In March 1942, the People’s Army Against Japan, popularly called the Hukbalahap or Huks (from the name in the Tagalog language) was organized by the PKP to carry on guerilla war against the Japanese. It had some success at first, but in March 1943 the Japanese decimated its main bastion in central Luzon island, and henceforth it operated principally in small guerilla bands.
With the reconquest of the Philippines by the American forces, General Douglas MacArthur sought to dismantle the Huk guerrilla forces, although the Huks had collaborated with the returning U.S. military. Also, the returning Philippine government removed local civil authorities the Huks had established in areas in where they had defeated the Japanese.
However, for two years after the Japanese defeat, the PKP functioned more or less legally, organizing substantial peasant and trade union groups, and through a front party, the Democratic Alliance (DA), it won six seats in Congress in the first election following independence in July 1946. In January 1947, after the DA congressmen had been denied their seats, Pedro Castro, who had supported the legal political approach, was ousted as head of the PKP. In 1948, the PKP reorganized its guerrilla forces, which still were popularly called the Huks (or the HMP). The guerrilla conflict widened rapidly until October 1950, when members of the Political Bureau of the PKP were arrested.
The jailing of their political leadership was disastrous for the PKP and the HMB. Will Reissner wrote, “By 1954, the counterinsurgency campaign had broken the back of the HMB struggle although a few units would hold out until 1968 when they formed the nucleus of the CPP’s New People’s Army.”
The PKP sought to return to regular political activity, although in 1957 the party was officially outlawed. Under the leadership of Jesús Lava, the PKP abandoned its “cell” form of organization. It completed its evolution in October 1974, when its Politburo met with President Ferdinand Marcos, who two years earlier had decreed national martial law, and expressed their support for his regime.[853]
Emergence of the CPP and New People’s Army
By the mid-1960s there developed a strong left-wing opposition within the PKP. Its principal figure was José Maria Sisón, who first emerged to prominence in the Nationalist Youth Movement and as a student leader, as well as editor of Progressive Review, a generally radical magazine. He visited Indonesia in the very early 1960s and there had contact with pro-Maoist elements in the Indonesian Communist Party, apparently becoming a convert to their ideas. After seeking unsuccessfully to gain control of the PKP and of several of its front organizations, he was expelled from the PKP in 1967. Shortly afterward, he visited China, where reportedly he was received by Mao Tse-tung.
On December 26, 1968, Sisón and a handful of his followers announced the formation of the “recognized and reestablished” Communist Party of the Philippines. Three months later, in March 1969, Sisón announced the establishment of a new guerrilla group, the New People’s Army.[854] To differentiate this group from the older Communist Party, it used the initials CPP.
The major document of the founding congress of the CPP proclaimed the party’s adherence to Maoism. It stated, “All proletarian revolutionaries must express themselves and act in accordance with Mao Zedong Thought, which is the highest level of Marxism-Leninism in this world epoch… Under the direct leadership of Chairman Mao, the People’s Republic of China has become the central base of the world revolution. It is the center of gravity of the countrysides of the world that are encircling the cities of the world.”[855]
Adherence to Maoism was reflected in the party’s official name. The organization’s constitution, adopted at its founding meeting, suggested that it could be called either the Communist Party of the Philippines (Marxist-Leninist) or the Communist Party of the Philippines (Mao Tse-tung’s Thought).
Two people soon emerged as the principal figures in the CPP’s New People’s Army. One was Victoriano Corpus, a onetime Philippine Army lieutenant, who in December 1970 led a raid on the government armory at Baguio. The other was Bernabé Buscayno ("Commander Dante"), a onetime member of the Huks, who was named head of the CPP Military Commission.
The constitution of the CPP proclaimed that the New People’s Army was “the main weapon of the Party in the people’s democratic revolution and in the subsequent socialist stage.” Its objective was to be to “create an independent regime by making agrarian revolution, waging armed struggle and building of rural base areas.”[856]
Starting with a handful of armed guerrillas, the New People’s Army, under the leadership of the CPP, expanded widely throughout the country. Writing in 1982, Andy McCue said, “The National Intelligence and Security Authority says that the New People’sArmy has about 6,000 full-time fighters in all, up from 1,500 a decade ago. The authority adds that about 150,000 Filipinos are willing to provide the NPA with food, shelter and other forms of support.”
Army has about 6,000 full-time fighters in all, up from 1,500 a decade ago. The authority adds that about 150,000 Filipinos are willing to provide the NPA with food, shelter and other forms of support.”
McCue went on, “A group of diplomats and political analysts who focus on the NPA’s geographic spread… say most of the army’s recent expansion is due to an NPA decision to spread cadres throughout the country. Until three or four years ago, they say, NPA activity was relatively limited. Today, according to government figures, the rebels operate in two-thirds of the country’s provinces and control 2% of the barangays. (A barangay is the smallest unit of political organization in the Philippines, usually a rural village or an urban neighborhood.)”[857]
The guerrilla activities of the CPP-NPA continued for more than a quarter of a century, even though José Sisón and a number of other leading figures in the party were arrested in 1977.[858]
Sisón, writing in 1974 under the pseudonym Amado Guerrero, outlined the Maoist strategy of the Communist Party of the Philippines: “In carrying out the prolonged popular war, we apply the strategic line of surrounding the cities from the countryside. With firmness we develop bases and guerrilla zones in various strategic parts of the country. In a later phase, these areas will be linked by the regular mobile forces which will be in a position to defend the more extended and stable revolutionary bases in the countryside. From these stable revolutionary bases, we will be able to take the cities and advance to national victory.”[859]
In 1973, the CPP created a more or less open political front group, the National Democratic Front (NDF). It was described as being “a body comparable in structure and function to the communist National Liberation Front (NLF) of the Vietnam War.” One function of the NDF was to present “the image… of the abused, driven to armed revolt by social injustice and government repression. NDF notables, identified as such in government intelligence files, adeptly defend themselves and their cause in public forums. The real leadership, the CPP hierarchy, does not subject itself to such scrutiny.”[860]
Sisón, in the pamphlet quoted above, sketched the purpose of the NDF, without mentioning it by name. He said, “We must… combine legal, illegal and semi-legal activities through a clandestine, stable and extensive network. A clandestine revolutionary network develops through democratic and legal and semilegal activities to link together the part, otherwise isolated from the Party and the popular army, on all levels and prepare the ground for popular uprisings in the future and for the advance of the popular army.”[861]
853
Will Reissner, “Philippines: Background to Origins of Communist Party,”
854
William J. Pomery, “Maoist Disruption in the Philippines,”
855
Paul Petitjean, “Evolution of the Thai and the Philippine Communist Parties,” Part II,
856
Justus van der Kroef, in
857
Andy McCue, “In Philippines, Communist Army Grows as Government Policy Dismays Farmers,”
858
Interview with José María Sisón by Deb Snookal,
859
Amado Guerrero,
860
Thomas A. Marks, “Understanding the Philippine Communists,”