A personal memoir

To me, there was more to the visit of Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko to the Philippines than being headline news. It brought memories when as a young girl, I went to Tokyo to study Japanese history and English literature at the International School of the Sacred Heart, also known in Japanese as the Seishin Joshi Daigaku. It is a posh school located in Miyashiro-cho in Shibuya-ku.

I remember a special fondness for the empress in  the school because was known as the commoner who became a princess. I was in the 2nd year of college at the Assumption in San Lorenzo when I asked my father if I could study in Seishin. He was among the first Filipino businessmen to open trade between the Philippines and Japan.

So at a young age Tokyo was my first abroad and like first love something difficult to forget. . I experienced my first winter, ate strange food and made friends with some who spoke only Japanese. But I was at the international side of the school to study Japanese language, some Japanese history and continued with some subjects I had taken up in Manila to finish my BA in philosophy. That was how I ended up taking my college in three years. All that I studied in Seishin was credited in Assumption Manila.

At that time, Seishin was abuzz with the engagement of one of their alumnae – Michiko Shoda.  Her father was a wealthy flour miller but still a commoner. It was her younger sister, Emiko, taller and darker than she was whom I met in school. At one time I was in her group to raise funds for a Christmas benefit for the poor. At the head of the school was Mother Britt, a British nun who is an institution.

It was said that she had played a role in matchmaking the royal couple.  Michiko was a beauty but she was also very bright and had other interests other than becoming royal consort. She was especially aware of what she had to give up if she became part of the Japanese royal family. She would be the first commoner to do so.

The formidable Mother Britt had advised her that it was possible to live a life combining her Christian education and as princess. These, of course,  I only read in magazines and articles and the school magazine but when she became engaged to then Prince Akihito it was part of the daily chatter in the school.

I will never forget Seishin because I used to walk down the path from the main building where I live in the dorm to a Japanese teahouse where I learned Japanese Hiragana and Katakana as well as sumi brush painting. It was so cold in winter and since this was the first time I experienced such cold it was traumatic at times especially we had only cold showers. Breakfast was often seaweed and go-han (rice). So my classmates and I would go down by the backdoor of Hiroo where there were stalls and stalls of yakitori. So that is as far as my story goes on how I had close brush with Princess Michiko, now Empress Michiko.  Like most commoners who become royal, fairy tale stories are woven around them and I was privy to them as a student in Seishin.

One thing I discovered that I had not known about her then was that she loved literature and wrote poetry.  She graduated summa cum laude from Seishin.

Even more interesting was that author Yukio Mishima had once courted her. She may have come from a  wealthy family but being also literary is a nice detail. It was written in The Life and Death of Yukio Mishima by author Henry Stokes. He wrote that “Mishima had considered marrying Michiko Sh?da, and that he was introduced to her for that purpose some time in the 1950s.”

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This report would not be complete without mentioning a significant reminder made by the Emperor when he recalled a historical fact that must not go unnoticed.

“Our first trip to the Philippines was 54 years ago. They had visited and met with President Diosdado Macapagal. In that visit, he also recalled that they had visited General Emilio Aguinaldo and Mrs. Aguinaldo in Cavite, where we stood with them on the balcony from which Philippine independence was declared by the General in 1898, and this still remains an unforgettable memory for us. This is an important historical detail that implies Japan-Philippines relations had deeper undertones than we usually read in news reports – Japan was on our side against Western imperialism. This was the time when the Philippines sought allies for their war of independence against Spain and the US.

This column would be incomplete if we did not say anything about the unpleasant memories of World War II in which Americans and the Japnese fought on Philippine soil destroying much of the city of Manila that was known as the Pearl of the Orient.

Manila was second only to Warsaw in being destroyed during the world war.

The Pearl of the Orient became nothing but shambles and what was rebuilt of it was ugly. There are many photographs to compare the city it once was and the city when it was destroyed in the war not of the Filipinos’ making. It killed thousands and impoverished thousands more

 Families still remember the horrific events that led to make Manila the battleground of these two powers. These memories are etched  in our minds and although forgiveness is being asked, forgetfulness is another.

The massacre of the Chinese in Nanking also comes to mind and should teach us lessons on how we are led to war are led into war by others without thought of its consequences.

“The 1945 battle for Manila between Japan and allied US and Philippine forces leveled the capital city and left more than 100,000 dead, according to Philippine historians.”

Thank you for the visit Emperor Akihito and Empress Michiko. I hope that all parties to the Spratly conflict will remember not only to say it in words but also to act out in reality that “we should never be led against our will and interests to such catastrophes that claim innocent victims. It is not unlikely that the renewed strong ties between Japan and the Philippines will be used to promote war between international giants – the US, Japan and China with the Philippines as a hapless victim of geopolitics.

In this, Filipinos must be guided to choose carefully a leadership that will preserve our independence and cultivate friendship with all countries, even if these are in a contest for power.