Your Excellency, the Premier, Excellencies, and Gentlemen:
One year ago today the Filipino people proclaimed their independence and established a sovereign Republic dedicated to peace, liberty, and moral justice. Now the Filipino people find their peace destroyed and their liberty imperilled by unjust and unprovoked aggression. The flag of peace they raised one year ago, with the blue field uppermost to signify their high and noble hopes of freedom with goodwill to all, they have been compelled to raise again as a flag of war with the red field uppermost, in keeping with the national tradition, as a token of the blood they are ready to shed in defence of their native land and their national integrity. In peace the Republic of the Philippines sought and was blessed with the friendship of its kindred nations in greater East Asia; in war the Republic seeks and is privileged to deserve their loyal and steadfast comradeship in the common struggle of life and death.
It is in this spirit that, in the name of the Government and people of the Republic of the Philippines, I am happy and proud to welcome this evening so many friends and well-wishers of the Philippines. I am particularly honoured to welcome Your Excellencies, the Premier and Ministers of State of the Imperial Japanese Government, who, in spite of your overwhelming duties have made time to grace this occasion, for Your Excellencies represent a Government and a people indissolubly united with our own in peace and in war. And I am equally privileged to welcome Your Excellencies who, as the Ambassadors of the greater East Asian nations and of friendly Powers, represent Governments and peoples that share with our own the same ideal of a new world wherein all nations shall enjoy a just and enduring peace in mutual respect, mutual assistance and common prosperity.
Assemblies such as the one gathered here tonight are in effect the practical fruition of the Greater East Asian Joint Declaration; and I look forward to the day when, in the celebration of other anniversaries of the same happy nature, we shall count among our number, not only the representatives of the greater Japanese Empire, the Republic of China, the Kingdom of Thailand, the Empire of Manchoukuo, the State of Burma, and the Republic of the Philippines, but also representatives from free India, Indonesia, and perhaps the other countries of East Asia.
I also envisage the day when at such an anniversary a new generation of free Asians shall have so progressed in the formation of a truly all-embracing and modern Asian culture that the exchange of felicitations and pledges of mutual assistance will be made in the common language of East Asia, the language of the leader-nation, Japan. Unfortunately, I, like the rest of my generation, was reared under the old order, and tonight I must use a tongue alien to East Asia. But what I have perforce to say in the language of the enemy will be translated into the language of our leader comrade-in-arms by one of my sons, in representation of the coming generation that, invigorated by the living force of the sublime principles enunciated in the Greater East Asia Joint Declaration, carries all our hopes for the new order of better understanding and unhampered common action for the common good of East Asia.
It was the earnest and sincere desire of the Filipino people to celebrate this anniversary amid the blessings of an honourable peace. It was a hope and an aspiration not without reason even in the midst of war because the Republic of the Philippines was conceived and born in peace, a nation unique in history because it was brought forth not in blood and pain but in the serenity of mutual help and understanding.
Other peoples have had to wrest their freedom by force of arms; it was the happy destiny of the Filipino people to attain their own through the unprecedented generosity of a great Empire that was more a teacher than a ruler, more an elder brother than a lord and master. But Divine Providence has decreed that the Filipino people shall not escape the payment of the price of freedom, which is blood. The liberty they won in peace, they must now defend in war. But that does not detract from the shining record of the sincerity and unselfishness of the great Japanese Empire in seeking and promoting the liberation of the Filipino people. The relations between Japan and the Philippines remain as a radiant exemplar of goodwill to posterity and to the world.
That is the significance of this anniversary which I should like to emphasize tonight. To the Filipinos as a people and as a nation this anniversary gives rise to emotions that no stranger can share, for it commemorates the satisfaction of an ancient and ancestral longing and the fulfilment of a long heroic and martyred past. In Manila, as throughout the land of the Filipinos, this is a day of consecration to the noblest traditions of the race. But here in Tokyo this anniversary acquires a wider and more universal significance, transcending the boundaries of one nation and the aspirations of one people.
As a commemoration and renewal of peaceful brotherhood amid the fratricidal struggles of the nations, it is pregnant with hope and inspiration for all mankind.
The establishment of the sovereign Republic of the Philippines was only the first flowering of those ever-growing relations of mutual respect and mutual assistance which have happily been cultivated between the Philippines and Japan. As Ambassador of the Republic of the Philippines to Japan, I consider it therefore my prerogative and privilege to dwell upon these bonds of so much meaning for two nations, for the peoples of greater East Asia, and for the entire world.
I have had occasion in the past to review the first steps toward Nippon-Philippine co-operation. I have recalled how, dispelling the poisonous prejudices of the past, the great Japanese Empire illuminated a new panorama of mutual understanding by its sincere sympathy with the problems, perplexities, and ideals of the Filipino people. This enlightened policy, initiated with the early promise of independence for the Philippines, the participation of the Filipino leaders in the Japanese Military Administration, the release of the Filipino prisoners of war, and the patient reorientation of Filipino thought and culture, was thereafter steadfastly pursued.
The promise of independence was twice solemnly reiterated, once by the Premier of Japan who, in spite of the oppressive burden of grave and multifarious duties, went to Manila and extended in person the generous pledge of freedom. To implement and make positive preparations for the fulfilment of that pledge, a three-point programme for independence was proposed by the Japanese Military Administration to the Philippine Executive Commission in representation of the Filipino people. Nor was Japan content with pledge and programme; the Imperial Japanese forces in the Philippines unfailingly gave their active assistance in the swift attainment of the conditions for independence.
These conditions envisioned the complete restoration of peace and order and national unification; the intensification of economic preparations for self-maintenance and active membership in the co-prosperity sphere; and the spiritual renovation of the people. In pursuit of these aims, the Military Administration authorized the Executive Commission to extend magnanimous amnesty to disaffected elements still remaining in the mountains and forests of the hinterlands. Approval and encouragement were given to the dissolution of all the old political parties and the organization of a non-partisan national association for service to the New Philippines, the Kalibapi. Financial and technical guidance and assistance were contributed for the reformation of the national economic structure by the diversification of agriculture, the encouragement of industry, the nationalization of trade and commerce, and the establishment of emergency controls for the equal and adequate distribution of food and other prime commodities. In addition constant and ungrudging donations were made of rice, medicine, clothing, and other necessaries of civilized existence, which the Philippines, laid desolate by war and isolated from its traditional markets, could neither produce nor secure.
If, therefore, the Philippine Executive Commission was able to prepare the ground for the future independent Government of the Republic it was
in great measure due to the active, unstinted, and disinterested assistance of the Imperial Japanese Government and of the Imperial Japanese forces in the Philippines. Without their sympathetic approval, the Philippine Executive Commission could not have achieved so much; without their unfailing guidance and help it could not have achieved so much so quickly.
But it was in the final withdrawal of the Japanese Military Administration and the recognition of the independent Republic of the Philippines that the great Japanese Empire gave the highest proof of nobility and idealism. Faithful and true to its every pledge and enunciation it opened to the Filipino people the most ample opportunities to promulgate a Constitution and establish a State in harmony with their own culture and national traditions, while on the other side of the globe the Anglo-American nations, so loud in their profession of loyalty to the ideals of liberty, democracy, and self-determination, were waging a senseless war for the destruction of other nations' governments merely because they did not approve of their form and regardless of the declared will and choice of the German and Italian peoples.
In greater East Asia, on the other hand, the Empire of Japan, so bitterly and so unjustly attacked as a domineering and ruthless aggressor, practised a tolerance and a liberality such as might well astound the world. Empire that it was, reigned over by a line of Emperors unbroken for ages eternal, Japan recognized and indeed participated in the establishment of a Republic. Engaged as it was in a vast and terrible war in which its very rise or fall was at stake, Japan did not protest against, rather it sympathized with, the profound desire of the Filipino people to be at peace with all. Surely history has never known an Empire so generous in victory, so tolerant in war, so self-controlled in the exercise of unlimited and unchallenged power.
That is why I say that the events which this anniversary commemorates have resounding significance and meaning beyond the island borders of the land of the Filipinos, and carry a message of hope and good cheer that will reach the heart of suffering humanity.
The past year has not defrauded that hope. The relations between the Philippines and Japan continued to grow closer and more fruitful. Both the Republic and the Empire have been constantly guided by the spirit of the pact of perpetual amity and alliance for defence which has united them from the beginning. The Republic has placed at the disposal of the Imperial Japanese forces in the Philippines all the material and spiritual resources it can command. It has established organizations to assist the Imperial Japanese forces in securing food, housing, supplies, and labour. It has opened to them the rice granaries of the rich valleys of northern Luzon and the great plateaus of Cotabato in southern Mindanao. It has invited them to operate the mines, forests, and industries from which are drawn the sinews of modern war.
To reinforce and intensify co-operation for defence, the Republic has imposed the severe penalty of delivering to military justice those found guilty of damaging military establishments under the control of the Imperial Japanese forces. It has strengthened the internal structure of government by completing the organization of a vigorous and resolute cabinet and by dividing the country into compact administrative and military districts suited for swift and efficient action in time of need. It has long placed in operation an extensive system of civilian protection and discipline in anticipation of possible raids and upon the first actual attack on its capital it promptly proclaimed martial law under the sovereign authority of its own Constitution, suspending the normal judicial processes and concentrating in the President all the powers of government for untrammelled action to meet the emergency. Finally, in defence of its honour, its sovereignty, and its territorial integrity against direct and unprovoked aggression, the Republic has declared war on the Anglo-American nation, the enemies of the Republic of the Philippines.
For their part the Imperial Japanese forces in the Philippines have extended willing aid and assistance to the Republic in the maintenance of peace and order, in the control of profiteering and the systematic intensification of agricultural production. They have cancelled the debt of 23,000,000 pesos advanced to the Philippine Executive Commission and have lavished other gifts of money, food, clothing, medicine and other supplies to relieve the distress of a population unprepared for war and unaccustomed to its vigours and privations. They have retroceded to the Republic the ownership and control of the great agricultural, industrial, and commercial enterprises established before the war to promote the national economic development. They have transferred to it many transportation, electric, and other vital public utilities including even several owned and operated by American capitalism before the war. They have, above all, undergone hardships and sacrifices to fulfill their duty, under the treaty of mutual aid in the defence of the Philippines, to fortify and make secure the land, sea, and air frontiers of the Republic against any attack. And in fitting climax to a year of unstinted mutual assistance between the Empire and the Republic, the Imperial Japanese Government, only a few days ago, extended to the Government of the Republic of the Philippines, through the Bank of Japan, a highly welcome loan of ¥200,000,000 for the further intensification of economic collaboration between the two countries.
Tonight I wish to take advantage of this auspicious occasion to express the gratitude of the Government and people of the Republic of the Philippines for this new manifestation of the goodwill and solicitous friendship entertained for us by the Government and people of the Japanese Empire, so abundantly proven time and again in the past years of peaceful co-operation, before and after the proclamation of Philippine independence which we now commemorate.
But now one year of peace has ended and a new year of war has begun. The Empire and the Republic, partners in construction, have become allies in defence of their national existence, their economic security, their civilization, their highest ideals, their common destiny. I have no doubt that the comradeship of the two nations will survive the most strenuous and demanding
test. Sharing as they do the precious experience of having conquered fear, suspicion, and prejudice with better understanding and mutual goodwill; sharing as they do the same ideals of a better world of peace, liberty, and moral justice, I am certain that the Republic will loyally and faithfully stand by the Empire and the Empire by the Republic until final and complete victory is won.
And now Excellencies and Gentlemen, may I ask you to rise and join me in a toast:
To the inevitable common victory of the Empire of Japan and the Republic of the Philippines, partners in peace, allies in war, collaborators with the other East Asian nations in the construction of a new order of co-existence and co-prosperity for all the peoples of the Orient and of just and lasting peace for all the nations of the world.