Tess and the Search for Her Father: The Magugpo Cemetery

In 1942, Capt. Francisco Maniquiz Gregorio was taken from his family and never returned. His daughter Tess was only a baby. For more than eighty years she has searched for the truth about what happened to her father and a way to bring him home. She eventually reached out to Asymmetric MIA Accounting Group (AMAG).

This episode tells the story of Capt. Gregorio and the other men who died with him on July 10, 1942, at Magugpo Cemetery in Mindanao. The group included American civilian Robert James Zacks and Filipino officers and civilians such as Col. Felicisimo Torres, Lt. Alejo Ong, Lt. Amado Halili, and Lt. Francisco Roa. They were selected from the Malaybalay internment camp, taken to Davao, and brought before a Japanese tribunal under Lt. Hosaka. The charges—looting, rape, and mistreatment of Japanese civilians—were supported largely by pre-war Japanese residents who held personal grudges. Fellow prisoners believed the accusations were framed.

On the afternoon of July 10, the men were loaded onto a truck and driven to Magugpo Cemetery. Eyewitness Socorro Lopez hid behind a tree and watched as Japanese soldiers dug a long common grave. Lt. Suzuki beheaded Zacks; the others were executed and buried in the same place. A postwar U.S. Army War Crimes Branch investigation collected sworn statements from nine witnesses and concluded that, because the men had received a trial under the occupying authority, the case did not meet the standards for a punishable war crime. It was closed and filed.

Decades later, AMAG investigative researcher John Bear, Director Mike Henshaw, and imagery analyst Ed Bauer have located the execution site. The team is now preparing to deploy ground-penetrating radar this winter to find the grave.

Tess has waited her entire life for answers. AMAG is working to bring her father and the others home.

Support the winter recovery mission at amagonline.org.