Marking's Guerrillas

The Makeup of the Marking's Guerrillas

Yay Colonel and Marcos V. Agustin
The Marking's guerrillas, was led, organized, and founded by Colonel Marcos V. Agustin with the help of his comrade and future wife, Colonel Yay Panlilio. Their organization would be concentrated initially east of Manila. Compared to the younger ROTC guerrillas, the guerrilla fighters who were recruited under Colonel Augustin, tended to be older civilians and soldiers who were both tenacious fighters and strategists. ​

The Taking of the Ipo Dam Mission

The Marking's Guerrilla worked and trained with the U.S. 43rd Division in taking the Ipo Dam, one of the major dams that supplied the Japanese occupied Manila.  Although the Imperial Japanese Army (IJA) were already retreating into the northern mountain region of Luzon towards Baguio, IJA's retreating strategy was to aggressively defend what resources they had left available to them. The aggressive defense of the IJA would display, forced MacArthur’s men and the Filipino guerrillas to fight at various lines ultimately leading to substantial wastes of ammunition and energy of trying to invade and retake the Philippines.  This tactic would lead to what IJA hoped would prove to drain the resources and desires of the Allied forces to deter from sacrificing more soldiers to invade mainland Japan and the Ryukyu Islands. The Markings’ remarkable guerrilla operations allowed for multiple benefits to the underground resistance and Philippine morale. 

Marking's Guerrilla Bank Notes

Marking's Guerrillas also stimulated the Philippine local economies through their printing of Marking banknotes that would fuel both the underground resistance and their local Filipino communities that aligned themselves with the Philippine Commonwealth.  The Markings’ strong and organized combat missions northeast of Manila allowed for an increase in the spread and production of the Marking Banknotes which helped to fund theirs and the local Filipino communities of Luzon’s resistance as Japan tirelessly worked to control both the natural resources and economic output of Philippine goods throughout the war.

Related Book

Philippines' Resistance:
​The Last Allied Stronghold in the Pacific

The people of the Philippine Islands during the early half of the 20th century experienced various waves of Western imperialism, two wars of attempted secession from Western powers, and two world wars. And yet the Philippine Islands and its people have received only small subheadings in many American textbooks and histories. 
The wartime experiences from the perspectives of the Philippine people have gone unnoticed and have become overshadowed by the sociopolitical dominating legacy of American figures like General MacArthur, leader and historical symbol of the Pacific Theater during World War II. MacArthur's famous phrase "I came through and shall return" is etched into every facet of World War II historical narratives, textbooks, and monuments that pay tribute to the Allied forces in the retaking of the Pacific from the Japanese. But It is the lesser known people and leaders of the Philippine resistance against the Axis powers whose efforts and contributions allowed for the effective and speedy return of MacArthur's military forces. 
The Philippine guerrilla resistance consisted of a diverse cast of Filipino men and women, ethnic and indigenous minorities, American and European immigrants and soldiers, young and old, rich and poor, from farmer to politician. The various units of Philippine guerrillas, their tactics, military resources, and vigor to survive and end the Japanese maltreatment of the Philippine peoples paint the Pacific Theater from 1941-1945 as desperate, dark, and bloody for Asian communities throughout East and Southeast Asia. But their resourcefulness, cooperative efforts to collaborate and network with MacArthur across the South Pacific, and massive grassroots liberation movement directly point to the remarkable value that the Philippine Underground Resistance proved to be in aiding the Allies' ability to retake the Pacific.