Manila has never truly recovered from WW2–American author

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American author James Scott launches his book, "Rampage: MacArthur, Yamashita, and the Battle of Manila" at the UST Museum. (Photo by Matthew Dominic Dimapawi/The Varsitarian)

AN AMERICAN author urged Filipinos to remember the 1945 Battle of Manila, which forever scarred the city, during the launching of the book, “Rampage: MacArthur, Yamashita, and the Battle of Manila” at the UST Museum last Feb. 14.

“[T]his was a battle that was really born on the backs of the civilians. A hundred thousand civilians were killed, literally a hundred for one soldier. [This] is something important to hold on to and remember today,” said James Scott, author of the book.

Scott said the bloody Battle of Manila is considered a “huge tragedy” of Philippine history after it “affected multiple generations of Filipino families.”

“The battle really transformed Manila. The Manila that existed before the war is not the Manila that exists today. It’s the destruction of […] precious human capital,” he told the Varsitarian.

“Rampage” recounts the battle between the Filipino and American forces and the Japanese Imperial Army.

In the book’s epilogue, Scott explained that Manila has “never truly recovered from the battle.”

“Not only did the war rob the Philippines of its capital, but it also destroyed generations of families, the effects of which still riffle through lives even today,” Scott said in the book.

“Even now, […] it is hard not to read the thousands of pages of raw victim statements and sift through scores of photographs of the mutilated survivors and appreciate the context of that time and the sentiment of so many in the Philippines: someone had to be responsible, someone had to pay the ultimate price,” he added.

The book was launched following the 74th anniversary of the 29-day battle in 1945. Scott also wrote the “Target Tokyo,” a finalist of 2016 Pulitzer Prize in History. with reports from Elmer B. Coldora

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