The colonel's secret

3 - Bungot
They knew him in his hometown as ‘Bungot’, the vernacular for beard, because he wore it long, topped with a flourishing moustache, giving him the appearance of one of the old señores who used to reside behind the convent. The name stuck, and to many of his companion guerrillas, he came to be known only as Bungot, a fierce-looking soldier-warrior who was fond of tucking his .45 pistol he had brought home after his great escape from the fighting in Luzon. The stories that went around portrayed him as a brave fighting man of the 91st Infantry Battalion, who had successfully escaped from the death march in Luzon island, the fate of those who surrendered to the Japs. That was his badge of honor, an identity that gave him credence when he started his guerrilla band in the hills of Dagami, his hometown in the deeper part of the island.

Sure enough, in a few days he had a platoon of soldiers who did not surrender, civilians who came armed with long bolos and a few notorious characters who were engaged in banditry and rape. All seemed to be imbued with a common desire to drive the Japs out of the island. The classroom in barrio Patoc, six kilometers northeast of the town proper, where he began his enlistment was filled with would-be fighters and many onlookers who crowded around the gathering armed men, curiously watching what was taking place.

The man called Bungot stood up and motioned everyone to be silent. Then he spoke.

“Friends, thank you for coming this morning on a short notice. I am sure you know why we have formed this group of fighters. The military forces and the provincial government in Tacloban have surrendered yesterday. People whom we expected to protect us from our enemies have surrendered and allowed themselves to be herded like sheep inside a school building that is now a prison camp. And for what? They have betrayed their sworn duty, which is to protect the people from their enemies. They have chosen the easy way out, preferring the safety of a prison camp to the rigors of war. If I had my way, they should be executed for their treachery!”

The response was electric, the shouts were instantaneous. Bungot signaled for silence.

“Tonight we leave for Kilim, which is only a few kilometers from Tanauan. We shall put up a temporary camp in the school house while we coordinate with other forces in Palo and Tanauan. Then we strike at the flanks of the enemy.”

The crowd rose up again shouting, some raising their bolos and their firearms. Then everybody started to talk to each other. That was the speech of Bungot, short and to the point. He did not like talking too much. His volunteers were primed to fight. Now time to make more detailed preparations, to gather more firearms hidden by civilians and bullets.

Bungot and his volunteers finished supper earlier than their usual 6:00 o’clock schedule. That afternoon, the ragtag band of Bungot, many of which had not experience in actual firefights, marched towards Kilim, a village east of Dagami, just six kilometers from the next town of Tanauan. After a short rest there, they planned to march to Palo, just five kilometers from the town. An informant from Tacloban earlier told him that a Japanese convoy was passing the town the next day. Probably on patrol to intimidate the civilian population.

He had yet to contact the non-commissioned officer Teraza who had taken the initiative to form his own band of variously armed volunteers in Palo. He was not able to talk to him in a long time. The last time he had seen him was three years before the war, when it was peacetime. They had a few rounds of Teraza’s bahalina , the local red wine fermented from coconut efflorescence, as they talked about a lot of things. Neither of them foresaw the war. Like all enlisted men during peacetime, they did not have much to do except eat and drink and talk. And Teraza did not seem to run out of stories to tell. Bungot could only listen and marvel. He did not have much use for words. In those encounters, Bungot never suspected that he was such an intrepid man. Now he must get in touch with him to coordinate their moves.

Bungot was unaware that Teraza also knew about the convoy’s trip and that he had started to make his own preparations. On the road to Sta. Fe, the town next to Palo going southwest was a small hill less than a hundred feet in height as the dirt road curved into a sharp bend to the left. The other side of the road was the Bangon river, deep and murky. The curved road was the only place the convoy would be taking, and the hill the right place to put one’s troops to stage an ambush. If Bungot knew about it, he would not have made any objection to Teraza’s plans.

So one early morning in the middle of June, the Japanese had their first taste of battle. As the truck made a curve to the left and slowed down, sporadic bursts of gunfire came from the top of the hill, hitting the driver and the soldier seated next to him. The truck swerved and bumped against the hill as it went out of control, and more bullets found their mark on the truck passengers at the back. The quick outburst had immobilized them. In a few moments, Teraza’s men surrounded the truck and finished off the Japs that were still moving. No prisoners could be taken.

The dead Japanese were quickly stripped of their guns and ammunitions, their clothing and other paraphernalia, leaving them in their underwear. That was the unwritten rule in guerrilla warfare. Take the enemy’s resources to arm yourself. The group of 15 armed men, now heavily provisioned, crossed the river on hurriedly made rafts which they disposed of after their crossing. The forest growths across the river would protect them from their enemies. At least for a while.

Bungot’s troops arrived some 20 minutes after the ambush. They heard the sporadic shots from a distance half a kilometer away as his troops were already at the outskirts of the town on the road going to Sta. Fe. So they had to jog some distance in order to join the fray, but it was too far. The ambush came through, and Teraza and his men had gone to their unknown camp. Bungot had to backtrack in case the Japanese sent reinforcements. But there were none. That night, one of Teraza’s men arrived at the school house that Bungot had used as his temporary quarters and motioned for them to follow him. Teraza was celebrating his victory at his hidden camp. They did not know the repercussion of Teraza’s actions on the prisoners of war.

That afternoon, when news of the ambush reached their headquarters, the Japanese camp commander Captain Hitoshima ordered his prisoners to line themselves into two rows facing west, as the sun’s heat was its highest at 2:00 in the afternoon. The reasons were not explained. After an hour, he finally came out as the prisoners were heavily perspiring, aching for water. He unsheathed his sword and made motions to strike an invisible opponent, his blade coming close to the men’s rigid faces. He was speaking in unintelligible Japanese and appeared very angry.

The prisoners would learn only in the evening after the cooks came home from the market. The news of the ambush had spread like wildfire. Some said there was a convoy of two trucks that were wiped out, others only one truck but it was full of Japanese soldiers. Whatever the real score was, it made the Japanese look vulnerable. The lesson was clear. A determined group can beat the enemy.

That night, Hitoshima called for the governor and the pro-Japanese board member Salazar to a meeting. Starting the next day, they were to accompany the Japanese troops on campaign sorties to the different towns to talk to the natives about their ‘prosperity program’ and ‘security’. Some officers of the surrendered soldiers were to accompany the group as members of the newly-formed Japanese Constabulary.

Ten days later, the ambuscade would be repeated, this time at the Tibak bridge crossing to Palo. The main actors were Bungot and his men. It was a Bailey bridge made some 40 years earlier. As in the previous ambush, the attackers positioned themselves atop the small hill overlooking the bridge. It was a convenient site to set up an attack because the enemy troops were caught right on the bridge defenseless. The fight was a one-sided affair. When news of this reached the ears of the Japanese commander, he swore vengeance by his sword. This would trigger the numerous atrocities waged on unarmed civilians, women and children included, and the war of attrition and violence from that day onwards.