What happens
A reporter arrives in Manila days before the Philippines' Independence Day in 1946 to cover the celebrations. He meets a range of people in the streets and in the city's ruined districts: a shopkeeper, a landowner, a weary former rebel, and officials. Their conversations reveal the damage of the Japanese occupation, the strain of economic recovery, disputes over collaboration and land, and questions about the new republic's ties to the United States and to other Asian nations. The episode presents these views side by side and lets the listener weigh them. The Pacific Story is a United Nations series on the National Broadcasting Company, and this installment is dated July 7, 1946.
Manila and the Philippine Islands, in the days before and after Independence Day, July 4, 1946
Characters: Ricardo, Ernesto, Carlos, Jose, Carter, Steve, Robin, Mr. Wong
Listen for: The contrasting views on independence from a landowner, a shopkeeper, a former guerrilla, and foreign visitors, and the reporter's questions about trade, rebuilding and collaboration
Written from the episode itself; it never gives away the ending. Every recording is remastered for the stream: cleaned of rumble, hiss and mains hum (and the old TV whine where we found it), then levelled in two passes to steady broadcast loudness, so one show is never quieter than the next.