A space for myself

BY STANLEY GUEVARRA

I HAVE been working on a short story for quite some time now. It’s about a college graduate who enters a prenovitiate program the Society of Jesus. When I submitted the first draft to a creative writing workshop, the facilitator asked whether my reasons for writing the piece resonated with a personal interest.

“I’m actually a Seventh-Day Adventist,” I replied. A look of confusion registered on her face, but I think the sentiment was mutual.

I was born and raised ina Seventh-Day Adventist household. Growing up, I would put on my best dress shirt every Saturday people and did so in the cruelest way—subjecting Filipino women to sexual slavery.

“Comfort women,” by etymology, is a phrase lifted from the Japanese word ianfu , which means a comforting or consoling woman. It was during World War II that it became a euphemism which referred to the group of women who were coerced into sexual slavery by the Imperial Japanese Army in the late 1940s.

Comfort women were not only subjected to repeated sexual assault, as they also suffered harsh living conditions and were threatened with physical abuse or death during instances of resistance. It was estimated that about 1,000 Filipino women were forced into becoming comfort women, with only 70 of these survivors still alive today.

As the memory of these atrocious crimes linger today, Japan has yet to formally apologize for what they had done in the Second World War. When asked about their lack of acknowledgement regarding when it was time to go to Church.

There, I would listen to our Pastor who would never fail to mention that Jesus, like “a thief in the night,” would return and take his children with him sooner than we thought. Going to Church on Saturdays and Jesus’ Second Coming are the two things that mainly distinguish us as Adventists.

As a child, I was unaware that our Church was a minority—its members accounting for only 0.78% of the Philippine population. It was only when I entered a Catholic high school that I discovered my peers were not like me; in fact, I was the only one. Whereas I thought it was commonplace to adopt a soy-based diet or refrain from wearing jewelry, I soon realized that, rather than being norms, these were the very markers that made me different.

When I first joined the mass in seventh grade, I thought I had to blend in lest I be caught as a non-Catholic. As everyone lined the Imperial Japanese Army’s use of brothels, the Japanese government regularly references their 1993 Kono statement. This blanket statement of remorse discusses their army’s use of comfort women in multiple countries like Korea and China, while notably leaving Southeast Asian states unmentioned. Thus, Japan has yet to direct a formal apology to Filipino comfort women and establish appropriate and sufficient reparations to truly prove their sincerity.

Although Japan—and even the Philippine government— continue to shun this part of history, many Filipinos continue to uphold the memory of Filipino comfort women in the hopes of one day getting the justice they deserve.

In 2017, a seven-foot bronze statue of a woman was placed along Roxas Boulevard, with her arms tightly clasping the front of her veil and her eyes covered with a blindfold. Her statue looked towards the sky, an expression of pain up for the Eucharist, I followed the crowd, stood in front of the priest, and choked as he hesitated in handing the body of Christ, as if expecting some kind of response from me. When it was over, I walked away as fast as I could, all the while aggressively chewing a bland piece of bread that stuck to the roof of my mouth.

By that time, I was too afraid to return to my Adventist Church, yet I was seeking a religious community for myself. The most accessible was a youth Catholic organization in my high school. While the experience allowed me to strengthen my faith in some aspects, it felt like I was a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Everyone assumed I was Catholic, and the one friend who knew my religion told me to conceal my identity like it was a forbidden secret. So, I would make the sign of the cross, pray the rosary, or go to confession when everyone else did, even when it felt wrong.

Thinking about it now, it’s not so much a difference in faith and longing carved onto her face.

Made by sculptor Jonas Roces and commissioned by the Tulay Foundation, the statue served to honor the thousands of Filipinos subjected to sexual slavery, serving as a reminder of an overlooked history being forgotten.

Later in 2018, the Filipina comfort woman statue was removed from its place in Roxas Boulevard during a drainage improvement project and was meant to be permanently relocated to Baclaran Church. However, before the statue could be returned, it was reported missing from the sculptor’s home and has purportedly vanished since.

Years have passed since the end of the Japanese Occupation in the country. However, surviving Filipino comfort women continue to assert their cause in other ways. For one, they lobby the Philippine government for the justice they deserve. Last March, the Members of the Malayang Lolas that has separated me from the Catholics: it’s a difference in culture. While I read the same scripture and worship the same God, I never abstained from eating meat during Lent, went to a single Simbang Gabi for Christmas, nor prayed to the saints.

At the same time, the Catholic educational institutions I grew up with assimilated me to a certain extent. I sometimes go to the mass out of my own volition, sing Catholic songs word for word, and talk to Catholic mentors for spiritual advice. My stay in the Ateneo has also enlightened me about the Jesuit tradition, which has another set of epistemologies and practices that I have adopted.

Still, I would proudly declare I’m an Adventist, all the while knowing that the last time I went to Church on a Saturday was more than a decade ago. And somehow, I’ve come to be comfortable with the reality that I don’t necessarily belong anywhere—that I’m many

Organization made monumental progress with the reopening of the comfort women case in the Philippine courts. Under the direct declaration of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), the Philippine government was found to have violated the rights of World War II Comfort Women “by failing to provide reparation, social support, and recognition commensurate with the harm suffered.” things but also not quite those things. It is in this liminality—this hybrid space of ambiguity—where I feel like I can truly be myself.

Such revision of history is not a new story in the country. Existing powers actively change narratives and hide the marginalized to maintain a legacy that fails to paint a full picture and take into account the perspective of others. Thus, while the declaration of the CEDAW is a welcomed historic step in protecting the dignity of Filipino comfort women, the years of abuse and trauma they have experienced point to the need for more work to be done.

To clear up my workshop facilitator’s confusion, I told her that I wrote my short story to learn more about the Jesuits. I think it made sense to her—and to me—that I was coming from a desire to know rather than a desire to be. And she understood.

So maybe it’s okay that my engagement with religion remains ambivalent. Maybe it’s fine that I no longer have to pretend to be someone I’m not. Maybe it’s not such a bad thing to be both this and that, neither here nor there. Maybe—I’m enough.

Stanley Guevarra is the Founding President of PLUME and was previously the Editorin-Chief of HEIGHTS Ateneo. He is also a graduating senior finishing his degree in AB Literature (English).

Mementos TRISTAN M. ALMEIDA