Ilonggo historian tackles the Nikkei- jin and their roots in Panay

When Japanese comes to mind, many elderly Filipinos still think of the Japanese occupation that brought misery to them and their families. Largely unknown to today's generation is the fact that prior to the war, there were peaceable Japanese settlers throughout the Philippines , including Iloilo . Records show that there were 500-600 of them here in the early 1930s, reflecting the movements of Japanese peoples abroad since the late 1800s to such places as Latin America and Southeast Asia . A professor and historian from the Division of Social Sciences of the College of Arts and Sciences of UP in the Visayas is retelling their stories.

Dr. Ma. Luisa Mabunay started her research on pre-war Japanese settlers in Iloilo in the late 1970s for her master's thesis that was completed in 1979.   In 1981, a brief article based on this work was published in Danyag (the forerunner of the UPV Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities). In the 1990's, developments following changes in the Japanese immigration law prompted her to pursue investigations into the links between the pre-war Japanese residents in Panay as a whole and the third-generation descendants who, as migrants themselves, were starting to enter Japan as Nikkei- jin .  

A research travel grant in year 2000 under the sponsorship of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) allowed Dr. Mabunay to have a closer look at features of Japanese fisheries. Okinawan fishers had been the most numerous among the local Japanese migrants in the early 20 th century.   She made exciting discoveries, having come to face-to-face with surviving former residents of Iloilo who have been repatriated to their homeland in 1945.

Since then, she has sought to gather photo-documentary evidence of the Japanese presence, along with personal testimonies of their life and interactions with their host community.   A seven-month research grant from Japan Foundation in 2003 gave her the opportunity to reach many other former residents (including war veterans), apart from over 70 third-generation ‘return migrants' now working in factories across eastern Japan and Okinawa .   A UP System grant also allowed her to seek local informants and documents across Panay and other parts of the country.   In her continuing efforts, Dr. Mabunay is striving to weave various three-generation family histories into the fabric of local history for the island of Panay .  

Photographs of Niffei Jins displayed at UPV Center for West Visayan Studies.

At a photo-exhibit at the CAS' Center for West Visayan Studies, located at UPV's Iloilo City campus, Dr. Mabunay shares some materials collected to date.   She aims to acquaint Nikkei- jin families, and the public at large, with these little-known facets of our connections with Japan .   At the same time, she believes that such a presentation is a useful means to specify, elaborate, validate and expand her on-going inquiries from the feedback of interested viewers.   Dr. Mabunay anticipates more interactions in future lecture-presentations in the coming months.  

The following is an excerpt from her introductory note for the current exhibit entitled, “Traces of the Nikkei- jin of Panay : A Preview”:

This photo exhibit provides a background towards an understanding of the contemporary phenomena in Philippine society known as the ‘Nikkei- jin ' (or ‘ Nikkeis ' for short) who were at one time simply referred to as ‘Japanese-Filipinos'.  

Since the early 1990s, upon the effectivity of certain changes in Japanese immigration laws, the term refers to any person deemed to have Japanese ancestry, and thus, qualified to apply to live and work in Japan as a Japanese national.   Apart from many Nikkei- jin from various Latin American countries (notably Brazil), there have been those from the Philippines and other Southeast Asian countries who have also applied for the visa status of ‘resident nationals' to join their families as well as to find better-paying jobs in Japan.   To date, among those who have entered Japan since the late 1990s are about a hundred 3 rd generation descendants of the early 20 th Japanese settlement in Panay who mostly resided in then prosperous and cosmopolitan Iloilo City.

In the early days of the Philippine Commonwealth, they numbered between 500-600 and operated various types of businesses – ranging from large trading companies and dry goods bazaars at Calle Real and other major thoroughfares of the city, to peddling, carpentry, gardening and food vending throughout the island and neighboring Guimaras . The largest sector among them was the fishers from Okinawa who introduced deep-sea fishing methods to the locals and established their main fishing station at ‘ Pala-pala '.   The Iloilo Japanese School at Tanza became a gathering place for the community at various times.   With few women settlers, marriages and other forms of alliances produced a number of Japanese-Filipinos.  

The livelihoods of the Japanese settlers in Panay were interrupted by the war and occupation.   Just as ‘cooperation' was demanded from Ilonggos , so were the civilian Japanese recruited for various tasks, mainly as interpreters.   Engineers and other skilled workers among them were given responsibilities for strategic services such as the water system, the electric plant, and the like.   Nonetheless, the extended stay of Japanese occupation forces in Panay also produced some Nikkei- jin in the process.   An even more drastic disturbance happened at the end of the war; with Japan 's defeat, the civilian residents, along with Japanese soldiers, were repatriated to their occupied homeland.    

More recently, the normalization of relations between Japan and the Philippines has brought many Filipinas as entertainers to Japan .   Along with other skilled workers, students and trainees, they have also produced another batch of Nikkeis , often distinguished from older descendants as ‘ Japinos '.

Nevertheless, the exhibit focuses on ‘prewar' and ‘wartime' events and conditions that frame the origins of the Nikkei- jin – already in Japan , or who are yet in the process of verifying their ancestral records to qualify as such.   As free migrants, not as contractual workers, they make up an unusual category of the millions of Filipinos working abroad.   (Anna Razel L. Ramirez, with sources from   Dr . Ma. Luisa Mabunay )