Who what a week we are having. It's exciting. We're getting ready for to go on a trip. Yes, this is very much needed and we're excited, and we're a little nervous about leaving our old man dog at home. But he's going to be in good hands. I swear, if we, uh, if we hadn't paid for most of this trip already, might bump it a little bit just to make sure. But he's good. He's good. He's had he's an old man. His back legs, he's got his arthritis and stuff like that. But I'm gonna go ahead.
I'll tell you right now. Our vet talked us into acupuncture, which if you a year ago, if you'd said acupuncture for dogs, I would have laughed in your face. But I cannot believe the difference we've been seeing in him. I mean, he's also getting injections for his arthritis. Arthritis is helping his knees, but he's got that neurodegenerative thing where he's not getting a signal to his feet as well, so he would like walk on his knuckle and stuff like that, and that's like knock on wood, you know,
largely gone away. Yeah, he's really not doing it. I'm suppressed. That was very skeptical about puncture. But I was like, it's undeniable, you can. I hope it lasts. Yeah, especially through our trip. We're going out west in a see Sonny, Los Angeles, Las Vegas. Yes. Eli has been practicing his dice rolling absolutely, so I was like, how do you practice dice rollings? You know, you don't practice the dice you know, some people think you can control the dice
roll but that's absurd. But you practice lay your bets down, right, which makes more sense. I was like, oh, you're gonna shake them in your hand differently. You know, you don't don't gamble to win money. You can't gamble to win money. You're not gonna it's dumb. Don't do that. Gamble because you like playing the game and you're willing to pay for it. That's my thing. And I'm like, I can make me willing to pay for it. We pay for
entertainment all the time. If I could make a hundred bucks last two hours of playing a board game, you know, I feel like I had a good time doing it. And sure, maybe I'll win fifty million dollars and pay for the whole trip. But you can thank me after that happens. Okay, I will trust me. You won't see a dime of my money. Excuse me, but I will. You at least want to flip it into my face. That's true, that's true, or spend it, but you definitely
will show my No, it's all gonna go to you. Thanks, baby, I mean transitively, you know, like in some way it will be I'll buy something for myself that makes me very happy, y exactly. Um. I can't think of something that I would want to buy that you wouldn't also enjoy, you know. I don't have those like I'm not gonna buy sports tickets or you know, a car you can't drive, or something like that. I don't know. I guess we don't have unique personalities and needs. Wow, we're just one person,
two globs, gross blobs. Wait? Why are we globs? I don't know. You're not wrong. I guess that's thinking about Ami Baz. That's separate, you know. But there's one thing I don't know. Why we're amba like reverse Amiba's We used to be two people. Is it amibas or is it just a Meba? You're Miami Bay my single cells Bay well, that one's for you microbiologists. You can use that one with your spouse later. We have to make Valentine. We gotta make branded Valentine Day. You're Miami Bay. Well,
welcome back to the show, everybody. I'm Eli, I'm Diana, so happy to have you. A very exciting episode today in one part, a single, single episode. But there is a lot to say. This is a really cool one. It's so true. This is like another history of like a badass woman who changed the fate of a nation, and her ridiculous romance is kind of the result of her daring and dashing and dangerous life that she was
leading before she ever got married. So Remedios Gomez was a normal young girl in the Philippines in n two. She liked dancing and dresses and makeup and beauty pageants and perfume, just girly stuff, okay. But everything changed after the Japanese invaded and her father was brutally tortured and killed. She swore vengeance and that she would look fabulous while
doing it. She became an accomplished military commander named Leiwawi who always made sure to apply a fresh coat of red lipstick before every battle, and when she would finally be caught and imprisoned, it was her status as a wife and mother that would get her out of it. Let's hear out, Commander Lee y Way, famed Filipino beauty queen and harrowin Yes, let's go Hey their French come listen Well, Elia and Diana got stories to tell. There's
no matchmaking a romantic tips. It's just about ridiculous relationships. A lover might be any type of person at all, and abstract concept a concrete wall. But if there's a story where the Second Glance show Ridiculous Romans, a production of I Heart Radio. Remedios was born in nineteen nineteen in the city of Mexico in the Pampanga Province of the Philippines. Did not know there was a Mexico city in the Philippines, Like just a city named mctine, mcnamed,
not even a Mexico city. Her father, Basilio Gomez, served as the mayor of their small town and now in the nineteen thirties, and Romedios worked as a dressmaker, specializing in embroidery. She's a graceful, beautiful young woman. She loved fashion and makeup and perfume and a polish was just out here glamoring it up at all at all occasions. You have like a crisp pine poster on your wall, love ponies like that. My dream is to go to New York Fashion. Me just got all the Disney barbies
lined up on her shelf. About one of the first expensive gifts I ever bought a girlfriend was in high school. I got her one of those fancy Disney barbies. Oh my god, I should remember what it was. Was it Cinderella? I think it was a classic. I think it might have been Cinderella, like in your fancy gown. It was either that or Bell. I don't remember. Just remember. It was like a hundred and twenty bucks. And I was like, is this what you do you buy? I'm I'm a
high school boyfriend. That means I spend money. I spend my paycheck on a girlfriend, right, That's what I'm supposed to do. She liked it. She liked it a lot. That was a little subdude. I remember I earned a hundred dollars from I helped my parents renovate a house
for summer, and I earned a hundred dollars. I don't even want to think about the amount of money that is for our terrible but I was so excited to go and spend it on a command I have Barbie collection that's still there, so I was like, I want to fancy Barbie. And I got a gun with the wind Barbie dolls, Scarlett O'Hara, Barbie doll. They'll have it, and they're like so sure. They're like, girl, there's gonna be worse some ship one day. Never opened the box.
It's got to be pristine condition, so never did. And I looked it up recently how much it was worth and do you want to guess how much it's worth forty two? No, I'm not gonna go to high thirty eight thousand dollars eight bucks. What a prophet that the many hours have lost good times. I could have have this doll for eight dollars of appreciation. Look, if any of y'all out there are Barbie collectors and you're missing something,
we'll sell you Diana's whole childhood collection. No questions asked for I mean maybe some questions, what do you do know? They're not allowed to ask us questions like how many Barbies? Which ones are in there? Conditions? I'm just saying, you set us grand and we'll just mail you a box of Barbies. You'll love them. I did, Yeah, you love him sitting. I love this idea of like this, what fifteen sixteen year old girl sitting in her bedroom like looking up at a shelf full of Barbies in their
box and going, ah, what a childhood. I'm just playing with my toys. Are looking at it even younger. I think I was like ten when I bought that doll, and I would just look at her. I don't know why I didn't just take her out of the damp box. But anyway, back to Commander Lee by Way, I don't know how we got to Barbies. Did not have a shelf full of Barbie dolls. She was not, but she was kind of a Barbie girl. I guess maybe that's
where we got right. So anyway, she's just really into looking her best, feeling her best, and projects, they say, a nonprofit which is dicated to sharing and preserving. Filipino History says that newspapers at the time called Remedios quote many times a queen in town festivities, and she also won some local beauty pageants and she was like the homecoming queen the town, or just like who's the prettiest She's like Bell, She's the most beautiful girl in town.
But things got real tense in a now in one. Right after bombing Pearl Harbor, the Japanese invaded the Philippines and the country's military was no match for them. So the Japanese were here to occupy. But the peasants of the Philippines had different ideas. They decided to resist the occupation, and fortunately they had the organization they needed to do it. When are people going to learn, you know, fun with the peasants. Come on, they ain't got nothing to lose.
They're strong, work in the land. Its just it way more of them than there are of you. I'm not going to say it never works, because clearly we're a lot of the time, but when it doesn't, I'll really get your asses kicked by some peasants. Well, let's learn a little bit more about this, and that means we're gonna set commendar, lead away aside and go take a
quick thing with history, leave me alone. For over two hundred years, the Philippines were ruled by Spain and they had this pretty feudal economic setup called encomienda, and this is where landowners owned all the land and houses, and the peasant farmers worked that land and they paid rent
to stay in these homes. Pretty standard stuff. Sounds like basically what everyone was doing England America right here today, it's basically what I'm doing still in the land for our landlord, still in the land, by being up on this podcast. It's the same. But at least in this situation,
the landlords lived there in the estates near them. They would frequently attend to the tenant's weddings or they would even provide food for festivities and celebrations, and they could help them out with legal issues as well, stuff like that. So they were very involved in the peasants lives. Very paternalistic, right, you know, take care of the people. You're yeah, real, I mean I think that's the ideal set up. Obviously, I don't know always work. Sure, that's the ideal set up.
The goal they were looking for here was like doubt, nabby, like I'm Lord Grands, I'm very caring of my tenantstata, yes, um. But when the Americans won first the Spanish American War in and then the Philippine American War of nineteen o two, everything out there changed. The islands were opened up to international trade for the first time with a port opening in Manila. Now landlord stopped caring about growing food like rice and cereals, and instead they wanted to grow cash
crops for export, like tobacco and sugarcane. So out there was less food to go around right there. At home, landlords started handing over their estates to caretakers and they lived in Manila or even overseas, sometimes just totally removing themselves from their tenants altogether. As a result of this, the peasants were exploited, neglected, and often abused. So the peasants decided they were going to do what peasants do, and they were going to take matters into their own hands.
They started organizing unions amongst themselves, and there were several, but two of the largest had sixty thou and seventy thousand numbers respectively when they decided to merge in nineteen thirty nine, way more than the number of landlords. They're exactly exactly, and it's not like they were asking for the moon here. I mean, mostly they just wanted to get back to their old system. Their traditional tendency that they used to have, which is crazy because it's like
that's that ship already sucked. But I liked it better. Yeah, you go back to the shitty thing that we had before. At least we were growing our own food and not just growing shipped for you to sell off to other country. Yeah. I think they grew the and so they got to keep some of it. Sheet and now there's nothing to eat, right, So these unions organized strikes and petitions and court cases against the landlords, and they even had members run for
local office. And one of these organizers was Basilio Gomez. He was Remedios father. He owned a little bit of land himself, but he was down with the cause, and he got elected mayor of a Now in the nineteen thirties and was serving as vice mayor in nineteen forty two when the Japanese invaded. So thanks to all of that organizing in the thirties, the Filipino peasants were already
set up to organize a resistance against the Japanese. Again, I know, right, well, fortunately already have everybody's name and address. Let's go ahead and get this going. Call a meeting and on March two, three hundred peasant leaders, including Basilio, decided to form the hook Bahap Rebellion and turned their labor union into a guerrilla army. Their first task was to gather up all available arms and ammunition from all the peasants, as well as any retreating American forces might
have dropped some ship on their way up. So Basilio got to work organizing people and weapons in and Now, But only two months later he was betrayed by a local collaborator and captured by the occupying Japanese. Most of the town, including Remedios, witnessed Basilio being dragged by Japanese soldiers, battered and tortured through the streets before he was executed in front of everyone. They wanted to make an example
of him. Project Say Say says this was the first World War two fatality in the city of Mexico and the province of Pamponga, and that the Japanese refused to give Basilio's body to his family. They were like, as a matter of fact, we should arrest all y'all too. So Remedios and the rest of her family had to skidaddle out of town and they moved to Tarlac, and that's when Remedio swore vengeance on that Happanese and especially
on the soldier who had delivered the killing blow. So when a friend of her father's usaid Bio Bio Aquino, suggested that she joined the Hook Ba Llaha, she was in yeah, and we'll find out what happened next. Right after this welcome back everyone. So Romedios joined the Hook Ba Laha Rebellion, and her brother Oscar joined too, and this is mostly because their mother asked him to go keep an eye on her and keep her safe. But
they were far from the only ones who joined. By September there were three thousand armed Hooks, and Romedios was not the only woman either. In fact, one of the most unique things about the Hook Rebellion was that so many women joined when it formed, that they were integral to its success and participated in pretty much every level of the organization, which was very different from most guerrilla armies.
In this book Amazons of the Hook Rebellion, Gender, Sex, and Revolution in the Philippines by Vina Lonzona, she writes quote outraged by stories and in many cases direct experience of Japanese brutality and sometimes fearful for their personal safety. Many young women responded to the call for mobilization. Most were between the ages of fifteen and thirty five, single
and lived in peasant households. Yeah, they heard a lot of rumors about women being raped and old and stuff, and they were like, well, sure, I better come out here and do something exactly exactly now. Many of these women stayed in their villages and served the rebellion by gathering supplies or money or information for the fighters. Since they were women, they didn't really attract much attention from
the Japanese, making them the perfect spies. You know. They're they're around asking who, so when are you guys invading tonight? And the Japanese soldiers are like, oh, I can tell a woman, what's she gonna do? Alright, seven pm at the sport. That's where we're going. Yeah, what are you going to be doing? Cooking dinner? I hope so are. They're probably like seeing ladies talking to people, are like
bitches be gossiping about you and your secret plans. But some women, like Remedios, chose to take a more direct path of action. At first, Remedios was given nursing duties rather than fighting duties like many of the women who joined the Gorilla Army, but as positively Filipino dot com rites quote, all new recruits underwent training and guerrilla warfare, how to fight, handle weapons, stage and ambush, how to
retreat and so on. It is smart. I feel like, right, even if you're like, you're probably not going to fight, but at least you know how in case. It's like that Google thing where it's like we train, you know, we get everyone from different departments to circulate and work in different areas. So I know that you're going to be out here cooking for the army, but I don't want you not to be able to fight should the
situation arise. Yeah, what if they show up, you know during the dinner hours, the only person with a knife in her hand, it's the I wondered how to use that. They're like, I'll go hold the cook hostage, and the cook is like, oh no, don't hurt me. You damn damn. This cooked me. I just got smoked by the cook. She fried my ass up and served me on a platter. I got butchered. They also got cool new code names,
of course, and Romedios was leeway Way meaning dawn. They were like, it's really gonna dawn on the Japanese that they have bucked, Like I am a sucking sunrise. What's it's a brand new David positively. Filipino dot com goes on quote. As the resistance forces grew and additional units were formed, lewy Way, who impressed her commander and comrades with her dedication, discipline and seriousness of purpose. I eat to avenge her father's death, was give a squadron to lead.
So she became Commander lee way Way, the name by which she's best known, and she had a bunch of guys to order around, which she promptly did. Her squad was supposed to be going around getting civilians to support the guerrillas, okay whatever. The Philippines Veterans Office website says that leeway Way basically was like boring, and she started organizing missions to raid Japanese camps and ambush their supply track. It's like, I know what the assignment is, but I
understand the real assignment. Oh sure, let me go ask people to sign up. Hang on, let me just take down this whole fort on my way there. And just to add to her boss, bitchness. Leeway Way didn't just prep for missions and battles by training with weapons or working on tactics with her men. No, right before every skirmish, she would comb out her hair, pink her nail sprits
of perfumes, and put on right red lipstone. So every time the enemy faced them, they were looking at a fashion queen with her nails dead hair did everything did vanquishing the ship out of them with a forty five. But if i'm if I'm a Japanese soldier and somebody's gonna kill me, might as well be a beautiful age. She's doing them a favor. I will make sure the last thing you see is gorgeous, lovely she's And this just un additional service I provide on the battlefield. Now.
Of course, at the time, in the place, in the moment, you might think that her soldiers found this kind of silly and contemptible, right, and some of them surely did. But positively, Filipino says that it actually helped morale because she just she looks so damn calm and fearless sitting there painting her nails right before a crazy battle. I got time. It was probably like dudes like cowering in the corner. Like as well. I would be being like,
oh my god, we're all about to die. We're all about to die, and she's just they're painting her nails. I'd be like, damn. If she ain't worried, I guess I shouldn't be Give me some of that perfume. Apparently she did, actually would hand out little bottles of perfume, and oftentimes they said no thanks, but she was like, y'all stank, okay, thanks, they're gonna smell us. Come and they're gonna smell, you know, a lavender rose water over the ridge and be like, oh no, it's put fear
into their hearts. They have potpourri PTSD for the rest of their lives. I can never handle vanilla orange blossom again. I'll lose my mind. Any veteran walks into bathroom body works. Back on the battlefield, I would love to see like a g I Jane, where instead of shaving her head trying to look real masculine, she's just like, ash, I'm a lean in, just like a perfect French break. You have full lean in. She's like, I got my hair looks good and on my full makeup and I'll still
get over this wall now positively. Filipino says that she also sometimes suggested that she wanted to look nice in case she died or was captured. Right, if I can pull into speculation station, I think that maybe she believed in ghosts and she was like real worried about her ghost looking bad, and it's like, just in case I die in battle, I want to like be looking good. Oh my god, So if I live for eternity, I still like my outfit. Do you remember the Frighten Nurse. Yeah.
She McBride's character like died in the seventies and he was in this whole disco outfit and he was always so mad about it. He's like, I still look like link from the Mod Squad, or like we just started Ghosts the British version and there's one guy who's no pants because he died in a sex scandal or something, so he's just walk around with a full like suit coat but no pants. On the rest of eternity, you got to think about these things. So true. So le always was like, no, I will look I will be
the best looking ghosts in this entire place. So she thought maybe she wanted to look nice in case she got captured or killed. But when she was asked about why she looks so nice by the hook head honcho Luis Taruk, she simply replied, quote, why shouldn't I. One of the things I am fighting for in this movement is the right to be myself. Love that love that. She's like, I'm not gonna masculine myself up just for
this fite. I am who I am. Yeah, and if anybody had a problem with that, she was ready to deal with this right once she showed up, sweating and breathless from an encounter with the enemy, and her comrade, Commander Capitan sneered her, quote, you're pretty If the Japanese catch up with you, just lie down, which is dark, because they're saying they're talking about right, and we know that they were doing that the rather the Japanese occupiers
were doing that. That's why a lot of the women were joining, because either they had already been raped, or they knew somebody who had, or they had heard enough stories to be worried about it. That's a really fucked up thing to say. Just slide down and take it. Yeah, So she was pissed. She was furious, and she challenged him to a duel right there, and she had to be physically restrained by her squad because they're probably like, girl, he's not worth it. You would just stepped back. Don't
worry about him, forget him. He's trash, so much better than him. Look how good you look? Exactly? Don't waste your time on Let's go wipe that sweat off's bush his face bottel. I'm gonna give him bright red lips. I almost wish she they had not restrainers flying all right, you know what you deserve to get. But I guess they needed every commander. Get hit, talk shit, get hit. But lewis biggest moment of glory came in the Battle of Kamanci, when she led Squadron three V in battle.
The Hooks were losing and bio Aquino ordered all of them to retreat, but leeway Way, looking fabulous the fresh coat of red lipstick on, was like what they can't can't hear you? I don't know, and kept her men fighting even though they were heavily outnumbered. By the time Hook reinforcements arrived to back them up, Lee always squad had already won, already retreating. It was like the movie three hundred, but only one hundred guys and a lipstick Leonidas.
I'll want to be fair. They lost in three all right, it's kind of like the movie. Maybe Leonidas just should have thrown some lipstick on, okay, and he just spread to perfume. Would have changed the whole game. All those boys, this half naked men, all wrestling each other. But they got gorgeous makeup on amazing path that movie. That movie was homo erotic enough. I think they did have a little eyes shadow and didn't they like they had probably yeah,
I remember they had. They had dressed up. Rodrigo Santaro played Zerxes and he had a ton of makeup on. And some people said that was actually kind of racist because they made the Persians very effeminate in that movie, like a saying that, like bad people are effeminate, which is a Disney problem that they've always had with their villains. I don't think as much recently. And then of course he was like, while you're stereotyping Persians and you're also
making effeminate people evil. Again, I don't know nobody from nowhere Persia any of that. I just wanted to say lipstick Leonidas. Of course, of course you can't just leave that one down. You have to say it now. After the Battle of coman See, she became a legend. Positively, Filipino writes. Quote the name Commander leeway Wi struck fear among the Japanese army. Her squad swelled to two hundred guy.
She would ride into an occupied town on her horse with her forty five pistol or sometimes a fifty caliber machine y and be like, occupiers, y'all need to be gone tomorrow or I will make you gone for good. And they probably skid at all. Last the hiding, she
also got her revenge. She eventually found the guy who had wielded the sword and beheaded her father in front of everybody, including herself, and she told her squad, this one's mine, and she kind of took him off somewhere and came back without him, and the soldiers asked what she'd done with him, and she just said, quote, what he did to my father, what he did to us.
So I'm just picturing her like walking back across the field, wiping blood on a white towel, getting slowly more and more red, and someone's like, what you do to that guy, She's like justice, Yes, well, we're gonna go get some austics from these sponsors, so we'll be right back after this commercial break. Welcome back, everybody to the hook Balahap Rebellion. So over the next three years, the Hooks grew to a force of fifteen thousand armed fighters, and ten percent
of that were women. The peasants were holding their own, but they couldn't grot the Japanese army completely until the Americans showed up. Hooray, the American forces are here. Americans are great at showing up at the last minute, kicking some mass knocking some occupiers out of town, and Leewaway's squad not only fought many battles, but they also rescued several down American pilots and nursed them back to health. Finally, the war was over in nineteen and the Philippines were
free from Japanese occupiers. Victory was there's thanks for stopping buy Americans and helping out. Now y'all can go on home, I said, y'all can, Americans? You can go home now. We're we're good. We've you're not leaving. No, No, the Americans stayed Filipinos basically traded one occupier for another, and the Hooks were ordered by the Americans to disarm. Now, of course, many of them decided not to, so the US and the landowning elite in the Philippines hunted them
down and arrested them. Villagers homes were looted and burned looking for Hooks in hiding. In February of nineteen forty five, a squadron of a hundred and nine Hooks were ambushed by American and Filipino soldiers and every one of them were shot and buried in a mass grave, including Leewaway's brother, Oscar Oscar. The US also decided to arrest all the peasant leaders, including Louise Taruk. When they were released in September of that year, Louise tried to negotiate with the government.
He said their resistance was over, and he provided a list of hook members, hoping that they would be recognized by the government for their efforts to suppress the Japanese occupation and they would be given veterans benefits. But the government chose to leave out two thousand members, which the Hooks thought was just a shady way to cause strife. Amongst them, like, well, some of you are better than others. You can just fight amongst yourselves about that, right, instead
of fighting us. And on top of that, the landlords had promised the peasants a higher share in the profits of their farm labor. But when the harvest time came, guess what, those promises were not kept. What that sounds unusual in history. So the hooks decided, if you can't beat the government, join them, and they ran a bunch
of dudes for office. They formed the p k M or National Peasants Union, allied themselves with the p KP, which was the Communist Party of the Philippines, and they ran several candidates, six of whom won, including Luis Tuk and the p KP eater's brother, Jus Lava. I'm sorry. This guy's name iss Lava. It's a great name, which of course written here. I just see Jesus Lava and I'm very interested in Jesus Lava. Is that lava you can walk on top of? Probably, right, that would make sense. Oh,
this is that Jesus Lava. Go for a stroll. Pretty nasty prank to play on somebody. Don't worry. This is Jesus Lava. You can walk right on. If you're a true believer, your shoes will not melt. A lot of melted shoes, that shoes. I always think a volcano. Whenever that guy struggles through lava to help somebody off the stubway, does he like walk through lave like an idiot? I mean, I guess he was brave. I guess it was see I was teamed Dante's peak, oh myself. I didn't see
volcano until later. I don't know which one is better. I don't think either one of them is better. I was about to say, I don't know. I don't. I don't really remember Dante's Peak very well. Um, but I do remember Volcano because we liked that line about having to get in a doorway and kiss you asked goodbye? All right, Jesus Lava, Judicus Lava one and Louis Tarrock one. But they were never allowed to take their seats. They
faced charges of terrorism and election fraud. Mainly the Americans didn't like that they were communists at all, allied with communists. Of course, the Cold War started like right after World War Two. Everyone was very nervous about the Bolsheviks and stuff like that. So they were like, not these communists, and they were effectively like unelected by an active Filipino Congress,
and the campaign of intimidation against the peasants continued. One of their leaders was surrounded by military guys and murdered, and the peasants just had had enough by that point, and Louis Tarrock was like, I'll fucked up now and restarted the hook resistant, this time against their own government in six and this new force was called the People's Liberation Army or h m B. And after Oscar was killed, we know how Luwawei feels about her family members being murdered.
She was, of course like, let me in. I'm back on the train exactly, and she started training new recruits. Now only a year later she was arrested for the first time. She got captured because she got malaria. She sat down to rest and they're like, oh, now we can get her, because otherwise she's too scary. We can get her while she's sick. But she caused a media sensation. She's this well dressed, made up, lovely ladies, prime time
newspaper bo and she was also very well spoken. When President Manuel Rojas accused her of terrorizing peasants and trying to overthrow the government. She coolly responded, quote, no, Mr President, you are wrong. We are only fighting for a decent livelihood and democratic treatment in our plight. We the Hooks, champion the rights of the peasants. Right for that sassy answer,
she was thrown into solitary confinance. She was released after a year for lack of evidence, and immediately she rejoined the h MP, only to find that they had an interesting plan for her. Tensions had started to develop between Louise Taruk's Hooks and the Lava leadership in the p k P, the Communist Party, so they needed something to
unify the two factions. And like many many many politicians before them that we've heard about on this show that you all have heard about all through history, they thought, well, it sounds like somebody from each party's got to get married. There we go, let's unify these fac shows with a lovely party. And so Leeaway was this, you know, beautiful, daring, famous hook commander under Louise Tarok, and she was still single,
so she was clearly the right choice to be the bride. Now, as for the groom, their eyes were on the second cousin of the p KP leader Jose Lava banag Paraiso, also known as Bonnie. The two had met once or twice before, and he was handsome, young, and related to the communist leadership, and according to Positively Filipino, he was one of the best warriors the Lava's had. I want to meet the best warrior of the Lava. It just sounds so cool, super cool. Sorry, I've just decided that, Like,
if I could change my last name to anything, it's Lava. Well, I love too. They were like, well, we gotta give her a groom. She can respect. I mean, if you guys, she can beat up. Let's be real. Sola and Bonnie had a political marriage, not a romantic one, but Leeway later said that even though she hadn't chosen him, she
quote found the perfect husband and comrade in Bonnie. They only had one son, who they named for Leeway's fallen brother, Oscar, and at this point Lewai stepped away from active fighting to be a wife and mother, but she still wanted to contribute, so she helped set up and manage a political and military school for new recruits. It's kind of her thing. She was good at getting new people and showing them how to be badasses. She's like, first we
start with the undercoat. How you want to wait for that to drag a nice tachi before you put on the top polish and an overcoat. Cannot be overstated how important that is. She's like, to begin, you each have a pistol and a small bottle of perfume. We will start with a perfume because you'll all sell like ship. And here's how to keep your hair looking nice and
fancy while you rip a man's throat out. So in this power couple moved to another province together because they were in charge of the expansion force, so you know, recruiting, training, getting more folks involved. But after a raid, Bonnie Paraiso was killed and me Away arrested once again. That's sad that they kind of I guess had a year to be together and have a baby and fall in love right to an extent. That's it. It was such a short time in lewaiway never remarried. I think she did
feel more strongly about Bonnie than maybe it seems. According to projects say Say, Leewaiwai was released after she told the court on her lawyer's advice that she had rejoined the hook army just to support her husband. She told the judge quote, being a wife is not a crime. I should not be charged for the accusations against my husband. I mean, like we're talking about, Oh, don't look at me, just a girl. Just to look at my beautifully made up face. Did this looks like somebody who goes and
fights a war. I mean again, this is the feared warrior couman or le fear into the hearts of the entire Japanese army. And she's like, who me, little o me? I love it? How could I ever hurt someone with all these fancy nails. I would never break my nail on a fifty caliber machine gun. But as rejected Princesses writes quote, by recasting herself as a dutiful wife and mother, she actually managed to secure her freedom. They let they acquitted her of murder charges and let her go on
back home. And I think it's so funny that the sexism of the Japanese and the Filipinos are what enabled the guerrilla army to have so many women helping them out, and then the sexism of the United States and the Filipino elite and constabula and everything allowed her to just wriggle the funk out of there out of their jail. I think that's so funn They were like, let me use this to my advantage. I guess, well, it's true. I mean her husband clearly put her up to this.
Ladies follow their husbands. Yes, what do we expected to have a mind of her own? Good one, thanks, Greg, I needed left to day now. That very same year, the Filipino Communist Party p k P was banned by the government, and the Hooks tried negotiating with the government, but negotiations stalled, so the rebellion continued until after her
second imprisonment. Leewaway took a step back from the armed rebellion and settled into civilian life, but she did spend the rest of her life advocating for the rights of soldiers. According to Ezra del Rosario on the Odyssey Online, she personally helped veterans fill out benefits, paperwork and lobby for a pension for over twenty years. Leewaway passed away at the right old age of n and she was made
up and perfumed right up until the very end. Her obituary in the Inquirer dot Net quotes Leewaway reminiscing about her time in arms, saying, quote, Filipino women played an important role during the war. Like their male counterparts, they held responsible positions in fighting the enemies. They dedicated their lives to a noble cause, not only to drive away the Japanese invaders, but to pursue the struggle for genuine freedom, true justice, and democracy. I hope that someday the role
of these unsung heroines will find a place in history. Well, they're at least going to find a place on this podcast, that's right, Commander Leewaway. You're trying to uphold the story. But I just love her. I think it's so what a cool I would love to watch a movie about just a beautifully made up, like I don't know, beauty queen run around and everybody's like, okay, right, this dainty
little lady, what's she gonna be able to do? And she ends up like dominating the battle field, right, And then even when she's you know, steps back from the battlefield, she's like, there's still lots of ways that I can be useful and and help the plight of my people. You know what I mean. Yeah, man, um no, she's so cool and and like you said, I mean just this this image. I think that's part of why she
did it too. It was just like it's such a memorable historical thing to do, you know, like like you're saying earlier, like she doesn't need a g I jane herself into that army. She was like, you want me, you get me. You like what I can do, I'm gonna do it. That's what I look like. Yeah, Plus I love it's sort of a war paint rbes like. She's like, it's before war. I put on my fucking war paint. It doesn't look like what you think it should look like, but it makes me feel ready to fight.
And once rumors start getting around, she's like, then people know when they see me coming and that they're going to ship their pants, Like, oh ship, Yeah, that bitch is where red lipstick. We're so fucked right now. You don't even know She's gonna blow a kiss and then blow our heads all wow. And what a history too. I really new very little about the history of the Philippines. It's very complicated because they're extremely oppressed and constantly occupied area,
so it's a very complicated history. I won't lie. I we had to really streamline a lot of it, and you didn't even get into what the Hooks did. There's some badge that they did later on and stuff like that. So there's you know, it's not like this is a glowing example of like being amazing you know all the time. Definitely plenty of them that did funked up. I mean, anytime there's a people's liberation army, it's going to be black and white. Yeah. The thing about revolution is it's
incredibly incredibly um, messy and violence. It's very very hard to have one without, you know, and be perfectly ethical, you know, the whole time, kind of I think, I don't. I don't know that there is an example in history of an ethical resolution. I can't think of one, but please let me know. The things the some of the French dead after they okay, revolted, I mean absolutely horrific,
literally called it the Reign of terror. Yeah, I mean, fortunately after America's Revolution it was smooth sale and nothing to complain about ever since seventeen seventies six Uh good, here squeaky clean um. But but it is still it's it's fascining to hear all this These specific island nations, you know, that are so strategic, especially when you're talking about the conflicts between East and West. Um, it's a lot of strategy that goes into like I need to
occupy this island. This tiny little place that's like barely farmland becomes the most valuable land in the world that everybody's fighting over it and occupying it, and they don't give two ships about the people who already lived there. Ever, A lot of Hawaii happens. Yeah, and it's interesting to like, it's a world wars World War two, but I guess, particularly in school, you focus so much on France and
German um and maybe a little bit of Russia. But there was literally battles happening like all over there were theaters of war in the Middle East where like that. Basically the reason it's so funked up now is because during World War Two there were soldiers and stuff. There was happening over there, but it wasn't as important, so it's just like, well, whatever, y'all will take care of yourself.
And they ended up looting, you know, the land for oil and doing all these horrible things just causing a lot of strife, and then over here in the islands, that's a whole other theater. Did do we ever talk about the islands? Well, I never heard a word one. It was just like, yeah, Nazis, Nazis, Nazis, Pearl Harbor, right, Like wait, what where did that come from? Well, and weirdly, it's like Pearl Harbor, Yes, Pearl Harbor gets bombed. We're all very mad about the Japanese. But then it's all
Nazis after that, and then we bomb Japan. It's like we've we don't really talk about the part where the Japanese felt like two Americans. It felt like the Japanese there are real enemies. You know, we're here to bite them because they came to us rather than the Germans. They're funked up. But like that's y'all are dealing with that? Where are we here dealing with them? You know, it's just it's just such a complicated war, of course, and you know, naturally in school you have to you know,
edit some ship out. It's really interesting to learn more about the other theaters of war and what was going on. Right, Well, like you said, all these you know, consequences that come out of stuff that you never even heard about. So I get the impression you would not, like you would vote to not do that again, like a third World war would be something you're against. Like I'd prefer not to be a part of a world war. Bold stance. Go ahead and go on the record here today. Yeah,
we're the first ones to eight point five magnitude. Take quake coming your way. Quake. I saw that on a tweet the other day and I thought it was amazing. I was just like, I need to take quick that's exactly what's going on. Amazing. And I like this story too. Again, like we said at the top, like you know, this is the lead eat up to a romance that's sort of you know what we sometimes call it ridiculous, it's
really just fascinating. Yeah, but I also do like that it was a political marriage and then feelings grew, right, that's so that's so love When that happens. Reminds me of a little story we've mentioned before, Maximilian and Carlotta Mexico, a little story we never go back to that well, I never stopped thinking about them. Um, well, thank you all for tune in today. I do hope you love this story. I help you learn something new to as you make up your face. Yes, next time, you're getting
ready for the battle. Yeah, but let us know what you thought. We love hearing from y'all. Our email address is ridic Romance at gmail dot com, and of course you can find us on social media on Twitter and Instagram. I'm at Oh great, it's Eli, and I'm at Diana my boom and the show is at ridict Romance. Yeah, so tune in later this week. We got another exciting episode and we'll catch you all in. Can't wait. Love you bye. So on, friends, it's time to go. Thanks
all listening to our show. Tell your friends neighbor's uncles in dance to listen to a show ridiculous Well Dance m