Finding Barrio Sulok, the Strategic Barrio in WWII Santo Tomas, Batangas

The Japanese Army on its way to Manila.  Image credit:  Wikipedia.

In my researches on World War II Batangas, one obscure little barrio kept popping up in documentation of United States Army movements during the war as well as atrocities committed by soldiers of the Japanese Imperial Army in the province. The name of the barrio was Sulac, alternatively spelled Sulak in some World War II literature.

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Bauan, Batangas in the 19th Century as Described by a Spanish Historian

A salt field in Bauan early in the American era. Image credit:  University of Michigan Digital Collections.

We continue with the series of articles on 19^th Century Batangas as described by the former Spanish government official and historian Manuel Sastron in his 1895 book “Batangas y su Provincia¹.” Presumably, the information contained in the book was gathered in the immediate years prior to the book’s publication.

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Two Makapilis and the Marauoy, Lipa Massacre by Japanese Soldiers in February 1945

Image credit:  Google Maps.

The date 11 February 1945 was among the darkest in the history of the then town of Lipa in Batangas. “Almost an entire community” was massacred by Japanese soldiers in the barrio of Marauoy¹ just north of the town’s poblacion or center. Worse, these same soldiers were led to the homes of the barrio’s inhabitants by Filipino Makapilis.

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Lian, Batangas: Historic and Folkloric Notes about some of its Barrios

Image credit:  Google Earth Street View.

We take a look at the small western Batangas town of Lian to continue with our series of barrio history and folklore. The information contained in this article has been taken from documents required of all Department of Education districts in 1951 by the administration of President Elpidio Quirino to reconstruct local histories contained in documents destroyed during World War II. The documents, written by teachers, are archived at the National Library of the Philippines Digital Collections.

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