Anything Under the Sun
Leticia Lorea Pelobello
At 86, Leticia Lorea Pelobello died last March 21 in Mina, Iloilo very much satisfied for having served our country both in war and in peace.
Who was she? During the war, she saved the life of Gov. Tomas Confesor and severely suffered for it. Had the Japanese captured Confesor, the civil resistance movement in Panay and Romblon would have suffered a great blow.
When the Japanese Imperial forces sometime in 1943 were combing the mountains of Bucari, Leon, Iloilo looking for Confesor, his private nurse Tisak -- the war name of Leticia, was always at his bedside because he was sickly.
True to her profession, Leticia always donned her white nursing uniform. When Japanese learned about this thru their intelligence, they always looked for that lady in white for not far behind was Confesor.
One time, Confesor escaped the Japanese by a hair's breadth. He fled and Leticia also fled but in a different direction in order to mislead them. She was captured together with a niece of Confesor -- Teresita, a daughter of his brother, Patricio and three other children -- Mansueta Patrimonio and one Juanita.
They were brought to the Iloilo Provincial Jail, the torture chamber of the Japanese. There, Lecitia was tortured for months but never told where Confesor was.
One time, a Shinto chaplain US-educated Capt. Takaichi returned to Iloilo and meet Teresita Leticia and Teresita.
When the war was about to end, the guerillas under a certain Lt. Tajanlangit rescued Leticia and the children from the Japanese.
After the war, Leticia married her second cousin Juan Pelobello, an officer in Confesor's civil resistance Emergency Provincial Guard. She later became a rural nurse of Pototan and then Barotac Nuevo.
Tisak will be buried this Sunday, April 15 at RL Memorial Heaven in Mina, Iloilo.