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Jose P. Laurel: A “Collaborator” Misunderstood

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2011

David Steinberg
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Extract

In 1943, towards the middle of Japan's occupation of the Philippines, as the tide of war was turning, Jose P. Laurel accepted the Presidency of the Republic. Two years later, when he was under indictment for treason, he claimed that he had been forced to take that office. He maintained in his War Memoirs, supposedly written while interned in 1945 by the Americans in Japan, that his collaboration was ex necessitate re and that “forced collaboration is not collaboration. Voluntary collaboration as a means of national survival and to tide over our people to better times is not punishable.“

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Articles
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The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 24 , Issue 4 , August 1965 , pp. 651 - 665
Copyright
Copyright © The Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1965

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References

1 Jose Paciano Laurel was born on March 9, 1891, at Tanauan, Batangas Province, and he died on November 6, 1959. Married in 1912, he was the father of nine children. He received an LL.B. degree in 1915 from the University of the Philippines, a D.C.L. degree from Yale in 1920, and an LL.D. honoris causa from Tokyo Imperial University in 1938. His pre-war public career included holding the posts of Secretary of the Department of the Interior in 1923, Senator and floor leader from 1925 to 1931, and Associate Justice of the Supreme Court from 1936 to 1941. Prior to his inauguration as President of the Republic in 1943, he served as a Member of the Provincial Council of State in January, 1942; as Commissioner of Justice in the Philippine Executive Commission from January until June, 1942; as Commissioner of the Interior in the Philippine Executive Commission until September, 1943; as Chairman of the Central Pacification Committee, President of the Preparatory Commission for Filipino Independence, and Chairman of the Drafting Committee for the 1943 Constitution.

2 Laurel, , War Memoirs of Dr. Jose P. Laurel (Manila, 1962), pp. 51Google Scholar and 57. These memoirs, published as a part of a volume of tribute to Jose Laurel by the Laurel Foundation, are supposed to have been written by him while he was in Sugamo Prison in Japan, from September 15, 1945, to November 16, 1945. Because the Americans supposedly denied Laurel writing paper, the memoirs were written across a copy of The World of 2030 A.D. by the Earl of Birkenhead. The Foundation claims that the Memoirs are as they “came from the pen of Dr. Laurel” and that they were not reworked by him sometime after 1945. The reader is urged to examine these memoirs, but with the caveat that they may contain intentional omissions. The reader is also directed toward the writings of other members of the war-time government, such as Claro M. Recto's Three Years of Enemy Occupation: The Issue of Political Collaboration in the Philippines (Manila, 1946), and Quinton Paredes’ “Speech on the Amnesty Proclamation” (Manila, Congressional Reprint, 1948), an address delivered to the House of Representatives on February 13, 1948.

3 War Memoirs, p. 5 and pp. 55–66 passim.

4 For a more detailed discussion of the trials and the restoration of the war-time “collaborators,” see Steinberg, David J., “The Philippines During World War II: A Study in Political Collaboration,” unpubl. diss. (Harvard University, 1964).Google Scholar

5 War Memoirs, pp. 15–16 and pp. 63–68 passim.

6 Letter to the author from Douglas MacArthur, April 14, 1961.

7 Except for Jose Abad Santos, the only members of the pre-war elite who were killed were those who actively participated in the anti-Japanese guerrilla movement.

8 Vargas, Jorge B., “Report of the Chairman of the Philippine Executive Commission to the Com-mander-in-Chief, covering the period January 23, 1942, to March 31, 1943” unpubl. document of August 23. 1943, PP. 40–4.Google Scholar This seventy-four page typed document marked “secret,” was discovered by the author and is in his possession.

9 War Memoirs, p. 21.

10 Laurel, , Forces that Make a Nation Great (Manila, 1943), p. 8.Google Scholar

11 Official Gazette (Manila), II, No. 10 (October 1–14, 1943), 983.Google Scholar

12 Forces, p. 85.

13 Forces, p. 91.

14 Forces, p. 12.

15 Forces, p. 16.

16 Forces, p. 75.

17 Forces, pp. 75–76.

18 Bernstein, David, The Philippine Story (New York, 1947), p. 168.Google Scholar

19 Buenefe, Manuel E., War-time Philippines (Manila, 1950), p. 203.Google Scholar

20 Official Gazette, I, No. 5 (February, 1944), 492–494.

21 The official version of the Constitution can be found in the Official Gazette, II, No. 9A (September 4. 1943). 1–48.

22 The Japanese were more concerned with the popular acceptance of the new government than with the specific language of the Constitution. Consequently, and contrary to public opinion, they allowed the document to be at least partially Filipino-drafted and gave Laurel and the PCPI some choice. The various confidential dispatches sent to Tokyo can be found in Hito Dokuritsu To Nippi Domei Joyaku Teiketsu Kankei, Checklist of the Archives of the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 1868–1945, comp. Uyehara and Beal (Washington, Library of Congress Microfilm, 1954), Reel 584, Code S.I.7.0.0–47.

23 Official Gazette, II, No. 10 (October 1–14, 1943), 985.Google Scholar

24 Murata Shozo was a former President of the Osaka Steamship Company (the O.S.K.) and a former Minister of Communications in a Konoe Cabinet. He was an experienced and able man who gained the respect of many of the Filipino officials. Many of his staff members were career foreign service officers who had served either in the United States or in Southeast Asia.

25 International Military Tribunal: Far East, Document 2402 B, Exhibit 1336; Document 837 A, Exhibit 628; Document 1112 A, Exhibit 1333 A; Document 1448, Exhibit 877.

26 Manila Tribune, November 10, 1943, p. 6.Google Scholar

27 Ang Kapit Bahay, I, No. 2 (May, 1943), 7.Google Scholar

28 War Memoirs, p. 58.

29 Official Journal of the Japanese Military Administration (Manila, Imperial Japanese Army, 1943), XIII, p. lxi.Google Scholar

30 Laurel, , “The Republic's Goal,” Philippine Review, II, No. 9 (November, 1944), 12.Google Scholar

31 War Memoirs, p. 60.

32 War Memoirs, pp. 24 and 60.

33 Manila Tribune, September 24, 1944, pp. 1–2.Google Scholar It is worth noting that the Japanese recruited, armed and trained a corps of Filipinos loyal to the Japanese cause. The Makapili (an abbreviation of the Tagalog, Kalipunang Makabayan ng mga Pilipinos, the Patriotic League of the Filipinos) was inaugurated on December 8, 1944, on the third anniversary of the war, with Laurel as the nominal “highest supreme advisor.” Manila Tribune, December 9, 1944, p. 2.Google Scholar The Japanese had trained some 5,000 Makapili by the time the Americans reinvaded Luzon. The post-war Philippine Courts held that “being a Makapili is in itself constitutive of an overt act [of treason]. It is not necessary except for the purpose of increasing the punishment that the defendent actually went to battle or committed nefarious acts against his country or against his countrymen. … Such membership by its very nature gave the enemy aid and comfort. … It furnished the enemy aid in that his cause was advanced, his force augmented, and his courage was enhanced by the knowledge that he could count on such men as the accused. The practical effect of it was no different from that of enlisting in the invader's army.” People v. Adriano, Official Gazette, XLIV, 4300.

34 Laurel, “The Republic's Goal,” p. 4.

35 Ang Kapit Bahay, 1, No. 2 (May, 1943), 8.

36 Tagapagturo, I, No. 3 (March, 1943), 4–5.

37 “Biographical Report on Jose Paciano Laurel-Confidential,” November 25, 1944, Office of Strategic Services, Research and Analysis Branch, United States Army, p. 4.

38 “Biographical Report,” p. 6.

39 Manila Tribune, June 30, 1943, p. 1.Google Scholar

40 Official Journal of the Japanese Military Administration, XIII, p. xxxxi.

41 War Memoirs, pp. 59–60.

42 Interviews, conducted by the author, with Senator Lorenzo Tañada (Solicitor General during the early post-war period), March 9, March 17, March 24, 1960.

43 Interviews, conducted by the author, with Claro M. Recto, March 17, 1960; Quintin Paredes, March 10, 1960; and Jorge B. Vargas, April 13, 1960.

44 War Memoirs, p. 57.

45 Forces, p. 109.

46 Forces, p. 110.

47 Bernstein, David, “America and Dr. Laurel,” Harper's Magazine, CXCVII (October, 1948), 87.Google Scholar Interestingly, but perhaps not surprisingly, Laurel is quoted as saying in April of 1948: “At a time like this when the young Republic of the Philippines is facing a crisis, we should adopt what other countries are doing and that is to suspend temporarily all political parties. … I do not want it as construed that I am against political parties. That would be undemocratic and totalitarian. But at a time like this when a country is faced with a crisis, the best way to achieve unity is to stop the political bickerings and quarrels. As a temporary measure, we should do away with partisan politics.”