23 FEBRUARY

Gen. Douglas MacArthur - Gen. Tomoyuki Yamashita

1945 - American colonial authorities in the Philippines hang Gen. Tomoyuki Yamashita, Commander-in-Chief of the Japanese forces during World War II, in Los Banos, Laguna after a swift, 'kangaroo court trial'; United States Gen. Douglas McArthur had appointed a military commission whose rules he himself set and the charges he also himself drew up, with the body unsurprisingly finding Yamashita guilty of failure to discharge the duty 'to control the operations of the members of his command' and for supposedly even allowing them to 'commit brutal atrocities and other high crimes' against Americans and people from its ally and dependent countries; Yamashita denied knowing and permitting the atrocities perpetrated by the Japanese in Manila, with evidence even suggesting that members of the Japanese Naval Force had refused to heed his command to move out of Manila and that he really had no command over the same during the February 3, 1945 battle in Manila; it is said that MacArthur aimed at turning Yamashita's trial into a showcase in the bid, apparently to cover up the fact that he fled Manila soon after the Japanese invasion in 1941; while Yamashita's case will be appealed before the U.S. High Court, the decision of McArthur's War Crimes Board will be upheld in a split vote, with Justice Ruthledge opining that it is  "the worst in the Supreme Court's history, not even barring Dred Scott".

Pres. Manuel Roxas- Mons. Michael O’Doherty

1947 - Philippine President Manuel A. Roxas and Manila Archbishop Michael O’Doherty formally sign an agreement whereby the government will acquired a total of eight estates owned by the Roman Catholic Church for the price of P5,630,000, with such estates to be sold later in small lots and at reasonable prices to the tenants; the agreement comes six months after the Philippines was granted "independence" by the imperialist United States following World War II;  Monsignor O'Doherty will be the last foreigner and the second and last American to occupy the post of Manila Archbishop, having been assigned in September 1916, some two years after the last shots of the Filipino-American War (1899-1914) were fired and the  Philippines "pacified" [Read: completely subdued] by the Bald Eagle nation. 



Photo credits:

http://ngayonsakasaysayan.blogspot.com/2010_02_23_archive.html
http://www.flickr.com/photos/14117283@N03/2259583597/
http://en.wikipilipinas.org/index.php?title=Douglas_MacArthur
http://oli1985.blogspot.com/