José Fausto

Don Jose P. Fausto, lawyer (admitted to the Bar on September 27, 1920), ardent nationalist, gentleman politician, multi-term Congressman (2nd District, Pampanga), appointed Pampanga Governor in 1941 by then Pres. Manuel L. Quezon, and married to Rufina Madlambayan Gueco of Magalang, Pampanga.

Buried at the Fausto - Gueco Family Mausoleum, St. Anne Memorial Park, Sta. Lucia, Sta. Ana, Pampanga, Philippines.

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C O N G R E S S I O N A L R E C O R D

Proceedings and debates of the 1st Philippine Congress

2nd Special Session

(Translated from Spanish by Ricardo C. Puno)

MR. ICKES AND THE SO CALLED COLLABORATORS

Extension of Remarks

Of

HON. JOSE P. FAUSTO

Of Pampanga

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

MR. FAUSTO: Mr. President, with the permission of the House, I would like to talk on a pressing and relevant question. You will remember that a few days ago, the Secretary of State of the Government of the United States, in a radiogram addressed to the President of the nation has made insinuations that cast the shadow of a doubt upon our sincerity with regards to the disposition of cases involving so-called collaborators, and warns us of possible consequences for any blunders we may commit in the judgement of the same. Naturally, in a country like ours, where in fifty years we have learned the democratic way of life according to the American pattern, where freedom of thought that does not lead to license is guaranteed by the fundamental law of the land, not everybody can subscribe and agree, without a dissenting voice, with the opinion of Mr. Ickes. For this reason, a few – a very few indeed – have expressed displeasure over the radiogram in question, and even to the extent of questioning the propriety of the same. I stand before the House, Mr. President, to answer those who have thus criticized Mr. Ickes, and also to answer Mr. Ickes himself.

The opponents of Mr. Ickes must have spoken without taking into consideration, or without being cognizant of, the clear and definite provisions of the Tydings-Mcduffie Law, which solemnly recognizes the right of intervention on the part of the United States over our government. I recommend therefore, to those gentlemen, a minute scrutiny of the provisions of that Law. And I shall say more. As long as there exists that actual state of dependence that binds us with the United States, it is inevitable, that from time to time, whenever her interests demand it, we receive from the foreign power such directives whenever she sees fit to give them. Hence we must be discreet, we must use our common sense. No one must dare pretend to undo with empty words, to destroy by the force of language what the language of force has taught us these fifty years, this language which, by the miracle of the years we have finally learned. And which we must now willingly accept with profound gratitude in view of the recent catastrophe that has converted many parts of the country into a pile of ruins and debris, and the whole country into a sad and desolate chaos of necropolis and cemeteries, of tombs bereft of crosses profusely scattered here and there, from Batanes to Mindanao. What conquests by force of arms can do, when it undertakes a moral conquest besides, and transgresses even the realm of the human heart!

And now I shall answer Mr. Ickes. Let there be no surprise since there is no reason for any. I shall limit myself to the facts leaving the sense of justice of Mr. Ickes to draw its own conclusion, by means of premises strictly historical.

I shall begin by saying that America has had an enviable fate. And this is not a wonder. The demigods enjoy privileges not shared by the other mortals of the earth. The American people, inspite of the fact that they figured conspicuously in the last world conflict, did not see their native soil violated nor have their skies known the merciless incursions of enemy planes. Their hamlets, their towns, their cities have been spared. In no part of the United States would be seen the debris and the ruins that meet our gaze here at every step. It can be said that the American people, inside the confines of their continent, have not suffered a single sleepless night, nor feared for a moment for their territorial security. The American people, in general, have known and felt the horrors of this war through the soldiers who return from the front, and because of the void left by those whom fond and loving eyes saw leave for the front, for always, never to return. And also through their countrymen who have had the misfortune of falling into the hands of the enemy as prisoners, and are now returning to their native hearths, to recover lost health in the warmth of their homes, like spectres, like phantoms, like souls in torment, emaciated, pale, weak, cadaverous.

Outside of those unfortunate American prisoners of war now missing, who must have suffered martyrdom at the hands of the saddistic and barbaric Japanese, the valiant soldiers of America who fell in the battlefield died fighting, armed with the best weapons, dying heroic deaths. But not so with the defenseless people of our country who were treacherously massacred by the Japanese.

One must not wonder that Destiny was generous to America, minimizing the sufferings of its noncombatants. America was the chosen country, she was to play the leading role of heroine in the bloodiest drama the world ever witnessed, and we, the victims. America has played its part most wonderfully giving her major share in arms and men for the triumph of liberty over despotism and oppression, and we, giving our meager share in sweat and tears! Destiny be praised a thousand times who hath denied to America the sufferings she so freely bestowed upon us!

Mr. President, I shall now try to paint a picture of our country’s sufferings.

The Philippines has known the horrors of this war from the first day it was declared in the Pacific, with the infamous Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Our Calvary started that very day in December, 1941, when formations of enemy planes suddenly appeared in the skies, treacherously attacking us without a previous declaration of war. The victims of these raids increased as the enemy intensified its attacks. Finally, our army, badly outnumbered and utterly taken by surprise, had to retreat after vainly attempting to stem the tide of the enemy’s advance on land. It was a spark in the military genius of the great McArthur, who once more has given proof of his talents as a great strategist of the first order for having conceived the plan of concentrating our forces in the peninsula of Bataan and among the rocks of Corregidor. This move made it possible for our army, inferior in number, to continue resisting for a great length of time, a resistance now gradually acknowledged by History as one of the decisive factors in the rapid fall of the aggressor and her surrender.

Thus freed from all opposition on many parts, the invader then committed all crimes imaginable. They murdered in cold blood the defenseless citizens they found on the way, driven by panic, in search of a haven of refuge. Whole towns were reduced to ashes, pillaged and plundered. A great number of our women were violated, and thus we have the tragedy of mothers who have to love the fruit of their wombs as blood of their blood and parts of their hearts yet loathe in that self- same moment the very hour of their conception, the hour when they were forcefully initiated into the mysteries of motherhood, their innocence sullied by the bestial madness of the Japanese soldier. And no less tragic is the case of married couples who cannot hear of this war without remembering ignominious scenes, wherein the husband, hands bound, powerless, had to witness the rape of his wife, who in turn had to surrender her body to the bestialities of the satyr with the fitting beard, before the very nose of her husband.

Mr. President, the civilian population, whilst all this was transpiring in their midst, with no arms to defend themselves, turned to prayer, imploring Almighty God to lighten the burden of their misfortunes, their vicissitudes, their anguish. And with the inward eye they sought for the defenders of Bataan and Corregidor, not to recriminate them for having thus abandoned us to our fate, but to breathe into them new courage, to transmit to them by telepathy all the vehemence of our prayers, that they might continue the fight until the arrival of the promised aid. But days turned into weeks and weeks into months, and no aid was forthcoming. Until one day the inevitable happened, what perforce had irremissibly to happen. Helpless and hungry, the defenders had to surrender to the enemy’s superior numbers. And for the vanquished began the bloody trail to Calvary.

I have seen with my own eyes the vanquished warriors of Bataan take that bloody trail to Calvary, the prison camp at Capas, where much later thousands upon thousands of American and Filipino soldiers died, whom enemy bullets spared but not germs, and pestilence, and contagious diseases caused by the camp’s utter disregard of the most elemental laws of hygiene, and by the torture of hunger to which these poor unfortunates were subjected, not to mention the rackets which the gentleman from Samar now wishes to have investigated for the punishment of the guilty.

Mr. President, inspite of the passing years, I still keep the vivid recollections of what I saw then. The sight of those soldiers has engraved in my mind a picture that forever haunts me, that never leaves me in peace, that sticks to me with the tenacity of moss to stone, a picture I cannot dispel. It is my torment and the torment of my few remaining years, my eternal nightmare. In much the same way as the generations to come cannot possibly gaze upon such a colossal tragedy without horror, I likewise cannot relate those things I have seen but an all-consuming hate permeates my whole being, hate against the enemy and against those who in one way or another cooperated spontaneously and voluntarily with the enemy.

I seem to see as yet the first group of prisoners who passed through San Fernando, the capital of my province. It was on a day in April. The sun vomited fire. Everything blazed and burned including the very air we breathed. Japanese sadism, Mr. President, always chooses the most inclement hour of the day for the movement of prisoners. And between twelve and one o’clock at midday, from afar, I saw a compact mass of gray, moving wearily and laboriously, against the white pavement of the highway. As the distance shortened the mass gradually acquired contours less confusing, the silhouettes gradually took on forms more definite, precise and clear. As they drew nearer – My God – I beheld a scene of horror I never would wish to behold again. I saw living skeletons moving slowly, walking wearily, vacillating and wavering, only a few steps removed from the grave. At this juncture, I cannot but draw a comparison between the generosity of the American and the cruelty of the Japanese. Today we see Japanese prisoners transported on comfortable trucks through the generosity of the American Army, well dressed, sporting resplendent army uniforms which the most needy amongst our suffering millions cannot use without risking the danger of arrest, - well fed, partaking of food they never tasted in their lives, knowing as we do the wretched diet of the Japanese soldier. The vanquished warriors of Bataan were forced to negotiate on foot the distance between the scene of their heroic stand and the capital of Pampanga, a distance of more than a hundred kilometers. Some half-naked and others covered in rags, their beards falling down their chests and their hair falling in a disordered mass about their shoulders. And they were hungry, very hungry, Mr. President. Among them I saw one who, for trying to reach for a “santol” fruit from an overhanging bough by the road, was killed in the act by the inhuman and merciless Japanese soldiers. And others cruelly clubbed simply because they could not resist the temptation to quench their thirst on an artesian well by the roadside. Others still, who suddenly went mad, their minds unable to bear so much suffering, or decayed by the germs of malaria, or suicides for those who preferred an unequal struggle, attacking their captors and thereby meeting instant death, instead of living a life of humiliation and of dishonor, of slow, lingering agony. And as a fitting climax to that martyrology, I saw American and Filipino soldiers who, exhausted, bereft of strength to carry on the march, fell by the roadside, and instead of receiving such medical attention as was promptly given in the case of Japan’s No.1 War Criminal, Tojo, these poor unfortunates found the quickest route to heaven by means of the Japanese bayonet. Thus I say, gentlemen, that if at any time you should pass through the tragic highway that unites the two provinces of Bataan and Pampanga, do not forget to uncover, because on both sides of that highway are enshrined in forgotten and unidentified tombs the remains of American and Filipino soldiers who, like their other comrades no longer of this world, wrote together a common history of sacrifice, and forged together the destinies of both nations with every drop of blood spilled for the integrity of our soil and the prestige of America in these latitudes of the globe, in the darkest hour of its recent venture.

Mr. President, the Japanese, in adversity, is a maniac who knows the use of crime in all its forms and expressions, who destroys whatever crosses his path, as proven by the series of hair-raising crimes he has perpetrated in course of his ignoble flight, pursued by the army of liberation of General MacArthur. In his hour of triumph, Mr. President, the Japanese is also a maniac who knows the use of arrogance in all its forms and expressions to humiliate the vanquished. I have seen an American high-ranking officer, robust, handsome as a god, gigantic, paraded through the streets of San Fernando under vigilant guard of the smallest Japanese I ever set eyes upon, a pygmy. It is evident that that spectacle was intended to prove that the greatness of a nation is not measured by the physical size of its nationals nor by the perfection of their features. At this point, I cannot but imagine what might have happened if, instead of Gen. MacArthur who is now in Tokyo disarming the Japanese people, a Homma, a Yamashita, or any Japanese petty general were in Washington to guide the destinies of the American nation. I believe there would be no form of humiliation they would not attempt in order to enrage the conquered. The inhuman underworld, the heartless, soulless world must needst look upon this mirror now laid out in prominent display in Japan. And to those of our countrymen who are easily frightened by the mere thought that America would abandon us in the midst of the miseries and destructions caused by war, withdrawing her promised aid, to whom necessity and dignity are analogous terms, I wish to tell them that they need not mope. A nation that thus acts nobly and decorously and treats with justice an enemy that deserves naught but censure and humiliation, an enemy that has left in its wake tales of barbarisms and indignities, gaining for itself the right to be treated in like manner, such a nation is worthy of our fullest faith and consideration. And the most grievous offense we could commit against her would be to suppose that she would deny to a friend the magnanimity she has not refused to an enemy, that she would abandon to its fate one who never abandoned her in the moment of severest trial.

Referring anew to that death march to Calvary, it is a pleasure for me, a source of pride, of satisfaction to be able to say that the Filipino in that hour - I refer to the Filipino who knows he has a fatherland to honor - knew how to divide his heart equally between the American soldiers and those of his race. I call to witness those American soldiers who survived …………………….

THE PRESIDENT PRO TEMPORE: The time for the gentleman from Pampanga is up.

MR. ROMERO: Mr. President, I move that the time be extended to ten minutes.

THE PRESIDENT PRO TEMPORE: Are there any objections? [Silence] The table hears none. The gentleman from Pampanga may proceed.

MR. FAUSTO: [Continuing]

Mr. President, I call to witness those American soldiers who survived that death march, who saw those moving and pathetic scenes unfold for their sake in those towns through which they passed. The Japanese could not bear to gaze with benignant eyes upon those proofs of affection showered upon the American soldier by the Filipinos, and they barbarously punished those Filipinos who could not stifle their sympathies, their irrepressible expressions of affection for the fallen master. But the more the tortures, the more obstinate the efforts of the Japanese to root out the attachment of the Filipino for the American, the more the Filipino heart went out to the prostrate idol. Lest I sin against modesty, I shall only cite one case. In Mabalacat, a youngster – whose name I do not remember, but who I positively know is the son of Dr. Jose T. Garcia, a physician of that locality and at the time a participant of the celebrated death march, - this youngster was mortally wounded as a result of a shot fired upon him by a Japanese soldier at the very moment of giving a group of American prisoners, then passing through that town, something to appease their hunger. Similar incidents have been reported form other sources. A slap on the face was the most common and ordinary occurrence.

It is because at that fateful moment, the Filipino forgot pass injuries, of distances drawn by racial prejudice, of intolerance, of the pride and arrogance of pre-war days of the white man over the brown. At that moment, the Filipino did not see the fallen master but the outcast, forlorn and forsaken, abandoned to his fate in a strange land far from his loved ones who might have eased the pain. And because he thus understood, the Filipino performed for the American soldier in distress the duties of mother, wife, father, brother and sweetheart, bestowing upon him all sorts of solicitudes within the limits of his financial capacities. And when unable to do so, he at least felt for him a deep-seated sympathy, and shared with him in silence his sorrows and misfortunes. The Filipino could not remain unfeeling, nor could he but see in his fellow unfortunate a crusader from a distant land who crossed the ocean to share his fate, and drink with him until the last drop from the bitter chalice of defeat.

Mr. President, I shall not continue relating the details of that macabre vision. I do not wish to contaminate you with my warped perspectives. Nor do I wish you to suffer now that all suffering has apparently ended, as indeed they should end. I shall only say this – that the resistance of the defenders of Bataan and Corregidor ended where the resistance of the entire Filipino nation began, a resistance well directed and coordinated. With hands upraised the “guerrillero” continued to wave the two banners that had suffered insult and disgrace. While the civilian population waded through stormy and difficult waters, putting into practice lessons in diplomacy suddenly learned by force of circumstances that obliged them to live with the oppressor and maintain with him neighborhood relations. And with the “left” hand, when not with both, they showered all possible aid to the defenders of the cause at great risk of life and limbs.

And because of this, the oppressor did not cease his persecution and perpetrated more and more crimes. The Japanese knew that in order to kill the spirit of resistance in the nation it was necessary to eliminate the fountain of its origin – the nation itself. Thus for any cause whatever, however flimsy, the Japanese decapitated all the unfortunate victims who fell in their hands. As an example, I cite the case of a poor youth from my District, a peaceful citizen of Arenas, Arayat, surnamed Reyes, who, on his way to visit his sweetheart, was himself visited by death while taking refreshments in the public market of San Fernando. An Iscariot uniformed in the service of the oppressor chanced to pass by the place, and seeing the strange face of the lad supposed him to be a guerrilla spy and arrested him. Nothing has been heard of him since. Many, in like manner – a great many – disappeared in the same mysterious way.

Still more pitiful was the fact that the Filipinos, abandoned to their fate, not only had to play hide and seek with the Japanese and their collaborators, but also had to struggle with a worse enemy, all the more dangerous for being in their very midst: the pseudo-guerilla or bandit, who found in this war the golden opportunity to give free rein to his depraved sentiments, killing right and left for plunder or for the mere sake of killing, or for old political rivalries in some provinces, for old personal rancours in others, or for social conflicts that date back to the pre-war years. The genuine guerilla, - who was either a remnant of the disaster of Bataan and Corregidor or an improvised soldier who supplied by faith, enthusiasm, and loyalty to America and his countrymen, whatever lack he suffered in military training, - was the only one who, with arms mostly old and partly usable, was left behind the populace to defend it from the hills and woodland fastness by means of sabotage and ambuscades. And with the populace, also for purposes of defense, remained those who had to remain by its side for lack of arms with which to fight, for lack of hills and woodlands wherein to take cover, for lack of brawn to work for the daily bread. Hence not all could be guerrillas. There remained those who shared with the populace their pains and their sorrows, their faith, their spirit of rebellion, their collective resistance, - those who espoused the cause of the people in cases of necessity, serving as a bridge of silver between the oppressed and the oppressor, without gaining a single cent in the war that created millions and millionaires in name, without a compromise of loyalties, without spilling a drop of native blood. Poor martyr now forgotten and reviled, for whom the bell of justice must not toll until the passage of the years shall have snuffed out the embers of this war!

Say what you may, and think what you may – ye possess solely the virtue of patriotism – the truth is that the past war has produced not only the type of heroes now reverently glorified. It has also produced others to whom the future shall do full justice, and I challenge whoever dissents and lives the next twenty years to hear the dispassionate verdict of history. Then the heroes would be heroes, and traitors would be traitors.

Mr. President, how many times during those three infernal years of Japanese occupation, wavering between hope and despair, between shadows and the elusive dawn, how many times has the country lifted its eyes heavenward in its eagerness to discover concealed amongst those clouds some airy ship of starry braid, a breath of new- born courage, a harbinger of hope. Not of faith, for in that we were never wanting. How many times, Mr. President, when pining for the absent mother in the longest of the waiting hours, we have imagined in the passing breeze the exquisiteness of a wafted scent that is all too familiar, the beloved scent of an awaited one, the scent of liberty that is the essence of American institutions. And having drained the storehouse of our prayers to the sacred altars, that softened even the hard stone hearts of the godless mortals of pre-war years, praying for the near compliance of the promise “I shall return” of the greatest of the great generals of the world, a promise then unrealized as yet, nor showed the faintest trace of realization, - how many times did our hearts cry out for America within our innermost souls, raising our eyes to the throne of Blessed Mary, and in parody of the Ave Maria, fervently prayed: “Hail America, full of grace and democracy, the Lord is with thee, blessed art thou amongst nations, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Douglas MacArthur, Amen.” Thus the nation suffered excruciating pain, suffered at the hands of the oppressor, the pain of the unnumbered atrocities, and at our own hands the pain of self-deception, the bitterness of faded dreams.

Mr. President, there we have the picture. Painted by inexpert hands, it is true, yet sufficient for our purposes. And I ask – can anyone cast a doubt upon our attitude, our determination to punish the guilty? Who but we, ourselves, must have the avowed intention to avenge our wrongs?

Mr. Ickes! Mr. Ickes! I can only say that in the University of suffering, we the Filipinos have won a Doctorate with highest honors. In plain and simple language, I am tempted to say – with profoundest delours – Time was when eyes dried up because no drop of tear was left to water them…..dry, as well, the cheeks because no drop was left to roll across. And tears are to the heart what juice is to the fruit. Wring the juice from off the fruit and it hardens and dries up. Thus the Filipino heart has become – hard and dry, even as the juiceless fruit. And with this heart of stone we shall feel no pity, nor mercy, nor sympathy for those who neither had pity, nor mercy, nor sympathy for us. And with this heart of stone we shall remain inflexible, dispassionate, irreconcilable, hard and implacable, mad and blind in the fury of accusation. And with this same heart of stone we shall punish the guilty, with or without the promised aid of America which is but a matter for the national conscience of America to settle. We set no price upon our loyalty, nor does our sincerity manifest itself in terms of ciphers and numbers. Our loyalty cannot be bought, and money cannot purchase the memory of our dead, nor fill the void left by those loved ones whom war has so unmercilessly snatched from our embrace. We shall proceed with rigid severity against the culpables, because it is our duty to do so, a duty to our own selves, who have actually known the horrors of this war, a duty to our fallen comrades who from their graves clamor for justice, a duty to our children and our children’s children, who have every right to inherit a country without Iscariots, a country infused with the spirit of Bataan and Corregidor, In a word, Mr. President, a country without traitors. I thank you. [Prolonged applause]

New Philippines: A Book on the Building Up of a New Nation (1934), by Felixberto Bustos and Abelardo Fajardo (p. 419)

Our Delegates to the Constitutional Assembly: English-Spanish (1935, p. 663-664)

Encyclopedia of the Philippines: The Library of Philippine Literature, Art and Science, Volume 9: Builders of the New Philippines (1936, p. 215)

Cornejo’s Commonwealth Directory of the Philippines (1939), by Miguel Cornejo (p. 1705-1706)