The Pilgrimage

of Death
Manuel Bernabe

Report by:
Khrizxela Janne C. Pascual
 Can you
share your
experience
of walking
a very long
distance?
 Manuel
Bernabe
• A poet, linguist, and
politician
• Feb. 17, 1890
(Paranaque, Rizal)
• Bernabe died of coronary
tuberculosis on
November 29, 1960, at
barrio La Huerta,
Paranaque.
History
Check!
BATAAN DEATH MARCH

 The surrendered Filipinos

and Americans were
rounded up by the
Japanese and forced to
march some 65 miles
from Mariveles, on the
southern end of the
Bataan Peninsula, to San
Fernando.
Pilgrimag
e of
Death
Manuel Bernabe
 Head down, taciturn, with a tired spirit
inclined, like the leaf of the harvest
my brothers go barefoot, by the side of the road
with tears in her eyes, with blood on her feet.
Haggard, like the squeezed cane of summer
disheveled, eyes orphaned of light
Whoever saw them would swear not to see the
shadow of a brother!
They look more like new Christs unnailed from the
cross!
 April 1942
Date of Bataan Death March

75,000
Filipino and American Soldiers

104+ km
Distance walked
 They are defeated and walk without flags
they are defeated and the scourge lashes their sides.
Beasts go by his side
bandits in soldier costumes.
They are high pitched bugles
pantomimes of greatness, mean gestures
shrieks of pack, hoarse voices
that barbarians are fiercer than Caínes
cheering, screaming, kicking
This tragedy just took over
after the Spanish
Colonization, thus made
the Filipinos down and
weak. The time is perfect
to colonize the Filipinos
again because they are just
healing from it. These
Japanese people abused
the Filipinos because they
know that they have the
power to intimidate them.
 And the poor are falling one by one
like bloody petals from the blossoming branches
the agony of fasting, the trembling of wounds
pale face
scrawny arm
invalid body
facing the hordes of Attila
that caper with unhealthy glares in the pupil
Many of the Soldiers
died due to the
following:

 Fatigue
 Starvation
 Beatings
 Heat Stroke
 Brutality
 Disease (camps)
 The tight caravan in its grief sinks and burdens
Where the father? and the mother? And the sister?
and the girlfriend?
The vanquished calls to heaven, but heaven does not
respond
Where have my loves gone? where? where?
Why do you
think Manuel
Bernabe wrote
the poem?
Thanks for
listening!
Report by:
Khrizxela Janne C. Pascual
Sources
https://epbrabante.wordpress.com/2013/07/12/bsa-i-23-lite-1013-philippine-li
terature/
https://www.slideshare.net/aldeannypenafiel/philipine-literature-under-repub
lic-by-aldeanny-d-penafiel
https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/bataan-death-march