For Ronron Calunsod's latest contributions to The Japan Times, see below:
The memories of Japanese soldier Hiroo Onoda remain alive on the Philippine island of Lubang, southwest of Manila, 45 years after his surrender. Onoda, an Imperial Japanese Army intelligence officer deployed to the island from December 1944 to lead guerrilla warfare at the height of ...
Even 14 years later, the trip by Emperor Emeritus Akihito and Empress Emerita Michiko to Saipan in the Northern Mariana Islands remains one of the Pacific island's most memorable occasions. News about the emperor's April 30 abdication stirred memories among some residents of the then-imperial ...
A local subsidiary of a Japanese company is introducing precooked, ready-to-eat rice products to the Philippine market using its parent firm's unique technology. BiotechJP Corp., based in Batangas province immediately south of the capital, Manila, last year launched Echigo, a precooked, protein-reduced rice intended mainly ...
Guam is stepping up its effort to attract more Japanese tourists after they fell from the top spot of visitors who vacation on the Pacific island. According to the Guam Visitors Bureau, arrivals from Japan fell 16.8 percent in 2017 to 620,547, giving way to ...
Philippine officials and executives involved in caring for the country's war veterans have urged younger generations of Filipinos to carry forward the memory of the 1942 Death March, and those in Japan to learn about it. "We commemorate the Bataan Death March every year so ...
Even ahead of his abdication in April 2019, Emperor Akihito, who turned 84 last month, continues to be admired by former Philippine President Benigno Aquino with whom he has interacted directly on a number of past occasions. In a statement issued late last year to ...
The tradition is theirs, but the name is Japanese. Loretta deBrum of the Marshall Islands Visitors Authority said that before the Marshallese adapted the Japanese word "amimono" to refer to handicrafts, they used the local word "monakjen." The Japanese word came into use while Japan occupied ...
The awarding of this year's Nobel Peace Prize to the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons is resonating in the Marshall Islands, boosting hopes there will be no repeat of its exposure to radiation from nearly 70 U.S. nuclear tests from 1946 to 1958. "I ...
"Life in Marawi was quiet and peaceful. I awoke every day at the sound of the 'adhan' (Muslim call to prayer), to the astonishing view of Lake Lanao, and with a breeze of cold, fresh air." Such is the memory of Asmenah Manabilang Barambangan, 24, ...
Nearly five centuries after the Philippines was first colonized and more than 70 years since it was ravaged by World War II, Corregidor Island off Manila Bay continues to offer stark memories of its past. Amid the country's evolution to a more modern society and ...
