Golden islands mysteries....

There's Gold in them hills...err mountains that
is...

As you can tell from the title of my blog, I know
that the Philippine islands are golden. We aren't
called the "Pearl of the Orient" for nothing. Well,
let's see.....back in World War II, General
Yamashita was to supposedly have buried gold and
other valuables in the mountain provinces of Luzon
(the northern part of the Philippines) after he
looted gold and other valuable items from the
conquered asian countries. He was given the
nickname "The Tiger of Malaya" after his swift and
devastating victories.

The Japanese Imperial Army was vastly spread out at
this time and were looting like madmen all that they
could from the poor civilians and conquered
governments. The Japanese troops were then supposed
to ship all that they had siezed to Japan. But, as
it so happens, the majority of the looted booty had
to be shipped somewhere else because the Americans
had set up a naval blockade, blocking the shipping
lanes of the Japanese. Having no choice, they
decided to ship the rest of the stolen loot to the
Philippine Islands (as it was still not under U.S.
forces control) hoping to recover it after the war
had ended.

After landing in the Philippines, Gerneral Yamashita
decides not to stay in the capital city of Manila
but head to Baguio. Without General Yamashita in
the city, and against his orders, Admiral Sanji
Iwabuchi then turned Manila into a battlefield
hoping to destroy the port city and ended up killing
more than 100,000 Filipino people.

Many say that these treasures were buried in the
mountains and rigged with various cyanide gas, booby
traps, mines and other death traps forbidding access
to the precious but not forgotten treasures. Slave
labor was used along with the Japanese forces also
being forced to dig these massive gold graves. All
of them perished by way of being buried under with
the gold, killed directly or otherwise until there
was no one that could say anything about the gold.

His last stand was in the mountainous area of Luzon
against the Allied generals and lost. After his
surrender, he was tried by a military court and
found guilty of numerous crimes. Some might say
that the hearing was unfair and fixed. He was later
hung on Feb. 23 1946 for those crimes.

Well, if this was half true, then the tons of gold or at
least some of it is still here in the Philippines.
There have been countless attempts to retrieve the
gold at so-called dig sites. The ex-president of
the Philippines is supposedly to have taken some of
it for himself deposited in many bank accounts
spread all over the world. The Segraves, (Sterling
and Peggy) have written a book on this subject,
covering it in detail about how the U.S. secretly
took the gold and brought it back to the U.S. Just
google their names and you can find more information
on this.

Now, whether you believe all of this or not...it's
up to you to decide...legend or truth. As for me,
when someone is actually able to come up with some,
then maybe I will start believing. "Pearl of the
Orient" huh? It's almost like the earth of the
Philippines being the nacre from an oyster...slowly
covering the precious items with layers upon layers
of earth blanketing the items from time and waiting
for someone to recover them...