Their own memories fading, former World War Two sex slaves seek justice in their twilight years.
died in May. Japan's refusal to confront its wartime past and pay reparations has been a source of tension with its neighbours.
On a sweltering afternoon, the group, which calls themselves Malaya Lolas or Free Grandmothers in Filipino, gathered as they have for decades to sing their story in slow a cappella verses. Then, Ms Quilantang turns serious. She was eight when she was raped in that red house in the middle of a rice field. Up to this day, she gets flashbacks when she sees that house from across the highway. Dilapidated, it still stands, now attracting ghost hunters and historians.
Yet she considers herself lucky because she got married to a farmer and raised a family. Many other Filipina comfort women suffered discrimination in their communities and within their own families. "I've been to so many protests. I've been to Japan, Hong Kong, even Europe," she says. "The lawyers who help us bring us to all these places. Everything is still clear to me, ingrained in my mind even if my body is now weak."After the war, Ms dela Cruz says she was forced to work and was unable to go to school because she had to help out on her parents' farm.
They raised their case with the UN's Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women , which in March this year ruled that Manila must compensate the grandmothers and apologise to them for the decades of suffering and discrimination.Mapaniqui is now known more for duck eggs and fish farms than its wartime past
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