Bataan has fallen!

Raul Ilogon .

“BATAAN has fallen” is the surrender announcement of the Filipino and American forces in a battle against invading Japanese forces at the start of World War II. It was broadcast  inside Malinta tunnel in the evening of April 9, 1942. It was written by Captain Salvador P. Lopez who later became the Philippine ambassador to the United Nations.

The announcement  read in somber tones by 3rd Leiutenant Norman Reyes made many cry. “Hardened, gristied men cried with out shame as they swallowed the gall of humiliation and defeat.”

The whole Philippine nation cried with them. It was a moving masterpiece written in blood that made the many cry. I wish out teachers will take the cue and have this well-written historical masterpiece the subject in elocution and declamation contests.

Here is the full text of “Bataan has fallen”:

“Bataan has fallen. The Philippine-American troops on this waravaged bloodstine peninsula have laid down their arm. With heads bloodied but unbowed, they have yielded to the superior force and numbers of the enemy.

“The world will long remember the epic struggle that the Filipino and American soldiers put up in the jungle fatness and along the rugged coast of Bataan. They have stood up uncomplaining under the constant and grueling fire of the enemy for more than three months. Besieged on land and blocked by sea, cut off from all sources of help in the Philippines and in America, the intrepid fighters have done all that human endurance could bear.

“For what sustained them through all these months of incessant battle was a force that was more than merely physical. It was the force of unconquerable faith — something in the heart and soul that physical hardship and adversity could not destroy! It was the thought of our native land and all that it holds most dear, the thought of freedom and dignity and the pride in these most priceless of all our human prerogatives.

“The adversary, in the pride of his power and triumph,  will credit our troops with nothing less than the courage and fortitude that his own troops have shown in battle. Our men have fought a brave and bitterly contested struggle. All the world will testify to the most superhuman endurance with which they stood up until the last in the face of overwhelming odds. But the decision had to come. Men fighting under the banner of unshakable faith are made of something more than flesh, but they are not made of impervious steel. The flesh must yield at last, endurance melts away, and the end of the battle must come.

“Bataan has fallen, but the spirit that made it stand — a beacon to all the liberty-loving peoples of the world — cannot fail!”

While allied Filipino and American forces officially surrendered, many disregarded the standing order and escape to the hills — lied low to fight another day.

Four months after the surrender, the Philippine guerrilla movement was born!