A hero’s burial was given to Angono’s World War 2 guerrilla, who served as an intelligence officer during the Japanese occupation in the country, before noon on Friday, Dec. 24.
Salome “Nanay Umeng” Calderon, 96, a member of the Hunters’ Reserved Officer Training Corps (Hunters ROTC), was laid to rest with full military honors at the family mausoleum in Angono Municipal Cemetery Heaven’s Gate Cemetery.
The Hunters ROTC was one of the most active guerrilla units during the Japanese occupation.
Angono Vice Mayor Gerardo “Gerry” Calderon, one of the sons of Nanay Umeng, told Manila Bulletin that his mother died on Nov. 17 due to aneurism in Hawaii.
She was given military honors including a 21-gun salute by the members of the Alpha Company of the 405th Ready Reserve Infantry Battalion of the Philippine Army.
Prior to the interment, a requiem Mass was held at the Diocesan Shrine and Parish of Saint Clement with one of Nanay Umeng’s three sons, Jose V. Calderon, reciting a eulogy for the lady war hero.
Bernard Calderon, her grandson, said a group of military band ushered the funeral procession bearing the white casket of the World War II veteran from the funeral parlor to the church, then to her ancestral home before she was laid to rest at the public cemetery.
Nanay Umeng was instrumental in the liberation of Angono from the hands of the Japanese military forces in 1945.
Tourism officer, Richard Gappi, in his news article on Rizal News Online, said Nanay Umeng and fellow veteran Pablo Antoque raised the American flag on the command post and grounds -- where the Angono Elementary School now stands -- during the liberation, signalling the end of the Japanese occupation in the town.
In 2020, the 75th year of the liberation of the country from the Japanese forces, the United States Embassy in the Philippines released a documentary film with the narrations of Salome Calderon about her experience during the Japanese occupation.
The video can be viewed here: https://www.facebook.com/USEmbassyPH/videos/2815979468673485/?extid=CL-UNK-UNK-UNK-AN_GK0T-GK1C
The video showing some parts of the funeral procession can be viewed here: https://www.facebook.com/100003215128088/videos/pcb.4554036328046826/339880741291839.