Tuesday, April 28, 2015

Filipinos Executed Before 2015

  1. Flor R. Contemplacion (January 7, 1953 – March 17, 1995) was a Filipino domestic worker executed in Singapore for murder. Her execution severely strained relations between Singapore and the Philippines, and caused many Filipinos to vent frustrations at the plight of Overseas Filipino Workers towards both states' governments.
  2. José Ozámiz y Fortich (May 5, 1898 - 1944) was a Filipino politician from Mindanao. His parents were Jenaro Ozámiz from Navarre, Spain and Basilisa Fortich, a Filipino mestizo of Spanish and Cebuano ancestry. He served as Misamis Occidental's first provincial governor then he also served as representative of the Lone District of Misamis Occidental. He was a delegate to the 1935 Constitutional Convention that resulted in the creation of the 1935 Constitution for the Philippine Commonwealth Government. In 1941, he was elected to the Philippine Senate. When the Japanese occupied the country during World War II, Jose was among those who accepted a post in the Japanese government with the blessings of the guerrilla movement who saw that his position would allow him to move discreetly. He became chairperson of the Games and Amusement Board. Then in May 1943 he came to Mindanao to contact Fertig. He came by boat accompanied by Jose Maria and Pelong Campos of Aloran. During his arrival in Mindanao, he met Fertig and Parson, both major leaders of the guerrilla movement. On his way home, his family was under house arrest. Jose went back to Manila in February 1944. He was arrested on February 11 on his wife's birthday. Jose was condemned to be executed. A Filipino nicknamed "makapili" played a part in his downfall along with twenty-nine other fellow Filipino who also got arrested at the same time. They were the core of the guerilla movement in Manila. He was beheaded by the Japanese during their occupation of the Philippines during World War II for his involvement in the Resistance Movement.
  3. Rafael "Liling" R. Roces, Jr. (October 12, 1912 – August 28, 1944) was a Filipino journalist, writer, patriot, World War II spy, hero, and martyr. He is the son of Rafael Filomeno Roces, Sr. (the publishing house owner and proprietor of the Ideal Theater on Avenida Rizal in Manila, Philippines) and Inocencia "Enchay" Reyes. A Manileño, Liling Roces studied at the Ateneo de Manila University. Liling Roces married Leonor “Noring” Varona on January 13, 1937. He had two children, namely Sylvia Roces-Montilla (born January 31, 1938) and Antonio Rafael "Tony" Roces. (After Liling Roces’s death, Leonor Varona later remarried with Aurelio Montinola, Sr.) During the Japanese Occupation of the Philippines, Liling Roces spied for the American troops Commander George Rowe. After a SPYRON courier was caught by Japanese soldiers, Liling Roces, among others, were suspected of providing information to George Rowe and Lt. Commander Charles "Chick" Parsons. Liling Roces was imprisoned and tortured by the Kempeitai in Fort Santiago. On August 28, 1944, Liling Roces, other prisoners, and twenty-three other members of the resistance were boarded onto a truck and brought to the Cementerio del Norte (North Cemetery) of Manila. Roces and his companions were beheaded and buried in one common ground.
  4. Commodore Eugene E. Wing (1844−1944) was the Commodore of the Manila Yacht Club when the Japanese invaded the Philippines in 1941, he sailed the Japanese blockade of Corregidor and was captured and executed with author Hugo Herman Miller for being attached to the Visayan Guerrilla Resistance on Leyte Island. Neither Wing nor Miller were duly honored by the U.S. Government for giving their lives behind enemy lines. In Nov of 1943, Commodore Eugene Wing and Hugo Herman Miller were captured during a major Japanese offensive against guerrilla and resistance forces throughout the Philippines. According to the military affidavits relating to their capture and execution, Wing and Miller were relocated to Samar Island where they were executed, by beheading, for their attachment to the Visayan Guerrilla resistance.
  5. Anacleto Díaz (November 20, 1878 — February 10, 1945) was a Filipino jurist who served as an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court. Díaz would be one of 2 Supreme Court Justices who were executed by the Imperial Japanese Army during the Battle of Manila in 1945. On February 10, the then paralyzed Díaz and two of his sons were among 300 men herded by the Japanese army and lined up along the corner of Taft Avenue and Padre Faura in Ermita, Manila. Japanese soldiers then opened machine gun fire, killing Díaz and his sons as well as scores of others. Two days later, Diaz's colleague on the Court, Antonio Villa-Real, would also be murdered by the Japanese forces in nearby Pasay. Ironically, the vicinity where Díaz was executed would later become part of the Supreme Court compound when the Court relocated to Padre Faura after the war.
  6. Apolinario de la Cruz (July 22, 1814 - November 4, 1841), known as Hermano Pule or Puli ("Brother Pule"), led a major revolt against Spanish rule of the Philippines based on a struggle for religious freedom and independence. Pule fled to Barrio Gibanga but was captured by authorities the following evening. On November 4, 1841, after a brief trial held at the present Casa Comunidad, he was executed by a firing squad at the town of Tayabas, at the age of 27. After he was killed, the authorities "quartered" his body, cut off his head and placed it on a stake as a warning to those who are similarly inclined. A monument in his honor now stands in Tayabas City, and his death anniversary is a holiday in Quezon Province. Hermano Pule may have influenced secular priest José Burgos - who was executed in 1872 - to demand for racial equality in the clergy.
  7. José Protasio Rizal Mercado y Alonso Realonda (June 19, 1861 – December 30, 1896) was a Filipino nationalist, novelist, poet, ophthalmologist, journalist, and revolutionary. He is widely considered one of the greatest heroes of the Philippines. He was the author of Noli Me Tángere, El Filibusterismo, and a number of poems and essays. He was executed on December 30, 1896, by a squad of Filipino soldiers of the Spanish Army. Moments before his execution on December 30, 1896, by a squad of Filipino soldiers of the Spanish Army, a backup force of regular Spanish Army troops stood ready to shoot the executioners should they fail to obey orders.The Spanish Army Surgeon General requested to take his pulse: it was normal. Aware of this the Sergeant commanding the backup force hushed his men to silence when they began raising "vivas" with the highly partisan crowd of Peninsular and Mestizo Spaniards. His last words were those of Jesus Christ: "consummatum est",--it is finished. He was secretly buried in Pacò Cemetery in Manila with no identification on his grave. His sister Narcisa toured all possible gravesites and found freshly turned earth at the cemetery with guards posted at the gate. Assuming this could be the most likely spot, there never having any ground burials, she made a gift to the caretaker to mark the site "RPJ", Rizal's initials in reverse.
  8. Mariano Noriel (1864 - January 27, 1915) was a Filipino general who fought during the Philippine Revolution and the Philippine-American War. He was member of the War Council that handled the case of Andres Bonifacio in 1897. He led Filipino advance troops before the American army landed in Intramuros in 1898. History has a way of putting a strange twist to the life story of Noriel. The records show that the doughty Bacoor general, along with the two others, was sentenced to death for the murder of a man in the Bacoor cockpit in May 1909. The Court of First Instance decision on the case was later confirmed by the Philippine Supreme Court, so it was appealed by an Irish-American lawyer named Amzi B. Kelly, to the Supreme Court of the United States which subsequently reversed the decision. But before the final verdict was received from Washington, Noriel and his co-accused had already been executed by hanging in Manila on January 27, 1915.
  9. Macario Sakay y de León (c. 1870/8 – September 13, 1907) was a Filipino general who took part in the 1896 Philippine Revolution against the Spanish Empire and in the Philippine-American War. After the war was declared over by the United States in 1902, Sakay continued resistance and the following year became President of the Republic of Katagalugan. In 1905, Filipino labour leader Dominador Gómez was authorised by Governor-General Henry Clay Ide to negotiate for the surrender of Sakay and his men. Gómez met with Sakay at his camp and argued that the establishment of a national assembly was being held up by Sakay's intransigence, and that its establishment would be the first step toward Filipino independence. Sakay agreed to end his resistance on the condition that a general amnesty be granted to his men, that they be permitted to carry firearms, and that he and his officers be permitted to leave the country. Gómez assured Sakay that these conditions would be acceptable to the Americans, and Sakay's emissary, General León Villafuerte, obtained agreement to them from the American Governor-General. Sakay believed that the struggle had shifted to constitutional means, and that the establishment of the assembly was a means to winning independence. As a result, he surrendered on 20 July 1906, descending from the mountains on the promise of an amnesty for him and his officials, and the formation of a Philippine Assembly composed of Filipinos that would serve as the "gate of freedom". With Villafuerte, Sakay travelled to Manila, where they were welcomed and invited to receptions and banquets. One invitation came from the Constabulary Chief, Colonel Harry H. Bandholtz; it was a trap, and Sakay along with his principal lieutenants were disarmed and arrested while the party was in progress. At his trial, Sakay was accused of "bandolerismo under the Brigandage Act of Nov. 12, 1902, which interpreted all acts of armed resistance to American rule as banditry." The colonial Supreme Court of the Philippines upheld the decision. Sakay was sentenced to death, and hanged on 13 September 1907. Before his death, he made the following statement: "Death comes to all of us sooner or later, so I will face the LORD Almighty calmly. But I want to tell you that we are not bandits and robbers, as the Americans have accused us, but members of the revolutionary force that defended our mother country, the Philippines! Farewell! Long live the Republic and may our independence be born in the future! Long live the Philippines!" He was buried at Manila North Cemetery later that day.
  10. Felipe Salvador (born on 26 May 1870 at Baliuag, Bulacan – died on 15 April 1912), also known as Apo Ipe or Ápûng Ipê Salvador, was a Filipino revolutionary who founded the Santa Iglesia (Holy Church), a messianic society also known as the Colorum and had the aim of defeating and overthrowing the colonial government of the United States in the Philippines. Salvador joined the Katipunan in 1896 upon the arrival of the Katipuneros from Balintawak in Baliuag, Bulacan. He founded the Santa Iglesia in 1900 after fleeing to the mountains when General Emilio Aguinaldo was captured by American soldiers. Salvador and his church gained a significant number of followers in the regions of Bulacan, Pampanga, Pangasinan, Tarlac, and Nueva Ecija. He was captured by the American contingent in 1910. He was later sentenced to death and was hanged in 1912, two years after his capture.
  11. Leo Echegaray (11 July 1960 - 5 February 1999) was the first Filipino to be meted the death penalty after its reinstatement in the Philippines in 1993, some 23 years after the last judicial execution was carried out. His death sparked national debate over the legality and morality of the death penalty, which was later suspended on 15 April 2006. A house painter by trade, Echegaray was accused of the April 1994 rape of his alleged ten-year old stepdaughter, Rodessa (nicknamed "Baby" by the press). He was convicted by Branch 104 of the Regional Trial Court in Quezon City on 7 September 1994, with the death sentence automatically reviewed by the Supreme Court and affirmed on 25 June 1996. Echegaray filed a motion for appeal, which was denied on 19 January 1999. Less than a month later, Echegaray was executed via lethal injection on 5 February 1999. 
  12. Josefa Llanes Escoda (20 September 1898–c. 6 January 1945) Heroine: Spiritual Leader of the Underground during World War II in the Philippines; was a well-known Filipino advocate of women's right of suffrage and founder of the Girl Scouts of the Philippines. During World War II, Japanese forces invaded the Philippines. By 1944, news of the underground activities of Josefa Llanes Escoda and her husband Antonio reached far and wide. As the Japanese Occupation stretched on, Josefa Llanes Escoda and Antonio had intensified their "smuggling" activities of sending medicines, clothings, messages, and foodstuff to both Filipino war prisoners and American internees in concentration camps. Josefa Llanes Escoda's husband, Antonio was arrested in June 1944, and Josefa Llanes Escoda was also arrested two months later, on 27 August. She was imprisoned in Fort Santiago, the same prison as her husband, Antonio Escoda, who was executed in 1944, along with General Vicente Lim, who was imprisoned with him. On 6 January 1945, Josefa Llanes Escoda was then evidently taken and held in one of the buildings of Far Eastern University occupied by the Japanese. She was last seen alive on 6 January 1945, but severely beaten and weak, and was transferred into a Japanese Transport Truck. It is presumed that she was executed and buried in an unmarked grave, either in the La Loma Cemetery or Manila Chinese Cemetery, which Japanese forces used as execution and burial grounds for thousands of Filipinos who resisted the Japanese occupation.



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