Beer survives World war II

“Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder.” — Kinky Friedman

By Alex P. Vidal

ILOILO CITY — A bottle of beer taken by a mother while fleeing from Japanese invaders in World War II, survived after 73 years, and is now being kept for souvenir by the son who is 80 years old.

The bottle, with brand name still slightly attached to it, was carried to evacuation site by Leonardia Justinian-Dayot when she and her family fled to Pavia town, 9.6 kilometers north of Iloilo City, when the Japanese started bombing Iloilo in 1941.

“My mother, who never drink in her life, took one bottle of beer from a party saying that when the Japanese would come, she would drink it to banish her fear,” narrated Dayot’s son, Ernesto, in an exclusive interview. “Fortunately, she never met any Japanese soldier as we moved in evacuation.”

FRIENDS

Ernesto said they were joined by friends and their families when they fled to Pavia, the smallest municipality in area in Iloilo, covering only 2,715 hectares (6,710 acres). “We had no family in Pavia and the ones who provided us with rice, fruits, chickens and eggs were the loyal tenants of our farm,” Ernesto recalled.

Ernesto said his mother kept the beer bottle “intact and untouched” and gave it to him “as a souvenir from the war.” He displayed it in their family bar “for safekeeping and everlasting legacy of history.”

The bottle has the same size of the company’s flagship bottle today that carries eight beer brands from five breweries spread across the country.

“Everything in the bottle is original, including the cap, the design and the liquid content,” Ernesto said.

ASSISTANT

Before World War II erupted, Ernesto said his parents were living in Iloilo City. His father, Luis Roces Dayot, was assistant of then Iloilo Governor Tomas Confesor. They moved temporarily to Pavia when Japanese soldiers started massing their forces in Panay Island. Pavia was officially established in 1848, during the Spanish Colonial Era, by 13 landowners in what used to be a “camping place”, a “settlement place” or an “abandoned place”.

The original company that produced the beer bottle was founded in 1890 in Spain. It has grown into one of the Philippines’ largest business conglomerates with interests in alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages, food, packaging, power, oil and telecommunications.