CERVANTES, Ilocos Sur-  If there is one battle during World War II wherein Filipinos won over the Japanese Imperial Army, it is the Batle of Bessang Pass.

“But as of today, there is no national legislation declaring June 14 as a national holiday,” said Mario Subagan, president of the Federation of Barangay Chairmen of Ilocos Sur and ex-officio member of the Sangguniang Panlalawigan, who authored Sangguniang Panlalawigan Resolution No. XVII-062PR Series 2017.

This is a resolution “institutionalizing the grandiose celebration of the Battle of Bessang Pass every 14th day of June and inviting the president of the Republic of the Philippines as the guest of honor and speaker every year, and to request the two congressmen of the province, Deogracias Victor Savellano of the first district, and Eric Singson of the second district, to sponsor a bill declaring June 14 of every year a national non-working holiday.”

In his resolution, Subagan presented the “long ardent fervor of the veterans and their families that the President will recognize their beyond meritorious act of valor during the last world war.”

“Previous activities in commemoration of the Battle of Bessang Pass has no national impact unlike that of the celebration of Araw ng Kagitingan,” he said.

“While Bataan and Corregidor represented agony and defeat, Bessang Pass represented victory during the second World War,” he added.

The Battle of Bessang Pass is no ordinary battle, acknowledged by the American Military Authorities as one of the most difficult battle of the entire war that  hastened the  surrender and capture of the Japanese Imperial Forces under Gen. Yamashita, the Tiger of Malaya, in the hinterlands of Kiangan, Ifugao.

Subagan believes that the President, as the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, is the “sole entity who could restore the forgotten gallantry of the heroes of war,” as he remembers that it was then President Ferdinand Marcos who was the only President of the Philippines who went to Bessang Pass by land with then First Lady Imelda Marcos when the historical site was inaugurated on June 14, 1966.  

In 2016 Deogracias Victor Savellano, representative of the first district, introduced House Resolution No. 295 at the 17th Congress, “A Resolution declaring the 14th of June every year as a national non-working holiday to celebrate the heroism of the units of 12st USAFP-NL Forces in their Battle at Bessang Pass against the Japanese Imperial Forces under General Tomoyuki Yamashita.”  

This was the same with Resolution No. 125, series 2012, he filed when he was the vice governor.

But its fate remains a battle until today.

The Battle of Bessang Pass

Bessang Pass, in Cervantes town, one of the 14 mountainous towns of the province, was the last stronghold of the Japanese Imperial forces under Gen. Tomoyuki Yamashita, known as the Tiger of Malaya, and conqueror of Singapore.  

It was part of the triangular defense of General Yamashita in North Luzon consisting of the Balete Pass, the Villaverde Trail and Bessang Pass, that guarded the Ifugao-Benguet-Viscaya border.

The troops of the United States Armed Forces in the Philippines-Northern Luzon (USAFP-NL), 121st regiment, 15th regiment, and the Provisionary Infantry Regiments fought in this battle sustaining over 2,000 casualties, with 600 men killed.

It had five infantry regiments and a field artillery battalion of 20,000 officers who were mostly Filipinos; only five of them were American officers.

During the three years of Japanese occupation in the country, almost all of the forces of this command served as guerillas.

Most of them also fought in Bataan and Corregidor. 

The forces faced the Japanese forces of the 73rd Tora (Tiger) Division, the 79th Brigade and the 357th Battalion led by the Lt. Gen. Yoshibaru Osaki.

The Japanese fortified the hills and ridges of the Cordilleras to stop any American offensive.

The initial fighting started in February 1945 around Cervantes. 

In the same period, the 121st infantry was driving out the Japanese in Tagudin in the western lowlands of the pass; the other guerilla forces were clearing Ilocos Norte and the rest of Ilocos and Abra around Tangadan area. 

By March, the harder part of the battle began. 

The  USAFP-NL forces began the all-out assault for Bessang Pass, after liberating San Fernando, La Union on March 29.  

Their advance was steady, gradual and costly.   

In the first part of the battle they attacked persistently armed only with rifles, submachine guns and their sheer guts, without any air support.

This was until the first week of April when they finally had air and artillery support.

On June 14, the units of 121st launched a final assault on Buccual Ridge and planted a symbolic flag out of a dirty green face towel.

The fall of the Japanese on the hands of the USAFP-NL on June 14, 1945 led to the entrapment of Yamashita’s forces in the Cordillera, and the surrender of Gen. Yamashita in September 1945.

“Our campaign for the declaration of June 14 Battle of Bessang Pass as a national holiday continues,” said Benjamin Maggay, former mayor of Cervantes, now Provincial Board Member-elect. (AMB/ICR/PIA Ilocos Sur)