About "Lola Masing"

I am going to speak about Lola masing.
Lola means “Grandma or older lady” in Philippine.
“Masing” means a sowing machin.
“Lola masing” is a nick name of Tomasa Dioso Salinog.

Tomasa was a resident of San Jose, Antique, the Philippines.
Her mother past away when she was one year old baby.
She was living with her father as the only child of him.

When the Japanese armed forces occupied the Philippines in 1942, she was 13 years old.
One day, 3 Japanese soldiers forcibly力ずくで entered her house.
They killed her father in front of her when he tried to prevent them from taking her away.

She was taken to one house where she was imprisoned.
She tried to escape from there but door was locked. In the midnight, the soldier came into the room and raped her.
After first soldier left, another soldier came in and tried to rape her, but she defended herself from him. He knocked her unconscious.
She didn’t remember what was happened after that.

But after that day, she was raped by 2 to 5 Japanese soldiers, everyday.

For about two years, she was kept as a slave to be raped and abused by Japanese soldiers, until American army came.

Japanese soldiers took away the only member of her family.
Alone, in abject絶望的な、悲惨な poverty and with no one to take care of her, she could not go back to school and had to work. She started to make clothes with a sewing machine in order to survive.
She worked hard for her living almost 50 years.

It was in 1992 that she heard in the radio about a call for women raped during the war to come out and tell their story. She sold her blanket so that she could have money to take the bus to go.

In 1993, Japanese lawyers interviewed Lola Masing so that a petition[p∂ti-]嘆願書 could be filed in a Japanese court. With 17 other Filipino survivors, a case was filed起こす at the Tokyo District court.
“As a surviving victim of war, I can only offer my experience to serve as a lesson for all governments and the international community that wars bring only violence, and women become the most violated冒涜する human beings in times of war.” she said.

On the other hand,
the Japanese Government established "The Asian Women’s Fund" in 95 and began to collect private donations from citizen, and to hand "an atonement償い money" to a former " comfort women (慰安婦)".

Lola Masing was one of the Philippines who refused the Asian Women’s Fund, so she had to suffer from poverty in her small house all her life.
She refused the offer of the Fund saying that she would accept nothing less than a formal apology from the Japanese Government.

She wrote a letter to Prime Minister of Japan at the end of March 2007.
“I am appealing to you, Prime Minister Abe, to acknowledge the truths we have told. This is the justice正義 I have been longing and praying for. We are aware of Japan’s efforts for peace but there can be no peace in this world unless there is justice.
I hope justice will com before I die.”

Tomasa Dioso Salinog, one of man so-called “comfort women” in Asia during World War II who suffered sexual abuse under the Japanese Imperial Army, died last April 6. She was 78.
Just one week after, her letter arrived to the Prime Minister.

During Japan-China War, more than 450,000 Japanese soldier and 10,000,000Chinese people were dead in 15 years.
In Philippine under the World War II, almost 500,000　Japanese soldier were dead, only in 2 years.
It is said, the sex drive(性的欲求) of the soldier becomes stronger when he is in danger in a battle.
Such nature violence is still repeated in Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia Rwanda ...e.t.c.

However, it is sure that there were many armed forces which did not cause such rape cases.

According to the American investigation, the number of the PTSD, Post-traumatic stress disorder(心的外傷後ｽﾄﾚｽ障害) are, natural disaster 4.5%, accident 7.6%, body violence 11.5% and rape is 55.5% which is equal to war experienced people.
The same thing happened to Lola Masing. Even she wanted to get marry, she remembered the old tragic memory and couldn’t stay with man.

“Comfort women” 慰安婦。
There are several kinds of so called comfort women, I think.
Lola Masing was kidnapped and was made as comfort woman by Japanese soldiers.
We shouldn’t call her a “comfort woman”, she was a poor victim.
So, recently, many people write ｢慰安婦｣ in Japanese with an angle bracket「」(かぎ括弧)。
Historians say Japan forced about 200,000women to work in military brothels[bro’th∂l]慰安所 throughout Asia in the 1930s and 1940s.
Most of them became 70 to 90 years old now.


I chose Lola masing for my research speech, because I will be a cast in this musical.

At the end of last year,
I found an article which recruiting 100 civic members for the Musical. Almost 130 applicants were attended the audi’tion.
I was anxious about failure, but all of them were passed.

The story was tragedy[tr(ae)dj∂di] of the woman.
I didn’t know much about so-called “comfort women” until I started the lesson of Musical. At Musical lessons, we have to think about her and her life all the time, in the song and in the dance. Lola Masing said “Forgive but not forget!” She didn’t hate Japanese people.
She just wanted formal apology from the Japanese Government.

The lessons started at the middle of January.
Every Saturdays and Sundays, I have lessons from morning till evening.
To tell the truth, I was expecting my diet by the Musical lessons, but after the lessons I could eat a lot.
We will perform the Musical at the end of April and at the beginning of May.
I hope all of you enjoy how our civil Musical expresses the Lola Masing’s life.

The picture on the back of the leaflet, I am not in there. Because I was late on that day, so I couldn’t join them.
At the lesson, everybody could choose their own nick name, I chose “Jackie” for me!