I was born 60 years ago in the Pacific Rim just about when the II World War was coming to its end. Although my memories of those early years are based on the stories I was told as a growing Liberation Baby in my native Philippines, I have never forgotten those first impressions of the comments in the core of my tolerant and freedom-loving family circle.

Sixty years after, my hair still stands on edge when I consider the cruelty of those who decided to launch the first atomic bombs on such a day in August over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I still wonder why the almighty victor, the United States of America, supposed defensor of freedom and democracy, considered indispensable to further humilliate a defeated Japanese Imperial Army at the cost of innocent civilian lives.

As a young alert boy, all these questions fresh in my mind, I got the incomparable opportunity to launch my queries to no other than Gen Douglas MacArthur. This man who was considered the Liberator of Manila and had sat on the deck of USS Missouri on September 2, 1945 as the victor's spokesman, was at an armslength reach. His prestige in Asia had grown due to his incomparable role in the reconstruction of the Modern Japan. This was his last trip to say good-bye to his beloved Islands to which he would no longer return.

I fired the question without a blink, "Why bomb a defeated Japan ?". A sad glimpse turned my way and a thoughtful soldier sucked on his pipe, then slowly spilled out his mind, as he wrapped my shoulder with his aging right arm. "Young man, I asked myself that same question many times before the dreadful day and I rebelled against the very power that asked us to take such a drastic show of power. Never have I doubted my own stance .... but I am a soldier and as such, I was taught to obey my commander and refrain my own thoughts. Unfortunately, my conscience has weighed more since that dreary day in August. Life shall teach you that decisions are taken and effects may be felt for generations. Such is politics, something that as a soldier I have had dificulty to digest ..."

For some years till his death in 1964, I had the honor to receive more reflections from this extraordinary man. Those missives foretold what the economic and political power struggles in the Land of Freedom held in store for the rest of the world.

Today, sixty years after, the mighty victors of that world war, once more, have had the need to show their wrath and power. This time the battle cry has been of revenge for a terrorist act in 2001. Unfortunately, the results have been one invasion after another of sovereign regimes, although not to the liking of all peace-loving democrats like myself. Fortunately, it seems that no nuclear warheads have yet been used to date but still thousands of innocents have died or suffered. Hatred has been sowed and sorrow harvested.

Sixty years after Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I realize that those that hold the reins of political and economic power have refused to learn the lesson of that fateful August day of 1945.

I am sixty years old and I feel that my fate has been linked to progress into the New Millenium but at the same time to the need to have the necessary emotional intelligence to realize that we could live in a much better world all together in peace. Over insensible political leaders and their heartless feelings, why not get together and give ourselves a second chance ?