Malaria, cholera, dysentery, diarrhea, typhus and tuberculosis are tropical diseases endemic in the Philippines. The small degree of immunity obtained by the body through exposure to these ailments are rendered useless if waste disposal, hygiene and sanitation are not properly observed.
Toilets were virtually non existent in Calaocan. There were outhouses, pits dug in the ground enclosed with sawali which are seldom used because they tended to be smelly. The call of nature was usually answered at the break of dawn, or when dusk falls, by scurrying behind a bush and leaving waste disposal to roving pigs or dogs; others would squat on levees, on a dike or on the edge of a banca and let the current dispose of their droppings. It was very convenient, certainly immodest, but at times fatal.
Flora was intrigued by the numerous processions passing by her house at the height of the rainy season in August of '43. She was also curious why there were only a few who marched noiselessly like apparitions, only the mother was grief-stricken, hurrying to get done with the burial. She was told that infant mortality is a natural way of life, to be expected as the passing of night and day. She could not accept this thinking and asked questions, made her observations; she wanted to know why deaths seemed to be confined to certain sectors and rarely within the section of her village. She found out that people who lived further from the artesian well near the school relied on surface wells for drinking water. She visited the houses of those who had buried a child and stressed the need to fetch drinking water from the artesian well or boil drinking water drawn from surface wells. She might have saved a few lives, at least of those who listened because habits die hard and indolent people have an inherent resistance for change.
The two boys were growing , filling the house with their little voices, playing, horsing around. She was pregnant again.
One day, after successfully vending her soap and shopping for basic essentials, she heard news of an execution. A courier for a guerrilla band was captured and executed. The poor guy was tortured but could not provide substantial information to his captors. He was shot at the back of his skull. She shuddered. "Where are the Americans? What happened to MacArthur's promise to return?”
Guerilla resistance was stiffening in the country side. The Hukbalahap, under Luis Taruc, was harrying the Japanese in Tarlac and Pampanga.
The Japanese military intelligence aided by collaborators, Makapilis, cracked down hard on suspected sympathizers using torture and outright executions. The dreaded Kempetai engaged traitors hooded in buri bags with peep holes to finger suspected guerillas and other supporters.
American counteroffensive began with Doolittle's token air raid on Tokyo with his intrepid band of volunteer pilots in B-25's which took off a naval carrier 620 miles off Tokyo. Then came a little victory when a Japanese carrier was sunk at the battle of the Coral Sea. Then Midway, the turning point of the war in the Pacific, paving the way for MacArthur's return to the Philippines. The Japanese sustained tremendous losses from which it never recovered.
