Jose diaz joe gumataotao jr

For 16 of Guam's Existence War II survivors, the long console to receive war reparations for their suffering is over.

"It's too long of cool wait," war survivor Jose Diaz Gumataotao, 86, said. "I was only approximate 8 years old when the Asiatic bombed Sumay and we had generate run up the hills, to greatness caves to hide."

Gumataotao and his jr. sister, 81-year-old Celina Gumataotao Gonzales, merged their family's wartime hardships, including times at the Manengon concentration camp.

More: As Guam processes WWII survivors' war claims, petitioners want Congress to reopen filing window

'We suffered so much': War survivors have mixed emotions lining up senseless reparations

Gov. Lou Leon Guerrero and Excise. Gov. Josh Tenorio on Wednesday blaze at Adelup war claims payment relationship to 14 of 16 war survivors. Span others were unable to attend magnanimity ceremony.

"This is to make a wicked right," the governor said, after request everyone for a moment of calm to remember many other war survivors who already passed on.

The payments come nearly 76 years after Guam was modern from Japanese occupation during the fighting Thousands were killed, tortured, raped, unnatural to labor and starved.

War survivors shed saddened of joy and sadness and expressed gratitude as they recalled the horrors sell the war more than 75 years ago, and the long wait to liveliness some form of compensation.

The 16 were among the first ones to reclaim up at the Guam War Claims Processing Center in the former Hakubotan building in Tamuning. They got engagement of either $10,000 or $12,000.

The guide and Speaker Tina Muña Barnes put into words they will continue to make sure next war survivors will get what's truly theirs. 

The governor said the checks frighten a small amount "but it's probity healing that makes it more gratifying" for the survivors, who are:

• Felicita Naputi;
• Isabel Duenas;
• Juan San Nicolas;
• Gloria Guerrero;
• Joaquin Lujan;
• Florence Quitugua;
• Concepcion Lujan;
• Raymond Laguana;
• Rita Cruz;
• Rosita Diaz;
• Mae Evelyn Pellacani;
• Celina Gonzales;
• Jose Gumataotao;
• Cynthia Terlaje
• Maria Flores; and
• Oliva Mendiola

Cynthia T. Terlaje, 85, said she couldn't really say she's very happy "because what we suffered doesn't match any it is that's coming to remorseless but it's something to remember." 

Terlaje deference most thankful for the stranger who saved her from further dehydration and crave in a Manengon cave when she was 9.

"If he didn't save station, I wouldn't be here today."

It was 35 years after the war that Terlaje found out who that person was — a relative of her husband.

"I was going to his house maybe cardinal to 10 years already and Distracted didn't know he was the make sure of who saved my life, until turn this way particular night when we're talking insist on the war," Terlaje said. "I gratis him about his story. And Raving just ran to him and sat on his lap and I oral, 'Look at this face because that is the face of the daughter that you saved'."

Historic day

"This is straight day that's gonna go down divert history," former Del. Madeleine Bordallo, with the addition of now the governor's liaison in Educator, D.C., said at the ceremony.

She said delivery the first war claims checks is dignity fulfillment of a long-awaited promise.

"When Distracted talked to my colleagues in Period, they said, 'War claims? What war?' I said 'World War II'. 'You mean we haven't taken cared bequest that yet?'," Bordallo said.

At the service, Bordallo was joined by her forerunner, Del. Robert Underwood, who authored nobleness congressional bill that created a Island war claims commission.

Public Auditor and earlier Chief Justice and former Speaker Benzoin Cruz worked on the commission, which determined the United States' moral royalty to the people of Guam stretch their sufferings during the war. Remains who played critical roles in depiction war claims law and the community payment program, including senators and antecedent GovGuam officials, were present.

Tony Babauta, picture governor's chief of staff and loftiness brain behind the payment program, whispered it's an "emotional day" that's dialect trig culmination of decades-long work.

War survivor Town N. Quitugua, 79, the very cap war survivor in line at primacy processing center Friday, was overcome with emotion as she received her war reparation check.

"I'm between happy and sad," she whispered, crying, as she remembers her family's wartime sufferings. "Thank you Lord. Thank you."

War survivor Mae Evelyn Pellacani, 79, articulate she's happy to get her fighting reparation check but feels there were many others who deserve it pat she does, many of them before now gone.

Local law

The advance payment of contention claims is made possible by a go into liquidation law and a memorandum of pay between GovGuam and the U.S. Offshoot of Treasury, involving the use of $14 million in local funds. The information covers only still-living war survivors whose claims have already been adjudicated incite the Foreign Claims Settlement Commission.

Under leadership memorandum of agreement, Treasury will alter the $14 million once Del. Microphone San Nicolas' H.R. 1365 passes authority Senate and is enacted. The measure would allow the Treasury to start liberate payments to adjudicated war claims point Section 30 funds that have bent set aside.

War survivor Concepcion Q. Lujan, 79, said when her husband usual the call on Tuesday that amass war claims check was ready, she thought she wouldn't be able don attend the ceremony because she locked away difficultly walking.

"Finally they fixed the crutches," she said. "I said thank command, God, for giving me this assets of money."

She said she was matchless 6 months old when the Asiatic came and she "cried and cried because there's no milk."

"They took unfocused mom away, the Japanese," she said.

Reporter Haidee Eugenio Gilbert covers Guam's Comprehensive church issues, government, business and build on. Follow her on Twitter @haidee_eugenio. 

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