February 2020 – TUKLASIN NATIN

The Department of Health (DOH) Metro Manila Center for Health Development has recently approved the renewal of Manila Water Laboratory Services’ laboratory accreditation until 2022. With this accreditation, the DOH aims to maintain the quality of drinking water fit for public consumption in compliance with the Philippine National Standards for Drinking Water (PNSDW). The accreditation also allows MWLS to perform chemical, physical, and microbiological analysis even on samples taken outside of Metro Manila’s East Zone, and results of which will be recognized and accepted by DOH.

Likewise, MWLS registered zero non-conformity on the recently concluded assessment of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) as part of its recognition and certification of MWLS as an environmental laboratory.

The recognition, valid until 2021, is a result of an inspection and assessment done by a team comprised of the Board of Chemistry, the academe and industry experts as commissioned by the DENR Environmental Management Bureau (EMB). MWLS has complied with the documentation, analytical performance and other requirements for reinstatement, with zero non-conformity and only two recommendations for improvement. The assessors also cited MWLS as a model laboratory having consistently performed outstanding proficiency testing whilst maintaining a world-class facility.

Environmental laboratories, as defined by the DENR, are those authorized to generate environmental data for environmental impact assessment, environmental monitoring and research activities to support the formulation and implementation of government policies, criteria and rules and regulations on the protection of the environment. #(MWC Corporate Communications)

(Reposted: Written by Chat Ocampo Published by Mr. and Mrs. Magazine on June 25, 1996)

The first time I met her was two years ago at the UP College of Law parking lot. She came to meet her son, Albert, a former classmate of mine. It was a brief meeting but I could forget her strong personality,

A graduate of UP, she finished Dentistry, and landed seventh place in the board exam. After some years of practice, she now helps her husband, whom she met in UP, manage their business in Los Baños. She leads a happy and fulfilled life which does not reveal sad and painful childhood experience.

After having known what she went through, I am convinced that she herself is a miracle.

Dr. Suzy Honrado Ocampo was born in 1937, the eldest in a brood of two boys and two girls. Her growing up years in Los Baños were ideal until she witnessed her parents, siblings and some relatives die a brutal death in the hands of Japanese soldiers committed the famous massacre in the town of Los Baños.

In our many memorable encounters she revealed her story: “My grandmother, my mother with her seven-month-old baby, my two little brothers and the two sisters of my father and I were gathered at our house, My father and his brothers were not around. We were about to take our afternoon snack when suddenly the Japanese Imperial soldiers forced their way into the house looking for some men.

They started to ransack the house in search of men who might be hiding and finding none made them furious. The soldiers then started shouting and pushing us out of the house. My grandmother begged them not to hurt us while my mother started to pray. We were then forced to march a big house owned by a relative. Inside the house were more women, young and old and even pregnant ones. There were also babies and children. All that you could hear were hysterical cries, begging not to be killed. All the rooms of the house were filled with people begging for mercy. We were ordered to kneel on the floor and right there and then began the great massacre. One by one, the Japanese Imperial soldiers thrusted their sharp, pointed bayonets into the bodies of the women, children and babies. The mothers and the grandmothers shielded the children with their very own bodies to try to protect them from the indiscriminate stabbing. The cries and groans of agony and pain were deafening, It was so frightful, so inhuman. Then I must have fainted out of fear and pain.

The cried of a baby and a little boy awakened me. I could not move because of the weight of a dead body on top of me. But was able to see that it was my seven-month-old baby sister and my little brother who were crying. I tried to reach out to pacify them because I could see between the bamboo flooring that some of the Japanese soldiers were still below the house. But how do you stop babies from crying when they are in pain? They, too, like me, were wounded, but miraculously we were still alive. But by then it was too late to stop them from crying because I head heavy footsteps coming up, closer and closer. Suddenly, a hand grabbed my little brother turning his cries into howls. He was thrown up into the air making him land at the tip of a bayonet held pointing upwards that pierced through his fragile little body. Then it was my crying seven-month-old baby sister’s turn to also suffer the same fate of being mercilessly thrown up into the air to land at the tip of a bayonet held by a Japanese Imperial soldier. All that I could do was to keep very still and pretend to be dead. To cry at the moment would have meant certain death for me, too, It was so terrifying, so frightening. The pain of seeing before my very eyes the brutal killing of loved ones was far more unbearable than the pain I felt from my own wounds.

I must have cried myself to sleep because I was later awakened by flashing lights and violent sounds similar to thunder and lightning. I tried to wake my mother up but no matter how much I tried to shake her, she did not move nor respond. All the more did I cry for I felt so alone and so cold in the dark but also always wary that the Japanese Imperial soldiers might come back and kill me. All through the night the thunder and lightning went on, I did not know that it was actually the bombing and shelling between the American and the Japanese forces across Laguna de Bay.

When I opened my eyes the next morning, my grandmother was there holding onto her abdomen trying to push in her intestines which kept flowing out of a big slash inflicted by a bayonet. We both started to cry. My grandmother wanted us to get out of the house but before leaving, I remembered my mother telling me that should anything happen to her, I must get the binder which she tied around her waist and also her rosary which she wore around her neck. I started first to get the rosary stick to the skin as thought it were pasted there. I feared that if I pulled it away, her skin might come off the rosary. I tried next to get the binder but, likewise, the dried blood on her body made it very difficult for me to untie the knot. I could not also lift off the binder from her skin. Pitying myt mother, that her skin might come off, I left without following her last request, I started to move away from the pile of dead bodies around me when I saw my cousin, a boy of my age with my grandmother. My grandmother must have been very hungry because she was looking for food but there was only boiled corn left over from the afternoon before the massacre. She gave both of us some corn to eat. Slowly and cautiously, we moved down through the backdoor. Once on the ground, I saw men tied to the posts of the house. They have been tortured and killed. An while walking towards the poultry house where we were to hide, we passed by the lifeless bodies of two young girls who had no clothes on. They were lying on the ground behind the trees where a couple of pigs had started to nibble on them. These were the sisters of my father. They were separated from us by the Japanese Imperial soldiers and probably raped before being killed.

In the house, we met my father’s helper, a boy who was seriously wounded. Like my grandmother, his intestines were also flowing out of a big slash in his abdomen. The boy gave me and my cousin instructions on how to reach town after giving us a bundle of clothes. Following his instructions, we crossed the main highway, unmindful of the presence of a truckload of soldiers of the Japanese Imperial Army resting not very far from us. I realized after that God Almighty was really with us. We continued walking down the railroad towards the town. There we met a friend of the family who took both me and my cousin with him to a hideout. I must have passed out due to blood loss, hunger and exhaustion. The next thing I knew was that I was already being cared for by family and friends. Then again, I probably lost consciousness since the next thing I learned when I opened my eyes was that I had been transferred from Los Baños to the next town (Calamba) for treatment in the American Military Hospital. They said that I had a high fever due to infected wounds and was incoherent. They feared that I would also die like the other wounded who were evacuated.

I really don’t know how long it took before I regained consciousness. All that I could remember was that I kept crying and asking for my parents. It must have been days before I actually accepted the painful truth that my mother, brothers and sisters were all dead. It was hard that what I would like to believe had been a horrible nightmare that fateful day was something that really did happen. It was also painful to discover that my father, whom we rarely saw since the Japanese Imperial Army began hunting for the guerrillas, had also been captured, tortured and killed by the Japanese. I knew that he had no fighting chance against these brutal soldiers. To add to my sorrow I head that my very old great grandmother who was already 90 years old had been taken from her hiding place in the ceiling and was unmercifully stabbed several time with a bayonet.

I was later reunited with the mother, sisters and brother of my mother, then also with the two brothers of my father. It was there that I learned that the bundle tied to the waist of my mother was her personal collection of jewelry and some money. Much later, I also learned that my great grandfather on my mother’s side had also been killed. He was tied to the post of his house, tortured and later burned inside his house. People said they heard his agonizing cry while he was being burned alive.

When the Japanese Imperial Army first set foot in my hometown, the people knew through couriers that they had to contend with rapist and killers. That is why whenever the townsfolk learned that a patrol of Japanese soldiers was coming, everybody would hide and close their doors and windows. The young girls were especially protected by their parents and relatives, else they be raped.

We, the children, sometimes watched the Japanese soldiers in the churchyard going through the motion of thrusting their fixed bayonets into the sacks filled with sand while shouting with a piercing cry. Little did we know that this was exactly the way they would be killing us.

Ever since the invaders came to our town, we lived in constant fear for our lives, not knowing what may happen the next moment. We were always prepared to run to the mountains or hid in dugouts or in the church.

Whenever the memory of that fateful day comes to my mine, I become filled with fear and overcome with grief. Time was when I was so afraid of the dark or of being alone. Sharp objects, blades, knives, and guns make me quiver and shrink. Movies depicting duels and fightings with swords or guns would make me curl up in my seat with my eyes closed tight and tears welling in my eyes. Right after war, the mere sight of a Japanese brought back to mind that horrible nightmare and was enough to send me running home to hide in my room.

Now, I have a new nickname in my hometown. They fondly call me “the survivor” and always relate the story of my life. Hearing my story being told and retold is like opening my wounds . But soon I realized that it cannot be helped that my story of my life has to be told and retold all over again.

Dr. Ocampo believes that it is her mission now to talk about her terrifying experience to let people know the evils of war and motivate everyone to work for peace.

She has been invited to several speaking engagements and was requested by Japanese non-government organizations to go to Japan to tell them about the atrocities experienced by the people in Los Baños during the war. She always tells her listeners that, “there is nothing good in violence much more in war, In war, families get separated, The old, the very old and the very young get killed.

To remember and to know what the past wars have resulted into, is to learn a lesson for the future.”

I have known Dr. Ocampo for three years now. Her son and I will be on our fouth year in the College of Law this school-year. And more than the strength of personality which struck me the first time I met her, I am wed by her loving and caring ways not only towards her relatives and friends but especially so, to her family. She is a wonderful mother to her son and an ideal wife to her husband.

Despite the cruelty done to her at such a tender age, I have never heard her talk of any hatred or bitterness nor saw in her any trace of self-pity. She doesn’t want to forget the past but she won’t allow it to affect the present and the future. I can see that for her, to recall is to lean only precious lessons from the past and not to relive bitter memories.

It takes a very strong person to overcome the harrowing experience she went through. More importantly, it takes such a forgiving heart to continue living without hatred and bitterness.

Dr. Suzy Ocampo has both and I only have the utmost admiration for her. #