As puppet president of Japan’s Republic of the Philippines, squat, bespectacled Jose P. Laurel lived in uneasy luxury. Peasant-born and Yale-educated, he occupied Manila’s ornate Malacanan Palace, once the home of Manuel Quezon. He smoked special cigars with his name printed on the band. After guerrillas wounded him while he was golfing at the Wack Wack Country Club, he was provided with an armed guard of 600 men. In return for this, José Laurel—who had been a respected Manila attorney and a member of the Philippine Supreme Court —did the bidding of the conquerors.
When U.S. tropps advanced in northern Luzon, the Japanese bundled him off to Tokyo in an airplane, allowed him to set up a “government in exile.” As the months passed, many a Filipino guessed that a U.S. bomb had ended his career. But last week steaming, war-shattered Manila heard news of him again. Radio Tokyo blandly announced that President Laurel had decided “in view of Japan’s capitulation” to dissolve his government.
Soon, Manila guessed, José Laurel would be returning to his native land—in handcuffs.
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