Dumaguete was organized by Jesus Chi

During the Japanese Occupation in Negros Oriental the underground intelligence in Dumaguete was organized by Jesus Chi. It had around twenty members. Some of the members were: Pastor Valenciano, Engineers Eduardo J. Blanco and Jovenal Somoza, Tanseing Dy, Lorenzo Cimafranca and Quintin Limquiaco. While most of the members were inside Dumaguete, others like Tanseing Dy were in the uplands of Bacong, Dauin and Zamboanguita. They relayed information to the guerrilla headquarters in Malabo. If ever one of them was caught by the Japanese, these members had an agreement that during the investigation they would implicate the Japanese collaborators as among them. According to reports this was why Wentworth Uy Tengsu, whose family was with the Japanese, was tortured and executed by the Japanese. This happened a few days before the Americans arrived on April 26, 1945.

 

In the latter half of 1943, the Japanese were concentrating their warplanes in the Dumaguete airport, and this airport was one of their training centers for pilots in Negros. Some members of the underground resistance volunteered to work at the landing field everyday in order to make a map of the Japanese installations there. They were paid with Japanese money and received one small tin can (milkmaid) of rice a day. They were able to draw a map on one-half page of pad paper, which was sent to the guerrilla headquarters in the mountains. The provincial engineer, E. J. Blanco, and his assistant, Jovenal Somoza, made a detailed ground plan of the Dumaguete landing field and installations. One cloudy and rainy afternoon this plan was placed inside one of the iron bars of Lorenzo Cimafranca’s bicycle. He rode this bicycle passing the seashore south of Dumaguete, and carefully holding the bicycle bars above water, he swam across the mouth of Banica River at sundown. Ensong Cimafranca was able to deliver the plan to the underground members in Bacong who brought it to the guerrilla headquarters.53

 

This plan was sent to Gen. MacArthur in Australia. Because of this, the bombing of the Dumaguete airport by American planes on September 12, 1944 was very successful. On this very day in the afternoon around twenty Filipinos in Dumaguete including Engineers Blanco and Somoza, together with Jesus Chi and a Portuguese by the name of Silva, were rounded up by the Japanese and imprisoned in the “Davao Cottage” of Silliman University. Weeks later, the others were released but the four were loaded on a motor-launch and thrown into the sea. They died heroes of the World War II Dumaguete underground resistance.