ABSTRACT
In Baguio City on Luzon Island, the 100th Anniversary Celebration of the First Japanese Workers in the Construction of Benguet Road was held on February 20, 2003. The distinguished guests for the celebration were the Japanese and Filipino ambassadors, based in Manila and Tokyo respectively, and members of the Japanese Diet and the Philippine Congress.1 In Davao City on Mindanao Island, the Philippine-Japan Centennial Celebration was held from August 22 to 27 in that same year. Among many events, a centennial parade attracted the biggest attention for local Filipinos. The 400 participants included both young descendants of pre-war Japanese immigrants, who wore Japanese yukata (casual cotton kimonos) or indigenous tribal costumes, and Davao-raised old Okinawans. They paraded with fancy Omikoshi (Japanese traditional portable shrines) down the main streets of the city shouting in Japanese, “yoisah, yoisah” (heaveho),2 saddening the Davao citizens lining the road who once again heard loud chants in the language of their former occupiers.
