Mindanao

At our Kaimuki branch church located at 1361 Palolo Avenue, gospel services are held on Wednesday evenings only at 7:00 PM.

The same schedule is observed by neighbor island branch churches, as services are also conducted by Pastor Reginald V. Casarena Senior in Kanaka Kai, Molokai, by Pastor Walter I. Tinaloa in Hilo, Hawaii, by Pastor Leonard Q. Asangol Senior in Koloa, Kauai, by Pastor Hannibal Espera in Balogo, Pika, Hawaiian, and by Pastor Vesper Espera in President Roxas, Cotabato, Mindanao, Philippines.

At our Maui branch church in Lahaina, Maui, services are held every second Sunday of the month.

You are welcome to attend these services regardless of church affiliations.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, I, I think the Philippines may have been the first country to which we sent troops after the events of nine eleven, uh, sent contingents down to Mindanao to help deal with some of the, uh, issues down there.

And, uh, and, and we've been building on that, uh, ever since.

And, uh, in, in recent years with, uh- The changing geopolitical landscape, if you will-

This was also one of my lifetime highlights.

There is this island of Jolo in the, the Sulu Sea in the south of Philippines, Mindanao.

The republic's actually called Bangsamoro, which means the people, the Bangsa of the Moro, which is the Moors, the Muslims.

And I had for years dreamt about coming to that island, and there's a huge mosque there, big white mosque, usually photographed in the mo- in the mist, a very mythical photo.

Now, the Philippines is now in news because the Philippines' Defense Secretary, Philippines Defense Secretary Gilberto Teodoro.

Philippines is by and large a Catholic country with a small Muslim minority in a region called Mindanao.

That region used to have quite a bit of trouble in the past, some insurgency, et cetera.

Sometimes it sim- simmers now also.

There was a lot of human rights violation.

He's now undergoing trial and in fact face the wrath of the international justice system as well.

He tried to hit back at the Americans By asking them to even stop carrying out the operations that they were against what they saw as some Al-Qaeda sympathizers in the Mi- Mindanao area or some fundamentalist groups which are, which were coming up in Mindanao area.

So Duterte said, "Uh, why would Muslims in Philippines will be, uh, be, be angry? They are only angry because you were-- you, you carried out brutal action against them in the early 1900s," which is very early part of 20th century when the Philippines were dealing with American colonization.

conveniently escaped the Bataan Death March, and on April 1, 1944, he captured the Koga Papers.

Named after Admiral Minnaichi Koga, these papers contained vital war plans and defensive strategies of the Japanese Navy, codenamed the Z-Plan, information on the overall strength of the Japanese fleet and naval air units, and most importantly, the fact that the Japanese had already deduced MacArthur's initial plans to invade the Philippines from through Mindanao.

These papers came into Filipino possession when Koga's seaplane en route to Davao crashed on the Cebu coast at San Fernando in the early hours of April 1st, killing him and others.

They managed to grab these documents, eventually smuggle them out via submarine because of these very sophisticated, guerrilla activities by both the Filipinos and the Americans, many of them led by Americans.

I would urge you to look up one American Colonel Wendell Furtick, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and commander of the 10th Military District, Island of Mindanao.

He and his resistance forces were quite good at foiling Japanese attempts to ready themselves for the coming Allied invasion of the Philippines.

So there it is, a taste, if not a sampling, of what the Japanese were able to achieve then.