The Lolas: Living With The Memory

• Photographer
  Akiko Dupont

The women of Mapanique are seeking for justice, just like the so called comfort ladies. They may not be the comfort ladies but they are also the sexually abused victims by the Imperial Army. On the 23rd of November 1944, war came to Barangay Mapanique, as it was a suspected hide out of the anti-Japanese guerrillas.
 For more than half a century the story was a taboo in the village and was kept in each Lola’s memories. But the Mapanique survivors decided to speak out their message to the world as a wish: never to allow the 23rd of November to reoccur in order to protect the next generation.