Acclaimed anime director Hayao Miyazaki, who won a Ramon Magsaysay Award known as "Asia’s Nobel Prize," used his acceptance speech to highlight Japan’s wartime history in the Philippines.

During the award ceremony in Manila on Nov. 16, the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation praised Miyazaki for championing many social issues, such as peace and environmental conservation, and helping audiences to understand those issues.

Miyazaki, 83, co-founder of Studio Ghibli Inc., contributed a message to the event, which was read by Studio Ghibli executive Kenichi Yoda.

“Being honored with this award made me think of the Philippines once again,” the message said.

After mentioning how the emperor and empress of Japan visited Manila in 2016 to pay their respects to the thousands killed in “urban warfare” there during World War II, the filmmaker continued:

“The Japanese did a lot of terrible things during the war. They killed many civilians. The Japanese people must not forget this. It will always remain. Given this history, I solemnly accept the Ramon Magsaysay Award from the Philippines.”

Miyazaki’s message garnered widespread support on social media.

However, some posts also expressed confusion or surprise upon hearing about this history for the first time.

At least one message said, “I didn’t know anything about this (history) in the first place.”

The Ramon Magsaysay Award was established in 1957 after the death of its namesake, the Philippine president. The annual award is given to individuals and groups to honor their contributions to peace and public service in Asia.

This year, the prestigious award was given to one group and four individuals, including Miyazaki.

The foundation that runs the award told The Asahi Shimbun that Miyazaki’s speech reminds people of the importance of facing and remembering the past to build a better future for both countries.

The foundation added that it wishes to promote mutual understanding through the principles of the Ramon Magsaysay Award.

PHILIPPINES VICTIM IN PACIFIC WAR

While the Philippines is often emphasized as being a country that is pro-Japan, many of its people take the negative impact of Japan’s wartime actions very seriously.

The Philippines was a colony of the United States before Japanese forces occupied it in 1942 after the Pacific War broke out.

In February 1945, toward the end of the war, the Japanese military and the U.S.-led Allied forces engaged in fierce fighting in Manila.

This “urban warfare” that Miyazaki mentioned claimed the lives of about 100,000 Philippine civilians.

Ultimately, about 1.11 million people were killed in the fighting between Japan and the United States, the U.S. bombardments and mass slaughters by the Imperial Japanese military.

From this history, three people emerged as national heroes whose portraits were featured on the Philippine 1,000-peso banknote from 2010 to around 2022.

They are Jose Abad Santos, the chief justice of the Supreme Court who served as the acting president of the Philippines after the Japanese invasion; Josefa Llanes Escoda, the founder of the Philippine Girl Scouts who continued to deliver food to war prisoners at the risk of her life; and Vicente Lim, an army commander who survived the Bataan Death March that killed up to tens of thousands of prisoners, and continued his resistance against Japan.

All three were eventually captured by the Japanese forces and killed.

VIRTUE OF FORGIVENESS

Japan-Philippines relations improved after the war when Philippine President Elpidio Quirino (1890-1956) pardoned Japanese prisoners in 1953.

Although Quirino’s wife and children had been killed by the Japanese military, he released and gave reduced sentences to 105 Class-B and C war criminals involved in war crimes in the Philippines.

“I do not want my children and my people to inherit from me hate for people who might yet be our friends,” he said.

A war reparations agreement was signed between the Philippines and Japan three years after the pardons, and the two countries normalized diplomatic ties.

In January 2016, 60 years after the diplomatic normalization, the emperor and empress of Japan visited Manila.

Akihito, now emperor emeritus, mentioned that many Filipino lives were lost during the war, before adding, “That is something we Japanese must never forget.”

In June that same year, a stone monument honoring Quirino was founded at Tokyo’s Hibiya Park by government officials from the two countries.

It is said that when Quirino granted the pardons, he told his surviving family members that they should take the lead to forgive the past.

On the other hand, Desiree Benipayo, a relative of Santos, told The Asahi Shimbun last year that history must be remembered to prevent war from ever happening again.

The virtue of forgiveness is a key concept in Catholicism, the predominant religion of the Philippines.

That is all the more reason for Japanese people to remember how Japan was involved in war crimes in the Philippines and was forgiven by its people.