We deplore the misrepresentation by the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a recent statement  claiming that Japan has already expressed “deep remorse” over the Filipino “Comfort Women” issue and that the issue has been settled under the 1956 San Francisco Treaty.  ( MFA Deputy Press Secretary Kaneko Mariko )

This is a clear misrepresentation of historical facts in order to justify the Reciprocal Access Agreement   ( RAA ) and make it acceptable to the Filipino people.  The Japanese MFA  issued the statement in light of criticisms raised by Lila Pilipina and other groups questioning the  signing of the  RAA  between the Japanese and Philippine governments. It was also a response  to a call by Philippine Senator Risa Hontiveros  for reparations for Filipino “Comfort Women”. 

The Japanese government has never genuinely apologized to Filipino “Comfort Women” and other wartime rape victims.   Private letters of apology  sent by Japanese state leaders in the 1990s did not carry the weight of a full and official apology. The establishment of an Asian Women’s Fund following these letters likewise do not indicate genuine remorse as the funds were actually donations by private  citizens, and were not in any way, reparations for the harm done by the Japanese Imperial  government which should carry the full responsibility for these crimes. 

Neither was the institutionalization of teachings about its wartime atrocities, a key demand of the justice for “comfort women” movement,  seriously carried out.   Thus, with the take over of the Shinzo Abe presidency, Japan  drifted away from these pronouncements and began implementing a policy of denialism and even obstructing the establishment of memorials anywhere in the world.  Thus, the infamous removal of two “comfort women” statues in the Philippines in 2018 due to the demand of Japanese government officials.      The Foreign Ministry’s statement is nothing but an echoing of the Japanese government’s  denialist line  that the claims have already been settled under the San Francisco Treaty of 1951 and the Japan-Philippines Reparations Agreement of 1956.  

The “comfort women” issue did not come into light until 1992 when three South Korean women spoke in an international conference about their ordeal. Several months later, wartime documents from Japan revealed a similar system in the Philippines via a medical report that contained the names of several Filipino women being examined for venereal diseases. The report contained as well a sketch of a Japanese garrison where the women were kept – a house in Iloilo City that still stands today. 

In truth,  the post-war reparations paid by Japan came mainly in the form of Japanese capital goods and services for infrastructure-building, with only a tiny percentage going to Filipino war veterans.  Individual victims – whether of sex slavery, forced labor,  or other brutal crimes,   were never seriously considered in the reparations package.   The reparations paid by Japan did not solely benefit the Philippine economy.  They also benefitted Japan which  gained from the sale of capital goods  to the Philippines and from debt payments, for the significant portion of the “reparations” came in the form of loans.

Thus, this started the unequal trade pattern of the Philippines becoming a lucrative market for Japanese goods and services up to the present.   There is reason for Japan’s wartime victims to be wary of the RAA due to the vague and seemingly contradictory provisions pertaining to jurisdiction over erring Japanese soldiers.  

Moreover, it virtually gives full control to Japan in bringing in war materiel and “dangerous goods”  into the Philippines.   We urge the Philippine Senate to junk the agreement.  We do not need another generation of Makapilis – Filipino wartime collaborators –   who will once again allow on foreign powers to trample on our sovereignty and national dignity.

Issued July 13, 2024