Speaker 1: Who what a week we are having. It's exciting. We're
Speaker 1: getting ready for to go on a trip. Yes, this
Speaker 1: is very much needed and we're excited, and we're a
Speaker 1: little nervous about leaving our old man dog at home.
Speaker 1: But he's going to be in good hands. I swear,
Speaker 1: if we, uh, if we hadn't paid for most of
Speaker 1: this trip already, might bump it a little bit just
Speaker 1: to make sure. But he's good. He's good. He's had
Speaker 1: he's an old man. His back legs, he's got his
Speaker 1: arthritis and stuff like that. But I'm gonna go ahead.
Speaker 1: I'll tell you right now. Our vet talked us into acupuncture,
Speaker 1: which if you a year ago, if you'd said acupuncture
Speaker 1: for dogs, I would have laughed in your face. But
Speaker 1: I cannot believe the difference we've been seeing in him.
Speaker 1: I mean, he's also getting injections for his arthritis. Arthritis
Speaker 1: is helping his knees, but he's got that neurodegenerative thing
Speaker 1: where he's not getting a signal to his feet as well,
Speaker 1: so he would like walk on his knuckle and stuff
Speaker 1: like that, and that's like knock on wood, you know,
Speaker 1: largely gone away. Yeah, he's really not doing it. I'm suppressed.
Speaker 1: That was very skeptical about puncture. But I was like,
Speaker 1: it's undeniable, you can. I hope it lasts. Yeah, especially
Speaker 1: through our trip. We're going out west in a see Sonny,
Speaker 1: Los Angeles, Las Vegas. Yes. Eli has been practicing his
Speaker 1: dice rolling absolutely, so I was like, how do you
Speaker 1: practice dice rollings? You know, you don't practice the dice
Speaker 1: you know, some people think you can control the dice
Speaker 1: roll but that's absurd. But you practice lay your bets down, right,
Speaker 1: which makes more sense. I was like, oh, you're gonna
Speaker 1: shake them in your hand differently. You know, you don't
Speaker 1: don't gamble to win money. You can't gamble to win money.
Speaker 1: You're not gonna it's dumb. Don't do that. Gamble because
Speaker 1: you like playing the game and you're willing to pay
Speaker 1: for it. That's my thing. And I'm like, I can
Speaker 1: make me willing to pay for it. We pay for
Speaker 1: entertainment all the time. If I could make a hundred
Speaker 1: bucks last two hours of playing a board game, you know,
Speaker 1: I feel like I had a good time doing it.
Speaker 1: And sure, maybe I'll win fifty million dollars and pay
Speaker 1: for the whole trip. But you can thank me after
Speaker 1: that happens. Okay, I will trust me. You won't see
Speaker 1: a dime of my money. Excuse me, but I will.
Speaker 1: You at least want to flip it into my face.
Speaker 1: That's true, that's true, or spend it, but you definitely
Speaker 1: will show my No, it's all gonna go to you. Thanks, baby,
Speaker 1: I mean transitively, you know, like in some way it
Speaker 1: will be I'll buy something for myself that makes me
Speaker 1: very happy, y exactly. Um. I can't think of something
Speaker 1: that I would want to buy that you wouldn't also enjoy,
Speaker 1: you know. I don't have those like I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: buy sports tickets or you know, a car you can't drive,
Speaker 1: or something like that. I don't know. I guess we
Speaker 1: don't have unique personalities and needs. Wow, we're just one person,
Speaker 1: two globs, gross blobs. Wait? Why are we globs? I
Speaker 1: don't know. You're not wrong. I guess that's thinking about
Speaker 1: Ami Baz. That's separate, you know. But there's one thing
Speaker 1: I don't know. Why we're amba like reverse Amiba's We
Speaker 1: used to be two people. Is it amibas or is
Speaker 1: it just a Meba? You're Miami Bay my single cells
Speaker 1: Bay well, that one's for you microbiologists. You can use
Speaker 1: that one with your spouse later. We have to make Valentine.
Speaker 1: We gotta make branded Valentine Day. You're Miami Bay. Well,
Speaker 1: welcome back to the show, everybody. I'm Eli, I'm Diana,
Speaker 1: so happy to have you. A very exciting episode today
Speaker 1: in one part, a single, single episode. But there is
Speaker 1: a lot to say. This is a really cool one.
Speaker 1: It's so true. This is like another history of like
Speaker 1: a badass woman who changed the fate of a nation,
Speaker 1: and her ridiculous romance is kind of the result of
Speaker 1: her daring and dashing and dangerous life that she was
Speaker 1: leading before she ever got married. So Remedios Gomez was
Speaker 1: a normal young girl in the Philippines in n two.
Speaker 1: She liked dancing and dresses and makeup and beauty pageants
Speaker 1: and perfume, just girly stuff, okay. But everything changed after
Speaker 1: the Japanese invaded and her father was brutally tortured and killed.
Speaker 1: She swore vengeance and that she would look fabulous while
Speaker 1: doing it. She became an accomplished military commander named Leiwawi
Speaker 1: who always made sure to apply a fresh coat of
Speaker 1: red lipstick before every battle, and when she would finally
Speaker 1: be caught and imprisoned, it was her status as a
Speaker 1: wife and mother that would get her out of it.
Speaker 1: Let's hear out, Commander Lee y Way, famed Filipino beauty
Speaker 1: queen and harrowin Yes, let's go Hey their French come
Speaker 1: listen Well, Elia and Diana got stories to tell. There's
Speaker 1: no matchmaking a romantic tips. It's just about ridiculous relationships.
Speaker 1: A lover might be any type of person at all,
Speaker 1: and abstract concept a concrete wall. But if there's a
Speaker 1: story where the Second Glance show Ridiculous Romans, a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio. Remedios was born in nineteen nineteen
Speaker 1: in the city of Mexico in the Pampanga Province of
Speaker 1: the Philippines. Did not know there was a Mexico city
Speaker 1: in the Philippines, Like just a city named mctine, mcnamed,
Speaker 1: not even a Mexico city. Her father, Basilio Gomez, served
Speaker 1: as the mayor of their small town and now in
Speaker 1: the nineteen thirties, and Romedios worked as a dressmaker, specializing
Speaker 1: in embroidery. She's a graceful, beautiful young woman. She loved
Speaker 1: fashion and makeup and perfume and a polish was just
Speaker 1: out here glamoring it up at all at all occasions.
Speaker 1: You have like a crisp pine poster on your wall,
Speaker 1: love ponies like that. My dream is to go to
Speaker 1: New York Fashion. Me just got all the Disney barbies
Speaker 1: lined up on her shelf. About one of the first
Speaker 1: expensive gifts I ever bought a girlfriend was in high school.
Speaker 1: I got her one of those fancy Disney barbies. Oh
Speaker 1: my god, I should remember what it was. Was it Cinderella?
Speaker 1: I think it was a classic. I think it might
Speaker 1: have been Cinderella, like in your fancy gown. It was
Speaker 1: either that or Bell. I don't remember. Just remember. It
Speaker 1: was like a hundred and twenty bucks. And I was like,
Speaker 1: is this what you do you buy? I'm I'm a
Speaker 1: high school boyfriend. That means I spend money. I spend
Speaker 1: my paycheck on a girlfriend, right, That's what I'm supposed
Speaker 1: to do. She liked it. She liked it a lot.
Speaker 1: That was a little subdude. I remember I earned a
Speaker 1: hundred dollars from I helped my parents renovate a house
Speaker 1: for summer, and I earned a hundred dollars. I don't
Speaker 1: even want to think about the amount of money that
Speaker 1: is for our terrible but I was so excited to
Speaker 1: go and spend it on a command I have Barbie
Speaker 1: collection that's still there, so I was like, I want
Speaker 1: to fancy Barbie. And I got a gun with the
Speaker 1: wind Barbie dolls, Scarlett O'Hara, Barbie doll. They'll have it,
Speaker 1: and they're like so sure. They're like, girl, there's gonna
Speaker 1: be worse some ship one day. Never opened the box.
Speaker 1: It's got to be pristine condition, so never did. And
Speaker 1: I looked it up recently how much it was worth
Speaker 1: and do you want to guess how much it's worth
Speaker 1: forty two? No, I'm not gonna go to high thirty
Speaker 1: eight thousand dollars eight bucks. What a prophet that the
Speaker 1: many hours have lost good times. I could have have
Speaker 1: this doll for eight dollars of appreciation. Look, if any
Speaker 1: of y'all out there are Barbie collectors and you're missing something,
Speaker 1: we'll sell you Diana's whole childhood collection. No questions asked
Speaker 1: for I mean maybe some questions, what do you do know?
Speaker 1: They're not allowed to ask us questions like how many Barbies?
Speaker 1: Which ones are in there? Conditions? I'm just saying, you
Speaker 1: set us grand and we'll just mail you a box
Speaker 1: of Barbies. You'll love them. I did, Yeah, you love
Speaker 1: him sitting. I love this idea of like this, what
Speaker 1: fifteen sixteen year old girl sitting in her bedroom like
Speaker 1: looking up at a shelf full of Barbies in their
Speaker 1: box and going, ah, what a childhood. I'm just playing
Speaker 1: with my toys. Are looking at it even younger. I
Speaker 1: think I was like ten when I bought that doll,
Speaker 1: and I would just look at her. I don't know
Speaker 1: why I didn't just take her out of the damp box.
Speaker 1: But anyway, back to Commander Lee by Way, I don't
Speaker 1: know how we got to Barbies. Did not have a
Speaker 1: shelf full of Barbie dolls. She was not, but she
Speaker 1: was kind of a Barbie girl. I guess maybe that's
Speaker 1: where we got right. So anyway, she's just really into
Speaker 1: looking her best, feeling her best, and projects, they say,
Speaker 1: a nonprofit which is dicated to sharing and preserving. Filipino
Speaker 1: History says that newspapers at the time called Remedios quote
Speaker 1: many times a queen in town festivities, and she also
Speaker 1: won some local beauty pageants and she was like the
Speaker 1: homecoming queen the town, or just like who's the prettiest
Speaker 1: She's like Bell, She's the most beautiful girl in town.
Speaker 1: But things got real tense in a now in one.
Speaker 1: Right after bombing Pearl Harbor, the Japanese invaded the Philippines
Speaker 1: and the country's military was no match for them. So
Speaker 1: the Japanese were here to occupy. But the peasants of
Speaker 1: the Philippines had different ideas. They decided to resist the occupation,
Speaker 1: and fortunately they had the organization they needed to do it.
Speaker 1: When are people going to learn, you know, fun with
Speaker 1: the peasants. Come on, they ain't got nothing to lose.
Speaker 1: They're strong, work in the land. Its just it way
Speaker 1: more of them than there are of you. I'm not
Speaker 1: going to say it never works, because clearly we're a
Speaker 1: lot of the time, but when it doesn't, I'll really
Speaker 1: get your asses kicked by some peasants. Well, let's learn
Speaker 1: a little bit more about this, and that means we're
Speaker 1: gonna set commendar, lead away aside and go take a
Speaker 1: quick thing with history, leave me alone. For over two
Speaker 1: hundred years, the Philippines were ruled by Spain and they
Speaker 1: had this pretty feudal economic setup called encomienda, and this
Speaker 1: is where landowners owned all the land and houses, and
Speaker 1: the peasant farmers worked that land and they paid rent
Speaker 1: to stay in these homes. Pretty standard stuff. Sounds like
Speaker 1: basically what everyone was doing England America right here today,
Speaker 1: it's basically what I'm doing still in the land for
Speaker 1: our landlord, still in the land, by being up on
Speaker 1: this podcast. It's the same. But at least in this situation,
Speaker 1: the landlords lived there in the estates near them. They
Speaker 1: would frequently attend to the tenant's weddings or they would
Speaker 1: even provide food for festivities and celebrations, and they could
Speaker 1: help them out with legal issues as well, stuff like that.
Speaker 1: So they were very involved in the peasants lives. Very paternalistic, right,
Speaker 1: you know, take care of the people. You're yeah, real,
Speaker 1: I mean I think that's the ideal set up. Obviously,
Speaker 1: I don't know always work. Sure, that's the ideal set up.
Speaker 1: The goal they were looking for here was like doubt, nabby,
Speaker 1: like I'm Lord Grands, I'm very caring of my tenantstata, yes, um.
Speaker 1: But when the Americans won first the Spanish American War
Speaker 1: in and then the Philippine American War of nineteen o two,
Speaker 1: everything out there changed. The islands were opened up to
Speaker 1: international trade for the first time with a port opening
Speaker 1: in Manila. Now landlord stopped caring about growing food like
Speaker 1: rice and cereals, and instead they wanted to grow cash
Speaker 1: crops for export, like tobacco and sugarcane. So out there
Speaker 1: was less food to go around right there. At home,
Speaker 1: landlords started handing over their estates to caretakers and they
Speaker 1: lived in Manila or even overseas, sometimes just totally removing
Speaker 1: themselves from their tenants altogether. As a result of this,
Speaker 1: the peasants were exploited, neglected, and often abused. So the
Speaker 1: peasants decided they were going to do what peasants do,
Speaker 1: and they were going to take matters into their own hands.
Speaker 1: They started organizing unions amongst themselves, and there were several,
Speaker 1: but two of the largest had sixty thou and seventy
Speaker 1: thousand numbers respectively when they decided to merge in nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty nine, way more than the number of landlords. They're
Speaker 1: exactly exactly, and it's not like they were asking for
Speaker 1: the moon here. I mean, mostly they just wanted to
Speaker 1: get back to their old system. Their traditional tendency that
Speaker 1: they used to have, which is crazy because it's like
Speaker 1: that's that ship already sucked. But I liked it better. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you go back to the shitty thing that we had before.
Speaker 1: At least we were growing our own food and not
Speaker 1: just growing shipped for you to sell off to other country. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think they grew the and so they got to
Speaker 1: keep some of it. Sheet and now there's nothing to eat, right,
Speaker 1: So these unions organized strikes and petitions and court cases
Speaker 1: against the landlords, and they even had members run for
Speaker 1: local office. And one of these organizers was Basilio Gomez.
Speaker 1: He was Remedios father. He owned a little bit of
Speaker 1: land himself, but he was down with the cause, and
Speaker 1: he got elected mayor of a Now in the nineteen
Speaker 1: thirties and was serving as vice mayor in nineteen forty
Speaker 1: two when the Japanese invaded. So thanks to all of
Speaker 1: that organizing in the thirties, the Filipino peasants were already
Speaker 1: set up to organize a resistance against the Japanese. Again,
Speaker 1: I know, right, well, fortunately already have everybody's name and address.
Speaker 1: Let's go ahead and get this going. Call a meeting
Speaker 1: and on March two, three hundred peasant leaders, including Basilio,
Speaker 1: decided to form the hook Bahap Rebellion and turned their
Speaker 1: labor union into a guerrilla army. Their first task was
Speaker 1: to gather up all available arms and ammunition from all
Speaker 1: the peasants, as well as any retreating American forces might
Speaker 1: have dropped some ship on their way up. So Basilio
Speaker 1: got to work organizing people and weapons in and Now,
Speaker 1: But only two months later he was betrayed by a
Speaker 1: local collaborator and captured by the occupying Japanese. Most of
Speaker 1: the town, including Remedios, witnessed Basilio being dragged by Japanese soldiers,
Speaker 1: battered and tortured through the streets before he was executed
Speaker 1: in front of everyone. They wanted to make an example
Speaker 1: of him. Project Say Say says this was the first
Speaker 1: World War two fatality in the city of Mexico and
Speaker 1: the province of Pamponga, and that the Japanese refused to
Speaker 1: give Basilio's body to his family. They were like, as
Speaker 1: a matter of fact, we should arrest all y'all too.
Speaker 1: So Remedios and the rest of her family had to
Speaker 1: skidaddle out of town and they moved to Tarlac, and
Speaker 1: that's when Remedio swore vengeance on that Happanese and especially
Speaker 1: on the soldier who had delivered the killing blow. So
Speaker 1: when a friend of her father's usaid Bio Bio Aquino,
Speaker 1: suggested that she joined the Hook Ba Llaha, she was
Speaker 1: in yeah, and we'll find out what happened next. Right
Speaker 1: after this welcome back everyone. So Romedios joined the Hook
Speaker 1: Ba Laha Rebellion, and her brother Oscar joined too, and
Speaker 1: this is mostly because their mother asked him to go
Speaker 1: keep an eye on her and keep her safe. But
Speaker 1: they were far from the only ones who joined. By
Speaker 1: September there were three thousand armed Hooks, and Romedios was
Speaker 1: not the only woman either. In fact, one of the
Speaker 1: most unique things about the Hook Rebellion was that so
Speaker 1: many women joined when it formed, that they were integral
Speaker 1: to its success and participated in pretty much every level
Speaker 1: of the organization, which was very different from most guerrilla armies.
Speaker 1: In this book Amazons of the Hook Rebellion, Gender, Sex,
Speaker 1: and Revolution in the Philippines by Vina Lonzona, she writes
Speaker 1: quote outraged by stories and in many cases direct experience
Speaker 1: of Japanese brutality and sometimes fearful for their personal safety.
Speaker 1: Many young women responded to the call for mobilization. Most
Speaker 1: were between the ages of fifteen and thirty five, single
Speaker 1: and lived in peasant households. Yeah, they heard a lot
Speaker 1: of rumors about women being raped and old and stuff,
Speaker 1: and they were like, well, sure, I better come out
Speaker 1: here and do something exactly exactly now. Many of these
Speaker 1: women stayed in their villages and served the rebellion by
Speaker 1: gathering supplies or money or information for the fighters. Since
Speaker 1: they were women, they didn't really attract much attention from
Speaker 1: the Japanese, making them the perfect spies. You know. They're
Speaker 1: they're around asking who, so when are you guys invading tonight?
Speaker 1: And the Japanese soldiers are like, oh, I can tell
Speaker 1: a woman, what's she gonna do? Alright, seven pm at
Speaker 1: the sport. That's where we're going. Yeah, what are you
Speaker 1: going to be doing? Cooking dinner? I hope so are.
Speaker 1: They're probably like seeing ladies talking to people, are like
Speaker 1: bitches be gossiping about you and your secret plans. But
Speaker 1: some women, like Remedios, chose to take a more direct
Speaker 1: path of action. At first, Remedios was given nursing duties
Speaker 1: rather than fighting duties like many of the women who
Speaker 1: joined the Gorilla Army, but as positively Filipino dot com
Speaker 1: rites quote, all new recruits underwent training and guerrilla warfare,
Speaker 1: how to fight, handle weapons, stage and ambush, how to
Speaker 1: retreat and so on. It is smart. I feel like, right,
Speaker 1: even if you're like, you're probably not going to fight,
Speaker 1: but at least you know how in case. It's like
Speaker 1: that Google thing where it's like we train, you know,
Speaker 1: we get everyone from different departments to circulate and work
Speaker 1: in different areas. So I know that you're going to
Speaker 1: be out here cooking for the army, but I don't
Speaker 1: want you not to be able to fight should the
Speaker 1: situation arise. Yeah, what if they show up, you know
Speaker 1: during the dinner hours, the only person with a knife
Speaker 1: in her hand, it's the I wondered how to use that.
Speaker 1: They're like, I'll go hold the cook hostage, and the
Speaker 1: cook is like, oh no, don't hurt me. You damn damn.
Speaker 1: This cooked me. I just got smoked by the cook.
Speaker 1: She fried my ass up and served me on a platter.
Speaker 1: I got butchered. They also got cool new code names,
Speaker 1: of course, and Romedios was leeway Way meaning dawn. They
Speaker 1: were like, it's really gonna dawn on the Japanese that
Speaker 1: they have bucked, Like I am a sucking sunrise. What's
Speaker 1: it's a brand new David positively. Filipino dot com goes
Speaker 1: on quote. As the resistance forces grew and additional units
Speaker 1: were formed, lewy Way, who impressed her commander and comrades
Speaker 1: with her dedication, discipline and seriousness of purpose. I eat
Speaker 1: to avenge her father's death, was give a squadron to lead.
Speaker 1: So she became Commander lee way Way, the name by
Speaker 1: which she's best known, and she had a bunch of
Speaker 1: guys to order around, which she promptly did. Her squad
Speaker 1: was supposed to be going around getting civilians to support
Speaker 1: the guerrillas, okay whatever. The Philippines Veterans Office website says
Speaker 1: that leeway Way basically was like boring, and she started
Speaker 1: organizing missions to raid Japanese camps and ambush their supply track.
Speaker 1: It's like, I know what the assignment is, but I
Speaker 1: understand the real assignment. Oh sure, let me go ask
Speaker 1: people to sign up. Hang on, let me just take
Speaker 1: down this whole fort on my way there. And just
Speaker 1: to add to her boss, bitchness. Leeway Way didn't just
Speaker 1: prep for missions and battles by training with weapons or
Speaker 1: working on tactics with her men. No, right before every skirmish,
Speaker 1: she would comb out her hair, pink her nail sprits
Speaker 1: of perfumes, and put on right red lipstone. So every
Speaker 1: time the enemy faced them, they were looking at a
Speaker 1: fashion queen with her nails dead hair did everything did
Speaker 1: vanquishing the ship out of them with a forty five.
Speaker 1: But if i'm if I'm a Japanese soldier and somebody's
Speaker 1: gonna kill me, might as well be a beautiful age.
Speaker 1: She's doing them a favor. I will make sure the
Speaker 1: last thing you see is gorgeous, lovely she's And this
Speaker 1: just un additional service I provide on the battlefield. Now.
Speaker 1: Of course, at the time, in the place, in the moment,
Speaker 1: you might think that her soldiers found this kind of
Speaker 1: silly and contemptible, right, and some of them surely did.
Speaker 1: But positively, Filipino says that it actually helped morale because
Speaker 1: she just she looks so damn calm and fearless sitting
Speaker 1: there painting her nails right before a crazy battle. I
Speaker 1: got time. It was probably like dudes like cowering in
Speaker 1: the corner. Like as well. I would be being like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, we're all about to die. We're all
Speaker 1: about to die, and she's just they're painting her nails.
Speaker 1: I'd be like, damn. If she ain't worried, I guess
Speaker 1: I shouldn't be Give me some of that perfume. Apparently
Speaker 1: she did, actually would hand out little bottles of perfume,
Speaker 1: and oftentimes they said no thanks, but she was like,
Speaker 1: y'all stank, okay, thanks, they're gonna smell us. Come and
Speaker 1: they're gonna smell, you know, a lavender rose water over
Speaker 1: the ridge and be like, oh no, it's put fear
Speaker 1: into their hearts. They have potpourri PTSD for the rest
Speaker 1: of their lives. I can never handle vanilla orange blossom again.
Speaker 1: I'll lose my mind. Any veteran walks into bathroom body works.
Speaker 1: Back on the battlefield, I would love to see like
Speaker 1: a g I Jane, where instead of shaving her head
Speaker 1: trying to look real masculine, she's just like, ash, I'm
Speaker 1: a lean in, just like a perfect French break. You
Speaker 1: have full lean in. She's like, I got my hair
Speaker 1: looks good and on my full makeup and I'll still
Speaker 1: get over this wall now positively. Filipino says that she
Speaker 1: also sometimes suggested that she wanted to look nice in
Speaker 1: case she died or was captured. Right, if I can
Speaker 1: pull into speculation station, I think that maybe she believed
Speaker 1: in ghosts and she was like real worried about her
Speaker 1: ghost looking bad, and it's like, just in case I
Speaker 1: die in battle, I want to like be looking good.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, So if I live for eternity, I
Speaker 1: still like my outfit. Do you remember the Frighten Nurse. Yeah.
Speaker 1: She McBride's character like died in the seventies and he
Speaker 1: was in this whole disco outfit and he was always
Speaker 1: so mad about it. He's like, I still look like
Speaker 1: link from the Mod Squad, or like we just started
Speaker 1: Ghosts the British version and there's one guy who's no
Speaker 1: pants because he died in a sex scandal or something,
Speaker 1: so he's just walk around with a full like suit
Speaker 1: coat but no pants. On the rest of eternity, you
Speaker 1: got to think about these things. So true. So le
Speaker 1: always was like, no, I will look I will be
Speaker 1: the best looking ghosts in this entire place. So she
Speaker 1: thought maybe she wanted to look nice in case she
Speaker 1: got captured or killed. But when she was asked about
Speaker 1: why she looks so nice by the hook head honcho
Speaker 1: Luis Taruk, she simply replied, quote, why shouldn't I. One
Speaker 1: of the things I am fighting for in this movement
Speaker 1: is the right to be myself. Love that love that.
Speaker 1: She's like, I'm not gonna masculine myself up just for
Speaker 1: this fite. I am who I am. Yeah, and if
Speaker 1: anybody had a problem with that, she was ready to
Speaker 1: deal with this right once she showed up, sweating and
Speaker 1: breathless from an encounter with the enemy, and her comrade,
Speaker 1: Commander Capitan sneered her, quote, you're pretty If the Japanese
Speaker 1: catch up with you, just lie down, which is dark,
Speaker 1: because they're saying they're talking about right, and we know
Speaker 1: that they were doing that the rather the Japanese occupiers
Speaker 1: were doing that. That's why a lot of the women
Speaker 1: were joining, because either they had already been raped, or
Speaker 1: they knew somebody who had, or they had heard enough
Speaker 1: stories to be worried about it. That's a really fucked
Speaker 1: up thing to say. Just slide down and take it. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So she was pissed. She was furious, and she challenged
Speaker 1: him to a duel right there, and she had to
Speaker 1: be physically restrained by her squad because they're probably like, girl,
Speaker 1: he's not worth it. You would just stepped back. Don't
Speaker 1: worry about him, forget him. He's trash, so much better
Speaker 1: than him. Look how good you look? Exactly? Don't waste
Speaker 1: your time on Let's go wipe that sweat off's bush
Speaker 1: his face bottel. I'm gonna give him bright red lips.
Speaker 1: I almost wish she they had not restrainers flying all right,
Speaker 1: you know what you deserve to get. But I guess
Speaker 1: they needed every commander. Get hit, talk shit, get hit.
Speaker 1: But lewis biggest moment of glory came in the Battle
Speaker 1: of Kamanci, when she led Squadron three V in battle.
Speaker 1: The Hooks were losing and bio Aquino ordered all of
Speaker 1: them to retreat, but leeway Way, looking fabulous the fresh
Speaker 1: coat of red lipstick on, was like what they can't
Speaker 1: can't hear you? I don't know, and kept her men
Speaker 1: fighting even though they were heavily outnumbered. By the time
Speaker 1: Hook reinforcements arrived to back them up, Lee always squad
Speaker 1: had already won, already retreating. It was like the movie
Speaker 1: three hundred, but only one hundred guys and a lipstick Leonidas.
Speaker 1: I'll want to be fair. They lost in three all right,
Speaker 1: it's kind of like the movie. Maybe Leonidas just should
Speaker 1: have thrown some lipstick on, okay, and he just spread
Speaker 1: to perfume. Would have changed the whole game. All those boys,
Speaker 1: this half naked men, all wrestling each other. But they
Speaker 1: got gorgeous makeup on amazing path that movie. That movie
Speaker 1: was homo erotic enough. I think they did have a
Speaker 1: little eyes shadow and didn't they like they had probably yeah,
Speaker 1: I remember they had. They had dressed up. Rodrigo Santaro
Speaker 1: played Zerxes and he had a ton of makeup on.
Speaker 1: And some people said that was actually kind of racist
Speaker 1: because they made the Persians very effeminate in that movie,
Speaker 1: like a saying that, like bad people are effeminate, which
Speaker 1: is a Disney problem that they've always had with their villains.
Speaker 1: I don't think as much recently. And then of course
Speaker 1: he was like, while you're stereotyping Persians and you're also
Speaker 1: making effeminate people evil. Again, I don't know nobody from
Speaker 1: nowhere Persia any of that. I just wanted to say
Speaker 1: lipstick Leonidas. Of course, of course you can't just leave
Speaker 1: that one down. You have to say it now. After
Speaker 1: the Battle of coman See, she became a legend. Positively,
Speaker 1: Filipino writes. Quote the name Commander leeway Wi struck fear
Speaker 1: among the Japanese army. Her squad swelled to two hundred guy.
Speaker 1: She would ride into an occupied town on her horse
Speaker 1: with her forty five pistol or sometimes a fifty caliber
Speaker 1: machine y and be like, occupiers, y'all need to be
Speaker 1: gone tomorrow or I will make you gone for good.
Speaker 1: And they probably skid at all. Last the hiding, she
Speaker 1: also got her revenge. She eventually found the guy who
Speaker 1: had wielded the sword and beheaded her father in front
Speaker 1: of everybody, including herself, and she told her squad, this
Speaker 1: one's mine, and she kind of took him off somewhere
Speaker 1: and came back without him, and the soldiers asked what
Speaker 1: she'd done with him, and she just said, quote, what
Speaker 1: he did to my father, what he did to us.
Speaker 1: So I'm just picturing her like walking back across the field,
Speaker 1: wiping blood on a white towel, getting slowly more and
Speaker 1: more red, and someone's like, what you do to that guy,
Speaker 1: She's like justice, Yes, well, we're gonna go get some
Speaker 1: austics from these sponsors, so we'll be right back after
Speaker 1: this commercial break. Welcome back, everybody to the hook Balahap Rebellion.
Speaker 1: So over the next three years, the Hooks grew to
Speaker 1: a force of fifteen thousand armed fighters, and ten percent
Speaker 1: of that were women. The peasants were holding their own,
Speaker 1: but they couldn't grot the Japanese army completely until the
Speaker 1: Americans showed up. Hooray, the American forces are here. Americans
Speaker 1: are great at showing up at the last minute, kicking
Speaker 1: some mass knocking some occupiers out of town, and Leewaway's
Speaker 1: squad not only fought many battles, but they also rescued
Speaker 1: several down American pilots and nursed them back to health. Finally,
Speaker 1: the war was over in nineteen and the Philippines were
Speaker 1: free from Japanese occupiers. Victory was there's thanks for stopping
Speaker 1: buy Americans and helping out. Now y'all can go on home,
Speaker 1: I said, y'all can, Americans? You can go home now.
Speaker 1: We're we're good. We've you're not leaving. No, No, the
Speaker 1: Americans stayed Filipinos basically traded one occupier for another, and
Speaker 1: the Hooks were ordered by the Americans to disarm. Now,
Speaker 1: of course, many of them decided not to, so the
Speaker 1: US and the landowning elite in the Philippines hunted them
Speaker 1: down and arrested them. Villagers homes were looted and burned
Speaker 1: looking for Hooks in hiding. In February of nineteen forty five,
Speaker 1: a squadron of a hundred and nine Hooks were ambushed
Speaker 1: by American and Filipino soldiers and every one of them
Speaker 1: were shot and buried in a mass grave, including Leewaway's brother,
Speaker 1: Oscar Oscar. The US also decided to arrest all the
Speaker 1: peasant leaders, including Louise Taruk. When they were released in
Speaker 1: September of that year, Louise tried to negotiate with the government.
Speaker 1: He said their resistance was over, and he provided a
Speaker 1: list of hook members, hoping that they would be recognized
Speaker 1: by the government for their efforts to suppress the Japanese
Speaker 1: occupation and they would be given veterans benefits. But the
Speaker 1: government chose to leave out two thousand members, which the
Speaker 1: Hooks thought was just a shady way to cause strife.
Speaker 1: Amongst them, like, well, some of you are better than others.
Speaker 1: You can just fight amongst yourselves about that, right, instead
Speaker 1: of fighting us. And on top of that, the landlords
Speaker 1: had promised the peasants a higher share in the profits
Speaker 1: of their farm labor. But when the harvest time came,
Speaker 1: guess what, those promises were not kept. What that sounds
Speaker 1: unusual in history. So the hooks decided, if you can't
Speaker 1: beat the government, join them, and they ran a bunch
Speaker 1: of dudes for office. They formed the p k M
Speaker 1: or National Peasants Union, allied themselves with the p KP,
Speaker 1: which was the Communist Party of the Philippines, and they
Speaker 1: ran several candidates, six of whom won, including Luis Tuk
Speaker 1: and the p KP eater's brother, Jus Lava. I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: This guy's name iss Lava. It's a great name, which
Speaker 1: of course written here. I just see Jesus Lava and
Speaker 1: I'm very interested in Jesus Lava. Is that lava you
Speaker 1: can walk on top of? Probably, right, that would make sense. Oh,
Speaker 1: this is that Jesus Lava. Go for a stroll. Pretty
Speaker 1: nasty prank to play on somebody. Don't worry. This is
Speaker 1: Jesus Lava. You can walk right on. If you're a
Speaker 1: true believer, your shoes will not melt. A lot of
Speaker 1: melted shoes, that shoes. I always think a volcano. Whenever
Speaker 1: that guy struggles through lava to help somebody off the stubway,
Speaker 1: does he like walk through lave like an idiot? I mean,
Speaker 1: I guess he was brave. I guess it was see
Speaker 1: I was teamed Dante's peak, oh myself. I didn't see
Speaker 1: volcano until later. I don't know which one is better.
Speaker 1: I don't think either one of them is better. I
Speaker 1: was about to say, I don't know. I don't. I
Speaker 1: don't really remember Dante's Peak very well. Um, but I
Speaker 1: do remember Volcano because we liked that line about having
Speaker 1: to get in a doorway and kiss you asked goodbye?
Speaker 1: All right, Jesus Lava, Judicus Lava one and Louis Tarrock one.
Speaker 1: But they were never allowed to take their seats. They
Speaker 1: faced charges of terrorism and election fraud. Mainly the Americans
Speaker 1: didn't like that they were communists at all, allied with communists.
Speaker 1: Of course, the Cold War started like right after World
Speaker 1: War Two. Everyone was very nervous about the Bolsheviks and
Speaker 1: stuff like that. So they were like, not these communists,
Speaker 1: and they were effectively like unelected by an active Filipino Congress,
Speaker 1: and the campaign of intimidation against the peasants continued. One
Speaker 1: of their leaders was surrounded by military guys and murdered,
Speaker 1: and the peasants just had had enough by that point,
Speaker 1: and Louis Tarrock was like, I'll fucked up now and
Speaker 1: restarted the hook resistant, this time against their own government
Speaker 1: in six and this new force was called the People's
Speaker 1: Liberation Army or h m B. And after Oscar was killed,
Speaker 1: we know how Luwawei feels about her family members being murdered.
Speaker 1: She was, of course like, let me in. I'm back
Speaker 1: on the train exactly, and she started training new recruits.
Speaker 1: Now only a year later she was arrested for the
Speaker 1: first time. She got captured because she got malaria. She
Speaker 1: sat down to rest and they're like, oh, now we
Speaker 1: can get her, because otherwise she's too scary. We can
Speaker 1: get her while she's sick. But she caused a media sensation.
Speaker 1: She's this well dressed, made up, lovely ladies, prime time
Speaker 1: newspaper bo and she was also very well spoken. When
Speaker 1: President Manuel Rojas accused her of terrorizing peasants and trying
Speaker 1: to overthrow the government. She coolly responded, quote, no, Mr President,
Speaker 1: you are wrong. We are only fighting for a decent
Speaker 1: livelihood and democratic treatment in our plight. We the Hooks,
Speaker 1: champion the rights of the peasants. Right for that sassy answer,
Speaker 1: she was thrown into solitary confinance. She was released after
Speaker 1: a year for lack of evidence, and immediately she rejoined
Speaker 1: the h MP, only to find that they had an
Speaker 1: interesting plan for her. Tensions had started to develop between
Speaker 1: Louise Taruk's Hooks and the Lava leadership in the p
Speaker 1: k P, the Communist Party, so they needed something to
Speaker 1: unify the two factions. And like many many many politicians
Speaker 1: before them that we've heard about on this show that
Speaker 1: you all have heard about all through history, they thought, well,
Speaker 1: it sounds like somebody from each party's got to get married.
Speaker 1: There we go, let's unify these fac shows with a
Speaker 1: lovely party. And so Leeaway was this, you know, beautiful, daring,
Speaker 1: famous hook commander under Louise Tarok, and she was still single,
Speaker 1: so she was clearly the right choice to be the bride. Now,
Speaker 1: as for the groom, their eyes were on the second
Speaker 1: cousin of the p KP leader Jose Lava banag Paraiso,
Speaker 1: also known as Bonnie. The two had met once or
Speaker 1: twice before, and he was handsome, young, and related to
Speaker 1: the communist leadership, and according to Positively Filipino, he was
Speaker 1: one of the best warriors the Lava's had. I want
Speaker 1: to meet the best warrior of the Lava. It just
Speaker 1: sounds so cool, super cool. Sorry, I've just decided that, Like,
Speaker 1: if I could change my last name to anything, it's Lava. Well,
Speaker 1: I love too. They were like, well, we gotta give
Speaker 1: her a groom. She can respect. I mean, if you guys,
Speaker 1: she can beat up. Let's be real. Sola and Bonnie
Speaker 1: had a political marriage, not a romantic one, but Leeway
Speaker 1: later said that even though she hadn't chosen him, she
Speaker 1: quote found the perfect husband and comrade in Bonnie. They
Speaker 1: only had one son, who they named for Leeway's fallen brother, Oscar,
Speaker 1: and at this point Lewai stepped away from active fighting
Speaker 1: to be a wife and mother, but she still wanted
Speaker 1: to contribute, so she helped set up and manage a
Speaker 1: political and military school for new recruits. It's kind of
Speaker 1: her thing. She was good at getting new people and
Speaker 1: showing them how to be badasses. She's like, first we
Speaker 1: start with the undercoat. How you want to wait for
Speaker 1: that to drag a nice tachi before you put on
Speaker 1: the top polish and an overcoat. Cannot be overstated how
Speaker 1: important that is. She's like, to begin, you each have
Speaker 1: a pistol and a small bottle of perfume. We will
Speaker 1: start with a perfume because you'll all sell like ship.
Speaker 1: And here's how to keep your hair looking nice and
Speaker 1: fancy while you rip a man's throat out. So in
Speaker 1: this power couple moved to another province together because they
Speaker 1: were in charge of the expansion force, so you know, recruiting, training,
Speaker 1: getting more folks involved. But after a raid, Bonnie Paraiso
Speaker 1: was killed and me Away arrested once again. That's sad
Speaker 1: that they kind of I guess had a year to
Speaker 1: be together and have a baby and fall in love
Speaker 1: right to an extent. That's it. It was such a
Speaker 1: short time in lewaiway never remarried. I think she did
Speaker 1: feel more strongly about Bonnie than maybe it seems. According
Speaker 1: to projects say Say, Leewaiwai was released after she told
Speaker 1: the court on her lawyer's advice that she had rejoined
Speaker 1: the hook army just to support her husband. She told
Speaker 1: the judge quote, being a wife is not a crime.
Speaker 1: I should not be charged for the accusations against my husband.
Speaker 1: I mean, like we're talking about, Oh, don't look at me,
Speaker 1: just a girl. Just to look at my beautifully made
Speaker 1: up face. Did this looks like somebody who goes and
Speaker 1: fights a war. I mean again, this is the feared
Speaker 1: warrior couman or le fear into the hearts of the
Speaker 1: entire Japanese army. And she's like, who me, little o me?
Speaker 1: I love it? How could I ever hurt someone with
Speaker 1: all these fancy nails. I would never break my nail
Speaker 1: on a fifty caliber machine gun. But as rejected Princesses
Speaker 1: writes quote, by recasting herself as a dutiful wife and mother,
Speaker 1: she actually managed to secure her freedom. They let they
Speaker 1: acquitted her of murder charges and let her go on
Speaker 1: back home. And I think it's so funny that the
Speaker 1: sexism of the Japanese and the Filipinos are what enabled
Speaker 1: the guerrilla army to have so many women helping them out,
Speaker 1: and then the sexism of the United States and the
Speaker 1: Filipino elite and constabula and everything allowed her to just
Speaker 1: wriggle the funk out of there out of their jail.
Speaker 1: I think that's so funn They were like, let me
Speaker 1: use this to my advantage. I guess, well, it's true.
Speaker 1: I mean her husband clearly put her up to this.
Speaker 1: Ladies follow their husbands. Yes, what do we expected to
Speaker 1: have a mind of her own? Good one, thanks, Greg,
Speaker 1: I needed left to day now. That very same year,
Speaker 1: the Filipino Communist Party p k P was banned by
Speaker 1: the government, and the Hooks tried negotiating with the government,
Speaker 1: but negotiations stalled, so the rebellion continued until after her
Speaker 1: second imprisonment. Leewaway took a step back from the armed
Speaker 1: rebellion and settled into civilian life, but she did spend
Speaker 1: the rest of her life advocating for the rights of soldiers.
Speaker 1: According to Ezra del Rosario on the Odyssey Online, she
Speaker 1: personally helped veterans fill out benefits, paperwork and lobby for
Speaker 1: a pension for over twenty years. Leewaway passed away at
Speaker 1: the right old age of n and she was made
Speaker 1: up and perfumed right up until the very end. Her
Speaker 1: obituary in the Inquirer dot Net quotes Leewaway reminiscing about
Speaker 1: her time in arms, saying, quote, Filipino women played an
Speaker 1: important role during the war. Like their male counterparts, they
Speaker 1: held responsible positions in fighting the enemies. They dedicated their
Speaker 1: lives to a noble cause, not only to drive away
Speaker 1: the Japanese invaders, but to pursue the struggle for genuine freedom,
Speaker 1: true justice, and democracy. I hope that someday the role
Speaker 1: of these unsung heroines will find a place in history. Well,
Speaker 1: they're at least going to find a place on this podcast,
Speaker 1: that's right, Commander Leewaway. You're trying to uphold the story.
Speaker 1: But I just love her. I think it's so what
Speaker 1: a cool I would love to watch a movie about
Speaker 1: just a beautifully made up, like I don't know, beauty
Speaker 1: queen run around and everybody's like, okay, right, this dainty
Speaker 1: little lady, what's she gonna be able to do? And
Speaker 1: she ends up like dominating the battle field, right, And
Speaker 1: then even when she's you know, steps back from the battlefield,
Speaker 1: she's like, there's still lots of ways that I can
Speaker 1: be useful and and help the plight of my people.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean. Yeah, man, um no, she's
Speaker 1: so cool and and like you said, I mean just
Speaker 1: this this image. I think that's part of why she
Speaker 1: did it too. It was just like it's such a
Speaker 1: memorable historical thing to do, you know, like like you're
Speaker 1: saying earlier, like she doesn't need a g I jane
Speaker 1: herself into that army. She was like, you want me,
Speaker 1: you get me. You like what I can do, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna do it. That's what I look like. Yeah, Plus
Speaker 1: I love it's sort of a war paint rbes like.
Speaker 1: She's like, it's before war. I put on my fucking
Speaker 1: war paint. It doesn't look like what you think it
Speaker 1: should look like, but it makes me feel ready to fight.
Speaker 1: And once rumors start getting around, she's like, then people
Speaker 1: know when they see me coming and that they're going
Speaker 1: to ship their pants, Like, oh ship, Yeah, that bitch
Speaker 1: is where red lipstick. We're so fucked right now. You
Speaker 1: don't even know She's gonna blow a kiss and then
Speaker 1: blow our heads all wow. And what a history too.
Speaker 1: I really new very little about the history of the Philippines.
Speaker 1: It's very complicated because they're extremely oppressed and constantly occupied area,
Speaker 1: so it's a very complicated history. I won't lie. I
Speaker 1: we had to really streamline a lot of it, and
Speaker 1: you didn't even get into what the Hooks did. There's
Speaker 1: some badge that they did later on and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: So there's you know, it's not like this is a
Speaker 1: glowing example of like being amazing you know all the time.
Speaker 1: Definitely plenty of them that did funked up. I mean,
Speaker 1: anytime there's a people's liberation army, it's going to be
Speaker 1: black and white. Yeah. The thing about revolution is it's
Speaker 1: incredibly incredibly um, messy and violence. It's very very hard
Speaker 1: to have one without, you know, and be perfectly ethical,
Speaker 1: you know, the whole time, kind of I think, I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't know that there is an example in history
Speaker 1: of an ethical resolution. I can't think of one, but
Speaker 1: please let me know. The things the some of the
Speaker 1: French dead after they okay, revolted, I mean absolutely horrific,
Speaker 1: literally called it the Reign of terror. Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: fortunately after America's Revolution it was smooth sale and nothing
Speaker 1: to complain about ever since seventeen seventies six Uh good,
Speaker 1: here squeaky clean um. But but it is still it's
Speaker 1: it's fascining to hear all this These specific island nations,
Speaker 1: you know, that are so strategic, especially when you're talking
Speaker 1: about the conflicts between East and West. Um, it's a
Speaker 1: lot of strategy that goes into like I need to
Speaker 1: occupy this island. This tiny little place that's like barely
Speaker 1: farmland becomes the most valuable land in the world that
Speaker 1: everybody's fighting over it and occupying it, and they don't
Speaker 1: give two ships about the people who already lived there. Ever,
Speaker 1: A lot of Hawaii happens. Yeah, and it's interesting to like,
Speaker 1: it's a world wars World War two, but I guess,
Speaker 1: particularly in school, you focus so much on France and
Speaker 1: German um and maybe a little bit of Russia. But
Speaker 1: there was literally battles happening like all over there were
Speaker 1: theaters of war in the Middle East where like that.
Speaker 1: Basically the reason it's so funked up now is because
Speaker 1: during World War Two there were soldiers and stuff. There
Speaker 1: was happening over there, but it wasn't as important, so
Speaker 1: it's just like, well, whatever, y'all will take care of yourself.
Speaker 1: And they ended up looting, you know, the land for
Speaker 1: oil and doing all these horrible things just causing a
Speaker 1: lot of strife, and then over here in the islands,
Speaker 1: that's a whole other theater. Did do we ever talk
Speaker 1: about the islands? Well, I never heard a word one.
Speaker 1: It was just like, yeah, Nazis, Nazis, Nazis, Pearl Harbor, right,
Speaker 1: Like wait, what where did that come from? Well, and weirdly,
Speaker 1: it's like Pearl Harbor, Yes, Pearl Harbor gets bombed. We're
Speaker 1: all very mad about the Japanese. But then it's all
Speaker 1: Nazis after that, and then we bomb Japan. It's like
Speaker 1: we've we don't really talk about the part where the
Speaker 1: Japanese felt like two Americans. It felt like the Japanese
Speaker 1: there are real enemies. You know, we're here to bite
Speaker 1: them because they came to us rather than the Germans.
Speaker 1: They're funked up. But like that's y'all are dealing with that?
Speaker 1: Where are we here dealing with them? You know, it's
Speaker 1: just it's just such a complicated war, of course, and
Speaker 1: you know, naturally in school you have to you know,
Speaker 1: edit some ship out. It's really interesting to learn more
Speaker 1: about the other theaters of war and what was going on. Right, Well,
Speaker 1: like you said, all these you know, consequences that come
Speaker 1: out of stuff that you never even heard about. So
Speaker 1: I get the impression you would not, like you would
Speaker 1: vote to not do that again, like a third World
Speaker 1: war would be something you're against. Like I'd prefer not
Speaker 1: to be a part of a world war. Bold stance.
Speaker 1: Go ahead and go on the record here today. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're the first ones to eight point five magnitude. Take
Speaker 1: quake coming your way. Quake. I saw that on a
Speaker 1: tweet the other day and I thought it was amazing.
Speaker 1: I was just like, I need to take quick that's
Speaker 1: exactly what's going on. Amazing. And I like this story too. Again,
Speaker 1: like we said at the top, like you know, this
Speaker 1: is the lead eat up to a romance that's sort
Speaker 1: of you know what we sometimes call it ridiculous, it's
Speaker 1: really just fascinating. Yeah, but I also do like that
Speaker 1: it was a political marriage and then feelings grew, right,
Speaker 1: that's so that's so love When that happens. Reminds me
Speaker 1: of a little story we've mentioned before, Maximilian and Carlotta Mexico,
Speaker 1: a little story we never go back to that well,
Speaker 1: I never stopped thinking about them. Um, well, thank you
Speaker 1: all for tune in today. I do hope you love
Speaker 1: this story. I help you learn something new to as
Speaker 1: you make up your face. Yes, next time, you're getting
Speaker 1: ready for the battle. Yeah, but let us know what
Speaker 1: you thought. We love hearing from y'all. Our email address
Speaker 1: is ridic Romance at gmail dot com, and of course
Speaker 1: you can find us on social media on Twitter and Instagram.
Speaker 1: I'm at Oh great, it's Eli, and I'm at Diana
Speaker 1: my boom and the show is at ridict Romance. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so tune in later this week. We got another exciting
Speaker 1: episode and we'll catch you all in. Can't wait. Love
Speaker 1: you bye. So on, friends, it's time to go. Thanks
Speaker 1: all listening to our show. Tell your friends neighbor's uncles
Speaker 1: in dance to listen to a show ridiculous Well Dance
Speaker 1: m