At the launch of the 16th year of the “One Billion Rising” campaign, 85-year-old former comfort woman Narcisa “Lola Narcisa” Claveria recalled that when President Noynoy Aquino was still a congressman he showed great interest in their case.
Lila Pilipinas coordinator Richie Extramadura revealed, “He would ask for their petitions and tell them to rest while he distributed this to colleagues. He even knew our names.”
But then they feel that he has already forgotten about them.
“Lola Narcisa had blistering words for Aquino and his recent guest, Japanese Emperor Akihito, who paid honor to the fallen of World War 2 but not to the women his father’s Imperial Army turned into sex slaves,” reports Inday Espina-Varona on ABS-CBNnews.com.
Lola Narcisa said in Filipino, “Mr. Aquino acts as if he has no sisters. If he had a sister who suffered the same things — raped and beaten up if you refused to open your legs for Japanese soldiers…how would he feel?”
The report noted: “Aquino is not the only politician to turn back on the 174 aging women who have banded together to demand admission of their existence, an apology, and compensation for the abuse they suffered and the trauma they carried in the decades following the last world war. ola Narcisa cited former President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, who pledged as a senator to back comfort women all the way. When she became President following the ouster of Joseph Estrada in 2000, Macapagal-Arroyo also snubbed the comfort women.”
Extramadura claimed that they wrote to Aquino in 2010 to remind him of his promise to help. However, they never got an answer.
