Yamashita's Gold, Hidden Treasure in the Philippines?

Yamashita's Gold, Hidden Treasure in the Philippines? The Treasure of the 'The Tiger of Malaya'

Above left: General Tomoyuki Yamashita, 'The Tiger of Malaya' (November 8, 1885 - February 23, 1946)

Yamashita's gold is the collective name given to the gold, platinum, jewellery and other precious items stolen by the forces of Japanese General Tomoyuki Yamashita. Many treasure hunters believe Yamashita's loot is still concealed somewhere in the Philippines.

General Tomoyuki Yamashita, is said to have ordered the concealment of the treasure as he retreated from US forces, breaking the treasure, said to have been carried on several trucks, into many smaller stashes that were hidden along the line of his retreat on the island Luzon. The bulk of the stashes are said to be concentrated in the mountainous area where Yamashita made his last stand against the invading US troops, before his eventual surrender on September 2nd, 1945.

The gold and other valuables were stolen from East and Southeast Asia by Japanese forces during World War II and supposedly hidden in the Philippines. Many people believe the reports of hidden treasure to be an urban legend, but the treasure stories do have supporters among some respected researchers and historians. There are still many treasure hunters who comb the Philippine countryside in search of the treasure.

Above: General Tomoyuki Yamashita, 'The Tiger of Malaya,' at his trial for war crimes. He was executed at Los Banos Prison Camp in Manila on February 23, 1946.

The 'gold' is believed to have been anything from gold bullion to religious statues. The theory is that the treasure from Asia was to finance Japan's war effort. The treasure had to be transported from the continent back to Japan, via the sea. Most of the stolen treasure from South East Asia was first shipped to the port of Singapore, where it was then relayed to the Philippines. From the Philippines, it was intended, the treasure would be shipped to the Japanese home islands.

However, as the Pacific War progressed, Allied submarines and aircraft took a heavy toll on Japan's shipping. The Japanese then took the treasure and hid it in caves and underground complexes throughout the Philippines, hoping to recover it after the war was over. However, many of those who knew of the locations of the loot were either executed or incarcerated for war crimes, including Yamashita. Thus, the whereabouts of the treasure were lost. Many years later, Filipino dictator Ferdinand Marcos claimed to have discovered the location of the treasure, and to have deposited it in secret bank accounts. These hoards are known collectively as the 'Marcos gold'. There is, however, a counter-allegation that Marcos invented the story, as a cover for his thefts from the Filipino national treasury.

Beware the Philippines 'Treasure Industry'

A large and profitable 'treasure industry' exists in many areas of the Philippines, these scams range from the selling of bogus 'Treasure Maps' to gullible tourists, to elaborate confidence tricks, 'long cons', that can relieve would be investors of large sums of money.

Another scam relates to 'treasure symbols'. The soldiers who concealed Yamashita's treasure supposedly marked trees and rocks with symbols, directions or indicators to a hoard's location, so that they could recover the treasure at a later date. Be very skeptical of anyone claiming to be able to interpret these 'treasure symbols', or anyone selling information about them.

American tourists and business people visiting the Philippines seem to be the primary target of the scammers.

Be very wary of anyone approaching you with offers of an 'investment opportunity' in treasure hunting operations anywhere in the world, but be doubly careful when it relates to the Philippines, if it sounds to good to be true, then it almost certainly is.

Philippine's Potential to be the richest Country in Asia

History gives a hint of this too. From Newsweek, Jan22,2010 - "Back in 1960, the country had the second-highest per capita income in Asia, lagging behind only Japan.""a nation that was billed in the 1950s and '60s as Asia's most promising story, alongside Burma and Sri Lanka". Unfortunately the series of unfortunate political turmoils and unstable implementation of laws after the marcos regime, led to our decline "by the following decade, South Korea and Taiwan had surpassed it, and by the 1980s, Malaysia and Thailand had, too. China overtook it in the late 1990s. And now—an event that many Philippine elite thought they would never live to see—Indonesia has sailed past the Philippines." Yes, it was bad politics that made everything shit. And Marcos, the genius that he was, was all we needed before to lead our country into overpowering prosperity. So what made you think that 1 person cant meke a difference again?

So how rich can we actually get?

1. Energy: Every single year, just like every other country in the world we spend billions upon billions of dollars importing oit so we can watch tv at home, or ride a jeepney to work ( for the others ones drive our cars ). Yet we have more than enough energy source in our country to power all of these and still has plenty to spare, spare that we can even sell to our neighboring countries! Lets take electrical needs for instance. Our Wind energy potential was calculated to be 7000MW, and we only need 1000MW per year, thats 7X what we need, and this information was from 7 years ago!? Instead of building new infrastructure for oil burning thermal plants why the fuck did'nt we just build more wind farms in ilocos to power Luzon?! Now on top of that, our Geothermal Energy potential is soo great, it dwarfs the united state's-current largest producer in the world..and we are second. Not only can we produce power directly from geothermal steam - we can actually keep that energy into chemical form and transport it to other countries for use in homes or cars! This could be one of our most powerful exports! China,our gigantic neighbor, has an overwhelming demand for energy, and they are on constant pressure from the global leaders to get cleaner. so they wanna ditch oil but currently has no other alternative. But we have. We can sell the our geo energy in hydrogen form! They can easily start up the production of fuel cell cars, and fuel cell homes and import the fuel cell fuel capsule from us! We can manufacture cheap hydrogen from out geothermal steam! We can make billions from this shit! The technological concepts exists for this system yet no one is using them! There is no physical barrier to making this all happen but political will! If our governments decide to focus their energy in talking with investors to do this shit then we can develop this in two to three years and we can start reaping the benefits before his 6 year term is over.

3. Electronics.
Whats the most gadget rich country in the world - Japan. Whats the biggest gadget manufacturing country in the world - China. Whats the biggest internal electronics exporter in the world - Guess who! TI, Intel, all the biggest electronic companies have their homebases here in the philippines. For so long we relished the export income we get from these companies. Other than the fact that filipinos are easiest to work with because of our english speaking prowess, we also have one of the best locations for sea trading these products into the continents that demand them. its only recently that China has been taking a lot of our companies into their homeland. But we can take them back! They still cant match the flexibility and intelligence of the filipino workers, if our governments did more work of promoting skill specific courses to fully replenish the talent pools for these big investing corporations then we'll always be on the forefront of electronics manufacturing sector. They always take quality before quantity! And add to that the concentration of tech support receivers in our BPO sectors, this is the perfect place to make their products. Research and development companies should have been given top priority of flourishing here so we ourselves would push for the growth of these companies giving us cash!