Juan Querubin Miranda (March 8, 1912 – June 1, 1985) was a Filipino politician, non-commissioned officer, and war leader who was the first Representative of the 1st Congressional District of Camarines Sur, (1946–1949) in the 1st Congress of the Philippines. Before the onset of World War II, he was a finance sergeant with the Philippine Army assigned at the Regan Barracks, Legazpi City. He also headed the Tangcong Vaca Guerrilla Unit organized by him, Elias Madrid and Leon S.A. Aureus.
Personal life Miranda married his first wife, Eustaquia Miranda, when he was a finance sergeant in the Philippine Army stationed at Regan Barracks in Legazpi City. He had five children, Cesar, Domingo, Antonio, Norma and Thelma Miranda. He then married his second wife, a Spanish mestiza, Conchita Estrada after World War II, having one son with her, Juan Arthur Miranda Jr.
War record Miranda, together with Elias Madrid and Leon S.A. Aureus, established the Tangcong Vaca Guerrilla Unit on March 8, 1942 Barrameda, Jose V. In the Crucible of an Asymmetrical War in Camarines Sur 1942-1945. National Historical Institute. 2007. p. 16. Retrieved 14 April 2016Gerona, Danilo M. Libmanan: The Cradle of Bikol's Epic, Home to Bikol Patriots, p. 129. Retrieved 14 April 2016 the first anti-Japanese resistance group in Camarines Sur which resolutely waged a guerrilla warfare from 1942 to 1945. The group, in concert with other guerrilla forces, was able to liberate Naga twice and successfully saved many lives of American and Filipino soldiers incarcerated by the Japanese during the war.
Origins of the Tangcong Vaca Guerrilla Unit (TVGU) Originally an ex-finance sergeant at the Regan Barracks in Legazpi, he was recommended by who would soon be the Finance Officer of the movement, Elias Madrid, a staunchly anti-Japanese affluent uncle of his, to a local journalist---Leon Aureus, for the role of Commanding Officer due to his military experience as a non-commissioned officer (NCO).
Sipocot train arson incident On February 24, 1942, Juan Miranda met with Simeon Ayala and Leon Aureus somewhere in Naga under the formal guise of a "rakkan joint venture with business associates" to finalize their orchestration of the arson. Their main objective was to ultimately deprive the Japanese temporary railroad access from Manila to the Bicol Region in Sipocot to confine and jeopardize their supply lines to the roads.
On the morning of February 27, 1942, Juan Miranda, Simeon Ayala, and Leon Aureus set fire to the remaining train of the Bicol Express fleet at the MRR-owned Sipocot Station. They poured a gallon-full can of gasoline, smuggled prior from Aureus' workplace at the Moll mines, in a train car then summarily ignited it. This caused an uncontrollable gasoline-fed flame, killing their targets which were the two Japanese soldiers delivering rice rations and one civilian subject to collateral damage. This was one of the first large-scale accounts of anti-Japanese defiance in Camarines Sur.
Formation of the Anti-Sabotage Unit On March 8, 1942, a week after the incident, Miranda held a secret meeting on his 30th birthday at his residence in San Nicolas, Canaman with Leon Aureus and brothers Elias and Policarpio Madrid to formally commence forth the formation of the Anti-Sabotage Unit, short for Anti-Sabotage Unit of the Philippine Army.
On this meeting, Miranda was unanimously tasked with recruiting affiliated personnel of the Philippine Army, Philippine Scouts, and Philippine Constabulary. He also promised the faction the formal recognition and approval of the United States Army Air Forces (USAFFE) unit originally stationed at Regan Barracks in Legazpi and eventually most of the pertinent high command structure during the war.
Despite the implementation of the name 'Anti-Sabotage Unit,' the term Miranda's Guerrillas were colloquially utilized among other names by the underground resistance in Bicol. Some time in May 1942, the Anti-Sabotage Unit was officially renamed to the recognizable, Tangcong Vaca Guerrilla Unit (TVGU).
Feats of the TVGU led by Miranda As included above, one of the first acts of anti-Japanese defiance in Camarines Sur is often cited to be their Sipocot train arson incident. Listed below are direct confrontations and engagements initiated by the Tangcong Vaca Guerrilla Unit against the Imperial Japanese Army in 1942, excluding the Liberation of Naga (1942):
On April 11, 1942, the barge at the Balongay Wharf in Calabanga requisitioned by the Imperial Japanese Army Railways and Shipping Section were destroyed by a platoon of Tangcong Vaca Guerrilla Unit soldiers. On March 13, a group of demolitioneers led by Jaime Senardes blew up the concrete bridge in Labao, Libmanan to cut the overland transportation link between Libmanan and Naga. On March 21, a unit led by Miranda engaged with a couple of Japanese soldiers at Tiniguiban. On April 27, the Tangcong Vaca Guerrilla Unit was dispatched to Libmanan to demolish the National Rice and Corn Corporation (NARIC) bodega in Libmanan owned by a staunch proprietor, Doña Flaviana Ocampo. The Japanese Association of Camarines Sur was using the property in milling thousands of cavans (98.28 litres per cavan in metric) daily, replenishing the rations of Imperial Japanese Army garrisons in Naga and elsewhere in Central Camarines Sur. The captured surplus of cavans were handed out throughout the black market in Naga. Meanwhile, the TVGU stockpiled a quarter in undisclosed deposits and warehouses in nearby Pamplona, Canaman, Gainza and Libmanan for future rationing. Ocampo was interned after the demolishment, with the officers warning her that she will be accordingly dealt with lest she continues her collaboration with the Japanese Army. On October 9, 70 Japanese soldiers were killed at Nagboton, Malinao, Libmanan. On May 2, 1943, 63 Japanese soldiers and 35 personnel belonging to the Philippine Constabulary sympathizing with the Japanese were killed at Nayog, Gabi, Sipocot.
Liberation of Naga (1942)
Background A day after their engagement at Tiniguiban, on 22 March 1942, Miranda and the other officers discussed about the audacious task of liberating Naga. This, however, was passed around as an irreversible risk if lost so they summarily dismissed such proposition.
On April 30, the Camp Isarog Guerrillas (CIG), another Bicolano resistance group in Camarines Sur, had liberated the Town of Iriga within a day. The CIG were resolved bound for north via Highway 1 to the Capital of Naga. On the same day in the evening, the Tangcong Vaca Guerrilla Unit (TVGU) officers Miranda, Aureus, and Madrid attending a marriage in San Nicolas, Canaman, oblivious to the recent developments, were only notified by a CIG Canaman-bound messenger, Ceferino Francisco. Once acquainted with the prime objectives, Miranda and the chain of command mustered as many men as they could within the duration of nightfall.
Three-day liberation On May 1, 1942 in the afternoon, the TVGU deployed from the southeast of Naga in Milaor. Fighting had already ensued earlier in the morning between the sole CIGs and the Japanese, preluded by the detonation of a coconut bomb. As Miranda's men proceeded towards Tabuco, they encountered mild resistance met with machine gun fire. However, they retorted with gunfire of their own and managed to clear the Naga Public Market and its surrounding premises. The rest of the day was mopping up isolated Japanese units detached from the Capitol garrison. Miranda and his men at this point were providing needed suppression upon the parapets and pill-boxed emplacements at the Naga Provincial Capitol.
Between the first and the second day of the liberation, the density of combat gravitated between the Provincial Jail and Provincial Capitol. By 4:00 a.m on the second day, the Naga Provincial Capitol and its American internees were freed by the Camp Isarog Guerrillas. They were transferred to and from Naga, until the entirety of the caravan found temporary refuge in Tigaon, the CIGs base of operations. In the south of Naga, the Tangcong Vaca Guerrillas witnessed mass torching campaigns at night that lit endless smoldering fires around the Provincial Capitol.
The rest of the day was described to be a long struggle to gain ground near the Capitol. However, on the early morning of May 3, 12 Japanese and Filipino collaborators managed to escape on a sequestered semi-armored truck from the besieged Capitol while the firefights died down at midnight. A Criscini and Villafuerte were among the collaborators, with the two being found dead with their Japanese overlords at Sabang, Calabanga before boarding a bangka to Daet. Civically renowned lawyers throughout the municipalities of Camarines Sur had sided with the Japanese, with most trialed under a military court. They were convicted of treason and summarily executed by beheading in Tigaon.
Period after the liberation On the early morning of May 3, Naga was liberated from the Imperial Japanese Army's 16th Division's series of garrisons. A haphazard victory parade, joined by civilians, wound the downtown area of Centro Naga. The joint tenacity bore by the Tangcong Vaca Guerrilla Unit, Camp Isarog Guerrilla, and the other guerrilla units involved secured the fate of 30 few Americans from Naga Provincial Jail and the countless other citizens caught in the fray.
This however, was short-lived, as news of an 8,000-strong force of IJA soldiers fresh from Manila sent by Governor-General Masaharu Homma himself arrived to Naga. The TVGU and the other guerrilla units involved conceded to the new garrison sent, and retreated back to the mountain municipalities.
After a firm manhunt throughout Camarines Norte, on July 1942, Governor Wenceslao Vinzons of the Vinzons Travelling Guerrillas (VTG) was captured by the Japanese authorities and was promptly executed. His partner, a Filipino-Syrian USAFFE non-commissioned officer named Francisco Boayes, alias Turko, went into hiding with Juan Q. Miranda in the Tangcong Vaca Guerrilla Unit in the opening days of August.
Battle of Taguilid Pass On November 28, 1942, Capt. Juan Q. Miranda commanded a squad to ambush a 200-man Japanese convoy escorting high profile officials sent to inspect the Ateneo de Naga garrison that disembarked at Pasacao Harbor from Manila at Taguilid Pass, Pamplona.
Moderate sources claim more than all of the 200 Japanese soldiers were eliminated, garnished with the guerrilla reports having killed 2 lieutenants, 2 captains, and 2 lieutenant colonels. One of these lieutenant colonels was Ichisaburu Takichi, the commanding officer of those stationed in the Ateneo de Naga garrison. Reportedly, the Tangcong Vaca guerrillas sustained none.
Anecdotal fallacies of this relatively unknown battle have surfaced throughout the years, with local writers revising the main objective of Battle of Taguilid Pass to be "the mission to eliminate the convoy of General Takano."
Miranda's conflict with other guerrilla units In 1943, Miranda, accompanied by Turko, dispatched himself as an envoy to other guerrilla units, headed to Mt. Isarog and Albay to establish a channel with Capt. Padua, one of the former Camp Isarog Guerrilla's commanders who went into hiding ever since Flor's surrender to the Japanese after the Liberation of Naga.
Upon Miranda and Turko's arrival to Mt. Isarog, they were met with Capt. Buenaflor's men who had a woman force shaved in their custody named Na Tancing. The men claimed the detainee was among the agents the Japanese had recruited in their "pacification" campaign in Partido, supposedly having reported guerrilla sympathizers to the Japanese authorities. This fact however did not deter Miranda and Turko from being smitten by her.
This encounter fueled a rivalry between the leaders and caused a schism in the unified underground resistance of the parties. According to a memoir by Angeles Javier Aureus, Leon Aureus' wife, in the Bicol Mail: