Comfort women ask PNoy to seek justice from Japan

Even if the Supreme Court denied their plea three months ago, victims of sexual slavery during World War II have called on President Benigno Aquino III to compel the Japanese government to issue a public apology and compensate those who suffered from the crime. At a press conference in Manila on Tuesday, a group of comfort women who called themselves the "Malaya Lolas" (Free Grandmothers) reminded Aquino of the promise he made during his inauguration: the people is his boss. "Pangulong Noynoy, sabi mo makikinig ka sa taumbayan. Ang taumbayan ang iyong boss. Sana ipakita mo na ibang-iba ka sa nauna sa iyo. Ipaglaban mo kami (President Noynoy, you said you will listen to the people, who you called your boss. I hope you will prove you are different from your predecessor and fight for us)," said Isabelita Vinuya. The women recalled that in November 1944, the Japanese troops ransacked and torched their homes in Mapanique town in Candaba, Pampanga. The men were killed, while the women were brought to a "red house" where they served as sexual slaves. The women faced the public last Monday, when they filed a supplemental motion for reconsideration to protest the Supreme Court's dismissal of their plea last April 28, 2010. Portions of the high tribunal's decision, penned by Associate Justice Mariano del Castillo, were supposedly plagiarized from foreign sources. The embattled justice, however, had denied this. [See: Comfort women decry plagiarized SC ruling] The women, through their lawyer University of the Philippines professor Harry Roque Jr., alleged that the 'borrowed portions" were twisted out of context to support the arguments for denying their plea. In the ruling, the court said it cannot order the executive department to compel the Japanese government to make a public apology and to provide compensation for the sexual slavery victims more than 60 years ago. "Regrettably, it is not within our power to order the Executive Department to take up the petitioners’ cause. Ours is only the power to urge and exhort the Executive Department to take up petitioners’ cause," the court said. The case of the comfort women (Vinuya v. Executive Secretary) is presently on appeal before the high court. On Tuesday, lawyer Virginia Suarez-Pinlac of Kaisa Ka civic group said the Philippine government, even without the ruling of the high court, must take its own initiative in defending the comfort women. "Kailangan dapat ang Pangulo ay nagkukusang ipaglaban ang mamamayan (The President should voluntarily defend its people),' said Suarez-Pinlac. Her group is among the allies of the "Malaya Lolas." — LBG/RSJ, GMANews.TV