MANILA, Philippines — Lola Estelita Dy knew that she might not get justice in her lifetime for being repeatedly raped by Japanese soldiers during World War II.
But she fought on anyway.
Dy, an active member of the rights group Lila Pilipina and the last “comfort woman” in Malabon, died of cardiac arrest on Nov. 24 at the age of 94.
Dy was friends with another late comfort woman, Paula Atillo, whose son is the husband of Dy’s eldest daughter Elizabeth.
Elizabeth Atillo told The STAR during Dy’s wake that she would continue her mother’s fight for recognition as part of her pamana or inherited vow.
“All of the lolas have children and grandchildren. We are called pamana, because we will inherit and continue their fight,” Atillo said.
Atillo recalled that growing up, she would notice that her mother during the ‘90s would sneak out of the house and not tell them her plans for the day.
She would later learn that she was attending rallies for the wartime sexual slavery victims group Lila, at a time when rape survivors were holding rallies, led by Maria Rosa Henson, the first comfort woman to come out.
It was only when she was invited by her mother to attend a talk at the “Lola’s House,” or the Lila Quezon City headquarters, that she learned about her mother’s wartime past.
Lola Dy still wanted to join rallies even in her condition just weeks before her death, Atillo said.
Her last public appearances were at a press briefing at Kamuning Bakery last April and in a recorded conversation last year with GMA artists Sanya Lopez and Ashley Ortega, who portrayed comfort women characters in the historical period show “Pulang Araw.”
The actors lauded their bravery and cried upon hearing Lola’s ordeal of being held at a Japanese garrison in Talisay, Negros Occidental in 1945 when she was just 13 years old.
When her conversation with the actors aired on TV, Lola Dy asked her daughter to switch off the television and not watch anymore.
“She told the actors her hope was that what they endured won’t happen again. But when the report aired, she said, ‘Let us close that chapter of my life already’,” Atillo quoted her mother as saying. “Maybe because she knows she is close to dying.”
But Atillo said she has to continue what her mother started at Lila – to fight for compensation and an official apology from Japan, both unfulfilled despite a UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (UN CEDAW) ruling which called out the Philippines for its failure to recognize their ordeal and ordered the government to assist the surviving lolas.
A bronze comfort woman statue was built along the Manila Baywalk in 2018, but it was removed during the Duterte administration supposedly to avoid offending Japan.
Before she died, Lola Dy asked her daughters to always bring her good food. Her favorite was pansit, the daughter recalled.
While her mother is no longer with her to continue the fight, Atillo said she is hopeful their movement would remain active even though the lolas are passing on.
It is, after all, their sworn duty as daughters to continue the fight.
“Others say our group will also die with our mothers passing away. But there are many who want to continue this fight,” Atillo said.
Lila Pilipina paid tribute to its most vocal member, saying in a statement: “Lola Estelita’s death does not spell the end of the campaign for justice.”
“Let Lola’s final march be a clarion call on both the Japanese and Philippine governments to finally shed their denialist positions and render official apology and reparations to the victims and their families,” the group said.