Filipinos

Two Nations Woo

Situation With Political Possibilities

IN a message broadcast to the Philip pines on August 12, President Roose velt said: “I give the Filipino people my word that the Republic of the Philip pines will be established the moment the power of our Japanese enemies is destroyed.”

In mid-September, Tokio Radio an nounced that Japan was granting to the Philippines the status of an independent nation, and that a national assembly was to be elected.

About the same time, Senator Tydings (joint author of the Tydings-McDuffie Act, under which the United States made the Philippines a semi-independent Commonwealth in 1936, to become an independent nation on July 4, 1946; introduced in Congress a joint resolution to give full independence to the Philip pines at once.

When Japan struck, on December 7, 1941, the Philippines were getting ready for complete independence, under Ameri can protection. The Japanese over-ran and took complete control of the coun try. President Quezon, Vice-president Osmena, and the Filipino War Cabinet escaped to America, where they now function as the Philippines Government, The Japanese immediately set up a Military Government in the group, appointed Filipino provincial Governors, and induced various prominent Filipinos to serve on an “Executive Commission,” which is actually a Filipino Puppet Gov ernment.

With deliberate purpose, Japan had been carrying on commercial penetration of the Philippines for two decades before the war. At least 40,000 Japs were settled in Mindanao, the most southerly island.

The group is nearly as big as Japan, and a rich economic prize, long coveted by the Japs.

The Japs—whose own policy has been shown in the enslavement of Korea, Manchuria and Occupied China—loathed the American policy of encouraging the Filipinos to govern themselves, and of granting them independence. The inclu sion of the group in the Japanese Empire is a part of the Jap “Co-prosperity Sphere” plan.

For whom will the 16,000,000 Filipinos fight, when the war reaches the Philip pines—for the Americans, who planned their independent nation for them, but who belong to the white race? Or for the Japanese, who claim blood relation ship with the Filipinos, and who now are wooing them urgently, and promising them all kinds of blessings under “Co prosperity”?

There is little doubt that the mass of Filipinos will welcome the return of the Americans. Nonetheless, the issue is important—hence the moves and assur ances reported at the beginning of this article.

Political events in the Philippines will have a far-reaching effect in South-east Asia and Indonesia, where several Asiatic countries have for long cherished plans of independence.

The sudden death of Mrs. Gwendolyn Rachel Ragg, wife of Mr. H. R. Ragg, acting executive engineer at Lautoka, Fiji, occurred on August 17. She was the daughter of the late Captain Davies, of Suva, and is survived by her husband, three young daughters and two sisters, Mrs. F. D. Burrows and Miss Kathleen Davies, both of Suva.