The Red House was built in 1929 in Barangay Anyantam by
Don Ramón Ilusorio of the Ilusorio family, who owned a vast
hacienda in the area. It was made largely out of wood and painted red on the outside giving it its name. The house itself has a floor area of around and stands on a private lot measuring . The house was originally surrounded by large gardens filled with
tamarind,
camachile, and
duhat trees. During the
Japanese occupation of the Philippines, on November 23, 1944, the Geki Group of the 14th District Army under Imperial Japanese Army General
Tomoyuki Yamashita attacked Mapaniqui, Candaba,
Pampanga. Under the assumption that Mapaniqui was a
guerrilla hideout, Japanese soldiers plundered and razed the town, corralling and executed all the men and boys, killing some women and children in the carnage, and forcibly confining and repeatedly raping the remaining women and girls in Bahay na Pula. Documented reports have shown various human rights violations. Most of the survivors have left the wider region due to trauma from the occupation and atrocities committed by the Imperial Japanese Army. In 1997, The
Malaya Lolas (“Free Grandmothers”), an organization of women fighting for their rights and compensation for the losses from the war, was established in Pampanga. The
Asian Women's Fund, created by the Japanese government and funded by Japanese citizens donations to distribute monetary compensation to
comfort women, did not provide compensation to the women sexually enslaved at Bahay na Pula. According to the Asian Women's Fund, the victims were not defined as comfort women as they were not held or abused over an extended period. In November 2016, several human rights groups, including Bertha's Impact Opportunity Fund, the
European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights, and the Center for International Law, Manila, traveled to
Geneva to seek
United Nations' support for Malaya Lolas. In 2017,
Cinema One Originals launched
Haunted: A Last Visit to the Red House, a full-length documentary film about Bahay na Pula, the comfort women who suffered, and their ongoing battle even as they are now in their 80s and 90s. Some historians and cultural heritage workers have expressed the need for the site's conservation. The house was partially dismantled after 2014 and was in danger of collapse. Several survivors also want Bahay na Pula to remain as a memorial to victims of the Imperial Japanese Army. == In Media ==