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World War II and the Japanese in the Prewar Philippines

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 March 1996

Lydia N. Yu-Jose
Lydia N. Yu-Jose
Affiliation:
Ateneo de Manila University
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Abstract

The prewar Japanese in the Philippines, the largest Japanese community in Southeast Asia, had humble beginnings. Due to their own efforts and support from the Japanese government, they rose economically and socially, only to lose everything at the end of the war.

Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Southeast Asian Studies , Volume 27 , Special Issue 1: The Japanese Occupation in Southeast Asia , March 1996 , pp. 64 - 81
Copyright
Copyright © The National University of Singapore 1996

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References

1 This point was made in a speech given by Masakī Kichiemon, an agent of the recruitment agency for Japanese emigrants, before the Gakuto Shisei Kai (Student Sincerity Society). Gakuto Shisei Kai hakendan kenkyū hōkoku, 1935 nen [Research Report of the Gakuto Shisei kai Delegation, 1935], ed. Gakuto Shisei Kai (Tokyo: Gakuto Shisei Kai, 1936), pp. 74–87.

2 Accounts by prewar Japanese in the Philippines who got caught in the war are too numerous to mention here, but two of the most often quoted are Kanegae Seitarō, Aruite kita michi Hiripin monogatari [The Path I Walked: A Story of the Philippines] (Tokyo: Kokuseisha, 1968) and Yoshizō, Furukawa, Dabao kaitaku ki [Development of Davao] (Tokyo: Furukawa Kabushikigaisha, 1956)Google Scholar. One that is less well known but nevertheless provides a useful Japanese view of the Philippines in the early 1920s and the rumoured coming of a war between the United States and the Philippines is that of Mikami Keichō, branch manager in Manila of the Mitsui Bussan. His “Economic Alliance”, first published in the Philippine Review of December 1916, was later appended to a longer work entitled Hiripin jijō [Philippine Conditions] (Tokyo: Takushoku Shimposha, 1922). He wrote that capitalists would be the last group to welcome any war, for war meant the disruption of business and a cessation of profits. Furukawa, proprietor of the Furukawa Plantation Company, on the other hand, saw some profitable opportunities in wars. Kanegae, proprietor of the famous Nippon Bazaar on the Escolta was one of the many Japanese who rejoiced over the landing of the Japanese in Manila.

3 To avoid mistaking this vague geographical concept with the South Seas Islands or the Pacific, which were also referred to in Japanese as Nan'yo, it is translated here either as “countries south of Japan”, or “countries on the southern seas”. When the original Japanese is used, the initial letter i s not capitalized except at the beginning of a sentence.

4 Hajime, Shimizu, Southeast Asia in Modem Japanese Thought: The Development and Transformation of “Nanshin-ron” (Australia: Australian National University, 1980), passimGoogle Scholar.

5 Ibid., pp. 2–3.

6 Among the related documents were the Kokusaku no kijun [Basis of National Policy], approved at a meeting of the Prime Minister, the Foreign, the Army, and the Navy Ministers on 7 Aug. 1936, and Teikoku kokusaku suikō yokō [Guidelines for the Implementation of the Imperial Policy], adopted by the Imperial Conference on 6 Sep. 1941, in Nihon gaikōshi [Diplomatic History of Japan], ed. Kajima Heiwa Kenkyujo, vol. 22, pp. 7–17, and vol. 23, pp. 197–99.

7 Reprints of the publications of the Kokūryukai are in Kokuryūkai kankei shiryō-shū [Collection of Kokuryukai Publications] (Tokyo: Kashiwa Shobō, 1992) 10 vols. Kokuryūkai, Tōa senkaku shishi kiden [Biographies of East Asian Nationalist Pioneers] (Tokyo: Hara Shobō, 1936) also gives a summary of the activities and interests of major pan-Asianists.

8 On the contacts between Filipino revolutionaries and some members of the Genyōsha and the Kokuryūkai, Saniel, Josefa M., Japan and the Philippines, 1868–1898 (Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 1969)Google Scholar, is still a good reference. A more recent and clear scholarly thesis arguing that Japan had aggressive motivations in its involvement in the Philippine revolution is Ikehata Setsuho, “Hiripin kakumei to Nihon kan'yo” [Japan's Involvement in the Philippine Revolution], in Seiki tenkan-ki ni okeru Nihon-Hiripin kankei [Philippine-Japan Relations at the Turn of the Century], ed. Ikehata Setsuho, Terami Motoe and Hayashi Shinzo (Tokyo: Tokyo Gaikokugo Daigaku Ajia-Afrika Gengo Bunka Kenkyujo, 1989), pp. 1–36.

9 For samples of Japanese opinion on the Filipino capacity for independence, see Nitobe Inazo, “Genjumin seisaku” [Colonization Policy], in Nitobe Inazō zenshū [Collected Works of Nitobe Inazo], vol. 4 (Tokyo: Kyobunkan, 1969), pp. 130–67, and Yūsuke, Tsurumi, Nan'yoyu ki [Nan'yo Travels] (Tokyo: Shobundo, 1928), passimGoogle Scholar.

10 Miyazaki Toten, My Thirty-Three Years' Dream (The Autobiography of Miyazaki Tōten), trans. Etō Shinkichi and Marius B. Jansen (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1982), p. 141.

11 The information on the number of Japanese in the Philippines during this period is from Japan, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Diplomatic Records Archives (hereafter JMFA), 7.1.5.4, Kaigai zairyū hōjin shōgyō betsu jinkō chōsa ikken, dai 3-kan [Population of Overseas Japanese Classified According to Occupation, vol. 3]. Regarding Tagawa Moritarō, see Yoshikawa Yōko, “Bei-ryō ka Manira no shoki Nihonjin shōgyō, 1898–1920: Tagawa Moritarō no nan'pō kan'yo” [Development of the Japanese Commercial Sector in Manila, 1898–1920: The Case of Jose M. Tagawa], Tonan Ajia kenkyū 18, 3 (1980): 387–421.

12 Saniel, Japan and the Philippines, p. 219.

13 Nitobe Inazō zenshu dai 4 kan [Collected Works of Nitobe Inazō, vol. 4] pp. 139, 160–61; Matsunami Niichirō, “Hiripin no dokuritsu to Nichi-Bei kankei” [Philippine Independence and U.S.-Japan Relations], Gaikō jihō 74,2 (1935): 36–59; for more examples of Japanese views on Philippine independence, see Yu-Jose, Lydia N., Japan Views the Philippines, 1900–1944 (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1992), passimGoogle Scholar.

14 See speech of Yoshida Tan'ichirō, consul general to Manila from 1939 to 1940, “Dokuritsu katei no Hiripin” [The Philippines on the Road to Independence], Hiripin jōhō 42 (Nov. 1940): 1–20, and Gaimushō Chosa Bu, dai 2 ka, Hiripin minzoku shi [History of the Filipino People] (Tokyo: Nihon Kokusai Kyōkai, 1941).

15 The estimate for 1941 is from Kai, Dabao, Dabao natsukashi no shashin shū [A Nostalgic Pictorial of Davao] (Tokyo: Dabao Kai, 1985), p. 318Google Scholar; the rest are from Yoshikawa, [Development of the Japanese Commercial Sector in Manila], p. 55.

16 Hashiya Hiroshi, “Sen zen ki Hiripin ni okeru hojin keizai shinshutsu no keitai” [”The Pattern of Japan's Economic Expansion to the Philippines Before World War II”], Ajia keizai 26,3 (1985): 33.

17 For figures on Japanese companies and plantation workers and independent cultivators see Hashiya, pp. 49 and 41 respectively; for the number of agricultural companies in 1915 see JMFA 3.4.6–3 Nan'yō ni okeru Hōjin kigyō kankei zakken, dai 1 kan [Matters on Japanese Enterprises in the nan'yō, vol. 1, Dec. 1915-Jan. 1919] and for 1918, see Taiwan Sōtoku Kanbō Chōsaka, Nan'yō kakuchi Hojin saibai kigyō yōran [Tables of Japanese Agricultural Plantation Companies in the nan'yō] (Taipei, 1929), pp. 7–13.

18 Fine, Sidney, Frank Murphy, The New Deal Years (Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press, 1979), p. 102Google Scholar.

19 See Takahashi Torao, Hiripin zai-ryū hojin no omoide no kirvku [Reminiscences of a Japanese in the Philippines] (handwritten) and Tadakatsu, Gunji, Omoide wa Manira no umi ni [My Memories are in the Sea of Manila] (Tokyo: Sangatsu Shōbo, 1993)Google Scholar for description of a life of an employee in a Japanese Bazaar in Cebu and in Baguio respectively. Regarding Davao, information on the life of the wife of an officer in Furukawa Plantation was gathered through an interview with Mrs. Migitaka (now deceased) at her residence in 1989. See also Kanegae Seitaro, [The Path I Walked].

20 Information on Morita Noboru and Maeda Masami is from Kanegae, [The Path I Walked], pp. 517–19 and 543, respectively; information on Hayashi Yoshihide is from Yomiuri Shimbunsha hen, Shōwn shi no tennō 10 [The Emperor in Showa History, vol. 10] (Tokyo: Yomiuri Shimbunsha, 1970), pp. 101–102.

21 Kanegae, [The Path I Walked], pp. 296, 365–66.

22 Ibid., pp. 256–60.

23 Takahashi Torao, [Reminiscences of a Japanese], pp. 254–60; Goodman, “Japan and Philippine Beer: the 1930s”, Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 1,1 (1970): 54–59.

24 Fine, Frank Murphy, pp. 101–111; Goodman, Grant K., Davao, A Case Study in Japanese-Philippine Relations (Lawrence: University of Kansas East Asian Series, 1967), p. 53Google Scholar; for a contemporary Japanese point of view, see Furukawa, [Development of Davao], pp. 451—82.

25 Katsuji, Matsumoto, Davao tochi mondai to hōjin jijō [The Davao Land Problem and the Japanese] (Tokyo: Nan'po Keizai Chosa Kai, 1936), pp. 27–28Google Scholar; Kōji, Kamohara, Dabao hōjin kaitaku ki [History of Development of Davao by Japanese] (Dabao: Nippi Shimbunsha, 1938), pp. 318–4Google Scholar.

26 See Commonwealth Acts of the Philippines, 1935–1946, Public laws of the Commonwealth, Enacted by the National Assembly During the Period 21 December 1935 to 9 March 1937, Comprising Acts Nos. 1–232 (Manila: Bureau of Printing, 1938); Commonwealth Act Number 421, An Act to Punish Acts of Evasion of the Laws on the Nationalization of Certain Rights and Franchises or Privileges, 31 May 1939; Commonwealth Act Number 613, An Act to Control and Regulate the Immigration of Aliens into the Philippines, 26 Aug. 1940.

27 The activities of the Nan'yō Kyōkai are described in Lydia N. Yu-Jose, “Japanese Organization and the Philippines, 1930s-1941”, The Journal of International Studies 33 (Apr. 1994): 83–105 and Lydia N. Yu-Jose, “Organizations and Philippine-Japan Relations, 1890s-1941: Friends But Not Brothers”, Solidarity 141–42 (1994): 125–34.

28 Goodman, Grant K., “America's 'permissive' Colonialism: Japanese Business in the Philippines, 1899–1941”, in The Philippine Economy and the United States: Studies in Past and Present Interactions, ed. Owen, Norman G. (Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan, Papers on South and Southeast Asia, No. 22, 1983), p. 57Google Scholar.

29 Chiyōda Tsūshin hen, Dokuritsu mondai o chūshin ni Hiripin o kataru [A Symposium on the Philippines: Focus on the Independence Problem] (Tokyo: Chiyōda Tsushinsha, 1936), pp. 113–14; Takuichi, Dceda, Hiripin jijō [Philippine Conditions] (Tokyo: n.p., 1935), p. 28Google Scholar.

30 Kamohara, [History of Development of Davao by Japanese], pp. 421, 436–37.

31 The book, Hiripin Tagalog-go kaiwa [Tagalog conversation] was written by Oki Jitsuo and published in Manila by Atlas Supply company.

32 Frank Murphy, the American Governor General at the time did not wholly share this predominant suspicious view. See Fine, Frank Murphy, p. 104.

33 Sueno, Ōkita, “Philippine Death Diary”, in Women Against War, comp. Women's Division of Soka Gakkai (Tokyo: Kodansha International, 1986), p. 46; Dabao Kai, [A Nostalgic Pictorial], p. 317.Google Scholar

34 Takahashi Torao, [Reminiscences of a Japanese], pp. 217–37; Kiyoshi, Ōsawa, The Japanese Community in the Philippines Before, During, and After the War (Manila: Joshu Bunko Library, 1994), p. 61Google Scholar; Shishido Zensaku, Watashi to Ruson-to: semen senchū no tsuiso [Luzon and Me: Reminiscences Before and During the War] (Tokyo: Zensaku Shishido, 1990), pp. 48–9.

35 Furukawa, [Development of Davao], pp. 334–40.

36 Shirota Yoshiroku, Dabao imin-shi o aruku: konketsu nisei no sow ato [A Flashback on the History of the Japanese Immigrants in Davao: What Happened to the Second Generation Japanese] (Fukuoka: Ashi Shobo, 1985), p. ii.

37 Hiroshima ken, Hiroshima ijū shi (tsushi hen) [History of Emigration From Hiroshima (main text)] (Hiroshima Prefecture, 1993), pp. 475–76; Dabao Kai hen, Senka ni kieta Dabao kaitaku imin to Manira asa [The Japanese Immigrants and World War II: The Destruction of the Manila Hemp Industry] (Tokyo: Dabao Kai, 1993), p. 317.

38 Interview with Tanaka Yoshio, in Nihon no Hiripin senryo (The Japanese Occupation of the Philippines, 1941–45, Interviews of Japanese Civil and Military Personnel), ed. Dcehata Setsuho et at. (Tokyo: Ryukei Shyosha, 1994), p. 257; Shirota, [A Flashback on the History of the Japanese Immigrants], p. ii.

39 Ōkita, “Philippine Death Diary”, p. 59.