From Capas Death March to Capas Death Trash

FROM CAPAS DEATH MARCH TO CAPAS DEATH TRASH

by Anton Antonio

July 17, 2015

The accompanying photo shows a convoy of Canadian garbage-bearing trailer trucks going into the Capas landfill with an insert showing Filipino and American POWs in the infamous Bataan-Capas Death March.

The Capas Death March…

“A death march is a forced march of prisoners of war or other captives or deportees with the intent to kill, brutalize, weaken and/or demoralize as many of the captives as possible along the way.  It is distinguished in this way from simple prisoner transport via foot march.  Death marches usually feature harsh physical labor and abuse, neglect of prisoner injury and illness, deliberate starvation and dehydration, humiliation and torture, and execution of those unable to keep up the marching pace.  The march may end at a prisoner of war camp or internment camp, or it may continue until all the prisoners are dead (a form of “execution by labor, as seen in the Armenian genocide among other examples).  The signing of the Fourth Geneva Convention made death marches a form of war crime.”  (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_march)

“The Bataan or Capas Death March was the forcible transfer from Mariveles, Bataan to Camp O’Donnell, Capas, Tarlac by the Imperial Japanese Army of 60,000 to 80,000 Filipino and American prisoners of war which began on April 9, 1942, after the three-month Battle of Bataan during World War II.  About 2,500 to 10,000 Filipino and 100 to 650 American prisoners of war died before they could reach their destination.  The reported death tolls vary, especially among Filipino POWs, because historians cannot determine how many prisoners blended in with the civilian population and escaped.  The march went from Mariveles, Bataan to San Fernando, Pampanga.  From San Fernando, survivors were loaded to a box train and were brought to Camp O’Donnell in Capas, Tarlac.  The 97-kilometer march was characterized by occasional severe physical abuse and resulted in some fatalities inflicted upon prisoners and civilian alike by the Japanese Army.  It was later judged by an Allied military commission to be a Japanese war crime.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bataan_Death_March)

The Capas Death Trash…

73 years after Filipino and American POWs marched into Capas, Tarlac, a convoy of trailer trucks also marched into Capas, Tarlac bringing garbage imported from Canada.  Around 20 container vans of this deadly cargo has already been dumped in the Capas landfill.  In June 2013, when the Canadian garbage arrived in the Port of Manila, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources declared that the shipment included toxic and hazardous materials.  What happened from that time to the day that some of the Canadian garbage was unloaded in the Capas landfill is something only the cockroaches hiding in the offices of high government officials probably know.

In this case, the “death march” and “death trash” in Capas can be taken in the same context…they are both forgettable and regrettable chapters in our history.  However, while the number of dead in the Death March of 1942 can immediately be accounted, the eventual death toll that the Death Trash of 2015 can only be known in the future.  The toxic and hazardous substances in the Capas landfill can eventually find its way to the shallow water table of Capas… the rest of Tarlac Province…and  the rest of Central Luzon.  This will have dire consequences in the quality of food products from Central Luzon… rice, vegetable, fruits, fish, etc.  Think of a scenario wherein food products in Central Luzon are being consumed not only in the region but also in other food-demand centers like Metro Manila.  This Canadian garbage could effectively compromise the health of a great number of Filipinos.

I really am not in the habit of being overly negative nor do I take special pleasure in doomsday prophesies… I could only hope and pray that this insignificant statement now doesn’t become a reality in the future:  “From Capas Death March to Capas Death Trash”.

Just my little thoughts…

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