Delfin Rosales

Lt. Delfin C. Rosales: An authentic Bikolnon hero April 16, 2014 by bicolmail in Top Stories By JOSE V. BARRAMEDA, JR. THE battle for Naga [in 1945] produced an authentic hero of Canaman extraction who won a posthumous Gold Cross award, the only other of two Bicolano guerrillas to be so awarded. He was guerrilla lieutenant Delfin C. Rosales, youngest son of Canaman’s famed Siling Layas and member of the Philippine Army Air Corps (PAAC), the cover name for the Allied Intelligence Bureau (AIB) which Filipino air ace Jesus Villamor had organized and which was under the command of Nicolas Carbonel in Camarines Sur (J. V. Barrameda, Canaman Through the Centuries. 1982, p.69). Though he traced his parentage to Canaman, Delfin was a native son of Naga. (J. V. Barrameda, “A Bridge for a Hero,” ENCOUNTER Magazine, September 1989.) Delfin Camacho Rosales was 22 years old when he died a hero’s death on April 9, 1945. He did not have to die. But he took the risk—and lost his life—to save a wounded Philippine Scout who had been hit by Japanese sniper fire at the western side of the bridge at Panganiban in the battle for the liberation of Naga. His comrades watched in helpless horror as he doggedly pulled the wounded Scout to safety despite three bullets in him: one in his right chest; another through his right cheek, which exited at his left jaw; and a third in his right buttock. Rushed by Agrifino Rañola and Honesto General and two other guerrillas to doctors Jesus Hidalgo and Francisco Gomez in Camaligan for medical aid, Delfin died from loss of blood shortly thereafter, his fingers lifted in the victory sign Churchill had made famous during the war. (Canaman. p. 70; J. V. Barrameda, “An Authentic Bikonon Hero,” ENCOUNTER Magazine, December 1989; J. V. Barrameda, In the Crucible of an Asymmetrical War in Camarine Sur 1942-1945. National Historical Institute, 2007, p. 184). Delfin was the second to the youngest child—and the youngest of three sons—of Lorenzo I. Rosales of Canaman, who gained fame as the rapier-witted “Siling Layas,” and the former Angelica Camacho. When World War II broke out, he was unable to join his two older brothers, who both survived the Death March: Esteban (later a Naga City councilor) and Lorenzo (who became a noted lawyer in the city).