Filed under: Calleja
Luis Cezar Aspillera Calleja (1916-1943) was born to Manuel Maronilla Calleja and Paz Grivialde Aspillera in Libon, Albay. He was baptised in Catholic rites on 25 July 1916 , officiated by Padre Juan Calleja. His godparents were Simeon Loria and Baldomera Garcia.
Luis Cezar led a promising young life. His sisters remember him as dashing and debonaire. He studied law and was accepted into the Integrated Bar of the Philippines on 02 December 1941, just one year before war broke out.
Together with his father and many other young men of Bicol, he enlisted as a soldier in World War II. When Bataan fell to the Japanese, he walked with the 72,000 captured soldiers in the infamous Bataan Death March of World War II. He died of malaria at the age of 26, while he was a prisoner of war at Camp O’Donnell. His remains were buried together with others in a mass grave. His name is immortalized on the walls of the Death March Shrine in Capas, Tarlac, Philippines.
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