Abstract
"Pearl Harbor was bombed!" The newspapers and radios announced it; quivering lips passed on that dreadful news. That was on the morning of the feast of the Immaculate Conception, 1941. The people of the Philippines, horror-stricken, faced the stark reality that war had come to their very doors. The residents of Manila frantically evacuated to the provinces; students in the boarding schools who were from Luzon picked up some belongings and hurried heme. Schools were closed, and many of them converted into hospitals. Air raids began; air fields, naval bases, and parts of the city rose in flames; and then, explosions, one after another, were heard. These explosions heralded a harder reality: the Fil-American Army was retreating and the enemies were coming! Manila, a dead city, awaited the Japanese occupation troops on New Year’s Day, 1942.