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OF THE
PEOPLE
by Luis Taruc
COPYRIGHT, 1953, BY
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PRINTED IN U.S.A.
Contents
1. The Barrio 13
2. Town and School 17
3. City and Barrio Again 22
4. Awakening 26
PART n: HUKBALAHAP
Glossary 283
Abbreviations 284
MAPS
Central Luzon 57
Southern Luzon 163
Foreword
7
8 Foreword
work out and control their own destinies. Before leaving the
island I was proud to be able in one concert to sing a few of
their beautiful songs for them.
So with great anticipation I began to read the story of Luis
Taruc, the great leader of the Hukbalahap, and of the Philip¬
pine people. For truly, as Taruc says, this is the saga of the peo¬
ple, for from them is he sprung and to them is he so closely
bound.
Often we talk of the struggles of colonial peoples, of the early
struggles here in the days of our nation’s birth. We are daily in
touch with the sufferings and strivings of 15 million Negro Amer¬
icans for nationhood in the South and full freedom in all the
land. We follow the surging forward of the emergent African
nations, all over that vast continent.
What part does this great land of ours play in those world
changes? We see the administration at their deadly work in
Korea. We hear talk of “no imperialist ambitions,” but we see
the close ties with the remnants of Japanese and West-German
fascism. We watch with dread the policies of a General Mac-
Arthur and a John Foster Dulles coming into ascendancy. We
know that we must widen and deepen the struggle for peace,
that we must fight for these United States to help civilization
forward, not to attempt to check its march and even threaten to
destroy it.
We ask ourselves: What can we do, what methods can we
employ, what role can culture play? Can we really build a strong
united front? How can we best defend our leaders? How do we
stimulate the activity of the masses? In short, how can we head
off a threatening but as yet unrealized domestic fascism?
And, amid all the political realities, what of the human beings
involved? For we fight with and for people. How is such courage
possible, such unswerving, deep belief, such devotion and
sacrifice as are needed today? We live it too, through brave
working class leaders in the United States—Eugene Dennis,
Ben Davis, Steve Nelson, Claudia Jones, Elizabeth Gurley Flynn,
Henry Winston—through courageous workers and intellectuals.
Here in Taruc’s searching and moving story, the whole strug¬
gle is laid bare—the terrible suffering and oppression, the slow
Foreword 9
torturous seeking for the “basic reasons” and for the “right
methods of action, the tremendous wisdom and perseverance in
carrying through, the endless courage, understanding, determi¬
nation of the people, of all sections of the people, for national
liberation and dignity.
For in the end, says Taruc, the answer is the people, in them
lies the eternal wisdom. They are like the sea, seemingly calm
at times on the surface, but raging beneath. They may seem to
be patient and slow to move, but once they understand, no forces
can hold them back until final victory.
No one reading this book can doubt the ultimate victory of
these brave, warm-hearted, joyful, sensitive people of the Philip¬
pines. They’ll make it, as have tens of millions in the Soviet
Union, China, and the People’s Democracies, and the other mil¬
lions of the earth will follow them. For freedom is a precious
tiling, and the inalienable birthright of all who travel this earth.
And in the end every people will claim its rightful heritage.
One often speaks of the emergence of a “new kind of human
being.”
In this magnificent and moving autobiography we see Luis
Taruc grow with the people, reach into the most basic roots of
the people, embrace and become a part of a whole people mov¬
ing swiftly and unbendingly toward full national liberation. In
the process, Taruc and many, many others become new kinds of
human beings, harbingers of the future.
This is an intensely moving story, full of the warmth, courage,
and love which is Taruc.
Here certainly is proof that the richest humanist tradition is
inherited and will be continuously enriched by the working
class, acting in closest bonds with the peasantry and honest
vanguard intelligentsia—intellectuals who know that they must
“serve the people, not enemies of the people.”
How necessary that we learn the simple yet profound lessons
of united action, based upon the deepest respect for the people’s
wisdom, understanding, and creative capacity.
Here is a rich experience in life itself, of practice and theory,
theory and practice.
Know, Taruc, that like your American friend there are other
10 Foreword
brave Americans who understand, there is the other America.
And to “Bio,” to G.Y., to the memory of Eva Cura Taruc, to you,
Taruc, and to all of your beloved comrades, we of the other
America make this solemn vow. The fight will go on. The fight
will still go on until we win freedom, friendship among peoples,
the co-existence of many ways of life, the right to live full and
many-sided human lives in dignity and lasting peace.
/
Paul Robeson
BORN OF THE PEOPLE
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I. THE SOCIAL CANCER
1. The Barrio
The facts of a man’s life are the dry husk enclosing the fruit.
It is a fact that I am the son of peasants, and that I was bom on
June 21, 1913, in the barrio of Santa Monica, in the town of San
Luis, in the province of Pampanga. Santa Monica is across the
river from the town proper, the slow, coiling Pampanga River
lying between. The river is like a carabao—big and lazy, but quids
to anger.
Perhaps the biggest fact in my life was the landlord. When
I was still crawling in the dust of the barrio street, I remember
the landlords coming into the barrio, shouting “Hoy, Puneta!”*
and making the peasants run to carry out their demands. Our
people would have to catch the fattest hen, get milk and eggs,
and bring the biggest fish to the landlard. If they delayed, or
perhaps did not do things to the landlord’s liking, they were
fined, or given extra work. In an extreme case they might be
evicted. And where would they go for justice? The landlord
owned the barrio. He was the justice, too.
Every year, after harvest, I watched from the dark corner
of our nipa hut the frustration and despair of my parents, sadly
13
14 Born of the People
facing each other across a rough dulang, counting corn grains
of palay (unhusked rice). The grains of com represented their
debt to the landlord, one grain (ten cavanes of palay) for every
peso they borrowed during planting season. They produced
200 cavanes of palay yearly. Every peso they borrowed was
paid back with one cavan of palay, and ten cavanes were paid
back for every five cavanes of palay they had borrowed. Five
to seven cavanes of palay were paid for each cavan of polished
rice (bigas) the landlord advanced for us to keep alive. The
debts grew from year to year, and the corn grains were never
absent from the lives of my parents.
The land was too poor in San Luis. My grandparents had
owned land, but they had parceled some of it out to relatives
and friends, and had lost the rest to the landgrabbers, the ad¬
jacent landlords. Now we were among the poorest in San Luis.
Finally, my parents, Nicanor and Ruperta Mangalus Taruc,
moved across the swamp to Batasan barrio, in San Miguel,
Bulacan. There I had to learn another tongue, Tagalog. Pam-
pango, Tagalog, Spanish, English. The languages might differ,
but the life was the same. The landlords were everywhere.
By the time I was six years old I had begun to resent the
landlords, who made us, children of peasants, go to their
houses and clean the floors and chop their wood and be then-
servants. When I saw them coming I ran to hide in the bamboos.
I no longer wished to be their janitor.
Others felt the resentment as well. The feeling was dormant,
but when the unions came, the peasants joined them as one
man.
I worshipped my father. He was so soft-spoken, so humble and
kind. He exceeded others in the produce of his share of land.
My mother was much younger than my father. She was rebel¬
lious and quick to anger. My mother had been desired by a barrio
lieutenant, a man who owned a large house and had carretelas,
but she loved and married my father, whose largest possession
was his goodness. The barrio lieutenant resented my father. He
brought about an incident that gave me my first hot flash of
the meaning of injustice.
The barrio lieutenant was a harsh man, the trusted and ap-
The Barrio 15
pointed aide of the landlords. Many were bitter from his treat¬
ment and hated him. One day one of his carretela horses was
hacked to death near my father’s cornfield. Investigators traced
the blood trail from the horses across my father’s share of land.
The barrio lieutenant sued my father.
My father’s only defense was his goodness. He spoke brokenly
to his accuser, with tears in his eyes: “I would never think of
harming anyone, or anything. Even when I see thieves in my
cornfields, I approach slowly, calling out to frighten them away,
so I would not catch them, and have them know the shame of
it.”
The barrio lieutenant was relentless. He pursued the case.
What was my father’s word to that of a landlord’s official? It
would have cost him his year’s crop. I saw my gentle father
standing there humbled and shamed. There were hot needles
in my flesh.
My father’s compadre, a brave man, stepped forward and
confessed that it was he who had killed the horse. He con¬
fronted the barrio lieutenant and told him bluntly: “Any man
or any animal that destroys my crops, my bolo will not spare
him.” My father was relieved of the blame, but the heat of it
stayed in me. I saw that you need more than a good heart, that
you need a good head, if you must fight for your rights. I
determined to study, to gain knowledge, to know how to fight
if I had to. I was very young and I saw social evils vaguely,
through the personal eyes of my family and what happened to
them. It caused me to strike back as an individual. Later I was
to see evil through the eyes of my class.
The peasantry was my class; the landlords were in another.
Nothing was to become more obvious, and more real, than that.
The hacenderos called us “the great unwashed.” Who drew that
line? Did we? Some say that classes are the brain-children of
professional revolutionaries. When I was a boy, barefooted in the
dust of the barrio, whose brain-child was I? And in whose
mind was the resentment cradled?
The peasants had one thing the landlords did not have. They
had numbers.
My father never attended school. He learned to read and
16 Born of the People
write, painfully, at home. Because of that he insisted his children
should go to school, and urged my mother to save every centavo
to send us there. While my father was in the fields, my mother,
to earn more, carried fish and vegetables to town to sell in the
market. My family found it a hardship to pay the annual 30
centavos to the Red Cross, which was an obligation. Neverthe¬
less, they sent me to school, although I never carried a penny
in my pocket.
I rose at five, cooked rice, then walked five kilometers to be
at school by seven, carrying the rice wrapped in a banana leaf
for my lunch. School came easily for me. Eventually I finished
the three-year intermediate course in two years, with honors.
To continue school I had to walk to San Miguel poblacion.
There I could earn the five to ten centavos I needed daily. The
train ran through San Miguel, and travelers to and from other
provinces went in and out of the station. After school I ran to
grab their baggage. I was a baggage-handler, a cargador. They
would give me five centavos for my trouble, those travelers
from far places.
The station fascinated me. If I could ride those trains I might
even be able to reach places where there were no poor people,
where everyone looked like some of the well-dressed travelers.
I quit school to work there all day. I saw trains from other
provinces with strange lettering on their sides. It made me
curious about other places. I would jump on the train as it left
the station, ride for 200 meters, then jump off, but imagine that
I kept going on and on. Sometimes I noticed names written in
chalk on the sides of the cars. Perhaps they were the names of
other cargadores like me, sending their names along the tracks
like a message. I added my name on the sides of the cars. Now
“Luis Taruc” was riding across the country for everyone to see.
Once I saw a train come back with my name on it. How far I had
beenl
My father quickly found out that I had quit school. At once
he called me home. Why had I done such a thing after all the
sacrifices that had been made for me? He punished me by
giving me the heaviest farm work I could endure. I was sent
to the fields to cut rice by hand. I bent over in the hot sun
Town and School 17
swinging a bolo. My hands were cut and bleeding. I was made
to feel what it meant to be an ignorant peasant. I was glad
to go back to school.
I was becoming more aware each year of the great gulf be¬
tween my dreams and my life. In Bulacan there were mountains.
On week-ends I climbed them, able to gaze far out over the
lovely plain, blurred a bit by the sun-haze. I thought: “There
is a thorn in the midst of all this beauty: The exploitation of
peasants.”
When I had completed the seventh grade in elementary school
I told my father that I did not have the temperament for a
peasant, that I hated masters, and that I wanted to continue
school. My father was very pleased. He thought through learning
I could escape the toil he had known, and I believed him.
I did not know that I would have to work so hard to get
an education in the years ahead that the ultimate disappoint¬
ments would drive me back unerringly to the peasantry I had
tried to leave.
/
City and Barrio Again 23
I stood before her house, my mouth dry, and looked for her
at the windows. I walked up the steps, counting each one slowly;
there were seventeen. Within, I had to go through the old
Spanish custom of invitation and greeting being repeated three
times before acknowledgment. When younger I had been
scolded for not observing such elementary courtesy. It seemed
that hours passed. The father pretended not to know me.
“Father,” I said. “I am Luis. You know me.”
“Ah, yes. Luis.”
Silence. I fidgeted. Finally he got around to it. After all, he
had invited me.
“If I were not her father, I would tell you: she is not worth
your pains. You have a good future. There are many pretty
girls, my son. You should have no difficulty in finding another
. . . after your studies.
“As for poverty, do not mention it. It is nothing. I was poor
at the beginning myself. . . .
“You are young; you have so much to accomplish. It is not
well to have distractions. When you have the distraction of a
young lady you cannot concentrate.”
He arrayed his arguments, like a general manoeuvering what
he thought was an invincible army.
“I beg you, father,” I said, when I had the chance, and when
I could find a gap in his lines, “to every rule there is an exception.
I am the exception. In school my grades were poor until I met
Ena. After I knew her, they improved. Look, I have my report
cards.” I brought them out.
“Skip that, skip that,” he said hurriedly, reaching around for
one of his regiments to throw into the breach. He found one.
“You are intelligent. You can find many girls who are prettier.”
“Beauty of soul is more than beauty of flesh,” I told him, from
the depths of my sincerity. That got him, I could see, so I
followed up the attack. “If she rejects me,” I promised solemnly,
“I will cooperate with you. But if she does not, I will stand by
her.”
He looked down at me then, grimly, and brought up his heavy
artillery.
“Ena has had everything all her life. There are many others
24 Born of the People
who offer her everything, who can give her every comfort she
needs. Can you give them to her?”
“In your place,” I said, swallowing, “I would demand more.
No, I cannot give them now, nor does the future offer them. But
I will study further, and I will come back, either with a degree,
or with a worthy job.”
He deliberated on that, like a general negotiating a surrender
and trying to maintain his dignity, and then agreed. I knew
that he considered it a doubtful promise, but I felt that in the
interview I had been victorious. I, an 18-year-old upstart, argu¬
ing with an old man and besting him. If it had not been for the
testing of my poverty, I would never have been able to face
him. I left the house, walking slowly back down the seventeen
steps. When I looked up I saw her at the window, waving.
I left at once for Manila and applied for entrance to the
National University. I began the study of law. The will-o’-the-
wisp of education, which would solve everything, still floated
before me.
The old problem still remained, how to pay for knowledge.
The more intelligent one wished to become, the higher the rates
were. I had one pair of shoes when I went to Manila. They were
intended for school, but I wore them out looking for a job, so
I could live as well as pay tuition. The crisis lay upon the city
like a blight.
Then I discovered a relative who was acquainted with Ventura,
the Secretary of the Interior. Hope! To Ventura I went with a
letter. He received me cordially, this great man, the living
symbol of the government itself. I sat looking at him with awe
as he dictated a recommendation for me, Luis, the obscure
son of a poor peasant. I walked out of his office, thinking: “This
will make me a chief clerk, at the very least.”
I took the letter of recommendation, carrying it like a precious
document, to the manager of the Metropolitan Water District.
Another fine office. That great man read it. “Ah, yes. From
Ventura.” Another letter. Great wheels were revolving for me.
This time it was to an engineer. He read it and scribbled me a
note. I took it to a foreman. The foreman said nothing- he
pointed. I went to a toolkeeper. The toolkeeper gave me a
City and Barrio Again 25
shovel. All the machinery of government had turned, and I was
a ditch digger.
I hefted the shovel. “This is too heavy,” I said loudly. I was
indignant.
“Shhh, not so loud,“ said the toolkeeper, who was a Pam-
pangueno, too, looking toward the foreman.
“I cannot work hard. I am a student,” I said, louder still.
“Don’t shout,” he pleaded.
“I will become a Socialist,” I shouted.
“Please, don’t say that,” begged the toolkeeper. “You don’t
have to work. All you have to do is to give the appearance of
working.”
“What!” I said. “Do you want me to cheat?”
He shrugged. “Doesn’t everybody in the government cheat?”
I decided to work hard, for myself, for my own self-esteem,
if not for the government or for others. For six months I worked
in the wet ditches, building drains to keep flood from the city.
At night I went to school. Constantly in the water, my leg devel¬
oped paralysis. I went to a doctor. He told me that I had come
just in time, and that I could no longer go back in the ditches if
I wanted to continue walking. At least, I thought, I proved that
I can work hard, that I am a man.
Back I went to Ventura. “I have shown my honesty and
thankfulness for your recommendation,” I told him, “but it is
ruining me.” The great man pondered. He dictated once more.
Back I went to the manager of the Metropolitan Water District,
then to the timekeeper, then to the foreman. Now I was a tool-
keeper. At that job I worked for one year. It paid more. It
enabled me to bring to Manila my brother, who had been starv¬
ing in Tarlac, and to pay the rent for his tailor shop in the city.
In the middle of my second year at the university a change
occurred in the government. Out went Ventura, out of his fine
office, and another great man came in. Out went the manager, the
timekeeper, the foreman. Out went all the workers. Every¬
thing changed with the government. I lost my job. I had to leave
the university.
Now it was not just a matter of earning my tuition. It was a
matter of living. The crisis had reached its worst depth. There
26 Born of the People
was not a chance that I would ever be able to finish school.
All that I had looked forward to dissolved in a salty brine of
bitterness. Ena, a degree, a worthy job. In my brother’s tailor
shop I learned how to sew. I became a tailor, although at first
it was like stitching the shroud of my hopes.
In Manila there was misery. Soon I decided to return to the
provinces, to the town where my parents lived, to open my own
tailor shop. I went back to the barrio in San Miguel, Bulacan,
where I had lived as a boy.
The same barrio lieutenant who had humiliated my father
was still there. He had a lovely daughter. Feliciana Bernabe
was beautiful. She had many courters, and I joined them. I had
stopped even writing to Ena. It hurt me to think of her, and of her
father, and of the impregnable fortress of their wealth. Instead,
I courted the daughter of the barrio lieutenant and married her
within a week.
4. Awakening
A tide was beginning to roll across Central Luzon. In Manila
the tobacco workers were on strike for over a month. The peasants
in the provinces were also becoming militant. The tide lapped
at the door of my tailor shop and awoke me. I witnessed a strike
in Pampanga in which two strikers were shot to death by the
constabulary. Afterwards, in the enormous burial procession for
their dead comrades, the peasants carried red flags.
The waters ran deep in Central Luzon. The problems were
ages old. The people were land hungry. The land was there, but
it did not belong to them. Sometime in the past there had been
land for everybody. Now it was in the hands of a few. The few
were fabulously rich; the many were incredibly poor.
It had been that way under the Spanish regime for centuries.
When the Americans came they made boasts about having
brought democracy to the Philippines, but the feudal agrarian
system was preserved intact.
Awakening 27
On the haciendas there were laborers who were paid less than
ten centavos a day. Thousands more earned less than twice that
much. From ten thousand miles away the Spreckles sugar inte¬
rests0 in California reached into the sugar centrals of Pampanga
and took their fortune from the sweat of Filipino labor.
Although I had always been aware of exploitation and, in a
vague way, of class relationships, my reaction had been an indi¬
vidual one, of me, alone, striking back to overcome inequalities.
The rich I considered parasites, living off the toil of the people,
but my solutions were romantic. I had read Robin Hood, for in¬
stance, and I dreamed of becoming an outlaw, to rob the rich
and give to the poor.
In a misty way I thought of change, or something that would
affect my father and all the peasants, as well as myself, but
what that change should be was unknown. Occasionally, in the
barrios, I heard men speaking, men who called themselves So¬
cialists, and who called for a change. They claimed that the
workers and peasants could do it, could replace our whole so¬
ciety with a new one.
I had questions to ask such speakers. While I was in my second
year of high school, in Tarlac, I had seen a brutal incident on
the Hacienda Luisita. The Ilocano laborers who had been
brought there under false pretenses by the management were
complaining of their conditions. A Spanish overseer kicked and
publicly whipped one of the protesters. The man jumped up
with his bolo and chopped the Spaniard to pieces. I was re¬
volted. I pitied the laborer, but I thought: Is this what will
happen in the future? Do we have to kill the masters? Is this
necessary? I kept asking the Socialists that question.
At that time the Communist Party of the Philippines was be¬
ing suppressed, its leaders were in prison or living in exile in
remote places. Others, suspected of being Communists, were
hunted as if they were bandits. The people hid them. In South-
55
56 Born of the People
of Bonifacio, who organized and led the revolt against Spain.
But nothing can hold back the tide that moves in the sea.
At the beginning of 1942 the tides were running very strongly.
All that was required was an understanding of their potentiali¬
ties, and of how to harness them for the most good. It was this
understanding that we sought to apply in Central Luzon, against
the latest of the tyrants, the Japanese fascists.
The resistance movement that sprang up in Central Luzon
was unique among all the groups that fought back, in one
way or another, against the Japanese. The decisive element of
difference lay in the strong peasant unions and organizations
of the people that existed there before the war. It gave the
movement a mass base, and made the armed forces indistinguish¬
able from the people, a feeling shared both by the people and
by the fighters. Under such conditions, wherever it existed,
the resistance was magnificent.
Many other groups, however, especially those led by the
American army representatives of MacArthur, foraged off the
people, paid their way with paper money and with promises of
back-pay, and discouraged organization of the people. They
existed largely in regions where no mass base of previous
organization had made itself felt, and for precisely that reason
they played, in the main, a passive role. In many cases the people
came to resent the armed bands which lived off them and did
little fighting. Everywhere the people were ready to organize
and ready to revolt, but the opportunity was not given to them
as it was in Central Luzon; the revolutionary tide was held in
check by men who neither understood nor appreciated the
strength and resourcefulness of the people. If a real people’s
struggle had developed everywhere in the Philippines, our
country would have been spared the bitter postwar years.
We started with nothing. We did not even have a plan. The
people reacted spontaneously in many places. In the wake of
battle and of the collapse of authority there were bandits and
robbers who molested the people in the barrios. The people
formed their own Bantay Nay on (home guard) for protection.
These guard units were able to catch and kill bandits. In most
cases the bandits were discovered to be Ganaps, mercenary
CENTRAL LUZON
58 Born of the People
tools, and other spies and sympathizers with the enemy. This
early experience made the people more ready for organized
resistance.
Before we had an opportunity to organize the resistance in
Central Luzon, there were instances of extreme leftist actions
by the people. For years their enemy had been the big land-
owners and capitalists. Now suddenly these people were de¬
feated in a war and on the run, it seemed. It looked like a time
to strike. When a group of men under Bernardo Poblete of the
AMT raided Masantol, Pampanga, late in February, and killed
Jose Tapia, of the Pampanga Sugar Development Company,
they were acting in a confused fashion without yet being aware
of the bigger enemy, the Japanese. The Masantol raid was de¬
nounced by us. It made us see clearly the need for a sharply
defined program of struggle.
War imposed the necessity of discipline upon the people.
Peacetime has its disciplines, too, but they are leisurely and
may be unenforced; in wartime leisure and laxity are dangerous,
and a breach of discipline is measured in lives. This is even
more true in a peoples movement. None of us were soldiers,
and we were in no way military. Our methods were adopted
as we went along; we learned from the people’s experience, and
applied what we learned. The discipline we developed was
a people’s discipline. The people accepted it not because they
were ordered to do so, as in an army, but because they under¬
stood it and its necessity, just as they understood the need for
supporting a strike.
Costly mistakes were made before we learned. Even the
Communist Party, which with its 12-point program had been
the only political group to call for resistance, made a mistake
in considering the city of Manila safe as an underground base.
On January 24, 1942, a meeting of the executive committee was
raided by the Kempetai, the Japanese military police, and most
of the leading members of the Party fell into the hands of
the enemy, among them Crisanto Evangelista, Pedro Abad
Santos, and Agapito del Rosario.
Crisanto Evangelista, founder of the Communist Party, was
murdered soon after in the fascist torture chambers in Fort
The Birth of Resistance 59
Santiago, Manila. He had devoted his life to the movement
and he died for it, unshaken.
Agapito del Rosario lived until April, subjected to constant
interrogation. Brought to the Manila Hotel for questioning, he
could see from the window the statue of Rizal on the Luneta.*
He made his decision then. He pretended that he wished to
urinate. When the guards brought him into the hall, he broke
from them and jumped to the pavement from the fourth story
window. The fall failed to kill him. Later, in the hospital, Abad
Santos had an opportunity to speak to him.
“I could not help myself,” he said from his pillow. “I hate
them so completely that I would rather take my own life than
be touched by the dirty hands of the fascists.”
Del Rosario was taken from his hospital bed and shot.
In the face of men who do not yield, the actions of men who
bend seem unforgivable, or, at the least, hard to understand. His¬
tory has obscured the motivations of Pedro Abad Santos. He was
an old man; imprisonment disrupted his stringent diet; he was ill.
He did not become a pawn of the enemy, nor did he collaborate;
he tried to outwit the Japanese. In my opinion the old man was
trying to deal with the Japanese as he had dealt with land¬
lords in the courts, trying to best them in a game of wits. It was
not the way. I feel, too, that he was thinking of a trick somewhat
similar to that of Sukarno in Indonesia: when the Japanese were
gone, the Indonesians faced the Dutch with an army.
I feel that he was also thinking that there was still a way to
save his comrades in prison.
A leaflet appeared, signed with the name of Don Perico, urging
the people to surrender. It was not of his doing. It was a forgery,
like many other statements issued by the Japanese during the
occupation, trying to trick guerrillas into giving up. The old man
was ill, watched by the enemy, cut off from contact with us,
unable to defend himself.
Released from prison in 1943, Abad Santos, enfeebled, went
back to Pampanga. He died there at the end of 1944. We were
in touch with him then. In his last words he urged the younger
The Hukhalahap 65
but they gave the enemy no information. On the contrary, the
news of the fight sent a thrill of pride throughout Central Luzon.
The battle of Mandili proved that we could meet and defeat
the enemy. We could not do so on his terms, but with ambushes
and with hit and run tactics we could be a serious threat to
his rear. The operations of the detachment from Mandili, and of
others that soon grew up in a similar fashion, proved also that
we could live in the lowlands and that the people would support
us. For us, that was the most important lesson of all, and every
decision we had reached at our conference was now to be hinged
entirely on the people and the people’s support. Without the
support of the people, who give it life, a guerrilla movement
cannot exist.
8. The Hukbalahap
On March 29, 1942, in a clearing in the great forest that joins
the corners of Pampanga, Tarlac and Nueva Ecija, the Hukbala¬
hap was born. The setting and the ceremony were both simple.
A table, brought from a barrio, stood in the clearing. Before it
were our armed forces, sitting crosslegged on the ground. Those
with arms sat in front, their weapons across their knees.
One by one the detachments had arrived. From Candaba,
Dayang-Dayang brought 100 men. They were still excited over
their victory at Mandili. They had even marched by daylight.
From San Luis and Minalin, Pampanga, came Banal (Bernardo
Poblete) with 20 to 40 men. From San Miguel, Bulacan, came
Lope de la Rosa. From Magalang, Eusebio Aquino brought
30 to 40 more. Briones and Capuli (Mariano Franco) came with
50 men from Cabiao, in Nueva Ecija. Everyone was excited. The
story of the Mandili victory was told a hundred times by the
men from Candaba. It aroused the imagination of the others;
they were eager to get a crack at the enemy.
Then, too, the bearing of arms was thrilling. The only guns
many of these people had seen before had been in the hands of
66 Born of the People
the PC’s who threatened our picket lines. Now, standing in an
armed group, running their hands down rifle barrels, they felt
more powerful than any picket line.
We slaughtered carabaos in the forest and held a week-long
conference. It was the hot season, but under the trees it was
cool. We threshed out our program and our guiding principles.
We wanted our purposes and our beliefs to be as firm as our
bullets. By the 29th we were ready for our inauguration.
We had held many discussions about a name for our move¬
ment. At first I was in favor of Philippine Army of Liberation.
However, the name we finally adopted, Hukbo ng Bayan Laban
sa Hapon (The People’s Anti-Japanese Army), best fitted our
key slogans. It proved to be a name with mass appeal. Now the
simple abbreviation “Huk” will live in Philippine history. On
that first day in the forest the men shouted, “Long five the Huk-
balahap!” It sounded strange.
There were many enthusiastic speeches. The main theme of our
lectures was: overcome defeatism. The annihilation of the Fil-
American army, then in progress on Bataan, had unavoidably
spread demoralization among large sections of the people. We
had to uproot it, to replace it with a perspective of struggle.
We had to convince the people that their destiny was in their
own hands, and that they could mold it by their own acts.
Down with the flank! shouted the soldiers, sitting under the
trees. Long life to the Hukbalahap! Drive out the Japanese
bandits! Death to the puppets and collaborators!
At the end of the speechmaking, we elected a Military Com¬
mittee. The choice belonged entirely to the soldiers. Certain
qualifications were necessary: popularity with people, an ac¬
quaintance with the people and the region, ability to organize,
good physical condition and morale. Graduates of the Philippine
Military Academy would not have fitted those demands. Gradu¬
ates of the school of the working class did.
Those elected to the Military Committee were Casto Alejan-
drino, Felipa Culala (Dayang-Dayang), Bernardo Poblete (Ba¬
nal) and myself. Later by this group, I was chosen chairman of
the Military Committee, with Casto Alejandrino as second in
command. Changes and additions were made in the committee’s
The Hukbalahap 67
membership from time to time during the war. In May, Mateo del
Castillo became our political advisor.
There were unanimous proposals to launch, at once, an inten¬
sive organizational campaign. Our aims were almost entirely
military then, and we conceived of our strength in terms of the
number of armed men we could get into the field. At the close
of the meeting we dispersed at once, taking no chances of a
surprise encirclement by the enemy.
One of the proposals made at our inaugural conference was
to draw up a document to be known as “The Fundamental Spirit
of the Hukbalahap.” It was ready later in the year, a set of
guiding principles which established the character of a revolu¬
tionary army, and which emphasized the differences between a
people s army and the ordinary hired army of the ruling classes.
Together with another document, “The Iron Discipline,” which
elaborated the duties and privileges of the individual soldier,
the “Fundamental Spirit” was the backbone of the Huk structure.
The Huk was organized on the basis of squadrons, composed
of approximately 100 men each. The squadron was subdivided
into platoons and squads. On the ascending scale, two squadrons
made a battalion and two battalions a regiment. In that respect
we paralleled fairly closely the ordinary army. The similarity,
however, ended there.
The squadron officers were: Commander, Vice-Commander,
Political Instructor, Supply Officer, and Intelligence Officer. The
differences between these officers and the officers in an ordinary
army are stated in the opening section of the “Fundamental
Spirit”:
The members of the troop are all revolutionary comrades. ... No one is
allowed to say humiliating words to another, no one looks down on another,
no one is coerced by another. . . . Anyone may express his opinion freely
in a meeting. When there is a dispute the right opinion will be that of the
majority, and will be passed and supported .. . . Everyone shares the same
fortune and endures the same hardship. The leaders must set an example
for the soldiers to follow. . . . Insults, coercion or deception are forbidden.
The officers should love and respect their subordinates. They should
attend to the soldiers before themselves. They should exchange their ex¬
periences. They should criticize their mistakes. . . . The officers and the
soldiers are all alike. Neither officers nor soldiers can have any individual
privileges.
A revolutionary army should not only love and protect the people, but
it should also represent the people. It should regard the fortunes of the
people as its own. ... It should struggle for the benefit of the people. It
should regard the people’s benefit as its own benefit in all things it does.
It should help the people wherever it goes. In so doing it can have the
faith and support of the people, can always receive their help, and through
it can overcome the enemy.
0 The name adopted by the Sakdals under the Japanese occupation. See
footnote on p. 29.—Ed.
Attack 73
one time when Anderson ran off wildly through a cornfield when
he sighted a Japanese patrol crossing a river in the distance.
Other Americans were with us from time to time, men who
were more adaptable. One was an enlisted man named Jesse.
He gave drilling and military training in some of our squadrons.
He also fought with one of our units, and was killed in an en¬
counter.
The experience with Thorpe was hopeful but it ended fruit¬
lessly. As far as the supply of arms was concerned, with the
surrender of Bataan and Corregidor we were thrown completely
on our own resources. We raised the slogan “Arm Ourselves
With The Weapons of the Enemy!” and proceeded to put it
into effect.
1 0. Attack
The growth of the Huk from the beginning was spontaneous.
Towns, even barrios, produced whole squadrons overnight which
announced themselves ready for combat. On May 14 our Mili¬
tary Committee held its first meeting in the barrio of Kandating,
Arayat. There we worked out a program of intensive organiza¬
tion, arms collection, and of attacks on the enemy.
A traveling headquarters, knitted to the other organizations by
a courier system, was established. We devised a schedule of one-
week organizing trips which were divided between Casto Ale-
jandrino and myself. He traveled a circular route through the
barrios surrounding Mount Arayat, while mine was a wider circle
encompassing Pampanga, Nueva Ecija, Bulacan, and Tarlac.
Movement was still relatively free. The Japanese had not yet
pulled their nets tight. I had the same feeling I had known on
my regular AMT inspection trips before the war. At least once
a week I managed to return “home” to my wife. For quite a while
74 Born of the People
in this period I lived with other members of the Military Com¬
mittee on a house boat which shifted about on the waterways
at the foot of Mount Arayat. My wife who would have been the
envy of any army’s commissary, always managed to have some¬
thing special ready for me: chicken adobo one week, paksiw
another, or even a favorite of mine, caramel candies.
By September our original five squadrons had grown to 35 in
number. Invariably, squadrons were formed from designated
areas, so they could feel freer and so the people in their own
localities would have more confidence in the armed forces.
Our tactics were still in an adolescent stage. For one thing,
as soon as our men got arms we allowed them to use them. From
May to September we staged many attacks on towns in Pam-
panga and Nueva Ecija, choosing those which were garrisoned
by the puppet constabulary. Such attacks had a two-fold pur¬
pose. The people were infuriated by the PC’s, who were doing
the bidding of the enemy and were perpetrating many abuses
on the barrio people. Plated as strikebreakers before the war,
they were hated now as puppets. In Cabiao, especially, the
abuses were severe, and they were aggravated by the fact that
the puppet mayor, Jose Garcia, was a renegade Socialist who had
sold out to the enemy. Twice in April we made unsuccessful
attacks on Cabiao to eliminate him, because he was pointing out
union leaders and members to the enemy. His good fortune,
however, did not survive the war. By attacking the puppets we
hoped to arouse the people against them, to show them that
the enemy could be dealt with, and also to discourage members
of the constabulary to the point of becoming passive. Our
second major intention was to get arms, which, we discovered,
were easier to wrest from puppets than from the highly trained
Japanese.
Anns were also taken from bandit groups which sprang up
in the wake of the Fil-American defeat, and their depredations
were quelled.
In Nueva Ejica, where Jose de Leon was the military com¬
mander, three squadrons had been quickly formed. Their first
encounter in May was an ambuscade near Talavera, where many
arms were secured. The three squadrons based themselves in
Attack 75
the mountains near Laur and proceeded to make it a tight base.
By the end of August the Japanese were stung into conducting
a large raid into the Cabalugen mountains near Laur. In the
fighting nearly 100 Japanese and their auxiliary Ganaps were
killed, while the Huk, skillfully utilizing the familiar terrain,
lost only two men.
In lower Nueva Ecija, under Capuli and Briones, our men
were very aggressive. In September they entered the munici¬
pality of San Antonio and raised Filipino and American flags.
When the enraged Japanese came there was an open fight in
the swamps surrounding the town. Again the Huk utilized
its knowledge of the terrain and in this encounter did not lose
a man, while the enemy casualties were again near the 100
mark.
By the end of 1942 the Huk squadrons in Nueva Ecija counted
250 soldiers, all armed.
In Pampanga squadrons were organizing so fast that each
had to be subdivided, some into as many as four. Poblete (Banal)
in particular multiplied his forces rapidly in southern Pampanga.
In the Lubao-Floridablanca region, Abelardo Dabu recruited
swiftly. Aquino’s squadron repeatedly ambushed the roads be¬
tween Magalang, Angeles, Concepcion and La Paz. Another
squadron ambushed the Angeles-San Fernando road.
Best vantage points for ambushes were the roads with em¬
bankments or those bordered by tall grass. Here our men could
lie hidden until the Japanese trucks were abreast. Japanese move¬
ments were usually according to schedule, so our men merely
apprised themselves of the schedule and lay in wait, knowing
what to expect. When the enemy became wiser and used larger
units, a small group of our men would decoy them into an¬
other ambush where a large body of the Huk would be hidden.
Among the squadrons formed at this time was Squadron
48, which was inaugurated in the month of May. This was the
Chinese squadron which came to be known as the Wa Chi
(Chinese Guerrillas in the Philippines). It was composed chiefly
of trade unionists from the Chinese community in Manila, with
teachers, clerks, and newspapermen among them. Some had
fought with the Chinese guerrillas against the Japanese in the
76 Born of the People
Canton region of China. Their squadron designation, 48, was
derived from the Eighth Route and the New Fourth Armies,
which then were the biggest thorn in the sides of the Japanese.
Because of the experience of its members and their enormous
zeal, Squadron 48 became a model organization for the rest of
the Huk, although the Chinese maintained their own entity and
were financially supported largely by their own masses in the
city. At various times the squadron was split into detachments
and assigned to other squadrons to inspire and train them. The
Chinese were exemplary in their discipline, following closely
a prescribed daily schedule, and were very daring. Individual
soldiers would don the uniforms of dead Japanese and enter
the towns, posing as Japanese soldiers. In this way they were
able to capture many spies and puppets under the very noses,
of the enemy garrisons, and also to acquire arms. In encounters
the Chinese did not hesitate to engage the Japanese in hand-
to-hand fighting.
The presence of Squadron 48 among the peasants shattered
an old and disreputable custom, that of treating Chinese people
insultingly, and in general using them as the scapegoat in the
blind reaction of Filipinos to evils that lie much deeper in our
society. The members of Squadron 48 became much beloved
by the people of Central Luzon, who often went out of their way
to give them special consideration in billeting, feeding, and as¬
sistance.
The first assignment of Squadron 48 was to clean out the bandit
gangs that infested the mountains around Floridablanca. They
did a thorough job. The criminal types were liquidated, but some
had chosen a life of outlawry in the past out of despair arising
from the injustices they had suffered. These men were lectured
about the Huk and joined us, becoming excellent anti-fascist
fighters.
It was in May, too, that we began to exploit our richest source
of arms and ammunition during the war. This was in Bataan,
where the Fil-American army, during their retreat, defense and
surrender, had left the region literally saturated with discarded
and stored weapons. In some places the people had gathered
them by the armful.
Attack T7
On foot, traveling the rugged mountain trails, groups of Huks,
including 52 Wa Chi soldiers, made the first trip to Bataan, rov¬
ing as far as Mariveles. Sometimes we bought arms from the
people who had picked them up, sometimes we traded for them;
as a last resort we commandeered them. We were building an
army, to fight, and for that reason we justified our priority to
weapons.
The first expedition to Bataan returned by September, laden
down with arms and ammunition. They bristled with guns,
strapped on, hung and suspended from them. They even brought
back machine-guns. After that, whenever we had a need for
arms, we sent groups to scour Bataan. In this way we obtained
up to 2,000 arms by the end of 1942.
Our activities had hardly begun when we suffered a major
casualty. Lino Dizon, one of our dearest comrades from the
AMT, was captured and killed by the Japanese in May.
A powerful orator and one of the greatest of Pampango poets.
Lino Dizon only reached the third grade in school. He was a
people’s poet. As with Gorky, his was the University of Life. He
was the author of a Passion play called “The Passion of the
Workers.” The barrio people were so fond of it that they pre¬
ferred it to the regular Passion play, or when the regular Passion
was held, Dizon’s “The Passion of the Workers” was given along
with it. This Passion play is still presented in the Pampanga
barrios.
Our first big lesson, hammered home to us by the harshness
of experience, came in September 1942. Up to that time our plans
and operations had been sloppy. We harassed the enemy hap¬
hazardly, and with little consideration for the consequences. In
our bases, sometimes close to the barrios, we constructed perma¬
nent barracks, and congregated in large numbers, both before
and after an attack. The use of mobility as a weapon was not
yet fully understood. In addition, although we had taken certain
steps to eliminate spies and traitors, we had not perfected an
intelligence network. As a result, many spies were able to report
our concentrations and movements to the Japanese. The blow fell
on September 6, when the first big raid of the enemy took place
in the Mount Arayat region.
78 Born of the People
The Japanese preceded their attack with mortar fire and the
use of .75 mm field artillery. It came as a surprise and many of
our soldiers were considerably shaken. The enemy had sur¬
rounded the mountain and the swamp. On the rivers and in the
swamp they used rubber boats which they pumped up; they
moved speedily. The Japanese soldiers were very brave, stand¬
ing up in boats and hardly glancing about them, so that we
could not help but admire their courage. They came so fast that
we were unable to form ambushes. The enemy also climbed
the mountain and came down upon our camp sites from the
rear.
Fortunately, at this time the Japanese had not yet embarked
on a policy of ruthlessness toward the people, or even toward
guerrillas. Raping of women had occurred, but widespread mo¬
lestation of the people was practiced more by the Filipino traitors
than by the Japanese soldiers. Sometimes, when a Huk was
caught, the Japanese praised him, calling him Tomadachi (com¬
rade), and tried to win him over. Their September raid was
more a demonstration of force to intimidate us than an all-out
offensive. They did not enter all the barrios and hold them;
therefore our squadrons were able to slip through the loose cor¬
don. It was only on the slopes of Mount Arayat that serious
fighting occurred. By the second day our men had slipped away
down the mountain and were hidden safely in the barrios.
Our response to the September raid was two-fold, military
and political. In the military sense, we revealed a leftist naivete,
which amounted to an underestimation of the enemy’s strength
and an exaggeration of our own. This took the form of an im¬
mediate counter-attack by our forces on the enemy, and on an
even broader scale than during the previous period. No sooner
had the enemy withdrawn from his mopping-up operations than
we re-grouped and retaliated.
From September 15th to December our squadrons carried out
many ambushes against small Japanese truck columns, and also
raided puppet forces in the towns. In Pampanga, the municipal
building of San Luis was attacked on November 22; we took the
puppet mayor and seven puppet police, along with arms and
supplies. Two days later the puppet mayor and the police force
Attack 79
of San Simon surrendered and joined the Huk, taking their arms
with them.
In an ambush between San Luis and San Simon our soldiers
killed Captain Tanaka, chief of staff of the Japanese forces in
Central Luzon, along with another enemy officer.
No mercy was shown to spies, who had exposed so many of our
people to the enemy. Thirteen of them, Ganaps, were seized in
Santo Tomas, Zaragosa, and were killed. Spies were also liqui¬
dated in other barrios.
In Pampanga the Huk entered the towns of Arayat, Candaba,
San Luis, and Apalit and held them for several days, lecturing
the people on the principles of the United Front and on the
need for resistance. In Nueva Ecija assaults were made on enemy
barracks.
Such a display of offensive strength was inspirational to the
people, and restored their morale after the enemy raids. But in
general, at the time, it was poor tactics. We failed to lend proper
emphasis to the fact that the enemy was many times stronger
than we were, and that our methods would only bring down
upon us the full weight of his arms, at a time when we had neither
the resiliency of well-organized mass support nor the reserve
of assistance from the outside. For every ounce of perfection we
eventually reached, we had to pay a pound of bitterness.
Slowly and simultaneously, however, we were learning the
right tactics and how to apply them. From the time we realized
that we could live and function on the plain, among tire people,
we had oriented ourselves in that direction. A General Memo¬
randum had been drafted in July and August, based on our
experiences, our errors and our achievements. What the people
liked about us, and what they did not like, was carefully compiled
and examined for correct approaches. We decided on the basis
of the people’s opinion the things that we should avoid in the
future.
Following the September raid we also examined the problem
of discipline, as it affected our planning, movements, secrecy,
and morale. A disciplinary program was worked out. By this
time, too, our “Fundamental Spirit” had been discussed in the
army, and put into effect.
80 Born of the People
Our continual expansion, and the coming into being of new
squadrons, soon made our original set-up unwieldy. By Novem¬
ber, the Military Committee, which had functioned well as an
organizing body, found that it was difficult to supervise the nu¬
merous and scattered squadrons. Therefore, as part of our gen¬
eral program of tightening our organizational forms and methods,
we divided Central Luzon into five Military Districts. The dis¬
tricts were determined by geography, by the size of our forces,
and by the livelihood and general life of the people in the given
areas. They were: the First Military District, comprising South¬
ern Pampanga and its swamp and fish pond regions, under
Banal; the Second Military District, embracing Baliwag, Apalit,
San Ildefonso, San Simon, San Luis, Candaba, Santa Ana, and
part of Arayat, under Dayang-Dayang; the Third Military Dis¬
trict, roughly covering the area north of Arayat mountain, under
Aquino; the Fourth Military District, including all of Nueva
Ecija, at first under Capuli and Briones and then under Jose
“Dimasalang” de Leon; and the Fifth Military District, contain¬
ing West Pampanga from Mexico through Bacolor to Lubao and
Floridablanca, under Abelardo Dabu, the pre-war president of
the Pasudeco Workers’ Union. Over all, in place of the out¬
grown Military Committee, we established the GHQ Hukbalahap.
We were now an army.
In December 1942, however, we began to reap the harvest
of our past rashness and inexperience. The enemy, it seemed,
had been learning lessons of his own. He had plans for Central
Luzon, viewing our provinces not only as a rice bowl but as a
source of cloth for his army. Sugar plantations were under
conversion for the planting of cotton. The importance the Japa¬
nese attached to the elimination of the Huk became apparent
in the scale of their new operations, which were launched on
December 5th.
The fight that resulted from the initial phase of the enemy’s
offensive became a classic in Huk history. It occurred in the fish
pond district of Masantol and Minalin. There, in the First
Military District, Banal had built an organization of great
strength. The Huk had made considerable progress in organiz¬
ing tire people as a whole, and some barrio councils had been
Attack 81
created. Although the Japanese had been informed of our ac¬
tivity through spies, they had an exaggerated opinion of our
armed forces, which they thought numbered up to 5,000. Ac¬
tually there were less than 700 men under Banal at that time.
Against them the Japanese used three to four thousand sol¬
diers.
Our own intelligence units had not been idle. We were aware
of the Japanese concentrations that had surrounded the area,
and we were apprised of the focal point of attack. It was sur¬
rounded by water, and the only possible approach was by boat.
The ideal ambush conditions were quickly grasped by Banal,
who moved his men one kilometer from the spotted area, in the
path of the enemy approach, and placed machine-guns at all key
river points.
The Japanese attack began in mid-morning with an air-raid
by 22 planes from Clark Field and Manila. In 7-plane formations
they bombed and strafed all houses in the area. The houses,
however, were vacant, the people having been previously evacu¬
ated. Then, at 10:00 o’clock, the Japanese advanced. They came
in motorboat launches, from the rivers and from the bay. They
were packed in the boats. They were perfect targets for our
machine-guns.
In that fight only one Huk was wounded, in the arm. The
Japanese, however, had between six and eight hundred casualties.
The rivers ran literally red with blood that soaked the soil of
the banks. The waters were still filled with floating bodies three
days later. The people did not eat fish from those rivers for
over a year.
Banal’s squadrons retreated between Masantol and Minalin,
with the Japanese in pursuit. They were overtaken and sur¬
rounded at Macabebe, where another battle occurred on Decem¬
ber 7th. This time our men were low on ammunition and were
hemmed in at an unfavorable position for our type of fighting.
As a result we lost 18 men killed and over 30 wounded, al¬
though we were able to account for another 200 Japanese casu¬
alties. In the succeeding dispersal that took place, by which
our soldiers infiltrated the enemy lines, some of the Huks became
demoralized and ran, throwing their arms into the river. It was
82 Born of the People
the only time this occurred during the wax, and we put it to
good use as a disciplinary object lesson.
The Masantol battle, in spite of its finale and the attendant
circumstances, was a tremendous victory. It spread the fame
of the Huk far beyond our area of operations.
The fiasco in the fish ponds, however, marked only the
beginning of the enemy’s December general mop-up. The enemy
continued without let-up from Candaba swamp to Tarlac,
through Concepcion, to Arayat, Cabiao and into Nueva Ecija.
We split into groups of five to ten, and eluded the cordons. It
was more difficult this time, because the Japanese hit all the
barrios, and occupied them throughout the raid. They did not,
however, enter the big forest, where we had a considerable
concentration.
The force under Aquino had to switch to the mountains of
Zambales, where they engaged for nearly two months in constant
running skirmishes, finally splitting into small groups and going
back down to the plain. To divert and spread out the enemy
forces, Dimasalang’s men launched attacks and ambushes across
eastern Nueva Ecija. In two encounters near Zaragosa, from
December 15 to 23, nearly 150 Japanese were killed. In the entire
month of December our Nueva Ecija organization was able
to inflict up to 500 casualties on the enemy and his puppets, the
attacks continuing even after the mop-up offensive had swung
to the Nueva Ecija mountains.
After the December offensive the Japanese became much
more thorough in their methods of control. Patrols now went
out nearly every day and the barrios were regularly visited.
Consequently, we were forced to adopt an even more mobile
existence.
11. People Produce Leaders
One of the things I had learned, long before the war, was that
the ruling elements fear not only the strength of the people in
their numbers, but the capacity of the people to produce their
own strong individual leaders. In their crudest methods of sup¬
pression the masters will murder the leader of a strike or of a
movement; in their more subtle forms of assassination they in¬
variably accuse people’s leaders of “fanaticism,” “subversive
activities,” or of being clever rogues. Always the people are
characterized as sheep being misled by unscrupulous dema¬
gogues. Never are the people honored for the sons they have
sired.
One of the many boastful arguments of the ruling class is:
“Who can ever take our places?” While they say it they have
one foot on the necks of the people and the other foot in the
grave, because they realize that once a people’s movement is
set in motion, leaders spring from its ranks like the flowers that
burst from the earth. Let the people once feel that their destiny
is their own, and the lowest, humblest masses will yield forth
the necessary engineers and architects of their future.
The Hukbalahap was a movement of that kind.
As vice-commander of the Hukbalahap, Casto Alejandrino
came into leadership in the people’s struggle. He had been one
of the most beloved of town mayors in Pampanga.
It is not possible for me to speak impersonally of Casto
Alejandrino, with whom I have intimately shared so much of a
difficult existence. He has been my comrade and my compadre,
advisor and critic, sharer of songs, jokes, sufferings and the high
experience of fighting for a common goal for the benefit of
mankind.
At the beginning of the war, because he looked somewhat like
a Chinese, I gave him his underground nickname, “Guan Yek,”
83
84 Born of the People
which was soon abbreviated to the more intimate “G. Y.”
I first met G. Y. during the organizing struggles of the AMT,
the peasant union of Pampanga. Even before he joined us, he
had participated in the labor movement, having been spokesman
and picket leader during the Pambusco Workers’ Union strike
in 1938. Later in that year he led the big strike at the Arayat
sugar central, victoriously. Unlike the rest of us at that time,
he grew independently of the influence of Abad Santos, pre¬
ferring to feel his own way toward his convictions. Being neither
a worker nor a peasant, but coming from a family of landowners,
he came to the working class by way of studying Socialist theory
and by his sensitivity to the injustices he observed.
Elected mayor of Arayat on the Socialist ticket in 1940, G. Y.
effectively dramatized the victory of the people. He attracted
national attention when he took his oath of office with the
clenched fist. It delighted the people who had come to witness
the inauguration. They demanded that the other elected officers
do the same. Even the vice-mayor, who was of the opposition,
was forced to do so. As mayor, G. Y. brought a new type of
administration to Arayat. From the very beginning he did not
hesitate to challenge the most established groups. The Quezon
hacienda lay in the Arayat municipality. When Mrs. Quezon
came there to dedicate the new Quezon Memorial Hospital for
charity, G. Y. spoke at the inaugural. He pointed out that while
the idea of charity was not a bad one, it existed only because
of an avaricious system that caused the evils charity was sup¬
posed to, but could not mend. Although he enraged Mrs. Quezon,
she later came to admire his courage, and befriended him.
His program in Arayat was based on protection of the rights
of the poor. He insisted that the rights of the poor had supremacy
over the rights of the rich, and that when property conflicted
with human rights, human right must prevail. When the
proprietors tried to sabotage his program by not paying taxes,
G. Y. announced that he would collect the harvest in lieu of
taxes. The proprietors backed down. The people were enthusi¬
astic.
At the outbreak of the war, G. Y. opened the government
warehouse and distributed 11,000 cavanes of palay to the
The People Produce Leaders 85
people. He came to our first conference with more weapons than
any other group leader, and in addition had requisitioned over
50,000 rounds of .30 cal. ammunition from a U.S. supply depot
left behind by the retreating Americans in barrio San Antonio,
Arayat. When the Philippine government fled, he told the people
that new forms of governing must be adopted.
Typical of G. Y. is his way of probing for the motivations
behind an act or a position. “I have heard your good reason,”
he says, “now what is your real reason?” The “good reason
and the real reason” became the measuring rod for the criticism
and the self-criticism which we developed in the Huk.
Vicente Lava was another who left his stamp deep on the
Hukbalahap. He too was not a peasant, working with crude
tools in the mud of rice paddies, but a scientist, whose tools
were the sensitive devices of laboratories and the complicated
formulae of advanced minds.
In our society, the scientist and the intellectual are always
placed on a pedestal, above the masses. They are supposed to
breathe a rarefied air, or live in an ivory tower; no one is supposed
to understand what they are doing or thinking; they are assumed
to be removed from the common herd.
Vicente Lava did not belong to an intellectual aristocracy.
He belonged to the people.
He came from the town of Bulacan, in Bulacan province,
where he was born in the barrio of Tibig in 1894. His father was
an independent thinker, a progressive among the reactionaries
in the Nacionalista Party; when the people urged him to run for
mayor he ran in opposition to the rich faction, and won. Vicente’s
uncle, Esteban, was a revolutionary fighter with del Pilar at the
age of 17; the Spaniards cornered him in the Bulacan church
and killed him. Vicente heard the story many times from jiis
father. He also heard his father’s repeated admonition: “Be
first in all things intellectual.”
To be an exceptional intellectual, one must be an exceptional
student. Vicente was both. From the barrio school in Tibig, he
moved to the Academy in Manila, then to the University of
the Philippines. When he left UP, in 1916, he had mapped out
his future; he would be a scientist, a chemist.
86 Born of the People
It is a long road from a barrio school to the laboratory of a
scientist. Vicente followed its windings to the United States, to
the University of California and to Columbia University in
New York City. There he married an American girl, Ruth
Propper. When he came back to the Philippines, his mind was.
fixed upon his life work.
He had a great dream of industrializing the Philippines. He
envisioned it in terms of utilizing our own resources in new
ways. As an industrial chemist, he saw wonderful possibilities
in such things as the ordinary coconut. In 1925 he began research
on a simple process of extracting oil and other fuels from the
coconut. He devoted all his genius to it. Between experiments he
returned to the states, studying at Oberlin College and at New
York University. In all his life he never halted his studies.
In 1936 the answer came to the problem of coconut fuel. He
patented the Lava Process and established a factory for its
application at Calumpang and at San Pablo, Laguna. The process
of extracting fuel led him enthusiastically on to new processes
for the coconut: milk with the same nutritive value as cow’s
milk, flour, condensed milk. In the meantime he experimented
on new uses for sugar, for tobacco, and for other native products.
Vicente Lava acquired world renown. He was honored with
membership in the American Chemical Society, the American
Men of Science, the New York Academy of Arts and Sciences,
the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the
National Research Council of the Philippines, and a dozen other
honorary societies.
Vicente, however, did not keep himself in an ivory tower.
When he felt the walls of one closing around him, he demolished
them. His eyes were not closed to the other factors of his environ¬
ment. He saw, for one thing, that his dream of an industrialized
Philippines was impossible as long as imperialism dominated
our country. He noticed, too, that fascism in the world was
destroying independent scientific thinking. He came to a decision
that broadened his dream.
“At first,” he said, “I thought that if a man excelled in his
field that was enough of a contribution; he could then just be
content to join a civic organization. But the pressure of inter-
The People Produce Leaders 87
national events, and the operation of harmful social forces in
my own country taught me differently; they taught me that
man’s social problems must be solved before any headway can
be made in scientific problems. Around me, wherever I looked,
there was a tremendous wastage of human lives and human
energies. In pure science, one can afford to make mistakes, but in
the social sciences, where human lives are at stake, fundamental
errors must not be permitted.” His scientific approach led him
to the ranks of the progressive movement in the Philippines.
One of his first steps was to organize the League for the
Defense of Democracy. He was one of the first to raise his voice
in warning against the threat of Japanese aggression. When, a
few months before the war, emissaries of the Japanese govern¬
ment approached him and offered to buy the Lava Process, for
a sum of one million pesos, he refused even to consider it. He
wanted his work to be used for the benefit of the Filipino people.
Through his activities in the people’s movements before the
war he became deeply interested in the agrarian problem and
in the peasant movement. All his scientific work had been de¬
signed to bring greater abundance into the life of the common
too; now he clasped the hand of the too, to work together with
him to remove the barriers to an abundant life.
Before the war began, Vicente shared our opinion that a
guerrilla army and a mass people’s resistance would be necessary
if the Philippines were invaded. When the war finally came,
he knew well where such a movement would be likely to grow.
In the city the Japanese were looking for him, to obtain his
process formula. He went directly to Central Luzon and aided
us in hammering out the design of the Hukbalahap. His advice
and his counsel were so valuable that he became widely known
as the advisor of the Huk.
He lived in the barrios where our organization was strong.
The people knew him as “V. Y.,” his underground name: “V”
for “Victor” or victory, and “Y” for “Yantok,” the flexible but
unbreakable tree which has its roots deep in the earth. The barrio
people knew intuitively that he must be an important man, and
they would bring him extra portions of eggs and milk. They
would come into his house to watch him have discussions with
88 Bom of the People
us, observing his bright sharp eyes and the quick nodding
motions of his eager head. When the hardships of the forests
and swamps finally wasted his body, they took care of him with
all the solicitude of a close family. They felt that he was part
of them.
It delighted Vicente during the war to see native industries
develop due to the lack of imported goods: edible coconut oil,
alkali for soap making, sugar alcohol, flour substitutes from
rice, corn, cassava and sweet potato, an increased use of rattan,
buri and other forest plants for making furniture, bags, etc.,
native drugs and medicines. He would point to them with pride.
Vicente Lava was the symbol of the new society, in which the
manual worker and the brain worker join together for the com¬
mon cause of mankind.
Mateo del Castillo, who occupied the important post of politi¬
cal director on the Military Committee, was a striking example
of devotion to the working-class movement. He had not started
life as a peasant, either, but as the son of a middle-class land-
owner in Batangas. His father was Spanish, and he had received
the severe Spanish education. His father had been sent out from
Spain during the period of the Filipino revolts and was justice
of the peace in Tanauan, Batangas, when Mateo was born, in
the year of revolution, 1896. His father, however, was a liberal
landowner who was amenable to reforms of the Spanish feudal
system.
Del Castillo remained a part of his father’s background for
thirty years before he transferred his roots to other soil. When
his children became old enough he wanted them to attend the
city schools. He sold his lands in Batangas and moved to Manila,
where he bought and operated a carinderia. Upstairs he had
rooms rented. A Protestant preacher lived in one of them, a
man who was a good friend of a leader of the KPMP.
How does a man grow into his convictions? Del Castillo had
been a landowner, knowing peasants only as tenants. Now he
was a restaurant-owner, a business man, with a comfortable
income, a family, a satisfied existence. Yet he became deeply
interested in the lot and in the struggles of the peasants. The
carinderia became a meeting place for the KPMP leadership.
The People Produce Leaders 89
Among those who came there was Crisanto Evangelista, who
awoke in del Castillo the same intense admiration and love
that made the Communist leader one of the most beloved of
Filipinos. Del Castillo threw himself so actively into the discus¬
sions of the peasant movement that he was made treasurer of
the KPMP.
From that time everything that del Castillo owned belonged
also to the movement. Anyone in the movement could come
and eat free in the carinderia. Whatever income he had was
given to the organization. Eventually he had to sell his business
to pay for the debts that came from its neglect. His family,
although in a desperate economic plight, was unanimous in its
support of him and his activities.
When del Castillo became immersed in peasant organization
he joined the golden company which has made our history
so rich: those who go to prison for the people. Time after time
he was arrested, and jailed, always for the convenient crime of
“sedition.” In Cabanatuan (Nueva Ecija), in Manila, in San
Miguel (Bulacan), the constabulary came to take him.
When I came to know Mateo del Castillo I found him to be
a kind, gentle comrade, who conducted his own life in a severely
simple fashion. He was very disciplined; he had adjusted himself
to meet the worst of hardships with complete equanimity. If
there was nothing to eat but a handful of poor rice, he would
eat it with the same appreciation with which he enjoyed a
sumptuous meal. He had absolutely no regard for his own
personal welfare.
When the Japanese invaders came, del Castillo had an obvious
place to go, among the peasants whose fortunes he had made
his own.
Del Castillo’s assistant in the political department, a man who
became political director of the Huk in 1944, and later, in 1945,
its chief-of-staff, was Mariano Balgos. There was a deep signifi¬
cance in the team-work of the two men. Del Castillo had be¬
come a peasant leader; Balgos was from the industrial trade
union movement of Manila. Together they were a symbol of
the most important unity that Filipinos can achieve: the unity
of peasant and worker.
90 Born of the People
Mariano Balgos is a son of the working class. His father, too,
was a worker, and also a revolutionist. During the revolution
of 1896, he was a sergeant in the Katipunan,* under Ricarte, using
the pseudonym “Alon.” He was an active supporter of Bonifacio
against Aguinaldo. After the conquest of the Philippines by the
American imperialists, the elder Balgos became a Ricartista in the
Veterans of the Revolution, one of those who refused to pledge
loyalty to the American government in the Philippines. Mariano
grew up in the home atmosphere of sensitivity to nationalism
and to the ills of the downtrodden.
Balgos went as far as the seventh grade in a Sampaloc school
and then graduated into the stricter classrooms of struggling for
a living. In 1915, at the age of 17, he got his first job, as a printer
for the Manila Daily Bulletin. The labor movement was in its
infancy then; Balgos grew up with it. In 1917 he became a
member of the Union Impresores de Pilipinas (Printers Union
of the Philippines), which six years before had been the first
industrial union to be organized in our country. Its president and
founder was Crisanto Evangelista. In his local branch, Balgos
became secretary at once.
It is impossible to think of the printers’ union, one of the
proudest and most militant of our trade unions, without con¬
sidering the role of Balgos. He became its national secretary in
1924, a position which he held until the outbreak of the war;
after the war he became its national president, taking the place
of the martyred Crisanto Evangelista. To the printers he is
so beloved that they have rushed to his defense many a time
for his activities outside the union.
%
12. Self-Evaluation
My life and actions as Commander-in-Chief of the Hukbalahap
were becoming more and more unified with the lives of those
whom I represented. Whatever attention I may have received
from my fellow-countrymen was due solely to my identification
with the Hukbalahap and with other people’s movements.
When I came into the Socialist movement in 1936 I had many
ideals about what the people were and what they should be.
I would approach them and say: “Organize and unite!” and
when they did not do so immediately I would think “What’s
the matter with them anyway?” Slowly, however, the people
ceased to be a word, an idea, a mass; they became faces that
I knew, hands that I felt as I grasped, voices that I recognized,
individual gestures and mannerisms. I discovered their humanity.
Also, I began to see our movement in terms, not of ideals, but
of hard work by people who sacrificed. If the people came to
accept me it was not because of bombastic speeches or the
expounding of high sounding theories, but because I became
one of them, a brother.
The war left no room for mistakes. I had weaknesses; I was
criticized for them and urged to correct them, for my weak¬
nesses were the enemy’s strength. I was soft-hearted, for in¬
stance. When I was a boy I would cry over the death of a chick¬
en. Now I was in the position of ordering the death of certain
spies, traitors, enemies of the people. I, personally, never took
the life of a single human being, but I have signed the death
Self-Evaluation 105
warrants of many as Commander-in-Chief of the Hukbalahap.
I acted as the representative of the people’s will. In every case
mine was the responsibility, and I accepted it.
My training under Abad Santos had produced an erratic ten¬
dency which my comrades in the Huk persistently criticized.
Don Perico’s office had no system, and all of us who worked
with him were free to follow our own methods and our own
ideas. Unity suffered and individualistic traits appeared. I still
had them at the beginning of the war; I would take steps and
give directions without consulting other members of the leading
bodies. In the sessions which we held for self- and group-criti¬
cism, I was given some hard knocks by my comrades, until I
took steps to correct myself. In our organization, where unity and
democracy were essential, individualism could easily degenerate
into anarchy.
Our decisions were collective and, once arrived at, fell under
my supervision. We did not have a “headquarters” complex.
We were all field commanders. To implement policies we would
each take a Military District and tour it, Alejandrino to Pam-
panga, del Castillo to Nueva Ecija, myself to Bulacan. In addi¬
tion there were inspection tours of the squadrons. Our head¬
quarters, in the first place, was not permanently located; we
constantly shifted from one barrio to another, or to the forest
or to the swamp. It was simple: our office was not much more
than a typewriter and a roof. Until the late phases of the war
we led a highly mobile existence. That was a big factor in our
successful existence on the plain.
A guerrilla leads a perpetual life of hazard. In that respect
I was no different from the rest. I had narrow escapes and hair¬
line experiences. Like the rest, I often ran, climbed, crawled
or squirmed my way to safety. It is not my intention, however,
to underscore my experiences during the war. A history of the
Huk alone would be my biography, and if any of my comrades
read these pages, I know that they also would say: “Look, there
is my biography, too.”
Despite the privations of our life, there was much that made
us happy. The life of the peasants even in the best of peacetime
conditions is a miserable one. Now, however, our difficulties were
106 Born of the People
lightened by our way of life. We governed ourselves with our
own set of principles which gave us a new sensation of free¬
dom, democracy, and comradeship. It was possible for an or¬
dinary Huk soldier to live in the rain, in the mud, in a rough
lean-to, to go hungry, and to be sick, and still to feel excited,
because his destiny was his own. Our squadrons were happy;
they sang, joked, played games; they went into encounters
singing.
My own sense of happiness had many sources. My wife was
with me throughout the war; coming back to her each time after
trips in the field was not unlike returning to San Fernando before
the war after visiting the barrios to organize. It sprang, too,
from the wonderful movement we were creating, and the trans¬
formation that was taking place among the people. I was 29
years old when I came into leadership of the Hukbalahap. I was
young enough to be boyishly excited by our tasks. I rushed
about with such energy that comrades, who were dubbing each
other with nicknames to facilitate underground work, called me
first “Lu-Lu” (the racing one), then “Alipato” (the spark that
spreads a fire). When I was on the march, climbing our moun¬
tains, I would run up slopes and leap from rock to tree to rock
again, feeling the same release of energy that I used to feel as a
boy in Bulacan, when I climbed the mountains during holi¬
days.
Freedom is never so exuberant as when it is hard pressed.
Next to my wife, my greatest personal happiness during this
period came from the presence in our organization of my younger
brother, Peregrino. I had always regarded Reg as the most prom¬
ising one in our family. When I had to leave school myself I in¬
sisted to Reg that under no circumstances should he abandon
his studies. He remained in school, studying to be a teacher.
After his graduation in 1936 he became a vocational training
instructor in Laguna High School, teaching there for five years,
until the outbreak of the war.
Reg is five years younger than I. I remember him sitting at our
feet when we used to argue heatedly about socialism
in my brother Meliton’s tailor shop in Manila, his mouth open in
amazement at the way we juggled such peculiar phrases. He
Self-Evaluation 107
assured me that some day he would take part in the movement
with me. He was not impetuous; he approached the movement
intellectually, deepening his convictions first. While teaching
in Laguna he joined the League for the Defense of Democracy.
At the outbreak of the war Reg, as a teacher, automatically
became a reserve officer. He was sent to Dau, in Pampanga, at
the time when the first steps were being taken by us to organize
the Huk. When all the Fil-American forces were ordered to re¬
treat to Bataan, Reg came to us, to do his fighting in what he
thought was the most effective way. When I saw him I em¬
braced him fervently. We were together at last in the great com¬
mon struggle.
The most significant emotion of my life has been the joy of
comradeship, and the Hukbalahap was an army of comrades.
It is an emotion that springs from an essential love of one’s fel¬
low men, a love for people that transcends family and all those
intimately treasured in the heart. It is a supreme happiness to
live, work and struggle with people who share one’s beliefs.
All of us, in peacetime, had lived in our own homes, with our
own families, knowing comradeship chiefly during organiza¬
tional work. Now we were all one family, living together, go¬
ing hungry together, sharing common hardships equally. Our
common home was usually a tiny, unobtrusive shelter which
was so crowded that we slept in layers. We ate from the same
pot, off the same banana leaf. Our lives were communal.
Neither at our headquarters, with a squadron, nor in a barrio
could we act in the prescribed bourgeois fashion as leaders. I con¬
sidered it sacrilegious for me to be considered in any way but
as a comrade and as a man not only by our soldiers but by the
masses as a whole. It was more important, I felt, that our
“Fundamental Spirit” be followed to the letter by the leaders than
by our comrades in general.
It was, and still is, a joy to me to mend the torn clothes of my
comrades; reduce me to my economic essentials and I am a
tailor. My greatest delight, however, is in cooking, or in baking
a cake for a comrade’s birthday. To be a commander of the
kitchen can often be as exalting as to be a commander of an
army.
108 Born of the People
Fundamentally, I have always considered that if I can make
others happy then my function as a human being has been ful¬
filled. I believe in reaching out to people, in going out of my
ways to please, to aid, or to soothe. I have often been criticized
by other leading comrades because I have devoted so much time
and attention to the welfare and comfort of others that I have
neglected my own personal development. “You should read
they would tell me. “You should study.” They were correct, and
I followed their criticism, knowing that a people s movement
demands leadership armed with the most advanced knowledge,
with the theories of struggle, with history, economics, and po¬
litical science. Nevertheless, it would be incongruous for me,
or for anyone in our movement, to adopt a political philosophy
based on the brotherhood of man, and not to practice it in our
own fives.
13. Counter-Attack
We began the year 1943 with an excess of confidence. The
December Japanese raid had been severe, but when it passed
we remained, and in the same old places. It made us feel that
the enemy was incapable of crushing us, or even of crippling us
badly. Such an attitude led us into a gross underestimation of
the enemy’s strength. We repeated the same audacious tactic
that we had stressed following the September raid: intensive
military activity, with many raids and ambushes. This in spite of
the fact that the enemy had increased their patrols until they
were almost a daily occurrence.
A large raiding patrol of three hundred Japanese entered the
barrio of Gandue, Mexico, on January 9, and were engaged in
a big battle by our squadrons, which managed to kill 83 of the
enemy. Another battle at Bitukang Manuk, Macabebe, was
notable for the heroic conduct of Mameng, the daughter of
Banal, who fought the enemy face to face with a .38 pistol.
Counter-Attack 109
killing several enemy soldiers before she died in action.
On January 22 we caught an enemy patrol of over 100 men
while it was crossing the river in the vicinity of Cantunga, near
Arayat. Their presence in that spot, which was in the forest
proper, indicated that they were becoming more aggressive.
Wa Chi Squadron 48 ambushed them. The enemy was allowed
to cross the river and to climb the bank. Then, their retreat cut
off, they were attacked. The Chinese were very daring; they
attacked with bayonets and fought the Japanese hand-to-hand.
During the fight they were reinforced by another squadron.
Thirty Japanese were killed before they could get back across
the river.
Early in February our forces made an assault on Arayat
poblacion. It was the day of the inauguration of the puppet
mayor, and a puppet demonstration had been scheduled. The
raid was carried out under the command of G. Y. He took 200
men with him, stationed most of them around the outskirts of
the town, which he entered with only a small group. G.Y., the
rightful mayor, was paying an unofficial call on his spurious
successor.
The intention was to disrupt the puppet demonstration, an act
which in itself, was of excellent propaganda value to the people.
In addition, we were after the arms of the puppet policemen.
The police and their arms were in the municipal building, which
was in plain view of the proceedings. A Japanese garrison was
only a stone’s throw away. Nevertheless the whole police force
was held up and disarmed in the municipio. The celebration
itself was smashed when the raiding party opened fire on the
puppet mayor. This brought into action the Japanese garrison,
which up to then was unaware of what was taking place, and
our people had a narrow escape. G. Y., who had his pockets
loaded with eggs given to him by friends in the town, had to roll
over and over in a hasty plunge to get out of line of the enemy
fire, with disastrous results. “If it had gotten any hotter,” he
said, “I would have been an omelet.”
In February, too, a big fight occurred in the barrio of San
Julian, Cabiao, also in the vicinity of the big forest. This time
there were over 200 Japanese involved, and four of our squadrons
110 Born of the People
engaged the enemy. We were forced to retreat into Nueva Ecija,
but there, too, the enemy patrols were everywhere. The squad¬
rons retreated back into the forest.
Encouraged by our accomplishments, we had begun to pro¬
ject plans for expansion beyond our Central Luzon provinces.
But our plans were due for a rude interruption. In March 1943,
we were taught our biggest lesson of the war.
In our overconfidence, most of us were lulled into a false
sense of security. Our people became careless about secrecy,
without which any underground movement is doomed to failure.
They exposed themselves carelessly in towns, where enemy spies
were alert. Our own intelligence networks were not woven
tightly enough, and our united front program in the barrios
often went no further than the blueprint stage. Although we
had initiated a rounded program, our leadership itself was at
fault for not carrying out a thoroughgoing check-up and for not
emphasizing our weaknesses. Those who pointed to the danger
signs were often disregarded.
The greatest mistake was our concentration in the big forest
of Cabiao. The forest, besides being a good hideout, had a
sentimental attachment for us because the Huk had been bom
under its trees. A large number of our leading comrades lived
there, along with at least ten squadrons. We had a hospital
there, and schools. In addition, hundreds of civilians had made
their homes with us. Nearly all the people of Cabiao, for instance,
where the puppet government was very brutal, had moved
into the forest during 1942. Houses were everywhere, and the
soldiers had permanent barracks. Because most of the forest is
under water during the rainy season, many houses were built in
the trees.
The probing of enemy patrols around the rim of the forest
in January and February should have warned us of their im¬
pending operation. We failed to take heed. When the blow fell
on March 5, we were completely surprised.
When we became fully aware of what was happening, the
forest was entirely surrounded. Japanese units were stationed in
every barrio. Over 5,000 Japanese soldiers, plus an equal number
of puppet constabulary and police, converged on the region in
Counter-Attack 111
five columns. One penetrated the forest at once, two others
guarded the river crossings, another patrolled the highways,
while the fifth was strung in a wider circle beyond the main
highway. We were cordoned.
I was not in the forest at the time. I was in the swamp. That,
too, was surrounded by an enemy force, but the main attack
was centered on the forest.
The early morning attack was preceded by heavy bombing
from ten planes. They dropped bombs through the forest but
especially in the tall talahib around the forest edges, setting it
on fire.
We had no time to prepare defenses, nor would it have been
wise to risk a pitched battle. We simply dispersed, the squadrons
splitting into small groups, others attempting to get out singly
or in couples. V. Y. went out the dangerous way, over the river.
Others who tried it were caught. Many preferred to remain in
the forest and hide. There was no food and no water, and after
several days of great privation many had to come out, falling
into the hands of the enemy. The Japanese maintained their
cordon for 10 days, each day sending over a column to comb the
forest. Each day too, four or five planes came over and bombed.
There was no fighting, and we had no losses due to fighting.
Large numbers of our people were captured, however, among
them some of our very best organizers, of whom a heartbreaking
number were tortured and killed.
Two squadrons, the Wa Chi and Squadron 66, re-assembled
at once behind the enemy cordon and carried out diversionary
attacks to enable other comrades to get away. They assaulted
Japanese units in Mexico and Magalang, with some effect, but
the enemy’s reserves were moved into those localities and the
forest raids went on. In Nueva Ecija the squadrons of Dimasalang
conducted very effective diversionary work.
In the forest the octopus gave its last squeeze and withdrew
on the 15th. On the 18th several Huk leaders were already back
in the forest to discuss the catastrophe. Fourteen squadrons had
been scattered. Many leading people had been killed and some
were captive. Over a wide area the people in the barrios were
demoralized.
112 Born of the People
Among those captured were several of our leading friends from
Manila: Jesus Lava, Vitaliano Manansala, Jerry Lacuesta, and
some university professors. They were made to work for the
enemy in the forest, carrying heavy equipment through the
tangled underbrush. If they stumbled or tried to rest they were
beaten with heavy sticks. There was no water for them to drink
except from the river, which was full of dead animals and men.
Later, when they were forced to march to town, Jesse developed
acute dysentery. The Japanese were afraid to touch him after
that, for fear of contracting it themselves, and it undoubtedly
saved his life. In the town of Cabiao they were flung on their
faces into the dung-covered street, where the people could see
them.
It was in Cabiao that Vitaliano Manansala died. Vital was
a progressive young lawyer who had defended laborers in Manila
before the war. He despised the Japanese fascists and had
jumped at the opportunity of serving in the underground move¬
ment against them. He could not stand the idea of being cap¬
tured, and perhaps unable to continue the struggle. On the way
to Cabiao he tried to escape.
He was caught at once. In the streets of Cabiao he was beaten
with a shovel by the Japanese. With it they broke his legs and
arms, and smashed his face. As they beat him he made a speech,
denouncing the Japanese barbarians. They could not shut him up.
In his loud ringing voice he shouted out his hatred for fascism,
calling on the people to resist and drive out the invader. The
Japanese hung him head down from a tree. “This is what we do
to Huks,” they said. He shouted back at them: “Yes! I am a Huk,
and this is how Huks live and fight!” He was dashed headlong
on rocks below until he was dead. With his last breath he
called upon the assembled people never to stop fighting until the
fascists had been driven from the Philippines.
Some of the prisoners had only one fear, that of being forced to
talk, to betray their comrades. One of our organizers, Eddie,
hung upside down from a tree, dashed his head against the tree-
trunk until he lost consciousness so that torture would not loosen
his tongue. He lived. Others were made more determined by the
heroism of Vital.
Counter-Attack 113
Jesse Lava followed a different tactic from the recklessness
of Vital. He kept quiet, with caution learned from the under¬
ground. In Cabiao he had two narrow escapes, once when a
Ganap who had known him at the University kept insisting to
the Japanese guards that “this man is one of the masterminds
of the guerrillas,” and again when a civilian whom he had con¬
tacted during his united front work pointed him out to the puppet
police. On both occasions the Japanese were negligent and
ignored the accusations. Jesse was taken to Bongabon concentra¬
tion camp, where he wisely accepted the “rejuvenation course
for guerrillas.
At Bongabon the prisoners were given indoctrination lectures
by leading puppets, who spoke with great conviction of the
Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. Prisoners were not
treated badly; the Japanese were making an effort to win over
their opposition. Jesse saw a way out in pretending to accept
their “course.” He even taught a Japanese how to play the
piano, and was rewarded with freedom in the town, where he
was able to contact friends and get good food. In addition,
he pretended to strain his leg, and wrapped it in huge bandages
which kept him out of work in the camp. On July 23 the enemy
was satisfied with his indoctrination and he was released. He
went back to Manila, resuming his medical practice at the Mercy
Hospital. There, following the practice of the underground, his
friends cut him off from all contact for several months, until
it was certain that he was not under surveillance. By November,
he was once again organizing united front underground units.
Rita, a young girl secretary attached to our GHQ, had a
unique experience when she was captured by the enemy. It
indicated the resourcefulness of our people. She was a girl
who had run away from home in Manila to join the Huk. When
the bombing of the forest occurred she tried to escape in the
company of a comrade named Nobli. They had immediately run
straight into the hands of the Japanese.
Nobli at once made a desperate attempt to get away, but he
was shot and killed. Rita, taken to the Arayat garrison for ques¬
tioning, assumed an air of bewildered grief, claiming that she
was the newly married bride of Nobli and that they were
114 Born of the People
innocent civilians merely on their way to meet her new husband s
parents, to get their blessings. The enemy was inclined to be
skeptical and kept her imprisoned, although they did not harm
her. Through our intelligence we learned of the story she had
told. Our comrades went to Nobli’s parents and told them that
their daughter-in-law was being held. All unknowing, the parents
went to Arayat and put on a touching scene urging the release
of their “daughter.” Rita was let go. Rather than disillusion our
comrade’s parents, they were allowed to go on believing that
Rita was really their daughter. She was something tangible to
go with their memory of Nobli.
Although I managed to slip out of the Candaba swamp, my
brother Reg had an ordeal there. He was teaching in a mass
school when the bombings came, and the class discovered the
swamp to be entirely surrounded. The students, 15 of them,
split into three groups and tried to get out. Reg’s group of five
found Japanese soldiers wading in the swamp whichever way
they turned. For five days they wandered back and forth in the
swamp to evade patrols, only guided in their movements by the
peak of Mount Arayat. They had two guns between them.
On the third day without food, two of the students tried to
enter a barrio to obtain something to eat. They were shot at by
Japanese. Two others who tried to enter another barrio, were
also fired upon, and one was killed. On the fourth foodless day
the cogon was burned around them. When a suffocating student
rose to breathe he was shot by the Japanese from foxholes dug
around the patch of cogon. Three were left, with one pistol.
On the fifth foodless day, they lay in the cogon under the blazing
sun, unable to move for fear of being detected. When night
came they decided they had to get out. The moon was now
becoming full. Soon there would be no darkness to hide their
movements. They got out by way of the river. Too weak to
swim, they had to float on pieces of bamboo. Finally, in the
Mexico barrios, they found people’s organizations, which took
them in and cared for them.
One of our leading Chinese friends, afraid to speak for fear
that his speech would reveal his origin, clasped a rosary con¬
stantly and continuously mumbled unintelligible prayers over
Counter-Attack 115
it until the Japanese were sick of listening to him and let him
go. Invariably an expression of defiance to the captors meant
torture or death. We had to learn to be clever to deceive the
enemy.
The March 5 disaster had taken a heavy toll and had spread
much demoralization in its wake. However, it was not a fatal
nor even a seriously crippling blow. It simply taught us that
we could not be careless and that we must be less confident
and more shrewd in our appraisal of the situation. We saw now
the need for decentralization of our command, and established
a new system of Regional Commands, each self-sufficient in
itself, with an over-all, extremely mobile GHQ.
The big raid produced differing reactions among our leader¬
ship, and among the rank and file. Some of us were for continuing
an intense struggle, but adopting different forms to fit our
circumstances. Another group favored the adoption of what
came to be called the “Retreat for Defense policy. This, in
essence, was nothing more than the awaitist policy which we
had been condemning all along, dressed up in different clothing.
It called for “lie-low” tactics, for splitting our army into small
groups of four to five each, and for restricting instead of ex¬
panding our range of operations.
We condemned “Retreat for Defense” as the reverse extreme
of our erroneous recklessness in 1942. We pointed out that we
had outside allies who could be counted upon to grow progres¬
sively stronger, that every moment we rested gave the enemy an
hour more to consolidate himself, and that the very concept of
guerrilla warfare was offensive in nature. Furthermore, the tides
among the people had a revolutionary flow, and not to expand
our activities meant a stifling of the people s mood.
Up to now we had concentrated chiefly on the military phase
of resistance. The Japanese retaliations, using as they did an
overwhelming force, drove home very plainly the necessity for
a many-sided struggle. And the people were more than ready to
participate.
14. Mass Base: The BUDC
An account merely of our armed struggle against the Japanese
would be only one-half the story of the Hukbalahap. The main
center of the people’s resistance movement came to be in the
barrios, among the civilian masses.
The Japanese, too, were well aware of the value of organizing
the people, for their own ends. Their control system and the
intelligence service of the Neighborhood Associations was one
method. The Kalibapi, the government party, was another. Al¬
though neither of these organizations penetrated very deeply
among the people, enlisting for the most part the rabid pro-
Japanese, the collaborators and the puppets, they did, unless
combated, stifle the will of the people to resist. In addition,
the Japanese utilized their tools in the Ganap leadership to
launch that toy army, the Makapili, the Patriotic League of
Filipinos. An even more spurious attempt was their “Bamboo
Army.” Both of these were launched with a fanfare as “people’s
armies,” obvious attempts to win the people from their mass
support of the Huk.
At the top of this infamous pyramid was first the Executive
Commission and then the crowning indignity of the full-fledged
puppet government. No de-facto government existed on Philip¬
pine soil. In its absence, we created one, putting the government
into the hands of the people. We did this through the medium
of the BUDC, the Barrio United Defense Corps.
The first BUDC’s came into being in the swamp and fish
pond towns along the Pampanga River, barrios in which the
AMT and the KPMP had had solid organizations before the war.
They arose as early as the middle of 1942, but the original efforts
were not very thorough, all out emphasis at that time being on
recruiting and supplying our squadrons.
116
Mass Base: The BUDC 117
It was not until 1943, after the lessons of March, that we
undertook to set up BUDC’s in earnest. Then we made them so
much a part of the people that, although smashed repeatedly
in some places by the enemy, they sprang up again full blown
over night.
The BUDC, or, as it was called often, the STB (Sandatahang
Tanod ng Bay an, the people’s home defense guard) was one
phase of our united front activity. Although, as its name implies,
it had its military aspects, being coordinated closely with our
army and having its own armed guards, the BUDC, in a deeper
sense, brought a hitherto unknown phenomenon into the barrios:
democratic government. After centuries of caciquism* the people
were given the opportunity to rule themselves.
A BUDC council, in a large barrio, had up to twelve members;
smaller barrios had as few as five members. The size of the
governing body was determined by both the size of the barrio
and by its importance in our area of operations. The members
included a chairman, a vice-chairman, a secretary-treasurer, and
directors of recruiting, intelligence, transportation, communica¬
tions, education, sanitation, agriculture, and a chief of police.
Sometimes two or three of these positions were held by a single
council member.
All offices in the barrio were elective. The secret ballot was
extended to all residents of 18 years and over, providing they
had no record of pro-Japanese activity. Disfranchisement was
the penalty for acts committed against the people.
The BUDC’s were created only in those areas under our
influence, which became, in actuality, guerrilla areas, protected
and defended by our squadrons. Elsewhere, we utilized relief
associations, anti-robbery associations, all of which were really
underground councils. Often we infiltrated and took over the
organizations of the enemy in order to render them useless.
In those regions where the pre-war peasant unions had been
strong and had accustomed the people to organization and
struggle, we had almost complete mass support from the be¬
ginning. However, when our squadrons entered new territory we
I
The People’s Army 129
Huk dealt with those whose actions tended to destroy the faith
of the people in the Huk, and, inevitably, in the anti-fascist
142
Growth and Development 143
his dwindling fuel supplies, of robbing us of our clothing ma¬
terials to clothe his people at home, had drained away our
economy until the bare bottom of want had begun to show.
As the plight of the people began to worsen, and discontent
spread, the “comradeship” approach of the Japanese toward the
peasant guerrillas, many of whom had been given only a friendly
lecture when caught at first, changed to ruthlessness. Raids on
the barrios were characterized now by brutality and wholesale
looting.
While the nation suffered, the cynical treachery of the col¬
laborators became more pronounced than ever. Signed state¬
ments by puppet officialdom urging guerrillas to lay down their
arms became as abundant as Mickey Mouse money. Then, on
October 14, 1943, the Japanese displayed their most glamorous
exhibit: the puppet independence and the full-fledged puppet
government of Jose P. Laurel. One of the first acts of the latest
puppet show, which had been preceded by such performances
as that of Henry Pu-Yi in Manchuria and Wang Ching-Wei in
China, was an “amnesty” offer to all guerrillas.
Our answer was a manifesto which cried: “Drive out the
Japanese bandits and smash the traitorous puppet government!
Long live Philippine national freedom and emancipation!”
We had learned our lesson concerning concentration. After
the March raid we devised a system of regional commands, each
of which was given its autonomy to a large degree, and all of
which functioned under a reconstituted mobile GHQ. The re¬
gional commands actually amounted to expanded military dis¬
tricts, and each was given a general perspective of expansion
beyond its territory. Banal started his expansion in July and
pushed west, east and south, into Bataan and Bulacan, organ¬
izing as he went along. By November he was consolidated
enough in his new areas to begin ambushes and to risk battles
with the enemy.
Aquino’s squadrons split immediately after March, almost
half staying on the plain, while the rest went up into the moun¬
tains to locate bases from which to push into the northern part
of the province of Tarlac and eventually into Pangasinan.
Bio’s forces operated in the feudal domain of arch-collabora-
144 Born of the People
tor Benigno Aquino, who raged against the “bandit guerrillas
from the safety of Manila. (“No relation,” old Bio would say
tersely, ejecting a large violent stream of buyo juice.) The
Kalibapi chief sent his father, old Mianong Aquino, who had
been a general in the Katipunan, to contact Bio in the moun¬
tains and ask him to surrender. “How can you expect to hold
out?” said the old man. “How many arms and men did you
have in the Katipunan?” retorted Bio. The old general reflected.
“One platoon,” he answered. Bio drew himself up and said: I
have 300 men and I have automatic rifles.” The old general
considered a moment. “In that case, don’t surrender,” he said,
and went slowly back down the mountain. Those were the
same mountains from which he had fought the Spaniards in
1896.
Dimasalang aggressively pushed out the borders of his com¬
mand, penetrating also into Tarlac. Nueva Ecija became so
active a field of operations that it was divided into an “east¬
ern front” and a “western front.”
Although the latter half of 1943 was chiefly devoted to root¬
ing ourselves deeper among the people and to the strengthening
of our squadrons, we did not cease harassing the enemy. Reck¬
lessness, however, was embed; we stopped assaulting towns and
we spread our ambushes over wider areas, so that the enemy
could not effectively zone us or our mass bases. We did not
avoid fights and were often forced into pitched battles; when that
happened our troops gave a good account of themselves.
We learned that the best way to keep morale at a high level
was to develop the offensive frame of mind in our soldiers.
Thus, although we spaced attacks, we did it according to monthly
plans of action. Each month a squadron was to carry out three
ambushes, raids or acts of sabotage. In this way the attack psy¬
chology routed tendencies toward demoralization. To overcome
any “retreat for defense” attitudes we initiated the following
slogans in the squadrons: “Fight against oowardice!” “Stand
firmly at your post!” “Have proletarian comage!” “Grow strong
through struggle!” and “There is no victory without a fight!”
It was in the course of carrying out a routine ambush that
one of our squadrons became engaged in a memorable battle in
/
21. “Liberation”
In a barrio between Mexico and San Fernando, our GHQ
sat in January 1945, waiting for the American army to come.
The Hukbalahap and the people were the masters of Central
Luzon. The enemy was everywhere in flight; Japanese stragglers
were being killed in the barrios by women; puppets had been
chased from their positions and the people were ruling themselves
through their own elected provisional representatives. Victory
was within our grasp.
The first contact of our forces with the American army oc¬
curred in the town of Tarlac. We had already liberated Tarlac
province up to the highways, and on January 20 our squadrons
assaulted and captured the provincial capital. A sharp fight
took place in the streets, in which 56 of the enemy were killed,
while our losses were but two. The Huks hoisted the Philip¬
pines and American flags and waited in the town of Tarlac
for two days before the American armored spearheads entered.
It was a great occasion for the Huks, who received the GI’s
as onr allies.
Concepcion, Victoria, and La Paz in Tarlac, Magalang and
“Liberation” 187
Angeles in Pampanga were all taken by the Huks before the
Americans could come within cannon range. We were in pos¬
session of San Fernando, the provincial capital, for two days
before the 6th Army arrived. The Americans were amazed.
Long after we had liberated San Fernando, American planes
bombed and strafed the town, thinking the enemy was still
there. Our squadrons guided the Americans over mined roads
to Bamban and Clark Field; we could have prevented the
enemy from fortifying those strong points if we had been better
equipped. Near Mabalacat, American forces were ambushed
by the enemy. It was our Squadron 45 that saved the situation,
receiving a commendation for its work from the American officers.
The other towns of Pampanga had been liberated by us long
before the 6th Army even started its advance. From Calumpit
to Concepcion to Cabanatuan our local governments were func¬
tioning. On January 28, Casto Alejandrino had been elected
provisional governor of the province; he hastened back from his
command of our advance forces on the outskirts of Manila to
assume his duties. In Nueva Ecija, Juan Feleo was elected
provisional governor.
Dimasalang’s soldiers had contacted the 6th Army in Victoria,
Tarlac, on the rim of our “western front” expansion, and had
led them into Nueva Ecija. The now famous assault on the con¬
centration camp at Cabanatuan, which released many American
prisoners, was a joint operation of Americans and the Huk, the
plans having been discussed between U.S. officers and Huks
in Pulilio, Cabanatuan. After a hard fight for the town of Cabana¬
tuan, the Japanese retreated from the provincial capital and the
Huks entered it. Our squadrons then led the Americans to the
assault on Santa Rosa, seven kilometers distant. An American
reconnaissance team, rushing to San Miguel, found that the
town was already in the hands of the Huk. When the Japanese
retreated into the mountains of eastern Nueva Ecija, it was the
Huks who went in after them and cleaned them out.
The advance of the American army through Central Luzon
in January 1945, was the swiftest advance it made anywhere,
during the whole war in the Pacific. Elsewhere on Luzon and on
the other Philippine islands, the American advance was an inch-
188 Born of the People
by-inch struggle, in which their losses were high. The credit
due to the Hukbalahap for enabling this military achievement
to take place has never been acknowledged, particularly by the
American army.
Our squadrons paced the American army all the way to
Manila. Huks, following up an American plane and artillery bom¬
bardment, captured Calumpit, the gateway to Bulacan. When
the Americans asked for coordination in fighting at Meycauayan
and Obando, we were able to inform them that Huks were al¬
ready there.
The capture of Manila is often described as a race between
two American units. Obscured entirely is the shock absorber role
played by the Bulacan Regiment of the Huks and the squadrons
of Regional Command 7. As a matter of fact, if there had been
even a small amount of coordination between the Huks and the
USAFFE, at least half of the city could have been captured
long before the arrival of the Americans, and the massacre of
thousands of innocent Filipinos might have been avoided.
Fluk squadrons entering Manila established their command
post in the building on Lepanto Street which was later occupied
by the House of Representatives. That was as close as most of
our heroes ever got to representation in the government.
It was in barrio San Jose Matulid, Mexico, Pampanga, that I
first saw American soldiers—on January 28. We met them with a
large banner inscribed, “Welcome American Soldiers,” and signed,
“Hukbalahap.” The Americans were young, well-fed in appear¬
ance, and very self-confident. They had everything we had
dreamed of for the past three years: new, modem guns, inex¬
haustible ammunition, armored vehicles, medicine, clothing, and
supplies. In that barrio, as in every barrio of Central Luzon,
the people took them into their homes, fed them, treated them
as liberators.
I regarded the GI’s with mixed feelings. Were these like
my American friend whom I had met at the hunger demonstra¬
tion or were they Americans like Tuggle, Mackenzie and Ram¬
sey? We considered them our friends and allies, but how did they
consider us? The USAFFE had spread propaganda that we were
anti-American. Were we to be treated now with USAFFE
“Liberation” 189
treachery, or with the dignity and equality deserved by people’s
representatives who had won their right to respect on a thou¬
sand battlefields?
The American spearheads that entered Tarlac included an
advance intelligence team under a Lieutenant Littlefield. They
contacted Eusebio Aquino, who relayed them on to our GHQ.
They were interested chiefly in coordinating operations with us
in order to get to Manila. We wanted a real conference. Two
of our representatives were sent to Pangasinan to arrange a meet¬
ing with responsible people in the 6th Army. The 6th Army
would not deal with them, requesting instead to see the lead¬
ers of the Huk.
On January 28, in San Fernando, we had proclaimed the
provisional government of Pampanga. Our representatives to the
6th Army returned shortly after the ceremony of inauguration
had taken place, and on the following morning GY and I went to
Tarlac to contact the American authorities. We had one main
thought in mind: to ask for arms and equipment to enable us
to help drive out the Japanese as quickly as possible.
The authority we met in Tarlac was Captain Fredericks of the
Counter-Intelligence Corps. He greeted us with visible reserva¬
tion, listened to our request for a conference with responsible
authorities, and took us out to the Hacienda Luisita where we
met another CIC man, a Captain Thorpe. To us it was obvious
that we were merely being sounded out and scrutinized. Finally
we were taken to Calasiao, in Pangasinan, where we met Colonel
White of the 6th Army Intelligence.
Our “conference” with Colonel White and his aides, a Major
Labatt and a Major Eaton, confirmed our fears. They gave us
a very cool reception. The first thing they said was that they
didn’t like “civilians with guns.” We declared that we were not
just civilans with guns, but soldiers of a guerrilla army that had
been fighting for three years. Furthermore, we stated our re¬
quest for more arms to intensify our struggle against the com¬
mon enemy. The American officers exchanged glances and
gave us a half-promise of “maybe.” We had been “armed” with
such promises for three years. As we were discussing, the re¬
port came of the Japanese retreat in the direction of Ipo Dam
190 Born of the People
and of the advance of the 1st Cavalry to the outskirts of Manila.
Abruptly Colonel White said: “Okay, that’s all,” and waved us
out, turning to his reports.
As we came away from Calasiao, I had the same feeling in
the pit of my stomach as when eating something sour, thinking
it was fresh. Captain Fredericks had made it very apparent
that he resented the fact that we did not act subservient to
him, and Colonel White had dismissed us coldly as untrust¬
worthy “civilians with guns.” All the way back to San Fernando
I thought about the years of struggle, the lives spent, the suffer¬
ing, to obtain and to use those guns against the enemy of the
Americans as well as of the Filipinos.
Our disappointment on that occasion, deep as it was, did not
prepare us for the horror, the terror, and the persecution that
was to follow. We trusted the Americans, although many of their
representatives had given us good reason not to. In our united
front frame of mind, we thought of them as allies in a war
against a fascist enemy. We had not even considered that our
allies themselves would turn to using fascist methods.
On February 5, our squadrons in Manila, where the battle was
still at its height, were suddenly ordered disarmed by the
American army. Astonished, our comrades refused. Instead they
packed up and started back to Central Luzon. Just beyond the
city our squadrons were halted and disarmed at the point of
guns by American MP’s under the personal authority of Colonel
Eaton, whom I had met and spoken to only a few days before
in Calasiao. Two squadrons were disarmed in Obando and
another at Meycauayan. Our comrades were stunned. Some of
the GI’s with whom they had fought side by side into Manila
were present and cried when they witnessed what was happen¬
ing; others gripped our comrades’ hands and said it was all a mis¬
take, the arms were sure to be returned in a couple of days. The
reason Colonel Eaton gave was that armed civilians would not
be tolerated behind the American lines. The USAFFE units
behind the American lines were considered not civilians but sol¬
diers attached to the U.S. Army! Our soldiers were not even
given truck transportation; they were set afoot and forced to
walk back to Central Luzon.
“Liberation ” 191
Squadron 77 passed through Malolos. When they reached
that town they were suddenly surrounded and seized by the
men of Colonel Adonais Carlos Maclang, the tulisaffe, who had
ambushed and murdered our men before the Americans arrived.
Thrown into jail, our comrades were accused of raiding and loot¬
ing in Malolos, accused of the very crimes which had been
committed by Maclang. This arrest was permitted by the Ameri¬
can MP’s, under whose noses it took place.
On February 7, with the full knowledge of the American CIC,
the men of Maclang dragged the 109 Huks of Squadron 77 into
the courtyard, forced them to dig their graves, and there shot
and clubbed them all to death. Only 109 appeared on our rosters,
but other enthusiastic reserves had joined, unlisted, a week
before. All told there were probably 160. I was able to find only
30 alive, who told me the grim story.
The massacre of Squadron 77 I consider to be the greatest
tragedy that happened to the Hukbalahap during the entire
war. It was one of our best squadrons, containing many of the
most promising leaders of the people produced by our struggle
against the Japanese. Most of them came from Santa Rita, and
from my home town of San Luis; many were Manila students;
many were my relatives. Among them was a girl, Isabela Calma,
sister of Commander Sol; another was Sol’s brother, Florante.
They were murdered by the agents of the landlords and of
American imperialism.
The anger of the people forced the Americans to place Mac¬
lang under arrest. Almost immediately, however, he was set
free. Two days after his release, at the behest of the CIC, he
was appointed mayor of Malolos.
They are raising monuments now to the dead heroes of
Bataan, Filipino and American, and reciting words about the
brotherhood sealed in blood on that battlefield. Who is going
to commemorate the death of Squadron 77? When the people
have come into their own, they will remember their heroes with
the true monuments of brotherhood achieved in peace and
democracy.
The Malolos massacre was the forerunner of fascist terrorism
in Central Luzon.
192 Born of the People
Simultaneously, Linda Bie, whose squadrons had assisted the
Americans in the capture of the Floridablanca airfield, was ar¬
rested along with several of his commanders in Guagua. Six
squadrons were disarmed and told to go home. An American
Major and two Captains, one of them Lindsey of the CIC,
used the men of Lingad to carry out the disarming. Linda cried
when they demanded that he surrender his pistol after fighting
the enemy for three years. He would not surrender it himself;
one of his comrades gave it to the Americans, who told them
that they were being disarmed because they were enemies
of the American and Filipino governments.
“Ask the people. You will not hear that from the people,”
said Linda.
Linda and Commander Sante, brother of Dabu, were taken to
Calasiao at the orders of Colonel Leonard of the CIC. There
they were investigated for one week by Lindsey of the CIC.
They were told that they were being charged by the USAFFE
as anti-government, as guilty of the kidnapping and murder of
Filipinos, and as Communists. After a week of questioning and
accusations, in which their protests were scorned, they were
taken to San Fernando to be lodged in the provincial jail. They
arrived late and the American truck drivers told them to sleep
in the municipal building. The guard was careless, and in the
morning they both escaped. They came to see me. I told them
to go home, to Lubao, and to avoid coming in contact with the
Americans.
Another situation arose when the Philippine Civil Affairs
Unit (PCAU) came in the wake of the American army. Trained
in American army schools and reflecting the MacArthur policy
of reaction, the PCAU refused to recognize the authority of our
provisional governments. The CIC demanded to know who had
placed mayors in office. When told that the people had elected
them, they ordered the removal of provisional officials. The
elected officials in Concepcion, Tarlac, under Mayor Narciso,
were the last to be ejected; the people did not recognize the
authority of the PCAU. In many cases, the mayors appointed
in place of the elected officials were former USAFFE, and many
were rabid anti-Huk elements.
“Liberation ” 193
In Concepcion, Squadron 45 defied an order by a unit of the
CIC to surrender arms. Commander Corpus told his men to
keep their arms, and pointed out that the CIC unit did not have
a force large enough to disarm them. After analyzing the
situation, the CIC unit backed down.
Squadron 50, bringing into Concepcion two Japanese prisoners
whom they had captured in the barrios, was surrounded by
American MP’s and disarmed. Commander Remy was accused
of being a collaborator because he had the two Japanese with
him! The squadron was imprisoned in Concepcion. In Magalang,
Squadron 3 was disarmed and imprisoned.
Huk squadrons were finally given orders to avoid contact with
American units. We greeted our allies; they answered with
persecution.
The American command had come fully equipped with dis¬
torted information furnished them by USAFFE elements that
had remained hostile to the Huk throughout the occupation,
a hostility compounded by relations with landlords and puppet
elements. That, however, did not explain entirely the position
of the American command. The attitude of MacArthur during
the entire war was to play down and repress popular democratic
movements organized to fight the enemy. His awaitist and be¬
low orders had enabled the puppet govermnent to exert a wide
influence on the Filipino people and had helped the enemy
consolidate his occupation, at a time when the people themselves
were everywhere ready for mass resistance. As the “liberation”
progressed it became increasingly obvious that what MacArthur
wanted was a return to the status quo, that he was carrying
out a colonial policy of an imperialist group. Osmena, well-
meaning as he was, came back into relationships that were
strange to him and tried to conduct himself in the spirit of the
status quo, enabling MacArthur to maneuver at will. Even men
like Tomas Confesor, who came into office as Secretary of the
Interior shouting anti-collaborationist slogans, had little under¬
standing of the issues in Central Luzon, having himself disturbed
none of the feudal relationships in his type of guerrilla move¬
ment on Panay.
On top of preconceived prejudices, the American army, the
194 Born of the People
officers in particular, were greeted with open arms by collab¬
orators, landlords and USAFFE alike, who poured out tales of
the horrors of the Japanese occupation, and included fantastic
accusations of murder, robbery, rape and other crimes against
the Hukbalahap, to which was added the charge that we were
anti-American and were conspiring to set up a Communist dic¬
tatorship in the Philippines. American officers, wined and dined
in the wealthy homes of landlords, came to feel much closer
to their hosts and their opinions than to the ragged peasants
in nipa huts. Every liquidation of a dangerous traitor was dis¬
torted into murder; our Harvest Struggle was termed robbery
because it kept the profits from the landlords which they might
have acquired from selling to the Japanese; our local governments
were falsely called Soviets. The campaign of slander had no
limit.
Among the most vicious was the lie that we were anti-Ameri¬
can, a slander spread by the USAFFE among the people even
during the occupation to discredit us. Our entire propaganda
during the war, our leaflets, newspapers, and appeals for action,
are testimony to the high regard in which we held our American
allies against Japanese fascism. Another convincing demonstra¬
tion is the number of American flyers we rescued and relayed to
safety. In all there were thirty, in addition to many other Ameri¬
can soldiers who were convoyed to safety through Huk territorry
during the occupation, or who were cared for by us.
Of the American flyers shot down during the air raids that
began in the latter part of 1944, I remember only a few names:
Captain Frank Hogan, Captain Morris Nayland, a Captain
Eisenbrenner, Lieutenant Adelard F. Landrey (USNR), Lieu¬
tenant Fred A. Lafser (USNR), and Lieutenant David E. Nyman
(USNR). Most important was Colonel Gwen G. Atkinson, who
was rescued by old Bio. Bio still has the following letter given to
him by Colonel Atkinson:
8 January 1945,
Butulan, Magalang,
Pampanga.
To Whom it May Concern:
The bearer of this letter will serve to introduce Eusebio Aquino,
affectionately known as the Old Man. Mr. Aquino is Colonel Aquino of
“Liberation” 195
the Hukbalahap Guerrilla Organization. Since being picked up by the
guerrillas 3 January 1945, I have been extended every courtesy by him
without duress or compensation. Colonel Aquino is to be fully trusted and
has full knowledge of all means of aiding Americans to return to their
organizations.
(signed) Gwen G. Atkinson
Colonel, Air Corps, U.S.A.
212
The Enemy Within 213
had hoped so much, was helpless in the face of treachery and
opposition from both at home and abroad, and gave way every¬
where to reaction and corruption. Nothing could be approved
in the Osmena Congress without the consent of men who had
served the Japanese. While the masses of our people suffered
and starved in a destroyed country, collaborators voted them¬
selves three years back-pay and some non-collaborators plunged
both hands into the profits of black-marketing.
Even more tragic than the drama of betrayal that took place
in the Philippine Congress was what was happening behind the
scenes to the freedom of the people. Permits were denied to
hold meetings in Manila to protest the actions of Congress, and,
when they were granted, Colonel Holland, the American MP
dictator, surrounded the meetings with bayonets and guns. In
the provinces American and Filipino MP’s, with tanks and tank
destroyers, broke up peaceful meetings, raided homes and inti¬
midated the peasants. Private civilian guard armies of landlords
began to rule in towns.
Much publicity was given to a handful of men in Osmena’s
Cabinet who had participated in the resistance movement in the
Visayas and Mindanao. Among them were Tomas Confesor,
Tomas Cabili, and Alfredo Montelibano. Confesor and Cabili
especially were outspoken anti-collaborationists. Yet Confesor,
as Secretary of the Interior, allowed reactionary elements to come
into control in Central Luzon, and under Cabili, as Secretary of
National Defense, the Philippine Army became riddled with those
who had served the Japanese. The later actions of both these men
proved that they were merely holding out for the highest price
they could get. The resistance movements they had led, in the
first place, were the awaitist type, existing apart from the people
and making no attempt to organize them. Montelibano was an
even more impatient opportunist. As Secretary of the Interior
in Confesor’s place he was to launch the “peace and order” terror
in Central Luzon.
The manner in which Roxas quickly organized his forces to
take power was a spectacle to sicken the stomach of even those
who had endured die nauseating rule of the Japanese and col¬
laborators. Could the betrayal have been avoided? Yes, it could
I 214 Born of the People
have been, if Osmena had taken up the challenge and had carried
the fight to the people. Instead he allowed the rights and the
strength of the people to be curtailed at every turn. In truth,
there was little else to be expected from an Osmena, whose whole
background and political life had been built on playing the game
of colonial rule, which breeds the compradore and smothers the
people.
It was the realization of the bankruptcy of the Nacionalistas
that led progressive elements from the guerrilla movements to
unite in the Democratic Alliance. Originally it was not a politi¬
cal party; it was an organizing committee around which the
people could rally in breaking away from the Nacionalistas.
Within it were elements of many political beliefs, differing per¬
haps in methods and in ultimate objectives, but all agreed
that there should be a democratic peace.
The original Democratic Alliance executive committee, with
Judge Jesus Barrera as chairman, included Jose Hilario, Rafael
Ledesma, Manuel Crudo, Vicente Lava, Jose B. L. Reyes, and
Antonio Araneta. Its initial statement of July 15, 1945, stressed
the need for a new political party. Its declaration of principles
was built around four main points: independence, as promised,
for the Philippines; national unity against fascism and punish¬
ment for collaborators; the safeguarding and extension of democ¬
racy; and clean and honest government, free of corruption. Its
program called for a free and independent Philippines that would
be democratic and economically self-sufficient. Its emphasis was
on the welfare of the common man.
The DA program was not revolutionary. It believed in the bal¬
lot and the peaceful petition as the instruments through which
the people’s will should be expressed and achieved. It did not
propose even the mildest socialization or change in the system
of society as we know it. The path it proposed would have led
no further than the development of a healthy industrialized capi¬
talist country out of the feudal agricultural colonial condition
that we had. Nevertheless, it was a tremendous change, which
the people wanted.
The Roxas group was also sensitive to the general desire
throughout the Philippines for a change. It, too, was aware of
The Enemy Within 215
the stigma attached to the very name “Nacionalista.” When, in
January, the Roxas group split away from the old party to form
their own political organization, it adopted the name “Liberal
Party” and conducted a campaign during which they promised
everything to everybody. Reaction, without a mask, could never
have succeeded in the postwar Philippines. Where it did not
resort to fraud, it won with sheer demagogy.
The Huk supported the Democratic Alliance with every gram
of its energy. Socialist-Communist candidates had swept many
towns in 1940 in Central Luzon. In 1946, with Huk support,
they could have swept whole provinces. However, as we did
during the war, we visualized the fight against reaction as requir¬
ing the widest possible united front. With its broader and
more far-reaching appeal, the Democratic Alliance was the best
channel through which the people could flow away from the
parties that were dominated by landlords and compradores.
After the war a new qualitative change had entered the peo¬
ple’s struggle. During the war it had been a struggle for national
liberation, with the military phase uppermost. Now it had be¬
come a struggle for independence and democracy, with the po¬
litical phase uppermost. During the war, so to speak, our meth¬
ods had been underground and illegal; now they were open and
legal. In the postwar Philippines, however, we had to face one
fact: whoever used legal methods to resist the ruthless drive to
power by the Roxas faction was operating strictly at a disad¬
vantage.
To recite the facts of Manual Roxas’ life is to draw the portrait
of a puppet of a man who serves and shields the masters against
the masses. As such he was not alone, nor was he even the
most outstanding example. History is full of men like Manuel
Roxas. The capitalists use them to fill their governments, and
call it democracy; the imperialists place them in power in their
colonies, and call it independence. They are the apologists,
the spokesmen, and the tools.
Before the war Manuel Roxas was one of the lawyers who
handled the interests of Andres Soriano, the monopolist and
fascist. By marriage he was related to the De Leon interests,
big feudal landlords and sugar magnates in Central Luzon. Dur-
216 Born of the People
ing the Japanese occupation he urged the surrender of guerrillas,
he was a member of the Preparatory Commission on Philippine
Independence which organized the puppet republic, he was
chairman of the BIBA which robbed the people of rice, to feed
the enemy, he was Minister-without-Portfolio in the puppet cabi¬
net, he supported the declaration of war against the United
States.
Following the war he was whitewashed and protected by Mac-
Arthur and U.S. High Commissioner Paul V. McNutt, he was
financed by Soriano and the Elizaldes and the feudal landlords,
he gave our economy to the American imperialists with the Bell
Act and parity, he gave our sovereignty to the American army
with the military bases treaty,* he sought to drown the people’s
movement in blood.
During our sojourn in Muntinglupa, GY and I were contacted
by Roxas. His masters had failed to break us by force; he would
try other methods. He offered to pay our way out of prison if
we would support him. He appealed to our youth, pointing to
himself as a young man and to the need for young leaders in our
country. He indicated that we could have high positions. He
must have been disappointed and perhaps surprised when we
refused; he himself had been won by such offers.
Later, after our release, we met him again. We were in
Jimmy’s restaurant in Manila, as the guest of Edgar Snow.
Roxas entered, in the company of others. Out of courtesy I went
to his table to pay my respects. He embraced me and once again
urged my support, promising all manner of reforms. “I am the
most radical in the Philippines, even more than you,” he boasted.
Sitting at his table was Julius Edelstein, the public relations man
of Paul V. McNutt, the chief representative of American big
business in the Philippines at that time.
After my release I had returned to San Fernando, the central
point of people’s organization in Pampanga. There my wife re-
The Roxas victory at the polls, which took place on April 23, 1946,
should be judged against the background of these events: the Philippine
Army, the government machinery, and the press were almost entirely in
the hands of the Roxas group; the powerful landowning, business and
financial groups backed Manuel Roxas; the Philippine Army, the Civilian
guards, and the USAFFE guerrilla bands undertook a campaign of legal
and extra-legal terrorism in order to prevent the strongest anti-Roxas
areas from freely casting their ballots; High Commissioner McNutt,
General MacArthur, and other American officials and businessmen, while
ostensibly keeping “hands off,” actually gave Mr. Roxas substantial support
by ignoring the collaboration issue; Manuel Roxas capitalized on this
support to promise the destitute Filipinos that the United States would
give him the rehabilitation aid that President Osmena had been unable
to obtain; by remaining in the Philippines during the occupation, Mr.
Roxas was able to take over control of a very substantial portion of the
political machinery of the Nacionalista Party.
Finally, the nature of the Philippine elections must be taken into account.
Out of an estimated 18,000,000 population, there were some 3,000,000
qualified, registered voters. Of these, only about 2,500,000 voted in the
April elections. And, in large Philippine areas, peasants still voted as
directed by their cacique, landlord, or plantation foreman.0
A little over six months after I was released from the imperialist
prisons I was elected to the Congress of the Philippines by the
people of Pampanga. For the son of a peasant to become a
Congressman is not a small honor in our country.
But actually before the people could see the concrete and full realiza¬
tion of our understanding, your reactionary subordinates, blood-thirsty
MP officers and mercenary guards, sabotaged our efforts. Lately, if the
papers carrying press releases are to be believed, they indicate clearly
that you are inclined to throw overboard all pretense, human sympathy
and statesmanship. Confused, overwhelmed and finally giving in to ene¬
mies of democracy and progress, you are now reportedly determined to use
the mailed fist, the imperialist-fascist method instead.
I am giving to the press this letter, my letter to you dated August 17,
and the petition we presented to you the last time we met. You asked us to
refrain from publishing these. We complied— even after your subordinates
flooded the people with the venom of fascist propaganda, lies, calumny,
and red-baiting. But now the people must know.
And I respectfully inform you that I believe I will be of more service
to our country and to our people and their government if I stay now
with the peasants. In spite of every harm and provocation done to them
I am still confident I can help guide them in their struggle for democ¬
racy. I will do everything in my power so that whatever happens, their
loyalty to our country and our Constitution is not lessened. And against
all the fascist-imperialist leaders I will help them raise their voices so that
the country will properly understand the side of the oppressed.
You have your choice, Mr. President—be a real liberal and a true leader
of Filipinos and rest assured of our cooperation. But be an imperialist
fascist agent and you will find that there are enough Filipinos who have
learned a lot in the last war and who will not give up in peace social gains
acquired during that war. Should it unfortunately be your choice to luff
our people into vain hopes and blind loyalties by promises and later find
that our people are getting impatient, it would be committing a double
injustice to resort to the persecution of the most advanced population of
240 Born of the People
our country as a scapegoat. There is only one key to a lasting peace and
that is indivisible peace for everyone. That is, put into effect the basic
principles of freedom and democracy rooted in the security and welfare
of the masses.
Mr. President, extremists may want you to order the bombing and can¬
nonading of the poor—to kill them by the thousands. They may want
hand to dip and feet to wallow in blood to their heartless satisfaction.
But they should know that they can never bomb out the people’s new¬
found hopes and convictions—that democracy, freedom and a lasting peace
are for all, including the common men who feed the nation when it is starv¬
ing and fight for it when it is in danger.
My decision to stay with the peasants now is not because I have given
up all hopes of a satisfactory solution of the people’s present plight, but is
due to my desire to save the government from a further embarrassment
should I be snatched from the government agency in the same manner
that Mr. Feleo was taken from the custody of the MP.
Yours for democracy, freedom and peace for our motherland.
Luis M. Taruc
25. U. S. Imperalism
In April 1948, Manuel Roxas died unexpectedly, symbolically
in the arms of his masters, while visiting the U.S. army air
base at Clark Field, Pampanga. His usefulness to the American
imperialists had been declining fast; his policies were discredited,
and the masses were becoming restless under his administration.
Significantly, many people believed that he was poisoned by
his masters. A month previously, driven to desperation, he had
outlawed the Huk and PKM, placing a huge sum on the heads
of the peasant leaders. Upon the masses this move had no effect
whatsoever. His faithful adherence to American imperialist in¬
terests and the excessive corruption in his government had ex¬
posed him to the people.
I
U. S. Imperialism 259
The man who stepped into his place, his Vice-President,
Elpidio Quirino, began at once to adopt different tactics toward
the Huk. He let it be known privately that he was ready to
negotiate terms acceptable to us. In our analysis of Quirino we
saw him first as a leader of the Liberal Party, the chosen party
of the American imperialists, who could be expected to carry on
the relations established by Roxas, and we saw him secondly as
a politician anxious to build enough following, by hook or by
crook, to fulfill his ambition of being elected President in 1949.
Under the Roxas administration he had been pushed into the
background by the Liberal Party chieftains led by Jose Avelino,
and his ambitions had suffered. We did not expect to win a
democratic peace from Quirino, but we concluded that we
could at least establish a wider acceptance of the legitimacy of
our cause, and prove the sincerity of our demands. We accepted
the Quirino overtures, and the negotiations commenced.
It became obvious at once that Quirino’s intention was to dupe
us into surrender of our arms and thus place us at his mercy.
Our arms were at all times the key question. They were the
means by which we had twice defended the cause of the people,
and had kept alive. Without them we were helpless before
fascist terror.
To trick us into giving them up, Quirino promised everything.
He agreed to our demand that we keep our firearms. He publicly
promised land reforms and democracy, and he privately agreed
to work toward the abrogation of the Bell Trade Act, military
bases, and in general to fight against American imperialism. Judge
Antonio Quirino, the President’s brother and emissary with full
powers, was a smooth bargainer who agreed with us on all
points that we advanced.
We went along with him as far as we dared, waiting for
evidence that he would keep his promises. To prove our good
faith, I relinquished the field, under a truce, and came to Manila
on June 29, 1948 (my birthday), to confer directly with Quirino.
I was overwhelmed by the enthusiasm and the sympathy with
which the people greeted me. All the attempts of Roxas to brand
us as bandits had failed. My reception was the best proof of that.
To enter the city after two years of underground struggle in
260 Born of the People
the forests and mountains was a strange, throat-catching sensa¬
tion. The contrast between the relative security of a city-dweller s
existence and that of the hounded peasant was sharp and painful.
My mind was constantly on my hungry and sick comrades in
the field, who were so anxiously awaiting the outcome of the
venture. Many had warned me against trusting unduly those
whom I had come to see.
While the negotiations were proceeding, I was granted my
right to sit in Congress. Almost everyone in Congress vied to
pose in pictures with me, claiming that they, too, were “Huks
at heart.” Government spokesmen loudly asserted that the Huks
had surrendered. On the floor of Congress I denounced the at¬
tempt of the government to distort the negotiations, pointing
out that I was in Congress by the will of the people and not
by the will of the administration. In my maiden speech I said
bluntly that I was grateful to no one but the people for that
honor, and pledged to continue to fight for their cause. I pointed
an accusing finger at those who had betrayed the national honor
in the previous two years.
We made two serious mistakes in our negotiations with Quirino.
We allowed ourselves to be put in the position of accepting an
amnesty proclamation from him without challenging its implica¬
tion that we were the guilty party. Secondly, we kept too much
in the background the basic consideration of struggle against
American imperialism.
Fortunately, I was able to expound on these issues in huge
rallies we held in Batangas, Quezon, Laguna, Baliwag and Caba-
natuan—to the bitter discomfort of Quirino.
Peace depended entirely upon Quirino’s implementation of his
promises, which failed to develop. During the period of truce
the PC’s and civilian guards continued to raid and to terrorize,
and ambushed our soldiers on several occasions. Huks and PKM’s
who dared to register under the amnesty proclamation were told
directly by civilian guards and by PC’s: “Now we know who
you are. We will take care of you later.” Quirino finally got
around to announcing his “agrarian reforms,” which turned out
to be a charity offering that he called “social amelioration.” It
involved an appropriated sum of four million pesos, enough to
U.S. Imperialism 261
give a few cans of milk and some old clothes to landless peasants.
Eagerly the administration put forward its much-publicized
plans for the registration and surrender of our firearms. The
promises of Quirino grew emptier as the days passed, and the
ominous outlines of a double-cross took shape. On August 14,
a day before the deadline, I went to see President Quirino to
give him my final appraisal of the situation, and to remind him of
our agreements, both written and verbal. My visit failed.
The same day I gave to the press my first statement accusing
Quirino of bad faith and treachery. That same evening our
intelligence unearthed a scheme to kidnap me. My brother-in-
law was mauled by thugs gunning for me. The ghost of Feleo
hovered over the fruitless negotiations. I left the city and went
back to the field early the next dawn. The following day the
PC’s, and civilian guards made simultaneous raids throughout
Central Luzon.
On August 29 a mass rally for a democratic peace took place
in the city of Manila. I had been scheduled to speak. Instead I
sent the following letter:
Compatriots:
I deeply regret that I cannot come to address you personlly on this most
significant occasion, significant because it is the first gathering of ail elements
of the population who, regardless of their political and religious affiliations,
sincerely want to achieve democratic peace.
I cannot come, not because of reasons of personal security. Despite the
preparations (which had come to my knowledge) of our enemies to have
me disposed of, as Juan Feleo and Manuel Joven have been disposed of
before, we can devise ways and means to thwart their evil designs. I
choose not to come in order that I may protest, and break the silence over
what is happening in Central and Southern Luzon, which up to now is not
yet adequately presented by the press to the public.
Even as I am dictating this hurried message of peace, guns are barking
and men, women, and children are running for their fives in fear of
PC and civilian guard terrorism and atrocities. Even as President Quiiino
was expressing optimism for the maintenance of peace, General Castaneda
ordered the launching of a swift and all-out offensive against us. Already the
PC have bombarded Mount Arayat, PC troops in large numbers go to
262 Born of the People
peaceful barrios on the pretext of searching for arms, but rob the barrio
folks of their cash, food, livestock, clothes, and in some cases of their
jewelry, whether arms are found or not. They have arrested and killed
Huks and PKM’s without benefit of the courts. Innocent civilians are
herded and massacred on the mere suspicion of giving sustenance to the
Huks. Masico has been re-enacted in Floridablanca, Arayat, Lubao, and
other places of Central Luzon. Nine Huk officers were arrested in Tanay,
Rizal, on the first hour of the 16th of this month. Nothing has been heard
from them since. Fascist terror and sadism once more have been unleashed
on the hundreds of thousands of peasants of Central and Southern Luzon.
Now, as in the past, these peasants look up to us for guidance and protection.
Why have the peace efforts failed? Do we, the peasants, want to be
shot at, bombarded and killed instead of leading peaceful and decent fives?
Are we any different from you who earnestly desire peace? Nol The peace
efforts have failed, not because of us, but because President Quirino and
his administration have failed to live up to their commitments. They have
failed to abide by the conditions necessary for democratic peace. President
Quirino has failed to define his stand on the Wallace plank0 advocating
the abrogation of the Bell Trade Act and the removal of U.S. troops and
bases from foreign soil. He has decided to continue trade with Japan as
imposed by SCAP [Supreme Commander Allied Powers], despite the
overwhelming opposition of the great majority of the people. He has dilly¬
dallied in going after the top administration officials who are publicly known
to be enmeshed in graft and corruption. The fact that these same officials
enjoy strong imperialist support and patronage demonstrates clearly his
refusal to break with imperialism and to make our country really free.
Failing to achieve the conditions necessary for democratic peace, the
administration has chosen to becloud the issues and to place the burden of
imperialist exploitation on the shoulders of the peasants.
The administration has allowed to remain uncorrected newspaper reports
that the Huks and PKM’s have not shown any attempt to prove their
sincerity in keeping with their part of the agreement. We made him
understand that we are going to hold onto our arms, because even then
we expressed to his emissary our misgivings as to his ability to resist
imperialist pressures. I made a commitment to register our arms in
recognition of the authority of the government, but made it very clear that
such registration can only be fulfilled as the administration implements its
promised social and agrarian reforms necessary to win back the lost
confidence of the peasantry. President Quirino has agreed to break up the
big landed estates for distribution to the landless peasants, but he has
merely set up a relief and charity agency under the glorified name of a
* Under this tariff act, unlimited quantities of U.S. goods were permit¬
ted into the Philippines duty-free, but the amount of Philippine sugar,
the chief export, which might be imported into the United States free of
duty was limited to 300,000 tons per annum.—Ed.
U.S. Imperialism 271
Spanish regime was to keep the big landlords in power because
they were an integral part of the new American pattern of rule.
In the old Spanish universities, as well as in the new University
of the Philippines and in the other higher schools of learning
established by the Americans, the theory of the “intellectual
aristocracy” was driven home to the students. The school system
grew less and less adequate the closer down it got to the masses
until, in the barrios, it was mere perfunctory instruction. The
gap between the educated and the uneducated or poorly edu¬
cated was a sharply accentuated class difference. In addition,
American textbooks were moved from the United States into
Philippine schools without a line of revision, regardless of how
great a difference existed between the two countries. The so¬
ciology of the American big city and of the American rural
community was clamped grotesquely upon the mind of the
Filipino student, to whom the cacique and the governor-general
were the symbols of authority.
At all times the superiority of the American methods, the
American customs, the American traditions were stressed. Eng¬
lish and American literature crowded aside the growth of a native
Filipino literature, which was referred to self-consciously if it
was ever mentioned at all. Anything “American-made” took
precedence at once over anything “Filipino-made.” “I am
ashamed before you,” said the Filipino to the American, apolo¬
gizing for his “unworthiness.” Always the American, from bil¬
lionaire to beachcomber,’ must be greeted with the deferential
“Sir.” The colonial mentality grew unchecked and was subtly
encouraged by the imperialist rulers who called their colonial
government in the Philippines an “experiment in democracy.”
Out of this careful groundwork grew the structure of American
rule, which created and established in power the compradores,
those who had grown fat on the free-trade-agricultural econ¬
omy of imperialism. The Nacionalista Party of Quezon and Os-
mena, which began as a party calling for immediate, absolute
and complete independence in 1907, was soon taken over by
the compradores until at last it was fully under the firm thumb
of the Governor-General and the economic powers that stood
behind him. It could be pointed out that the Nacionalista Party
272 Born of the People
called for independence, but anyone in Philippine political life
who did not call for independence was sure to be discredited
in the eyes of the people, and the imperialists were much too
careful to let that happen.
In the restricted economic life of the Philippines the gov¬
ernment service and a political career assumed a special
attraction. Government employees were most easily imbued with
‘loyalty” for the existing regime, and whoever would “go into
politics” was inevitably one whose “allegiance” was definitely
established. The Philippine political structure was so deeply
permeated with the compradore spirit that when the Japanese
came, most of the politicians had no difficulty in adjusting them¬
selves to the new rulers.
Politics is a special sort of occupation under imperialism. It is
made attractive by the opportunities for politicians to enrich
themselves through corruption. After the war, when American
imperialism needed ruthless and unscrupulous men to carry out
its policies in the face of a strong people’s movement, this cor¬
ruption was magnified a hundred times. It went so deep that it
is impossible to uproot until the whole of imperialist control is
uprooted. Japanese collaborators, anxious to get back into the
good graces of American imperialism, jumped at the bribes
dangled in the form of surplus army equipment and war damage
payments. Once they had sold themselves thoroughly, impe¬
rialism then had a weapon to hold over them to enforce even
greater acts of puppetry. This phenomenon was not new, nor
was it a product of the break-down of moral's during a war. It
was the culmination of the type of political rule that was fos¬
tered from the beginning by American imperialism in the
Philippines. The compradore politicians, owing their existence
and their position to the operation of imperialism, put their class
and profit interests above everything, including the welfare
of their own country and its people.
Some day our history, retold from the people’s standpoint,
will reveal, with unadorned truth, the real role of our national
leaders in the imperialist scheme of things. How will Manuel
Quezon, the leader of the compradore Nacionalista Party dur¬
ing his lifetime, stand forth in the pitiless light of that history?
U.S. Imperialism 273
He is famed for his “Social Justice” and for his statement: “I
prefer a government run like hell by Filipinos to a government
run like heaven by Americans.” But when, and in what way,
except in words, did Manuel Quezon ever lift his hand to strike
away the chains that bind the Filipino masses to the ancient
forms of exploitation and to imperialist domination?
Or Sergio Osmena? Or Manuel Roxas? Or Jose Yulo? Or
Elpidio Quirino? Or Claro M. Recto? Or Carlos P. Romulo?
When did their actions ever spring from true concern for the in¬
terests of the people, these corporation lawyers and public apolo¬
gists for the imperialist way?
In the common Filipino, however, the revolutionary spirit had
never died; it persisted in him, despite all the efforts of American
imperialism, for the simple reason that his lot had not been
For a long time the revolutionary spirit was stifled for lack
of effective leadership. The imperialists were even successful in
distorting the revolutionary tradition, by glorifying Rizal as the
national hero and submerging the role of Bonifacio in the revo¬
lution against Spain. Jose Rizal, the middle-class intellectual,
had recoiled from the idea of mass struggle and had opposed it.
Andres Bonifacio, the worker, had faith in the masses, had be¬
lieved intensely in mass struggle and had organized it. After the
treacherous death of Bonifacio at the hands of the Aguinaldo
clique, the revolution had passed into the hands of wavering
middle-class elements, and they led it into confusion and capitu¬
lation. Many of these elements subsequently upheld the ideal¬
isms and the frustrations of Rizal, pushing into the background
the accomplishments of the militant Bonifacio. Rizal was an im¬
portant figure in the development of the national liberation move¬
ment, in the advancement of our culture, and in the upholding of
our national honor. But he was hardly the symbol for the next
and higher stage of the national liberation movement.
Lacking proper leadership, the revolutionary spirit that re¬
vived later was led into error in sporadic, ill-organized uprisings
by the downtrodden peasants, and was subverted by opportunistic
or irrational nationalist movements. The Ricartistas misunder¬
stood imperialism and turned their eyes to the false hope of
274 Born of the People
Japan. The Tangulan rose tragically at Tayug, and died there.
The Sakdals died vainly and illogically in Cabuyao.
In another way had the imperialists crippled the national lib¬
eration movement. When trade unions first formed, calling for
independence, they were outlawed by the Americans. The trade
union movement had a militant beginning under the leadership
of Isabelo de los Reyes, Sr., who was one of the few Filipino
leaders who understood imperialism and fought against it, and
who has been consequently buried in our history.
The corruption of imperialism seeped even into the labor and
peasant movement which eventually arose. Labor racketeers
lived like parasites on the workers whom they pretended to or¬
ganize, and in the name of the workers’ cause, “labor organiza¬
tions were used as pawns in the machines of corrupt politicians.
But always there was a firm core of incorruptible labor and
peasant leaders, outstanding among them Crisanto Evangelista,
who founded the Communist Party of the Philippines in 1930.
The labor movement, and the national liberation movement in
general, now began to fight more insistently against reformism
and opportunism, and also to revive the militant traditions of
Bonifacio and the early Katipunan.
During the second world war, in the guerrilla struggles against
Japan, in which the people gained the experience of self-organi¬
zation and saw the road to freedom, the great national libera¬
tion movements rose to new heights. In other colonies, where the
exploitation was more direct and open, the anti-Japanese guerrilla
movements turned into national liberation movements at once, as
soon as the imperialists returned to claim their “property.”5 In
the Philippines the reaction was slower. The smokescreen of
American promises of independence hung in the air. A large
group of puppets, who had been corrupted all the more under
the Japanese regime, were ready and willing to be used. A large
proportion of the masses, due to the clever propaganda and
tactics of imperialism in the past, still had faith in American
promises Only a minority saw through the performance of the
independence ceremony” that occurred on July 4, 1946 to the
maneuverings behind the scenes.
What happened in 1945 was almost a duplication of what had
U. S. Imperialism 275
happened in 1898. The American army, on both occasions,
landed to find a revolutionary movement fighting against the com¬
mon enemy. On both occasions they took steps to crush it, and
on both occasions they found allies in the exploiting classes of
Filipinos. In 1945, however, there was a difference: the revolu¬
tionary movement was not led by vacillating elements who would
sell it out; it was led by the working class leadership of Com¬
munists.
Within three years after the end of the war, the operation
of American imperialism had resulted in converting the Huk-
balahap guerrilla struggle into a national liberation movement.
At the beginning of our struggle in Central Luzon many
observers referred to it as a movement for agrarian reform, just
as they had referred in similar terms to the revolutionary move¬
ment of the Chinese people. They pointed out that centuries
of feudal relations had brought our movement into being. What
they said was correct, but they did not carry their observations
far enough. They failed to see that our struggle, as well as that
of the Chinese people, took place within the setting of impe¬
rialist relations. Our feudal agrarian economy was one of the
mainstays of imperialist control in our country, and any move¬
ment to change it was inevitably bound to conflict with impe¬
rialist interests that were determined to perpetuate the age-old
system. Our movement, therefore, could not be merely a move¬
ment for agrarian reform; it had to develop into a struggle
against imperialism.
We realized this from the beginning. Our immediate demands
for agrarian reform and democracy were always finked up with
condemnation of American imperialism. In the latter part of
1945 and in early 1946 we sought to achieve our demands by
defeating the imperialists and their allies through legal, parlia¬
mentary methods. The mass movement set in motion by the war
won an election victory in Central Luzon. The imperialists and
their allies promptly took the path of all imperialisms: afraid of
the people, they set out to crush the mass movement.
The sentiment for change was not limited to Central and
Southern Luzon, where the Hukbalahap was strong. The post¬
war period witnessed the spread of mass discontent throughout
276 Born of the People
the Philippines. In part, this was due to the enormous graft and
corruption, and to the wholesale election frauds by the puppet
administrations of Roxas and Quirino. It was also due to the
deterioration of our economy and of the living standards of the
people arising from the operation of the Bell Trade Act; in¬
dustrialization and prosperity were promised, but mass unem¬
ployment resulted. In addition, the people were inspired by
the national liberation movements in neighboring countries.
We pointed out that the armed conflict in Central Luzon
and elsewhere in the Philippines was created in the first place
by the imperialist-puppet regime and that it could never be
settled until the regime of the imperialists and their puppets
was brought to an end.
We pointed out that graft and corruption were an essential
part of the imperialist system of rule and that they could never
be eliminated until the rule of the imperialists and their corrupt
puppets was eliminated.
We pointed out that industrialization and prosperity could
never be achieved until the imperialist system, which forced us
to be a colonial, agrarian people, was removed from our midst.
We also pointed out that our national experience for fifty
years, and particularly that of the Hukbalahap for the past three
years, had proved that legal, constitutional, parliamentary meth¬
ods alone could not achieve democracy, peace or freedom, but
that it was necessary for the Filipino people to adopt the armed
struggle to end finally and irrevocably the rule of imperialism
and puppetry.
Our revolution of 1896 had been an unfinished revolution,
interrupted in its course by the tyranny of American imperialism
and by the betrayal of Filipino moneyed, propertied elements.
For fifty years that interruption had persisted, and now the
struggle was being renewed. Our national liberation movement
of today is a continuation of the freedom revolution which had
been crushed at the turn of the century. There is a central dif¬
ference, however: moneyed and propertied elements today are
not in the decisive leadership of the movement; the leadership
is composed of working class elements. We have invited and
urged the participation of all anti-imperialist groups to fight side
Epilogue and Prologue 277
by side with us and to share in the victory of a free Philippines,
but we know that only the working class can carry the struggle
to complete victory.
The Hukbalahap, the people’s army, had thus become the
rallying center of all Filipinos in the struggle for national lib¬
eration.
June, 1949
GLOSSARY
adobo: cooked, seasoned, and preserved meat.
banca: canoe-type boat, carved out of a tree trunk.
bangos: milk fish, bred in the peasants’ ponds.
Bantay Nayon: village home guard.
barong-barong: a make-shift hut, built from odds and ends,
barrio: village or hamlet, subdivision of a town, the boundaries
of which usually extend over a considerable area, including
arable land. In a complete place name, the barrio is given
first, followed by the town and the province, thus: Botosan
(barrio), San Miguel (town), Bulacan (province).
bigas: husked or polished (refined) rice,
bodega: warehouse.
bolo: a native sword-like knife, used as a working tool or weapon.
buyo: beetle-nut.
capatas: foreman or boss.
carabao: water buffalo, used as a work animal.
cargador: baggage-handler.
carinderia: small restaurant or coffee-pot.
carretela: horse-drawn carriage,
cavan: a measure of rice, roughly 100 pounds,
centavo: a coin, equal to one-half cent U.S.
cogon: high grass, used for thatched roofs.
compadre: relationship between a father and a godfather; they
are compadre to each other. Feminine is comadre.
compradore: the middle-man between the imperialist country
and the native market, selling raw materials and buying fin¬
ished products; politically, puppet or agent of imperialism,
corn grain: a measure of rice, equal to 10 cavanes of palay.
dulang: a low table, around which the diner squats on the floor
to take his meals.
ganta: a measure of rice, 2.2 pounds.
gubat: forest.
hacendero: plantation master or big landowner.
kaingins: hilly land, grubbed and cleared of trees and under¬
growth for cultivation.
kalan: cooking stove.
Kalibapi: the party of the Japanese puppet government.
Kempetai: Japanese military police.
283
Makapili: Patriotic League of Filipinos, the Japanese puppet
army.
municipio: municipal building or city hall.
muscovado: brown sugar, in crude unrefined form.
paksiw: a native dish of fish or meat (in some places vegetables),
steeped in vinegar,
palay: unhusked or unrefined rice.
Pampangueno: native of the province of Pampanga.
panciteria: a restaurant serving Chinese-type food.
panotsa: brown sugar in hard cakes, used as a native desert,
peso: the monetary unit, equal to 50 cents U.S.
pilapil: a dike or levee, usually in rice fields.
poblacion: the town paper, as distinguished from the barrios.
sinigang na baboy: native dish of boiled pork and vegetables.
talahib: a coarse, tufted high grass, growing in open land, espe¬
cially along the banks of rivers.
tao: peasant.
tuyo: salted dry fish, the peasant’s daily fare.
ABBREVIATIONS
AMT: League of Poor Laborers (Pampanga).
BIB A: Bice-collecting agency of the puppet government.
BUDC: Barrio United Defense Corps.
CID: Cultural and Information Department of the Huk.
CLO: Congress of Labor Organizations.
DA: Democratic Alliance.
DI: Department of Intelligence of the Huk.
KAP: League of the Sons of Labor.
KPMP: National Peasants Union of the Philippines.
HUKBALAHAP (HUK): People’s Anti-Japanese Army.
LNL: League of National Liberation.
NARIC: National Rice and Corn Corporation.
PC: Philippine Constabulary.
PKM: Confederation of Peasants.
PQOG: President Quezon’s Own Guerrillas.
PSP: People’s Security Police.
USAFFE: U.S. Army Forces of the Far East.
USFIP: U.S. Forces in the Philippines.
WA CHI: Chinese Guerrillas in the Philippines.
284
BIOGRAPHICAL NOTES
Mabini, Apolinario (d. 1903), the “Sublime Paralytic,” one of the close
co-workers of Rizal, and an outstanding leader of the revolution against
Spain. Refusing to cooperate with the American occupation authority, he
was exiled to Guam in 1900.
285
del Pilar, Gregorio, the young general who stopped the Spaniards at
Tilad Pass, during the revolution of 1896.
Ricarte, General Artemio, “The Viper,” who refused to take the oath
of allegiance to the United States, and lived in self-exile in Japan. During
the Japanese occupation he returned to support the puppet government.
Real, Dr. Jose (1861-96), great Filipino patriot and martyr; son of
tenants on estates owned by the Church, he was educated in Catholic
universities in Manila, and after study in Europe became an optical
surgeon of note. In Europe, he joined with exiled Filipinos to denounce
the tyranny of Spanish rule. His novels on the evils of the friar tenant
system, such as Noli Me Tangere (published in the United States as
The Social Cancer), had a profound influence on the independence move¬
ment. In 1892, he returned to his native land to form the Liga Filipina
to petition for reforms. Forced to leave again, he was lured back to the
Islands on promises by the Spaniards that he would be unmolested, but
he was immediately arrested, and after a farcical trial was executed by
a firing squad. His martyrdom touched off the revolt against Spain.
Silang, Diego, a favorite Filipino hero of song and folklore. After the
British captured Manila in 1762, he organized an army and native gov¬
ernment, spreading the revolution against both the British and Spaniards
from the Ilocano provinces to Fangasinan and Cagayan.
286
BORN OF THE PEOPLE
— A RICH EXPERIENCE
FOR MANY READERS
"In broad outline this is a story like China's, but, unlike China's,
the Philippine story is incomplete. Here in this remarkable book are
the virile, deeply rooted beginnings of the emancipation of another
great people."—Frederick V. Field, Far East Editor, New World
Review