Vicente Podico Lim (February 24, 1888 – December 31, 1944) was a Filipino Brigadier General and World War II hero. Lim was the first Filipino graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point (Class of 1914). Prior to the establishment of the Philippine Army, he served as an officer in the Philippine Scouts (a now-defunct native Filipino unit of the US Army). During the Battle of Bataan, Lim was the Commanding General of the 41st Division, Philippine Army (USAFFE). After the fall of the Philippines he contributed to the Filipino resistance movement until his capture and subsequent execution.
Lim was one of the seven Charter Members of the Boy Scouts of the Philippines. He is memorialized in the Philippines' 1,000-peso banknote together with two other Filipino heroes who fought and died against the Japanese during the Second World War.
Early life and education Vicente P. Lim was born on February 24, 1888, in the town of Calamba in La Laguna (now Laguna), and was the third of Jose Ayala Lim Yaoco and Antonia Podico's four children. As a Chinese Filipino, His father was a full-blooded Sangley (Chinese migrant) who braided his hair in a queue, while his mother, Antonia Podico, was a Mestiza de Sangley (Chinese mestiza). Jose Lim died when Vicente was just nine years old, leaving Vicente's mother to raise him and his three siblings from the earnings of a small business. Vicente and the other Lim children, Joaquin, Olympia and Basilisa, like many Chinese Filipinos, grew up identifying themselves as Filipinos.
Among the friends of Jose Lim and Antonia Podico-Lim was the family of José Rizal, who was later recognized as the Philippines' national hero.Lim, V. (1980). To Inspire and to Lead : The Letters of Gen. Vicente Lim, 1938–1942. (A. Lim, Ed.) Manila. The Lim Family, like the Rizal Family, leased land owned by the Dominican Order: rice lands in the Calamba barrios of Lecheria and Real and sugar land in Barrio Barandal. In 1891, recurring disputes between the Spanish administrators of the Dominican estate and the tenants over rental rates and conditions came to a head and resulted in the eviction of many tenants from their lands. Among the victims were the Lim and Rizal families.
Vicente completed grade school in Tanauan, Batangas.
Philippine–American War It was during the Philippine–American War where the fourteen-year-old Vicente's sense of nationalism and patriotism first came to the fore. It is said that he formed a group of children his age to act as couriers for the guerrilla movement of General Miguel Malvar's forces operating in the Calamba area.
Philippine Normal School In the period following the Philippine–American War, Vicente continued his studies at Liceo de Manila, and completed the teacher training program at the Philippine Normal School.(n.d.). The Filipino Philippine Scout Officers of the US Army. He went on to become a teacher in a public school in Santa Cruz, Manila for a year. He decided to pursue further studies and returned to Philippine Normal. Vicente was an outstanding student, getting top marks in mathematics, as well as in other subjects. He was as good an athlete as he was a student. Impressed by his athletic skills and intelligence, a supervisory teacher encouraged Vicente to take the entrance examinations for the United States Military Academy at West Point. While Vicente only placed second in these exams issued by the Philippine Bureau of Civil Service, his 99% score in Mathematics won him the coveted scholarship. In 1910, Vicente became the first Filipino to enter West Point.
Education at the United States Military Academy at West Point (1910–1914)
"A birth date more amenable to Academy regulations" Army records reflect his birth date as April 5, 1888. By the time Lim reported to the United States Military Academy on March 1, 1910, he had already passed his 22nd birthday, which made him technically ineligible to enter the academy. While Lim took the West Point qualifying examinations in 1908, which would have made him eligible to report to the academy in March 1909, it is likely that the process of shipping required documents back and forth across the Pacific simply took too long. It thus became necessary to "indulge in the time-honored practice of adopting a birth date more amenable to Academy regulations."
"Cannibal" Lim While Lim was the first Filipino to report to West Point, he was not the first foreign cadet to attend the academy. At that time however, foreign cadets were still an uncommon sight. When Lim arrived in the United States, he could hardly speak English.Lim, R. (2010). Pushing the Envelope: A Biography of Capt. Roberto H. Lim: Composed of Collected Letters, Emails, and Photos. (A. Lim, Ed.) Manila: Mapua House Publications. His skin was darker than that of his American classmates, who were largely ignorant about the Philippines and thought that the Philippine Islands were inhabited by savages. These factors (and perhaps the racial prejudices that were still prevalent during that period), earned Vicente the nickname "Cannibal".
Cadet life For the first Filipino cadets who entered West Point, there was little incentive to excel academically. Filipino products of the academy were restricted to entering service with the Philippine Scouts (then exclusively organized as an infantry unit) after graduation, whereas the regular privilege for top-ranking graduates was a choice of career path (engineers, coast artillery, cavalry and infantry, in the order of usual preference). Nonetheless, Lim was eager to prove that he was just as competent as any of his classmates. "Cannibal" Lim strove to overcome his deficiencies (linguistic, or otherwise) -- and did so. He soon earned the respect of his classmates as he survived his military engineering subjects, and he excelled in chemistry and mathematics. Vicente was also popular as he helped the class "goats" in their Spanish lessons, since Spanish was his second language. He also excelled in fencing and earned a spot on the academy's Broadsword Squad. For his skills on the firing range and proficiency in handling infantry weapons, he earned a badge as a Sharpshooter. The rigorous training at West Point ingrained into Vicente's very being the academy motto of "Duty, Honor and Country". This eventually became the dominating motivation in his life.
Fighting racial prejudice Vicente P. Lim was known to his classmates as a person who was very proud of his country and his people. He refused to tolerate any form of derogatory remarks against him and against Filipinos. As a prelude to his struggle for equal treatment of Filipinos in the Army later on in his career, Lim often responded to racial provocations in a personal, or even physical way. These incidents often got him into trouble at the academy. It was something that continued right up until the days leading up to Lim's graduation from West Point. Manuel L. Quezon, then the Philippines' Resident Commissioner to the United States (he would later on become the president of the Commonwealth of the Philippines), visited West Point to attend Lim's graduation ceremonies. Upon Quezon's arrival, he was met by the underclass Filipino cadets there, whom Quezon went on to ask where Lim was. One of the cadets said that Lim was "walking the area" (a traditional form of punishment at West Point) because, "a professor said a derogatory remark concerning Asians and Lim defended us." To this, Quezon replied, "Lim is impetuous, but he certainly did the right thing."Endy, C. E. (1981). USMA Foreign Cadet Program – A Case Study. US Army War College. Carlisle: US Army.
The first Filipino graduate of West Point After four years and having survived all the rigors of West Point, Vicente P. Lim graduated from the United States Military Academy on June 12, 1914, ranking 77th in a class of 107. Graduating was in itself an achievement, as the class of 1914 originally started out with 133 cadets. Lim was the only foreign cadet to graduate that year, in a class that originally included one cadet from Cuba and another from Ecuador.
Early military career
The outbreak of World War I and Lim's initial assignments Upon graduation from the United States Military Academy, Vicente Lim was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Philippine Scouts. Prior to returning home to the Philippines, the young Lieutenant was sent to Europe to observe and study the set-up of the armies there. At the outbreak of the First World War, Lim was marooned in Berlin. To make his way back to the Philippines, Lim had to travel via the Trans-Siberian Railway, and had "quite an adventurous time making his way across Siberia."Memorial Articles: Vicente Lim 1914. (1945, November 11) . Retrieved September 25, 2013, from West Point Association of Graduates.
Lim eventually made it back to the Philippines, and was given his first assignment with a Scout garrison in Fort San Pedro, Iloilo in Western Visayas. Lim was later assigned to the island fortress of Corregidor.
In 1916, Lim began teaching at the Academy for Officers of the Philippine Constabulary in Baguio City (the academy was later renamed the Philippine Constabulary Academy, and eventually evolved into the present-day Philippine Military Academy). Lim taught courses in Military Art, Military Law and Topography and also handled Equitation and Athletics. It was in Baguio that Vicente would meet and begin courting his future wife, Pilar Hidalgo, who was spending the summer at the Holy Family College. Pilar had gained distinction as one of the country's first female mathematicians and was the first female Cum Laude graduate of the University of the Philippines. (Pilar would also become known as a prominent civic leader, and one of the staunchest advocates of women's suffrage. Pilar later on became a co-founder of the Girl Scouts of the Philippines. She also became Centro Escolar University's third president after the death of Carmen de Luna and steered the university during the reconstruction and normalization of school operations after World War II.)
Vicente and Pilar met each other for a second time in April 1917, and their courtship continued. On the 6th of the same month, the United States ended its neutrality and declared its entry into World War I. The Militia Act (enacted 17 March 1917) called for the formation of 3 brigades for the mobilization of a Filipino division to prepare for combat in Europe. Ultimately, certain political considerations, as well as other numerous delays would push the physical mobilization of these Filipino units to October 1918. The First World War ended a month later, without any of these troops being shipped out.Jose, R. T. (1992). The Philippine Army, 1935-1942. Manila: Ateneo de Manila University Press. However, the uncertainty brought about by the situation then, forced Lim to press for a quick engagement and an early wedding. A military wedding was held in Quiapo Church on August 12, 1917. Soon after the wedding, Lim and his bride departed for Jolo and later on, Zamboanga, where Lim was assigned.
First clash with General Douglas MacArthur and other controversies Just as he did during his days at West Point, Lim never hesitated to make his displeasure known towards unfair treatment and discrimination against Filipino officers on the basis of race. As early as 1914, Lim complained to Manuel L. Quezon about the "insults and petty harassment he had suffered because of his color". In 1922, as a captain stationed with the 45th Infantry Regiment, Philippine Scouts at Fort McKinley (now Fort Bonifacio), Lim refused an order to transfer to Corregidor "when it became apparent that the reason for the order was to free living quarters at the Fort for incoming American officers." The Commanding General of the Scout Brigade at McKinley, General Douglas MacArthur, relented, and allowed Lim to remain at his post. It would not be the last time that Lim would clash with the army brass on similar issues.