From the manuscript of Ken Ishikawa:
“After the
Pacific War broke out and the Japanese Imperial Army succeeded in overrunning the
last bastion of the US-Filipino forces on the island of Corregidor on 09 April
1941, the Japanese began their expansion to the south. On April 16, the
Japanese landed on the island of Panay. They began occupying the districts of
La Paz, Molo, Jaro, and downtown Iloilo City, and started
turning schools, civic buildings, and large houses into their garrisons…
“In order to raise the morale of the
populace in Panay and to keep peace and order amidst enemy occupation, Tomas Confesor
established a provisional provincial government. Because of his background in
leading farms and haciendas, Delfin Gonzalez was named by Confesor as his Food
Administrator for Jaro and Leganes, referred to by the resistance forces as
Zone 9.
“It was Delfin's duty
to make sure that agricultural production continued in his territory despite
enemy occupation and that the people living in the area and the guerillas
operating in the sector would not want for food. Delfin travelled across his area through rice
paddies, carefully avoiding the dirt roads where squads of Japanese soldiers
patrolled. He would visit outlying farms
where crops were being covertly grown. When
he was not travelling, Delfin tended his own farm with crops he used to supply
the resistance. Delfin chose to give the
bulk of his harvests to the guerillas and the needy. His son, RMG, remembers that the family
subsisted mainly on lugaw or rice broth, seasoned only with either sugar
or salt, during the length of the
Japanese occupation.
“Delfin did not lack
for help in providing nourishment for his family; his sons, Sergio and Raul, learned how
to forage for food. They went to rice
paddies, hunched, scanning the surface of the mud for mouths of tilapia or
catfish. Their tenants taught them the
proper technique of catching catfish without getting stung by their barbs, a
skill the boys happily applied in dozens of afternoons along the ditches and
mudflats near the farms. When villagers
harvested mung bean in a field somewhere, Raul and Sergio looked for
unharvested seeds along with other children and womenfolk.
“As if the routine
his job demanded of him was not dangerous enough, Delfin would, now and then,
get missives from his fellow guerillas inviting him to meetings. Couriers from Confesor stashed orders and
information meant for him in a hollow stalk of bamboo at a grove in a secret
location near his house. Once Delfin has
memorized the instructions and the meeting places, he assigned Raul to hide
these clandestine papers in the holes in the stilts of their house. Whenever he set out for these gatherings, he
would normally take someone to accompany him. One such companion was Sergio who
walked with his father to Tacas to meet guerilla leaders there.
“Delfin knew that his role under Confesor's
resistance government doubled the dangers for his family. Aside from being responsible for his wife and
brood of five children, he also had to worry for his sister-in-law Anita, her
husband and her two children. Because of
this, Delfin was very careful not to rouse the suspicion of the Japanese. Through his vigilance and caution, he was
able to keep his guerilla and patriotic activities a secret.”
