The
Life and Death of Dr. Dominador Uy-Barreta
P.
B. Robosa
I
first heard the name of Don Uy Barretta while I was a member of a committee
reviewing nominations to awards for outstanding Baaoeños. Back then, he did not
call much interest in me as the committee was then more interested in other
personalities or most of us were of the younger set who was unfamiliar with him
or his story. The next time I came across the name was when I found an old list
of Baaoeño army veterans and guerillas and among the list of casualties was the
name of Dr. Dominador or Don Uy Barretta. This came to me as unusual as I’ve
never heard that there was a Baaoeño guerilla doctor who died in WWII and
immediately got me on the way of finding more about him and his remarkable
story.
The
Japanese were into the last days of their occupation of the Bicol region and
Gen. McArthur had landed in Leyte. To weaken them in preparation for the
liberation of the region, American planes were raiding Japanese installations
and strafing retreating Japanese convoys. Emboldened Filipino guerillas stepped
up operations and Japanese reactions were severe and brutal. Using local
collaborators as informers, the Japanese heightened arrests and interrogations
of suspected guerillas in a futile but determined attempt to capture and
execute them.
In
the early months of 1945 when Japanese casualties from American raids were
high, the Japanese soldiers retaliated with intensified searches and arbitrary
arrests. The first to disappear in these vicious Japanese measures were two
local Baaoeños and the Chinese residents Diogna, Pana and Amado. All arrested
were being taken to the Japanese Headquarters in Pili whose personnel were
responsible for the Agdangan massacre months before.
In
the twilight of February 4, the Japanese with the help of a masked informer,
began to round up a second group of Baaoeño residents and started for the
forested barrio of Salvacion. This barrio, on the skirts of Mount Simurai is
where most Baaoeños had evacuated to wait out the end of the war. Like most
Baaoeños who owned property in the poblacion but fearing Japanese atrocities,
the young brood of the family of Mr. Cosme Uy Barretta stayed in the house of a
relative in this barrio. Their house in the poblacion was periodically visited
and guarded by the elder male members of the family to protect it from looters.
The Uy Barretta’s stayed in the house of Ambrosio Baroño and at this house the
raiding Japanese with their informer came knocking to look for Dr. Don Uy
Barretta.
The
Japanese excuse was that they needed a doctor to treat their wounded. Not
suspecting anything wrong, Dr. Uy Barretta’s elder brother Santiago told them
that his brother was at their residence in the poblacion and with a companion,
Jesus Baroño, went with the Japanese to look for him. It was dark when they
arrived at the house and with insistent knocks the house was opened by Dr. Uy
Barretta’s companion, Feliciano Babilonia. As the Japanese began to search the
house, Babilonia hid himself on the opposite side of the creek behind the house
and only after a while returned to peep through the upstairs window to see the
Japanese truck leaving with the doctor with them.
That
night, the Japanese continued rounding and picking up others, like Messrs. S.
Amilano, P. Blando and M. Botor, they arrested Mr. Perfecto Palma who was sick
with dysentery. Seeing him being led away, his wife of 13 days, Mericia Badiola
Palma volunteered to accompany him. The arrests that night also included Engr.
Rufu Martirez whom they came upon awakening from sleep in one empty house they
searched.
Mrs.
Mericia Palma narrates that they were taken to a house in Pili which appeared
to be used at the time as a temporary prison. Upon arriving, they met a group
of prisoners which was being led away by Japanese soldiers and an officer. A
while later, Mrs. Palma then saw the soldiers return with out the prisoners and
the officer in the motions of wiping his sword of blood. It became clear to her
that executions were taking place nearby.
While
inside the house, Mrs. Palma counted 15 prisoners including themselves. For
five days these prisoners endured interrogation, abuse, torture and the
constant anticipation of death. Despite suffering no worse bodily harm than
slaps to her face, she however, could not silently endure the sight of the
suffering of her fellow prisoners and the inhuman treatment accorded by their
Japanese captors. Coming only to ease the suffering of her ailing husband, she
soon volunteered to feed all the prisoners herself. Thus, she witnessed personally
the brutal torture the prisoners were made to endure.
By
the questions constantly being Dr. Uy Barretta, Mrs. Palma gathered that he was
being forced to confess being a supporter of the guerillas. Hung from the
ceiling with only his thumbs to support his body weight, he was swung to and
fro by his torturer and with each swing a wooden club was slammed into his
chest. This torture lasted until the torturer exhausted himself and Dr.
Uy
Barretta will then be carried to his cell with his chest swollen and badly
discolored.
After
five days of interrogation, Mr. Palma helped by the fact that he had papers
proving that was once an employee of the Japanese Mitsubishi company, convinced
his captors of his innocence and along with his wife and Santiago Uybarreta was
released. Not waiting any longer for the promised Japanese truck to take them
to Baao, the three hiked the 15 kilometer or so distance to Baao on foot to the
surprise of their families who thought they would never come back. As for the
rest, they would never to return and the whereabouts of their deaths are not
known to this day.
The
search for Dr. Uy Barretta commenced as soon as the hope of his family that he
will be released faded. Mr. Cosme Uy Barretta enlisted the help of Baao wartime
Mayor Tomas Guevara to intercede for him with the Japanese authorities but as
the war of liberation raged they came up with no information about him. The
question of what really happened to him remains unanswered to this day and, Dr.
Don Uy Barretta is officially listed as a “casualty of the Resistance’.
Is
there truth to the Japanese suspicion that the doctor was a member of the
resistance for which reason he was being made to confess during his torture and
apparently the grounds the Japanese had to have him executed? His companion
during the night he was taken away, Feliciano Babilonia affirms that although
he had no official affiliation with any guerilla group he was constantly called
upon to treat guerilla sick and wounded in an undisclosed place. Perhaps it is
for this reason that the doctor would often take overnight fishing trips to
nearby Lake Baao both as means for alibi and avoiding encounters with the
Japanese.
Whether
he was an active supporter of the guerillas in their operations with the
Japanese or merely obeying an oath to help those in need either friend or foe
we will never know. What we can be sure, nevertheless, from his actions that he
did not hesitate to help civilians, guerillas and even the Japanese who used
this reputation of his in their ruse to capture him. What was known of Dr. Uy
Barretta before his arrest and death?
Dr.
Dominador Uy Barretta was a bright young man and a scion of a wealthy
Chinese-Baaoeño Family engaged in business in Baao. Equipped with the best
education that could be afforded by his family, he trained to be a Doctor at
the University of the Philippines graduating in 1943 in the height of the
Japanese occupation the country. In the early days of the war right after the
bombing
of Manila when transportation and communication to the provinces were in
shambles, the young student had his taste of the hardships of war when he made
a 400 kilometer hike to Baao from Manila to the astonishment of his worried
family.
Years
later, returning home to Baao after his graduation, he quickly set up a simple
clinic in the family residence and treated all kinds of ailments and wounds
without the benefit of medical supplies and medicine. Using only available
resources, he treated infected wounds with maggots he cultured himself and used
traditional herbal medicine for common aches. The later part of the war saw an
escalation of violence and with very few doctors around, his makeshift clinic
became swamped with patients. Some of his patients were the survivors of the
Agdangan massacre who endured grueling walks or boat trips across the Baao Lake
to come to him for help. Later, those who received his services were the
pitiful victims of American stray bullets discharged during strafing runs
against the Japanese.
In
life, his willingness to help others might have been the very cause of his
death. While there were other doctors around who may have aroused the suspicion
of the Japanese, Dr. Uy Barretta was singled out for arrest possibly due to the
treachery of the Filipino informers who could very well have known of his
activities.
Because
he provided aid to the Filipino resistance, his death therefore in the hands of
the Japanese comes as no surprise. But what surprises us is the horrible fate
that befell so promising a life, the fate that Dr. Uybarreta may very well have
known would come to him if his actions were discovered. His death at the young
age of 26 for which perhaps he accepted in the end as a final sacrifice in war
comes as a spark into this chapter of darkness in our history. That spark, all
the more made bright by his deeds while he was alive should guide our youth to
the ideal that risking a comfortable life, even a promising future, for the
opportunity to serve those in need truly makes life and death heroic.
