By Mortz C. Ortigoza
Everytime an event for the Philippine Expeditionary Forces to
Korea (PEFTOK) was to be held my father retired Air Force Lieutenant Marcelo
Cruz Ortigoza, Sr, 89, waxed sentiment and persuaded me to attend.
But I could not acquiesce as I was preoccupied with my work and Manila
was an emasculating trip from Dagupan City.
PEFTOK played a major part of his life.
When he was 26 years old, the Philippine government, as part of a treaty
with the United Nations, sent him as member of the 1,500 Filipino soldiers of the
2nd Battalion Combat Team (BCT) (as packaged of the 7,500 strong
five BCTs the Manila government sent to the beleaguered South Korean nation) to
fight, maim, kill, and flush-out the chink eyed North Korean and Chinese
communists that invaded the democratic South that started in June 25, 1950.
Two weeks ago my frail but still ramrod father told me it would cost him
and my niece Abigael P15,000 for a round trip jet ride in Philippine Air Line from
Davao City to Pasay City vice versa just to attend the warriors affairs’ 18th
Korean War Veterans of the Philippine Memorial Day and 43rd PVAI
Annual Convention that will ensue on September 7 to 10, 2017 at Fort Bonifacio,
Makati City where they would be graced by South Korean Ambassador Kim, Jae
Shin, Retired Colonel Paterno V. Viloria, President PEFTOK Veterans
Association, Honorable Lee, Jong Sub, President, Philippines Department of the
Korean Veterans Association, Lt. General Glorioso V. Miranda, Commanding
General, Philippine Army, former President Fidel V. Ramos, the star of the 20th
BCT (what with his exploit as a young
lieutenant capturing Hill Eerie), to name a few.
SAND BAGS. My father and fellow combatants at their sand bags protected
base in South Korea. He was at the right side under the name “Marcelo” and
emphasized by a yellow colored fluorescent ink
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“I’ll be
sending P10,000 for you in Dagupan City. Bring your two grown up sons so they
can see the Korean veterans and enjoy the military honors and party there at Fort
Bonifacio. My body is already weak and could hardly cope up with the rough and
tumble trips,” he told me in a
telephone call from M’lang, Cotabato (town of Agriculture Secretary Manny Pinol
and Health Secretary Paulyn Jean Ubial).
The rustic town of M’lang is three hours van ride to Davao City while
it is more than an hour plane ride from the City to PAL’s Terminal 2 in Pasay.
But my younger brother Gabriel, a former military professor at the
Philippine Military Academy now based in California, insisted to my father to
attend because he did not see the PEFTOK event for “ages’ already and this
would be his last attendance where he could rub elbows and evoke nostalgia with
his comrades- in- arms when they were young, strong, and gung ho 63 years ago.
This afternoon, I’ll be meeting my father and niece, who sacrificed her
three days of college classes, at the airport terminal for their four days hotel
stay somewhere in Taguig City as they prepare for the PEFTOK’s fete and
rituals.
Yesterday, as part of this article, I asked my father how his oversea’s
assignement started.
He told me through Face Book’s video chat that in April 12, 1954 he and
the more than one thousand soldiers embarked in the American navy ship’s USS
Montreal at Pier 7 in Manila.
“The port
was near Manila Hotel and for three days we cruise the ocean and reached Port
Sashebo in Japan,” he narrated in the
Ilonggo vernacular at the same time using NATO Phonetic Alphabets like Sierra for “S”
Alpha for “A” and so on to complete Sashebo and other places in Japan and Korea
as the internet connection made the verbal communication mumbled and sometimes
inaudible.
How I missed the Morse Code and the Homing Pigeon vis-ร -vis with the poor service of internet providers in the country
In Japan, the 1,500 brown skinned “diminutive” troops, where many of
them battle scarred veterans of World War II, were joined by American forces on
another ship ride to Pusan, South Korea.
“When we
arrived there we rode in a train at Chuncheon clad with our thick winter
military clothing issued by the American supply officers in Japan up to the
Yanggo in the DMZ or Demilitarized Military Zone”.
He cited his tour of duty ended in October 1954 or seven months when
they left Pier 7.
When I told him that late generations of “blue helmet” soldiers and
policemen assigned under the auspices of the UN in countries like Haiti, Cambodia,
Congo, Liberia, Golan Heights in Israel, Sudan, Timor Leste, India and Pakistan
have been crowing about the million of pesos they received as salary from the
New York based office, my father said that during his time as a Private First
Class in the Korean War he received only P50 a month in Manila while the UN
gave him P150 a month or a take home pay of P200.
“Was it miniscule compared to the million of pesos the present peace
keepers have been emphatically telling me whenever I dropped by at their camps to
interview their commanders?” I posed.
He answered in the negative. The P200 was already hefty where he bought
a prime lot near the Jaro Plaza in Iloilo City on that time and where his
widowed mother Maring and his four siblings built a house.
“So that collaborated the bravados of old timers in Pangasinan that in
the 1950s a twenty five- centavo was so strong that it could buy three serbeza from San Miguel Beer and another twenty - five centavo could bring a pretty pampam or GRO (Guest Relation Officer) and her lola for a night of
tryst to a soldier’s barrack. Were they true father?” I asked off-the-cuff.
“Shut up, you better prepare your things now as you’re going to
fetch us at the airport tomorrow,” my father sternly rebuffed me with my perennial
antics.
(You can
read my selected columns at http://mortzortigoza.blogspot.com and articles at
Pangasinan News Aro. You can send comments too at totomortz@yahoo.com)
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