#NEVERFORGET – the hashtag usually attached to campaigns against historical revisionism.
“There was no rest, they have sex with me every minute. That’s why we’re very tired. They would allow you to rest only when all of them had already finished. Due to my tender age, it was a painful experience. Sometimes in the morning and sometimes in the evening – not only 20 times,” Nana Rosa Henson said in her book.
Nana Rosa and other Asian sex slaves were euphemistically called “comfort women” (jugun ianfu in Nihonggo) by their captors. Nana Rosa was the first such Filipina to tell the world about this inhuman practice of the Japanese during World War 2.
To many, the memories of the world war are dim, made dimmer by the passing on of grandmothers and grandfathers who lived through the horrors of that war.
Written by Rody Vera under the direction of José Estrella, Nana Rosa recounts on stage the life of Maria Rosa Henson, the first Filipino comfort woman to come forward with her story in public — starting from her early life, to her capture and eventually her becoming a comfort woman, liberation, and finally deciding to tell her story nearly 50 years later.
On the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the start of World War 2, this UP Playwright’s Theatre work underscores that some traumas are so severe that, though the mind tries to forget, the feeling remains. Memories become hazy and details are forgotten but sometimes out of nowhere, like a dam breaking, they come flooding.
The play aptly showed Nana Rosa’s life.
Born on Dec. 5, 1927 Nana Rosa was barely 15 years old in 1942 when she was raped twice by a Japanese officer in what is now Fort Bonifacio. In 1943 she was captured by Japanese soldiers and was taken to a garrison in Magalang, Pampanga where she became a sex slave for Japanese troops for nine months until she was freed by the Hukbalahap in 1944.
Lola Rosa felt some hesitation when she heard an appeal by Nelia Sancho, a member Task Force for Filipina Military Sexual Slavery by Japan, for Filipina comfort women to stand up for their rights and demand justice as well as restitution for Japan’s war crimes against Asian women during the war.
On Sept. 18, 1992 she decided to come out with her story and tell everyone what happened to her with the hope that such an ordeal will never happen again to any woman.
The play had a personal link to me since I had the privilege to see and talk to Nana Rosa in person when I was a reporter then assigned to cover Lila Filipina, the organization of former Filipina comfort women.
I last saw her during Lila’s 1996 Christmas party. Despite her failing health, one could still sense her courage, the same courage she displayed when she went public with her story: she was one of the thousands of women forced into sexual slavery by the Japanese Imperial Army during World War 2.
Wearing a Filipina dress, she danced and sang with other lolas, unmindful of her deteriorating health due to a stroke she suffered after her 50-year-old daughter Rosalinda died. On Aug. 18, 1997 Lola Rosa Henson succumbed to a heart attack and died without receiving the justice she had long fought for. Her death came three days after the 52nd anniversary of the end of World War 2.
I lost track of the number of Filipina comfort women who followed Lola Rosa’s example, just a minute portion of the 80,000 to 200,000 Asian comfort women who suffered systematic rape, torture, imprisonment and death in the hands of the Japanese Army during World War II.
Calling her “maestra” or great mentor, the rest of the surviving comfort women vowed to continue what Lola Rosa started.
The presence of one of the surviving comfort women, Lola Narcisa Claveria, gave more substance to last Sunday’s post-show discussions with her courage and composure in spite of the play’s deep impact on her.
“Ang giyera, walang pinipili. Ayaw naming maranasan ng bagong kabataan ang dinanas naming kalupitan,” she said.
Lona Narcisa is living proof that the quest for justice remains alive today.
It has been more than 70 years since the war ended on Aug. 15, 1945 and yet the Japanese government refuses to recognize its official accountability to the victims of sex slavery. Justice has not been given to women such as Rosa Henson. Their fight for unequivocal public apology, accurate historical inclusion, and just compensation continues up to this day.
The show runs from Feb. 20 to March 17, 2019 at the Wilfrido Ma. Guerrero Theater, second floor, Palma Hall, UP Diliman, Quezon City./PN
