commander of the american and filipino forces in bataan
Battle of Bataan The Battle of Bataan (7 January – 9 April 1942) represented the most intense phase of Imperial Japan's invasion of the Philippines during World War II. In January 1942, forces of the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy invaded Luzon along with several islands in the Philippine Archipelago after the bombing of the American naval base at Pearl Harbor. The commander-in-chief of all Filipino and American forces in the islands, General Douglas MacArthur, consolidated all of his Luzon-based units on the Bataan Peninsula to fight against the Japanese invaders. By this time, the Japanese controlled nearly all of Southeast Asia. The Bataan peninsula and the island of Corregidor were the only remaining Allied strongholds in the region. Despite a lack of supplies, Filipino and American forces managed to fight the Japanese for three months, engaging them initially in a fighting retreat southward. As the combined Filipino and American forces made a last stand, the delay cost the Japanese valuable time and prevented immediate victory across the Pacific. The surrender at Bataan, with 76,000 soldiers surrendering in the Philippines altogether,[1] was the largest in American and Filipino military histories, and was the largest United States surrender since the American Civil War's Battle of Harper's Ferry.[4] Soon afterwards, Filipino and American prisoners of war were forced into the Bataan Death March.[5]
President of the Philippines The President of the Philippines (Filipino: Pangulo ng Pilipinas, informally referred to as Presidente ng Pilipinas) is the head of state and head of government of the Philippines. The President leads the executive branch of the Philippine government and is the commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces of the Philippines. The President is directly elected by the people, and is one of only two nationally elected executive officials, the other being the Vice President of the Philippines. However, four vice presidents have assumed the presidency without having been elected to the office, by virtue of a president's intra-term death or resignation.[note 1]