PALO, Leyte, Philippines — Her only memory of her father was a black-and-white photograph of a handsome white man cradling a rooster on his bare chest. Noveda and Baltazar are part of the estimated 2,000 “liberation babies” born in the Philippines after World War II. Offer rebuffedBut just like Noveda’s mother, Baltazar’s mother also said no, rebuffing the American government’s offer to provide immigration and educational benefits to the children their soldiers had left behind. Annual paradeNoveda himself has attended every annual parade of American veterans returning to Leyte since that one and only meeting with his father in 1954. In their twilight years, the children left by the liberators of Leyte wish that fate had been kinder.

Source: Philippine Daily Inquirer October 19, 2019 20:03 UTC