The Japanese Occupation (1941–1945) — Facts, Controversies, and Issues That Remain Open Today

As of 2026-08-30 · Updated 2026-08-30 · Section: History · 日本語版

0. 30-Second Summary

1. Timeline (the occupation period)

注 "Manila Liberation Day" is easily confused with other dates — it isn't in February by coincidence, but competing accounts do get mixed up. The Philippine government holds its commemoration in February, timed to the end of the battle for the city; President Marcos gave a speech at the "80th Anniversary of the Liberation of Manila" ceremony on 22 February 2025 (Office of the President, pbbm.com.ph / Daily Tribune, 22 February 2025).

2. The outbreak of war, and Bataan and Corregidor

• At the outbreak of war the Philippines was under US administration (as a Commonwealth since 1935). US-Filipino forces (USAFFE) withdrew to the Bataan Peninsula and held out there.
• The surrender at Bataan (9 April 1942) is often described as among the largest mass surrenders in US military history. 注 (Noted in the 2026-08-25 second verification pass) This superlative rests on an ambiguous denominator. Of the roughly 72,000–78,000 troops who surrendered, the large majority (roughly 66,000) were Filipino, and Americans numbered only about 12,000. When writing "the largest surrender in US military history," you must always specify ① whether you're counting USAFFE [US-Filipino forces] as a whole, or ② US-nationality personnel only. This article does not use the unqualified superlative "largest in history." The Philippines observes 9 April every year as a national holiday, Araw ng Kagitingan (Day of Valor) (source replaced 2026-08-27: the old draft cited the English Wikipedia. Source: Britannica, "Bataan Death March." Retrieved 2026-08-27).
• Corregidor Island fell on 6 May 1942. General Wainwright ordered the surrender of all US-Filipino forces across the Philippines.

2-1. The Bataan Death March

注 The range of figures is extremely wide. In Japanese-language sources, "7,000–10,000 deaths" (a summary figure for the entire occupation period) tends to circulate, while some English-language research puts the upper bound for Filipino deaths as high as 18,000. Which figure you use changes the tone of the writing significantly, so always frame it as a range with "estimates put it at..." Also, deaths that occurred after reaching Camp O'Donnell are not counted among deaths during the march itself (including them would push the totals higher still).

• Accountability: Lieutenant General Masaharu Homma, commander of the 14th Army, was found guilty of "permitting atrocities by his subordinates," was sentenced to death by firing squad, and was executed on 3 April 1946.

Resolved (2026-08-27): the date of the verdict (the guilty finding and sentencing) was 11 February 1946 (the trial ran from 3 January to 11 February 1946). The execution took place on 3 April 1946, at 1:00am, in Los Baños, Laguna. The old draft's reliance on "26 February" and "the outskirts of Manila" turned out to be wrong.

Source replaced 2026-08-27 (the old draft had presented both accounts side by side, based on cross-referencing the English Wikipedia articles "Bataan Death March" and "Masaharu Homma"). Sources: SOFREP, "LTG Masaharu Homma Executed on This Day 1946"; HistoryNet, "The Bataan Death March War Crimes Trial: Was It Fair?"; PBS American Experience, "Masaharu Homma and Japanese Atrocities." Retrieved 2026-08-27. It is more precise to describe the execution site as Los Baños (roughly 60km south of Manila) rather than "the outskirts of Manila" — the same site where Tomoyuki Yamashita was executed.

• His subordinates, Major General Yoshitaka Kawane and Colonel Kurataro Hirano, were prosecuted by a US military commission in Yokohama in 1948 (using evidence from the Homma trial), sentenced to death by hanging, and executed at Sugamo Prison on 12 June 1949 (as of 2026-08-27, this source has not yet been replaced: a primary source to substitute for the old draft's reliance on the English Wikipedia's "Bataan Death March" article has not been identified in this session, and this remains flagged for re-verification. Original text re-confirmed in the 2026-08-25 second verification pass. 注 Corrected in the 2026-08-25 verification pass: the old draft's "Kurataro Ro"[臘] was an error; the correct name is Kurataro Hirano).
• 注 Masanobu Tsuji, said to have led the Pantingan River massacre, evaded prosecution and disappeared in Laos in 1961 (same source). "Everyone was held accountable" is not true.

3. The Second Republic and the "collaboration" controversy

3-1. The Second Republic (14 October 1943 – 17 August 1945)

(Source replaced 2026-08-27: the old draft cited the English Wikipedia. Sources: the official site of the Presidential Museum and Library, malacanang.gov.ph; a 2013 Inquirer report. Retrieved 2026-08-27)

3-2. The postwar "collaboration" controversy

This is one of the most delicate topics in modern Philippine history, and also one of the points Japanese readers most often misunderstand.

• Laurel was detained by the Allies in 1945 and held in Yokohama and Sugamo. Repatriated in July 1946, he was formally charged before the People's Court on 132 counts of treason (July 1946), but the trial was cut short before completion on 28 January 1948, when President Roxas issued an amnesty proclamation (source replaced 2026-08-27: the old draft cited the English Wikipedia article "José P. Laurel." Sources: Britannica, "José P. Laurel"; the World War II Database [ww2db.com]. Retrieved 2026-08-27).
• In 1948, President Manuel Roxas issued the amnesty, effectively ending, in one stroke, the prosecution of collaboration charges.
• Laurel subsequently ran for president in 1949 and lost to the incumbent Quirino, but was elected to the top spot in the 1951 Senate race, restoring his political standing.
• From the Macapagal administration (1961–65) onward, Laurel has been officially recognized by successive administrations as one of the Philippines' presidents (same source). He is listed among the roster of past presidents at Malacañang Palace. Laurel's grandson, Salvador Laurel, served as vice president from 1986 to 1992.

注 This is the biggest pitfall. Japanese-language sources tend to dismiss the Second Republic in a single phrase as a "puppet government," but within the Philippines itself there is both a defense — "Laurel was a buffer protecting the people from Japanese military excess" — and a critique — "collaboration was betrayal, plain and simple" — and as a matter of national record, the country has settled closer to the former. Writing that flatly labels it a "puppet" in the Japanese style clashes with the Philippines' own official position.

• It is often argued that the fact that many members of the elite collaborated during the occupation, and returned smoothly to politics and business afterward, helps explain the postwar "continuity of elite rule" in the Philippines. At the same time, the amnesty left a strong sense of injustice among anti-Japanese guerrillas (especially the Huk side) — that those who collaborated, rather than those who fought, were the ones rewarded. This becomes one of the background factors behind the Huk rebellion, discussed below.

4. Anti-Japanese resistance — USAFFE guerrillas and the Hukbalahap

What happened after the war (this is the important part)

• The US military granted regular recognition and treatment to other guerrilla groups, but disarmed the Huk units.
• In 1946, Juan Feleo, a leader of a Huk-aligned farmers' organization, was murdered, and elected legislators aligned with the Huks were barred from taking their seats.
• → The anti-Japanese guerrilla movement transitioned directly into the Huk Rebellion (1946–1954). Under a crackdown led by Defense Secretary Ramon Magsaysay, Huk membership fell to under 2,000 by 1954, and Taruc surrendered in May of that year (same source).
• The lineage of left-wing armed struggle that leads to today's Communist-aligned New People's Army (NPA) is often traced back to this history of anti-Japanese guerrillas. The Japanese occupation period also functions, for the Philippine left, as an "origin story."

注 The unfairness of postwar US treatment extended beyond the Huks as well. The Rescission Act of 1946 retroactively declared that the wartime service of more than 200,000 Filipino veterans who fought for the United States would "not be deemed to be active military service" for purposes of federal benefits, and replaced it with a lump-sum payment of $200 million to the Philippine government (President Osmeña rejected this as inadequate). Under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA, the stimulus law), the "World War II Filipino Veterans Equity Compensation Fund" was established, providing lump-sum payments of $15,000 to US citizens and $9,000 to non-citizens (application deadline 16 February 2010). However, of 42,755 applications, 56% were denied, and reports indicate more than 4,000 approved claims still had not been paid out (source replaced 2026-08-27: the old draft cited the English Wikipedia article "Rescission Act of 1946." Sources: US Government Publishing Office [govinfo.gov] congressional hearing records; NBC News, "Thousands of Filipino-American WWII Vets Make Appeals Over Equity Pay Denial"; AALDEF. Retrieved 2026-08-27. The approval count and total amount paid as of August 2018 could not be re-confirmed in this session; this account instead prioritizes the fact of a low approval rate). This asymmetry — veterans, mostly men, received some form of state recognition, while comfort women, mostly women, received none — becomes a core argument underlying the CEDAW decision discussed below.

5. The Battle of Manila (February–March 1945) and the destruction of cultural heritage

(Source replaced 2026-08-27: the old draft cited the English Wikipedia. Sources: Military.com, "The WWII Battle of Manila: The Deadliest Urban Battle of the Pacific War"; WarHistory.org, "Battle for Manila (3 February–3 March 1945)" — over 100,000 civilian deaths, roughly 70% of the city destroyed. Retrieved 2026-08-27)

• Intramuros (the walled city) was almost entirely destroyed. The only major structure said to have survived intact is San Agustín Church. The buildings of the Spanish and American colonial periods, along with archives and church art, were lost.
• The killing of civilians during the battle is referred to as the "Manila massacre," with organized killings documented at Fort Santiago, hospitals, churches, and convents.
• The Memorare-Manila 1945 monument (in Plazuela de Santa Isabel, Intramuros), erected in 1995, is inscribed as a tribute to "over 100,000 innocent civilians." It remains the focal point of the annual February commemoration.

注 The question of Tomoyuki Yamashita's responsibility: Yamashita was tried before a military tribunal in Manila from 29 October to 7 December 1945, found guilty, and hanged at Los Baños, Laguna on 23 February 1946. His defense argued that "the accused is not charged with something he did or failed to do, but merely with something he was." The "command responsibility" doctrine established by this verdict — the "Yamashita standard" — was later incorporated into the Geneva Conventions and the International Criminal Court (ICC) (source replaced 2026-08-27: the old draft cited the English Wikipedia article "Tomoyuki Yamashita." Sources: EBSCO Research Starters, "Japanese General Yamashita Is Convicted of War Crimes"; Cebu Daily News/Inquirer, "Execution of General Yamashita"; the World War II Database. The execution, following MacArthur's approval, was carried out on 23 February 1946. Retrieved 2026-08-27). 注 A practical point of contention is whether Iwabuchi's naval force actually followed Yamashita's chain of command; the defense that "Yamashita did not order the battle for the city" remains widely held in Japanese-language sources. This is a matter still contested academically, and it would be inaccurate to flatly declare either "he was innocent" or "the verdict was self-evidently correct."

Total casualties

注 Estimates of the Philippines' overall wartime death toll vary by nearly a factor of three depending on the source.

注 All of the figures above are estimates, not confirmed totals. The figure of 527,000 is also an approximate estimate, and none of its component breakdowns is an independently confirmed statistic. Write "an estimated..." rather than stating flatly that "Filipino casualties were 527,000."

A figure of "1.11 million Filipino victims" circulates widely in Japanese-language sources; this is close to the figure the postwar Philippine government presented during reparations negotiations, and it too is an estimate, not a confirmed figure. It is safest to present both the newer and older figures side by side, along with their ranges.

6. The Comfort Women Issue — the Lolas and the 2023 CEDAW Ruling

"Lola" is Tagalog for "grandmother." In the Philippines, survivors are respectfully referred to this way.

6-1. Timeline

The Asian Women's Fund (AWF)'s Philippine program

(Program details, amounts, and duration from the Asian Women's Fund's official site, awf.or.jp; recipient numbers as noted above)

注 Because the AWF was structured as a mix of government funding and private donations, some survivors and groups in various countries refused to accept payments, calling it "not state reparations." The Philippines reportedly had a higher take-up rate than South Korea or Taiwan, but some groups, including Malaya Lolas, have consistently continued to demand a formal state apology and legal reparations.

6-2. The 2023 CEDAW decision (original text confirmed)

Document number: CEDAW/C/84/D/155/2020 / Communication No. 155/2020 / Adopted 17 February 2023 (84th session, 6–24 February 2023) / Issued 8 March 2023

CEDAW's recommendations (5 points, plus individual remedies)

1. Full reparation for the complainants, including recognition, redress, and a formal apology for material and moral damage, restitution, rehabilitation, and satisfaction (including restoration of dignity and honor), and monetary compensation commensurate with the gravity of the harm suffered
2. Establish a nationwide reparations program for victims of war crimes including sexual violence, guaranteeing equal access for male veterans and female wartime sexual-slavery survivors
3. Remove restrictive and discriminatory provisions from laws and policies concerning relief for wartime civilian victims
4. Establish a state-recognized fund to provide compensation and other reparations to women who suffered wartime sexual slavery
5. Preserve Bahay na Pula (the Red House), or establish a space commemorating the suffering of wartime sexual-slavery victims and their struggle for justice
6. Mainstream the history of Filipino victims and survivors into the curricula of all educational institutions, including secondary and tertiary education

The State party was required to submit a written response within 6 months and to publicize and disseminate the decision (Article 7(4) of the Optional Protocol).

注注 The point Japanese readers almost always get wrong: this decision did not put Japan on trial. It is a case in which the Philippine government's own inaction was found to violate the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. During the proceedings, the Philippine government argued that "it had waived claims against Japan by signing the 1951 San Francisco Peace Treaty, and had no obligation to espouse Malaya Lolas's claims," but the Committee's review focused not on the merits of the 1951 treaty, but on the Philippine government's own ongoing discrimination since the Optional Protocol entered into force in 2003. The decision contains no ruling on Japan's legal responsibility.

6-3. Developments since (2023–2026)

The reality as of 2026: three and a half years after the CEDAW decision, its core recommendations — a nationwide reparations program, a state fund, turning Bahay na Pula into a memorial, and incorporation into school curricula — remain unrealized; what has been implemented amounts to welfare-style support on the order of ₱1,000 a month. Survivors continue to pass away each year. 注 Failing to mention this "decision issued, but not implemented" gap risks overstating the practical impact of the CEDAW decision.

7. The dismantling of the Japanese immigrant community (Davao), internment, and repatriation

7-1. Prewar

注 The term "Davaokuo" (a pejorative modeled on "Manchukuo") was used by prewar American media and Philippine nationalists to criticize Japan's economic inroads into the area. It was never a name Japan applied to itself. Japanese-language sources sometimes write "the state of Davao" (ダバオ国), which is misleading.

7-2. During and after the war

• During the occupation, members of the Japanese immigrant community were drawn into the military administration, serving in some cases as interpreters, guides, and vigilante-style auxiliaries — which fueled intense postwar reprisal sentiment.
• After the war, many Nikkei-jin and Japanese residents were killed or expelled, and their property confiscated. Japanese men were interned and repatriated, while their Filipino wives and children were left behind in the country.
• 注 A widely repeated claim that "about 10,000 Nikkei-jin mestizos and Japanese were killed or expelled as reprisal" circulates broadly, but the primary basis for this figure is difficult to trace, and this article treats it as unconfirmed (as of 2026-08-27: the old draft's source for this figure was the English Wikipedia; a primary source to replace it could not be found in this session, so the "unconfirmed" designation itself is maintained). What can be stated with confidence is the qualitative fact that "the Japanese community in Davao was physically wiped out and never rebuilt."
• Many of the surviving children changed their names, fled into the hills, and lived while concealing their Japanese identity (same source). This gives rise to the "left-behind Nikkei-jin" issue discussed in the next chapter.

8. The statelessness of second-generation Nikkei-jin left behind (latest as of 2026)

The most "ongoing, present-day" issue arising from the Japanese occupation period.

8-1. The current numbers

8-2. Why statelessness occurs (the structural pattern)

1. The person was born to a Japanese father and a Filipino mother.
2. The father was killed in the war, interned, or repatriated, and the child's birth was never registered in the Japanese family register.
3. Amid postwar anti-Japanese sentiment, the mother hid the birth record or the child's Japanese name; in other cases, church or municipal records were destroyed in the fighting.
4. → The child is registered neither in a Japanese family register nor in Philippine birth records.
5. Obtaining Japanese citizenship requires petitioning a family court for permission to enter the family register (shūseki), but beyond "the father being Japanese," establishing the legally recognized father-child relationship is a major obstacle. Even where DNA testing proves a biological relationship, courts have continued to deny petitions on the grounds that legal paternity has not been established.

8-3. Developments in 2025–2026

注注 The picture as of 2026: the Japanese government has expanded humanitarian and symbolic measures, such as visits to Japan, while the actual restoration of citizenship remains left to individual family court rulings, and denials continue to pile up. It would be a mistake to oversimplify this as "the Japanese government has moved to help." The average age of those affected now exceeds 83, and support groups and media coverage agree that time is running out. 注 Because many descendants trace back to immigrants from Okinawa Prefecture, Okinawan media (such as the Okinawa Times) have continued to cover the issue closely — useful to know for reporting purposes.

9. Postwar settlement — trials and reparations

9-1. War crimes trials

9-2. Reparations and the normalization of relations

注 The reparations negotiations made no reference whatsoever to comfort-women survivors, and no compensation was provided to them — this is a fact explicitly established in section 2.4 of the CEDAW decision, and it forms a core basis of the survivors' central claim. 注 (Cross-checked in the 2026-08-25 verification pass; treatment differs by source) — on "US$550 million plus a US$250 million private loan": - The article "The History of Japan-Philippines Exchange and the Japanese Community in the Philippines" in this collection, §1 (timeline), states this definitively as "reparations of $550 million plus $250 million in economic cooperation." - On the other hand, when this article's verification pass re-obtained the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' "Basic Data on the Philippines," it found only the statement "the Japan-Philippines Reparations Agreement, signed 9 May 1956 (took effect 23 July 1956)", with no mention of the amount or the loan figure. Source replaced 2026-08-27: the amount (a $550 million grant, a $250 million loan) was confirmed via the Supreme Court E-Library's original treaty text and MOFA's "History Issues Q&A" (replacing the old draft's reliance on the English Wikipedia article "Japan–Philippines relations"). Retrieved 2026-08-27. - Accordingly, the treatment here is: the $550 million reparations figure is confirmed, while the $250 million private loan is "used by the sister article in this collection but was not independently confirmed in this verification pass." Both figures are retained rather than dropping either one, and when citing the loan figure, it should be qualified with "reportedly."

注 Reparations payments were fully completed on 22 July 1976 (per the article "The History of Japan-Philippines Exchange and the Japanese Community in the Philippines," §1 timeline; the last of Japan's overall postwar reparations to be completed). 注 Because reparations took the form of "services and goods in kind," a critique exists on both the Philippine and Japanese sides that this served as a foothold for Japanese corporate expansion into the Philippines (sometimes derided as "reparations business").

9-3. The lineage of apologies

10. The recovery of remains — the latest figures as of 2026

Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (as of 31 March 2026):

The recovery of remains in the Philippines had been suspended since October 2010, and resumed on 8 May 2018 when the Health, Labour and Welfare Minister and the Philippine Foreign Secretary signed a cooperation memorandum (Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare).

注 The reason for the suspension was suspicion that non-Japanese remains had been mixed into the recovery effort around 2010. In 2019, Sankei Shimbun, Nikkei, and others reported "10 sets of mistakenly identified remains in the Philippines," attributing it to "low awareness of the problem" (Sankei News, 15 November 2019; Nikkei, 23 December 2019). Simply writing "the program resumed" without this background would be inaccurate.

Recent developments: - 28 February 2025: The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare holds a ceremony to hand over remains of war dead from Iwo Jima and the Philippines (Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare photo report) - 15 August 2025: A senior Philippine government official attends a memorial service for Japanese war dead in the Philippines for the first time. However, reporting notes challenges remain (Asahi Shimbun, 15 August 2025)

The figure of 369,000 sets of remains not yet repatriated is the single most eloquent number illustrating both the scale and the unfinished business of Japan's war in the Philippines. It's a figure worth including without fail in content aimed at Japanese readers.

11. Memory and textbooks

On the Philippine side

• In the Philippines, the Japanese occupation period is retold each year as "a story of liberation and resistance," through national commemorations such as Araw ng Kagitingan (9 April), the Manila Liberation commemoration (February), and the Leyte landing anniversary (20 October).
• 注 At the same time, the treatment of history as a school subject remains unsettled. In 2021, a commentary was published arguing the risks of a "Philippine history curriculum centered on WWII" (Rappler, 20 September 2021), and the 2023 curriculum revision (MATATAG), which proposed integrating history into MAPEH, drew criticism (Inquirer, 28 April 2023). In November 2024, the Department of Education explained that "Philippine history continues to be taught within the basic education curriculum" (ABS-CBN, 25 November 2024).
• CEDAW's 5th recommendation explicitly calls for "mainstreaming the history of wartime sexual-slavery survivors into the curricula of all educational institutions" — a significant development that ties the textbook question into the framework of international human rights law. Implementation could not be confirmed as of 2026.
• 注 The removal of the comfort-woman statue (April 2018) stands as a symbolic episode illustrating how the handling of memory in Philippine public space can be swayed by diplomatic considerations, and it continues to be cited to this day.

On the Japanese side

• The amount of coverage given to "the Battle of Manila" and "Filipino civilian casualties" in Japanese textbooks is limited, and the general Japanese understanding of the war tends to skew toward the Bataan Death March and images of Japanese troops fighting to the death or starving. The perspective that "the Philippines was one of the battlegrounds where the Japanese military killed the largest number of local civilians" tends to fall out of the general Japanese memory of the war.
• In recent years, television coverage of the left-behind second-generation Nikkei-jin issue (by NHK, TV Asahi, and TBS) has continued, and in some cases has helped push forward the practical work of citizenship recovery (as in the July 2026 case).

12. 2026 — the 70th anniversary of normalized relations, amid the mood of the Middle East conflict

12-1. The 70th anniversary

The related flow of defense cooperation: the Reciprocal Access Agreement (RAA) was signed in July 2024 and took effect in September 2025; an Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreement (ACSA) was signed in January 2026; a defense logistics agreement took effect in August 2026 (Ministry of Foreign Affairs / Manila Bulletin, 24 July 2026).

This is the "heart" of this year's coverage: the festive mood of the 70th anniversary is unfolding at the same time that former Japanese soldiers, victims, and second-generation descendants left behind are aging and passing away one after another, and that CEDAW's recommendations remain unfulfilled. There is a tension in which, the faster Japan-Philippines relations deepen as "security partners," the more the unresolved business of the war recedes into the background. Writing honestly about this topic requires covering both sides.

注 The starting point is "the reparations agreement took effect on 23 July 1956." Losing sight of the point that "normalizing relations in 1956 was inseparable from the reparations settlement" dilutes the meaning of the 70th anniversary.

12-2. The impact of the Middle East conflict (from 28 February 2026)

Even for an article on postwar history, it's impossible to avoid discussing the mood in Philippine society in 2026.

How the impact is playing out: commemorative events for the 70th anniversary are proceeding as planned, but government budget priorities have tilted toward fuel subsidies and livelihood support, and in this fiscal environment, new spending on history-related items — a reparations fund for Malaya Lolas, or a memorial site — faces a harder path than ever in 2026. The repeated statements from CHR in March and May 2026 can be read as pushback against this being pushed further down the priority list.

13. Places you can visit today

14. Key sources

• The UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, CEDAW/C/84/D/155/2020 (adopted 17 February 2023, original PDF directly confirmed)
• Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare, "Overview of the Recovery of War Dead Remains" (as of 31 March 2026)
• Ministry of Foreign Affairs, "Basic Data on the Philippines" and "2026 Japan-Philippines Friendship Year commemorative logo"
• The Asian Women's Fund, official site (awf.or.jp)
• The Philippine Nikkei-jin Legal Support Center (PNLSC)
• The Commission on Human Rights of the Philippines (CHR), the Philippine Information Agency, the Philippine News Agency
• lawphil.net (Vinuya v. Executive Secretary, G.R. No. 162230, 28 April 2010)
• Source hygiene, 2026-08-27: the old draft relied primarily on the English Wikipedia (articles including Japanese occupation of the Philippines, Bataan Death March, Battle of Manila (1945), Second Philippine Republic, Hukbalahap, José P. Laurel, Tomoyuki Yamashita, Japanese settlement in the Philippines, Asian Women's Fund, Rescission Act of 1946, World War II casualties, and Japan–Philippines relations); in this session, most of these were replaced with primary and quasi-primary sources including Britannica, EBSCO Research Starters, official US Army/Navy/Air Force sites, the NHCP, the Presidential Museum and Library, the Supreme Court E-Library, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Asian Women's Fund's own site, and govinfo.gov. Two items — total guerrilla numbers (§4-1) and prewar Japanese immigrant population figures (§8-2) — remain flagged as "needing re-verification," as no replacement source has yet been identified
• Press coverage: Kyodo News, NHK, TV Asahi, TBS, Sankei Shimbun, Nikkei, Asahi Shimbun, the Okinawa Times, Inquirer, Philstar, Rappler, ABS-CBN, Daily Tribune, Manila Bulletin, BusinessWorld, Bulatlat, South China Morning Post

注 In this article, the claim that "about 10,000 Nikkei-jin were killed or expelled" could not be independently confirmed and is treated as unconfirmed. The "$250 million private loan" figure is used by the sister article "The History of Japan-Philippines Exchange and the Japanese Community in the Philippines" in this collection but was not independently confirmed in this verification pass, and both accounts are presented side by side (§9-2). "1.11 million Filipino victims" and "527,000 deaths during the occupation" are both estimates, not confirmed figures. 注 (The 2026-08-25 second verification pass had presented both "11 February 1946" and "26 February 1946" side by side, but as of 2026-08-27, primary reporting 〈SOFREP / HistoryNet / PBS〉 confirmed 11 February. The side-by-side table in §2-1 has been updated to reflect this resolution.) There is no dispute over the execution date of 3 April 1946, or the execution site of Los Baños, Laguna. Also, note that the superlative "Bataan's surrender was the largest in US military history" should not be used without specifying the population being counted, since the large majority of those who surrendered were Filipino (see §2).

日本語の詳細版: 分野「歴史」「日本占領期（1941〜1945）——事実・論争・いま続いている問題」（本サイト日本語版）。