Fall of Bataan: To this day, the Japanese imperial army has not been made to completely atone for all its war crimes committed in the Philippines during WWII, including the forced sex slavery of about 400 Filipino women then. No Philippine president, government official, media reporter, etc has therefore completely contextualized the significance of this day.
Pragmatists may argue that Japan through the half-century has recompensed for the wartime mass killings and brutality of the Japanese imperial army by sending millions of dollars in military and economic aid and disaster assistance to afflicted countries; historiographers may argue that Hiroshima and Nagasaki stand as eternal monument to the follies of war aggression.
But the cost in lives require a formal and official recognition from all the governments of the world
of the suffering endured
and the sacrifices made during that war
in order to ensure that these atrocities never happen again.
Only then do we fully honor our heroes
and the survivors of that war
and genuinely commemorate our day of valor.
Image Credits: Santiago Bose from the Kulay Diwa site, used here non-commercially for academic purposes
marichulambino.com 