Bluebills

By Joshua Corcuera 

Recently, a new design of the 1,000-peso bill was released by various media outlets. Several changes were made such as using polymer to incorporate enhanced and additional security features. At first glance, however, the difference is obvious: the Philippine eagle is now prominently displayed in the obverse—replacing the faces of Abad Santos, Lim, and Llanes Escoda. Many people might not know who they are, and this column would try to briefly discuss the lives and contributions of the three faces we see in our bluebills.

With the current 1,000-peso bill in circulation, three faces appear in the obverse—Jose Abad Santos, Vicente Lim, and Josefa Llanes Escoda. Abad Santos was the fifth Chief Justice of the Philippines. During the Second World War, the Japanese severely attacked the country to the point that former President Quezon went into exile to the United States together with his government upon General MacArthur’s advisory. However, Abad Santos remained as he declined Quezon’s invitation. As Quezon departed for the United States via Australia, he appointed Abad Santos as the acting president and acting commander-in-chief in areas unoccupied by the Japanese.

By April of 1942, though, Abad Santos and his son Jose Jr., nicknamed Pepito, were captured in Cebu. They were asked to cooperate with the foreign invaders but refused to do so. Unsurprisingly, he and his son were taken to Cotabato then Lanao and were informed by Japanese general Kiyotake Kawaguchi that he would be executed. On May 2, 1942, Abad Santos was shot according to the testimony of Keiji Fukui, interpreter of Kawaguchi. The National Historical Commission of the Philippines claims that his death was on the 1^st of May. The Official Gazette has published a longer article on the execution of Abad Santos, who also had a biography published in 1985 entitled “Last Days” written by Ramon C. Aquino.

Vicente Lim was a brigadier general who graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point—the first Filipino to do so. He was also one of the seven Charter Members of the Boy Scouts of the Philippines. During the Battle of Bataan, Lim was the Commanding General of the 41^st infantry division of the Philippine Army under the United States Army Forces in the Far East. He was released by the Japanese after Bataan fell. Still, he contributed to the resistance movement which made him a target of the Kempeitai—the Japanese military police. In June 1944, when he was about to go to Australia to join MacArthur in recapturing the Philippines, Lim was arrested and imprisoned in Fort Santiago. Reportedly, Lim was tortured and had to suffer from filthy conditions. Ultimately, he was transferred to the old Bilibid prison where nothing was heard of him ever since. He was reported as missing in 1944 and his body was never found.

Finally, Josefa Llanes Escoda was a social worker, civic leader, and women’s suffrage activist who died on January 6, 1945. She finished grade school as valedictorian and high school as salutatorian. She worked as a social worker for the Philippine chapter of the American Red Cross which paved the way for her to earn a master’s degree in sociology from Columbia University—an Ivy League School—in 1925. On May 26, 1940, Quezon signed the charter of the Girl Scouts of the Philippines where Llanes Escoda became the first National Executive.

As the war broke out, Josefa and her husband Antonio participated in supplying food and medicine to Filipino and American war prisoners. These efforts became more intense as the Japanese gained further territory, and by 1944, the couple’s activities caught the attention of the foreign invaders. Antonio was arrested in June 1944 and Josefa was arrested in August. She was imprisoned in Fort Santiago and was last seen alive on January 6, 1945, severely beaten and weak. It was presumed that she was buried in an unmarked grave in either La Loma cemetery or the Manila Chinese cemetery—two places where thousands of Filipinos who resisted the Japanese were buried.

Among the figures featured in our banknotes, arguably, the three may be lesser-known. Unsurprisingly, only a few people did not like the Bangko Sentral’s announcement of the new 1,000-peso bill. But, whatever happens, history attests to the patriotism, achievements, contributions, and struggles of the three faces we see in our bluebills.