WWII Japanese occupation in the Ilocos region

U.S. Navy battleship USS Pennsylvania (BB-38) leading USS Colorado (BB-45) and the cruisers USS Louisville (CA-28), USS Portland (CA-33), and USS Columbia (CL-56) into Lingayen Gulf, Philippines, in January 1945. Photo: Public domain.

When I think about what my family lived through in Ilocos Norte, Ilocos Sur, and Pangasinan during the Second World War, I don’t picture it as distant history. The Japanese occupation is not just something in books or films. It was a time that scarred my ancestral region with fire, hunger, and fear.

My great-grandparents, grandparents, and relatives lived under that shadow, and their stories connect me directly to those dark years.

Living under occupation

The Japanese landed in Vigan, Ilocos Sur, on December 10, 1941.

From there, they spread across the towns and villages of the region, forcing Ilocanos into submission. They burned towns like Badoc, Bangui, and Piddig in Ilocos Norte when guerrillas fought back.

They forced farmers into planting cotton for Japan instead of rice for our own tables. This left fields empty of food and families hungry, while what little harvest people had was confiscated.

Survivors I’ve read about and heard from described constant fear—Japanese soldiers searching houses, demanding supplies, and punishing anyone suspected of helping the resistance.

In Laoag, six civic leaders, including the young mayor Leon Acierto—an office several of my own family members would later hold—and two priests, were made to dig their own graves before being executed.

In La Union, more than 400 refugees were massacred in Naguilian in January 1945, whole families slaughtered because they had sought shelter in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Testimonies of survival

Those who survived often told stories not of bravery in battle, but of hiding. Some remembered fleeing to the hills or living in makeshift shelters in the forests to avoid Japanese patrols. Women remember the fear of being taken as “comfort women.” Elders spoke of keeping their children quiet, because even a cry could draw suspicion.

I was told of families who carried what little they could, walking for days between towns, never knowing if the next village was safe or already occupied.

Many never returned to their old homes—what they had was gone, burned, or taken.

Economic ruin and displacement

Beyond the direct violence, the occupation broke Ilocano society.

With farms ordered to grow cotton, hunger spread.

The traditional weaving of inabel, a proud symbol of our culture, was deliberately disrupted—looms destroyed, production halted.

In Pangasinan, as in Ilocos, ordinary trade collapsed. Food was scarce, and families resorted to barter and to wild roots and tubers to survive.

Displacement became a way of life.

Guerrilla warfare made the towns unsafe, and reprisals meant whole barrios could be wiped out.

Families scattered into the interior, and even after the war, many never recovered their land or livelihoods.

Remembering the cost

The numbers alone tell part of the story—hundreds massacred in a single day in La Union, nearly a thousand soldiers killed in the Battle of Bessang Pass in Ilocos Sur, untold more from torture, starvation, and reprisals across the provinces.

But it is the testimonies—the whispered memories of hiding, the tears shed over lost relatives, the fear of seeing smoke rise from your own village—that reveal what it meant for Ilocanos to live through those years.

Why I remember

For me, this is not abstract. My family’s rooted in Ilocos Norte, Ilocos Sur, and Pangasinan during that time. They were among those who had to hide, who feared for their lives, who saw neighbors dragged away or shot. They knew what it was to lose not only property and livelihood but dignity and safety.

I remember this because the occupation tried to erase us—our culture, our independence, our lives—and yet, Ilocanos endured. The survival of my family is part of that larger survival. Every story of pain carries within it a story of resilience.

When I think of the Japanese occupation in the Ilocos region, I see both the devastation and the stubborn will to live. And I know that remembering these stories is part of honoring those who died, those who fled, and those who somehow, against all odds, endured.