Guerrilla Responses to Local Collaborators in Negros Oriental during the Japanese Occupation

Abstract

The issue of collaboration has invariably been a part of colonial life since the Spanish, American, even until the Japanese period. Some Filipinos opted to collaborate with the colonizers, while others decided to resist. This paper delves into the issue of collaboration during the Japanese period, specifically in Negros Oriental, and how the guerrilla movement responded to the collaborators. The guerrillas saw most collaborators as traitors for siding with the Japanese imperial forces. However, some, if not most, of the collaborators viewed their actions as honorable, for they provided, to varying extents, a form of cushion to mitigate the suffering of the Filipino people, in this paper’s case, the Oriental Negrenses. Suffice it to say, the responses of the guerrillas against these collaborators, if mainly pejorative, vary from case to case. In this paper, the researcher aims to provide the different responses of the guerrillas towards famous political collaborators, military collaborators, and even lesser-known collaborators. It is hoped that this paper will shed light on the complex, let alone nebulous, issue of collaboration during the Japanese Occupation of Negros Oriental.