Discovered this provocative photo of the only known female guerrilla fighter named Captain Nieves Fernandez, a Leyteña, during WWII. With this, that epithet of the Warays being “ma-isog” (fearless) came to the forefront of my brain once again.
The photo ca. 1944 taken by a photographer named Stanley Troutman, shows Captain Fernandez demonstrating to an American GI how she eliminated Japanese soldiers with the aid of a machete during the occupation. Fernandez was also a school teacher and fought south of the Tacloban area. Reports indicate she lead a guerrilla troop of 110 and their kill claims were at 200. It was said that she had a method to her assassinations that was sure and swift, she aimed for the carotid artery and inner jugular vein which are main blood suppliers to the brain; the enemy would have felt pain at first but death came almost instantaneously, a sort of merciful killing (if there is such a thing). She fastidiously trained her troop in hand to hand combat, makeshift weaponry and helped barrios and was instrumental in freeing comfort women to safety. Wow. That is bad A.
The photo ca. 1944 taken by a photographer named Stanley Troutman, shows Captain Fernandez demonstrating to an American GI how she eliminated Japanese soldiers with the aid of a machete during the occupation. Fernandez was also a school teacher and fought south of the Tacloban area. Reports indicate she lead a guerrilla troop of 110 and their kill claims were at 200. It was said that she had a method to her assassinations that was sure and swift, she aimed for the carotid artery and inner jugular vein which are main blood suppliers to the brain; the enemy would have felt pain at first but death came almost instantaneously, a sort of merciful killing (if there is such a thing). She fastidiously trained her troop in hand to hand combat, makeshift weaponry and helped barrios and was instrumental in freeing comfort women to safety. Wow. That is bad A.
I am certain that Kapitana didn't start off as a macehete-weilding lass in Leyte and given the choice, I bet, she would have just been gratified simply with imparting education to the younglings but alas, desperate times… Her notoriety was borne out of dire circumstances and the Japanese issued a bounty for her head to the tune of P10,000, I am of the opinion that her "isog-ness" wasn't misapplied.
Would post script with this though: the Waray’s fearlessness works best in pertinent matters, when the need is for the many but not for one’s own self-interest and certainly not for insolence's sake. May we all take that to heart.
