For those who are unfamiliar with World War 2 as well as those who think that nukes are the worst weapons of mass destruction, the American raid of March 9-10, 1945, firebombing Tokyo, resulted in a carnage that burned 100,000 Japanese urbanites engaged in armaments production and civilian life.

This type of military operation was neither the first nor the last in the East and the West, too. And torching Tokyo came on the heels of the Japanese Rape of Manila - an atrocity that felled 100,000 inhabitants of the Philippine capital.

The difference? The Philippines was a peaceful commonwealth that was wantonly invaded by Japan. The former was a victim, the latter an aggressor that perpetuated crimes against peace and against humanity.

Pandacan, for instance, was a haven for men of letters and the arts when it was occupied by the Japanese who turned the Zamora Elementary School into their garrison. Japanese sentries at checkpoints are remembered by living witnesses like Gloria Natividad Bonus for slapping residents. [Fernando A. Santiago Jr., "A Social History of Pandacan, Manila, 1941-1945"]

Filipinos whose innocence was shattered by Oriental despotism saw their premier city destroyed in February 1945. They continue to be hurt by the realization that the pre-war progress, beauty and prominence attained by their capital cannot be easily recovered.

The Battle for Manila left an indelible mark on human memory and written history, and Manilans choose to commemorate this event in the second month of every year in the Christian calendar. Included in the city's activities was the tertulia on the fates of Pandacan and Intramuros. In that afternoon discussion last March 3, scholars and students of the PLM were joined by surviving comfort women organized as Malaya Lolas and LILA PILIPINA under the care of the KAISAKA and the Gabriela. Lola Lita narrated her survival of the 1944 Rape of Mapanique (Candaba, Pampanga), while Lola Asyang testified on her ordeal in Fort Santiago, which was run by the Kempeitai (Japanese military police).

The tertulia, a monthly project of the city government (Mayor Alfredo S. Lim), Manila Historical and Heritage Commission (Gemma Cruz-Araneta), and Museo ng Maynila (Ma. Monina Katherina B. Santiago), was an important venue for the concrescence of academe, NGOs, communities, national agencies and local public sector.

The coalescence between oral and written histories was highlighted once more in the monthly book club gathering at the Power Books Specialty Store, Robinsons Place Ermita last March 4. Two members of the Malaya Lolas provided eyewitness accounts of the Japanese Occupation that informed the book lovers' discussion of Richard B. Frank's "Downfall" (Penguin Books, 1999).

Frank, army man and scholar, tapped into previously secret sources and illuminated the following:

1. The Japanese preferred death to surrender, an ugly fact stated in "The Fundamental Policy to be Followed Henceforth in the Conduct of the War" that was presented to the Emperor on June 8, 1945.

2. The eight men who ran Japan (premier, foreign minister, army minister, navy minister, Imperial Army chief of staff, Imperial Navy chief of staff, Emperor and his Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal) were open to negotiations with the Allies for a cease-fire if and only if it meant the preservation of their elitist imperial-militarist system, Japanese troops withdrawal on their own accord from occupied territories, and Japanese disarmament that assured "minimum defense" of their home islands.

3. The Tokyo regime saw the neutrality of the Soviet Union as the linchpin of its military-diplomatic strategy.

4. Soviet participation in the Pacific War on the Allied side plus the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki shook Japanese belligerence.

5. The American nukes lessened, not worsened, the blood-price of Japan's conditional capitulation.

Frank's take on the termination of Hirohito's bloody venture validates longstanding delineation of Nippon as the militaristic, racist and chauvinist imperialist of the Orient. As Clara Zetkin pointed out in July 1922,

"Japanese capitalism has developed the militaristic side of capitalism more than any other country...It combines the features of the highest developed capitalist State with the highest developed military features of an Imperial State." ["The Struggle Against New Imperialistic Wars"]

It comes as a surprising mark of progress, therefore, that today there are Japanese who, recognizing the sins of the Showa regime, are engaged in bilateral civic education and international campaign for social justice.

The Santama Peace Cycle of Japan, represented by Susumu Omori, Ichiro Hirata, Shigenobu Kodama and Kan Ito, observes its 14th year in the Philippines with a bicycling campaign to call for redress for the rape victims of World War II and the recent rape victims of foreign troops in Okinawa, rejection of the unfair JPEPA, and ratification of the Basel Ban Amendment.

The Santama Peace Cycle shared the fact that the collapse of the bubble economy in Japan has weakened job security, giving rise to "shikko," or downsizing via employee transfer. A parallel phenomenon in the Philippines, according to an NGO (Pagkakaisa ng Kababaihan para sa Kalayaan), is contractualization, which makes women workers prey to sexual abuse, trafficking and hazardous jobs.