REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, TOKYO -- Japan's ageing Emperor Akihito travels to the Philippines this week to visit World War II memorials, his latest pacifist pilgrimage which appears increasingly at odds with the government's rightward drift.

Akihito, 82, has made honouring Japanese and non-Japanese who died in the conflict a touchstone of his near three-decade reign -- known as Heisei, or "achieving peace" -- and now in its twilight.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, meanwhile, wants to revise Japan's war-renouncing "peace constitution", seeing it as an embarrassing remnant of its WWII defeat and occupation by the United States.

In the Philippines, which saw some of the war's fiercest fighting, Akihito and Empress Michiko will visit the national Heroes' Cemetery and a memorial for Japanese war dead during a five day visit starting Tuesday.

"The emperor has been very consistent with the fact that Japan is apologetic about their aggression," said Richard Javad Heydarian, a political science professor at De La Salle University in Manila.

Such contrition, decades of Japanese economic aid and the Philippines' search for allies in a maritime dispute with increasingly powerful China have made Abe's nationalist lurch -- which includes strengthening his military -- palatable in Manila.

"We in the Philippines are OK with Japan becoming a normal power," Heydarian said.

Akihito is strictly limited to "symbol of the state" under Japan's constitution imposed by Washington, which aimed to prevent any return to the militarism in the early reign of his father, Hirohito.

Abe last year pushed through legislation that under certain conditions could allow Japanese troops to fight abroad for the first time since 1945, passage which came amid protests and fears the country could be dragged into conflict in support of allies, particularly the US.

Despite constitutional restraints, the soft spoken Akihito, 11-years-old when the war ended in the nuclear obliteration of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, is still seen as getting his point across about the importance of cherishing Japan's postwar peace.

"He is the emperor so he really can't speak from a political standpoint," said Fumiko Imagawa, who went to the Imperial Palace early this month to hear Akihito's brief annual New Year's message.

But she added: "His own thoughts are conveyed in each word."

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