumably for this legacy that you give him due honor and recognition today. Unfortunately, his image as a hero does not fit in well with the existing official view of the establishment. Indeed, in dramatic fashion, both the provincial and national governments ceremoniously ignored and snubbed Balderian’s wartime role during the 50th anniversary of the Leyte Landing in October 1994.

Let me take you back to that time to prove my point. Pres. Fidel Ramos conferred posthumous Philippine Legion of Honor Awards to four personalities: the late Pres. Sergio Osmeña, the late diplomat Carlos P. Romulo, retired Gen. Rafael Ileto, and the late Col. Ruperto Kangleon.

The question in many minds then was: What were the actual contributions of these personalities to the successful Leyte Landing of Gen. MacArthur and the Allied Forces? Osmeña and Romulo were plain and simple spectators of the event, even if they waded towards the beach of Leyte with MacArthur, were photographed with him, and had their statues included in the Leyte Landing Memorial Park. Gen. Ileto was awarded for his negligible role as a young special forces soldier who landed in Samar in October 1944.

Many of you who witnessed the 1994 commemoration, either in Palo or in front of your TV screens, will probably agree with me that the posthumous awards for Col. Kangleon were given at the expense of his unrecognized subordinate officer, Major Balderian. Aside from a Philippine Legion of Honor, Pres. Ramos also posthumously promoted Kangleon to the rank of brigadier-general and gave him full credit for the success of the guerrilla movement in Leyte.

Of course, it is known that Kangleon was the MacArthur appointee as commander of the unified guerrilla units in Leyte. But it is also known that his foremost achievement as a guerrilla leader was the fighting in August 1943 against the guerrilla unit of Blas Miranda, who contested Kangleon’s authority. Incidentally, this infighting, which cost many lives, was a most shameful episode in the annals of the Leyte guerrillas.

Many Filipino war veterans, particularly in the northeastern part of Leyte, had wished and loudly wanted that Balderian would be honored during the 1994 rites. And for strong and verifiable reasons. People who had lived through the war years would readily admit that Balderian’s word, and not Kangleon’s, was considered law in our part of the province at a time when the legitimate national government was in exile in the United States. They also admit that Balderian was the recognized leader of the guerrilla unit that successfully harassed the Japanese military in northeastern Leyte and prepared the area for MarArthur’s arrival.

The successful combat feats of the guerrillas under Balderian’s direct command in 1942 alone are on record. These included the first ambush of a truckload of Japanese soldiers along the Burauen highway in July that year; the daring attack on the Japanese garrison in San Antonio, Palo, a month later; an armed encounter with Japanese soldiers in October; the fourteen-days siege of the Japanese garrison in Burauen in November; and the attack on the Japanese garrison in Dagami at about the same time.

I have not come across any mention of Balderian’s guerrilla activities in 1943 and 1944 from available records and accounts of both Filipinos and Americans. But I have a Japanese account of guerrilla activities in Balderian’s jurisdiction in the middle of 1944, when the Japanese were thick in the preparations for an expected American landing in northern Leyte, which they speculated would be in the Dulag area. I refer to the published memoir on the Leyte War of Mr. Kennosuke Nakajima, a Japanese war veteran who was stationed as a radio operator in Leyte in 1944.

According to Mr. Nakajima, the guerrillas in northern Leyte remained very active, even though the Japanese military was conducting intense anti-guerrilla patrols in several areas. Sometime during the feverish construction of Japanese bunkers along the coast of northern Leyte and the airstrips in Burauen and Dulag, the guerrillas even shot at the car carrying General Shiro Makino, commander of the 16th Infantry Division of the Japanese Imperial Army. Gen. Makino was ordered to transfer his headquarters from Los Baños, Laguna to Tacloban in April 1944, apparently to establish the Japanese defense system in anticipation of the American landing in Leyte, which occurred six months later in October 1944.

Mr. Nakajima noted that, despite the arrival of Japanese reinforcement troops in northern Leyte, the guerrillas did not seem threatened at all. In fact, they seemed to have become more and more powerful against the Japanese soldiers.

For all the feats of the guerrillas under his command, which were recognized by both friends and foes, Balderian ought to have been honored during the 1994 rites. But petty local political maneuverings apparently destroyed this hope. My comment on this issue is now part of public domain. It was contained in a press dispatch to the Philippine News and Features (PNF) in October 1996. This is what I wrote:

"Then Gov. Leopoldo Petilla was positioning his wife, Remedios, now the governor, to succeed him. But her potential rival was the then vice-governor, Aurelio Menzon, son-in-law of Balderian, whom Remedios beat in the 1995 election.

"Local watchers opined that a recognition for Balderian in 1994 could have given Menzon political mileage, so Petilla allegedly blocked this move."

In retrospect, the official decision to ignore Balderian during the 1994 rites seemed providential. Grateful Leyteños picked up from where their higher officials had failed and elevated Balderian’s heroism to its rightful place in history, and more importantly in their hearts and minds, where Balderian’s legacy continues to reverberate.

In contrast, the Leyte Landing celebration, with its unabashed glorification of the Americans as "big brothers," seemed to have outlived its relevance and usefulness in a changing world. After 1994 it had been ignored by the Japanese government and trivialized by the U.S. and Australian governments through the sending in low-ranking embassy staff.

In depriving Balderian of the official honors due him, our top-level political officials unwittingly taught our people the relevant but bitter lesson of the Leyte Landing celebration. And the lesson is this: It is a mistake to honor foreign "liberators" and their chosen Filipino buddies while ignoring the valiant local guerrillas who made the Leyte Landing possible with less cost on American lives.

In closing, let me commend you for coming up with this new celebration. Let this grow into a viable counter-ritual that celebrates real Filipino heroism, like the one Major Balderian showed in his day, even if it is one which our top-level politicians would refuse to grace and see.

Thank you and may you have a good day.