THE PEASANT STRUGGLE FOR POWER IN THE

PIDLIPPlNES: AN OVERVIEW

Noel Mondejar*

INTRODUCTION

March 29, 1981 marks the 12th anniversary of the New People's
Army (NPA). It appears as the most dramatic manifestation of the Filipino
peasantry's struggle for power, and a logical successor to the previous
numerous peasant uprising revolts, rebellions. Together with the Bangsa

• Moro Army (BMA)**, they represent the continuing struggle of the

Filipino peasantry for power.
Since its establishment by the Communist Party of the Philippines
(CPP·MLMZD) on March 29, 1969 the NPA has been a consistent force for
the expression and pursuit of peasant demands.
Available CPP·MLMZD documents clearly indicate the peasant form
and content of the struggle for power of the NPA as the military arm of
the CPP·MLMZD.
In waging a people's war, the Party relies mainly on the

•
mass support of the peasantry, especially the poor peasants
and farm workers. The Party develops the revolutionary
forces in the countryside to destroy the pillars of feudalism
and the armed counter-revolution there, and to encircle the
cities from the revolutionary base areas until the people's
democratic forces are ready to seize power from the cities.
(Constitution of the CPP·MLMZD).
The main force of. the Philippine revolution is the
peasantry. It is the largest mass force in a semi-feudal and
semi-colonial country. Without its powerful support, the
people's democratic revolution can never succeed. Its
problem cannot but be the main problem of the people's
democratic revolution.
The main armed contingents of the Philippine revolution
can be raised only by waging a peasant war. Thus: it is

*Noel Mondejar is with the Asian Social Institute.

"We are not treating here the BMA because of its different tradition which
would not be within the context of this paper. For further discussion on this matter,
please see Aijas Ahmad, "Class and Colony in Mindanao: Political Economy of the
'National Question' (A Case in the Politics of Genocide)."

5
 inevitable that the vast majority of Red fighters of the NPA
can only come from the peasantry.
The people's democratic revolution is essentially a peasant
war because its main political force is the peasantry, its
main problem is the land problem and its main source of
Red fighters isthe peasantry. (Amado Guerrero: Philippine
Society and Revolution).
The main content of the people's democratic revolution is
the fulfillment of the peasants' demand for land and the
eradication of the various forms of feudal and semi-feudal
exploitation.
It is therefore the prime duty of the people's democratic
government to fulfill the aforecited demand by
implementing a comprehensive land reform program whose
essential goal is the free distribution of land to the poor
peasants and lower-middle peasants and the promotion of
productive cooperation among the peasant masses.
•
(Revolutionary Guide for Land Reform).

According to reports, the NPA is now active in 40 provinces.

Government and military estimates range the number of NPA regulars from
3,000 to' 5,000. According to "Statement on the 11th Anniversary of the
New People's Army" dated March 29, 1980 it says:.
Our guerilla fronts have a combined population of more
than 10 million. We effectively reach more than half of the
people here, and they support the revolutionary movement
in various ways. The core of this mass base consists of
•
some 40,000 mass activists and some 800,000 active
members of the revolutionary mass organization.

Recent newspaper reports show that as far as Isabela, Cagayan, Central

Luzon, Bataan, the Southern Tagalog Provinces, the Bicol Region, the
Visayan islands, including the Negros provinces, and more recently in
Mindanao, in particular the Davao provinces, the NPA has staged mass
peasant demonstrations and rallies and have temporarily taken over the
town halls and confiscated firearms or engaged the Armed Forces of the
Philippines (AFP) in gun battles and encounters.
In areas where they are or have been active, rent reduction and
anti-usury campaigns have been initiated benefitting considerably many
poor landless peasants. They have also helped in the increase of wages of
farm workers.
In areas that have experienced these' campaigns, many peasants
remember the NPA with nostalgia. They become the positive comparison to
the many abusive AFP soldiers when the latter take over control of these
areas during military operations.

6
 Why has the NPA attracted so many peasants - not only peasants
but also students, intellectuals, professionals, even nuns and priests, who
have joined its ranks?
What has occasioned its rapid increase in number and its spread in so
many areas? Political analysts say that the NPA has expanded tremendously
since the proclamation of Martial Law. It must be noted that the main
reason for the imposition of Martial Law was precisely to combat more
effectively the NPA. (See Proclamation No. 1081, dated September 21,
1972).
Who are the Filipino peasants? What are their demands and
aspirations? Why have they been struggling for power? Why do numerous
Filipino peasants find the NPA as the most effective expression of their

• demands and aspirations and struggles against which all peasant groups,
organizations, and movements pale in comparison?
Let us go back in time and try to review the numerous attempts of
the Filipino Peasantry to struggle for power. Let us examine briefly the
actors of these events, the form and content of their struggles. Let us look
into the material basis of these struggles. Perhaps they will give US some
clues to understand better the current peasant unrest and the agrarian
revolution that is brewing in our countrysides.

SOCIO-HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

The Spanish colonial period before the Revolution of 1896 showed

two general types of peasant revolts and uprisings.
Those of the first type were described as the "ENCOUNTER" types
(1565-1663).
It was during this period that the Filipino peasantry was being
confronted by new forms of economic, social and political formations, such
as the establishment of the encomiendas and later on the imposition of the
tribute and corvee system.
Other determinant factors were the Spanish demand for free labor for

•
the galleon trade, which overshadowed the development, at this period, of
the hacienda economy. Because of the shortage of labor - one of the chief
characteristics of pre-modern Philippines, the Spanish colonial
administration had to exact free labor from the peasantry for its economic,
religious and political endeavors. Because of this the peasantry had to be
dislocated from its regular agricultural cycle, and new form of controls had
to be established against which the peasantry revolted.
It was this disruption rather than the issues on land which occasioned
the revolts and rebellions. Covert resistance, for example, was in the form
of "Philipinization," or selective borrowing of the preferred Spanish

7
culture. Overt rejection took the form of retreat to the interiors. Those
who retreated were later on called remontados or montestas., as they called
those who inhabit the hinterland of many Rizal towns. Many of our
national cultural communities belong to this tradition.
Nativistic revolts such as those of Tamblot, Bankaw, Tapar and
Dagohoy incorporated a demand to return to the indigenous religion and
culture, which was within their control and' comprehension. The immediate
appeal and success of these revolts reflected the distance from Spanish
center of power and hence the weakness of Spanish influence.
Revolts against the new intervention in the life of the peasantry
were: thePampanga Revolt of 1584 against forced labor in the Ilocos mines, the
Sumuroy rebellion in Samar (1649) against forced labor in the Cavite
shipyards, the 1661 Pangasinan and Ilocos revolts against taxes and forced
labor, and the revolts again ill Pangasinan, but this time spreading to the •
Cagayan Valley in 1717 to 1719, and in Pangasinan once more in
1762-1764.
It was only toward the second half of the 18th century that the
revolts and uprisings took a more distinctly agrarian character. The Land
issue became a major grievance, identifying a marked departure from the
first phase. The rise of the value of land as a commercial commodity was
reflected in the expansion of the friar estates. In Cavite alone, a total of
48,243 hectares of the best agricultural lands was appropriated from the
peasantry. Land usurpation became the order of the day. The Filipino
peasant was dispossessed of his land rights in several devious ways, besides
outright and violent landgrabbing methods. Many subsistent peasants found
themselves either dispossessed of their lands or were subjected to land
rent. Feudal exploitation under share tenancy within the haciendas were
exemplified by peasant demands for the lowering of land rents, protests
against usury and false measurements of shares during harvests.
The entry of the Chinese mestizos into the agricultural sphere as
landowners brought increasing monetization in the agrarian economy and
through their aggressive commercial practices captured whatever limited
surplus existed, allowing them to become landowners especially via de
pacto de retroventa, Beginning in the 18th century and toward the 19th
century, there was an increasing concentration of land in the hands of the
mestizos creating new friction between them and the indigenous
population. In many cases they were already the inquilinos or direct lessors
of the friar estates, while the Filipino peasants were the actual cultivators.
This created further social stratification in what was already a destabilized
traditional peasant society.
It was also during this period that Philippine agriculture was

8
 integrated into the global capitalist system. From a basically subsistent
agriculture the transition to a distinctly feudal mode of agricultural
production which was partially export-oriented but for the most part for
domestic consumption, introduced Philippine agriculture in the world
market. Already sugar and tobacco although produced under feudal rather
than capitalist arrangement were exported under a Spanish policy of
monopolies. This fostered more intensive development of agriculture in
response to its link With the capitalist economy. .
The Manila-India trade brought about by British capitalism finally
culminated in the British occupation of Manila in 1760 - another factor
which facilitated the linkage to the global market system of Philippine
agriculture.

• Thus crop production increased because of the impetus of a

commercialized agriculture accompanied by a rapid population growth,
which led to high land rents and increasing indebtedness of the share
tenants.
Another feature which added to the disruption of traditional peasant
economy was the civil incorporation of estates. The civil incorporation of
the Calamba estate into a Briti~ Company led to the eviction of tenants.
The support of social bandits, and the practice of many peasants in
petty thievery, pilferage of crops and other forms of banditry, became a

• ready response to their increasing exploitation.

These instabilities resulted in different forms of peasant struggle e.g,
reformism - an attempt to restore the status quo of dependent relations
with landlords against the impersonal and in-cash kind of relations.
Notable during the agrarian revolts was the revolt of 1745 which
raised the land issue against the friar haciendas and which mobilized the
peasants of Cavite, Bulacan, Laguna, Batangas, and Rizal. The Guardia de
Honor of Pangasinan, Tarlac, Nueva Ecija, Ilocos (1886-1900) although
dominantly millenarian contained agrarian issues and an incipient class
consciousness in their anti-illustrado demands. The Basi Revolt in Ilocos
(1807) also directed its fury against the principalia, composed of those who
became the main agents of the colonial rulers and who already
incorporated into themselves the class status of the ruling pow.ers.
While the class contradictions between the peasants and the colonial
rulers and their local representatives, the principalia were apparent,
especially in the land issues, there was also the beginnings of unity between
the peasantry and the principalia in their common struggle against the
Spanish colonialists. The Diego/Gabriela Silang Revolt of llocos (1762-63),
for example, was principalia-led, and was directed against Spanish abuses.
This unity provided the Revolution of 1896 its nationalist

9
(anti-colonial) and democratic (anti-feudal) content.
The eight provinces where the Revolution of 1896 started were the
areas where Spanish exploitative impact was most intense in terms of
appropriation of the peasantry's limited "surplus." The agrarian conditions
were oppressive, and the ilustrado class was capable and willing to lead the
peasantry"
It was not anymore a mere peasant revolt; it was a revolution. It did
not merely demand land rights within the context of a"peasant economy, it
demanded independence, the establishment of a new social order.
At its height, according to one source, 400,000 peasant
revolutionaries participated. They comprised the main force of the
Revolution of 1896. The peasants did not identify the inquilinos nor the
local landlords as their class enemies, but as their patrons. They relegated
to some future date their immediate agrarian demands for the sake of
national liberation against colonial rule. The revolutionary army provided
them with the discipline and organization which led to Spanish defeat, only
to be coopted by the new US imperialist power in connivance with the
vacillating and indecisive ilustrado class.
Although the peasant army was disbanded, the first two decades of
American rule were confronted by several. peasant revolts and uprisings
which continued the demands of the Revolution of 1896, but due to the
changing social conditions, assumed different forms.
The Bagong Katipunan (1901-1904) in Bulacan and Rizal continued
the anti-colonial battlecry and continued to resist American rule. Sakay's
•
Republic (1902-1906) in Bulacan, Rizal, Cavite, Laguna and Batangas was
another manifestation. So were the Pulajanes of Samar, Leyte, Cebu and
Bohol; the Colorums of Surigao and Agusan; the Babaylanos of Ncgros and
Panay, which assumed nativistic forms in their anti-colonial, anti-principalia
struggles.
This period also witnessed the establishment of peasant organizations
(without arms), such as the Kusug Sang Imol Mainawaon of Negros
Occidental (1923) which brought together peasants in mutual aid
cooperation as well as in common demands for .higher wages.
The Kapisanan Makabola Makarinag of Nueva Ecija (1928) advocated
a secret people's army to lead successful local uprisings which would
provoke mass actions leading to wholesale property redistribution.
The Philippine National Association of Tayug, Pangasinan (1928)
advocated armed uprising, spontaneous revolution and an anti-ilustrado,
anti-military (constabulary) position,
The millenarian lntrencherado (Iloilo, 1927) was anti-elite and
anti-alien merchant.

10
 As we can see, the first two decades of American rule did not result
in any new changes of peasant oppression. For this reason, the response of
the peasantry continued to be the same, this time, however, with more
sophistication learned from their participation in the Revolutionary Army
of 1896.
Land concentration and accumulation continued unabated with the
sham American land reform, purportedly to buyout the Friar Estates and
redistribute these to the peasants. The Friars Land Act did not give land
ownership to the peasants but to the inquilinos and to the
newly-established American corporations as well as to certain key persons
in the American colonial government.
Examples of large estates were: Hacienda Lian _. 7,799.8 hectares,

• Buenavista Estate (Bulacan) - 27,407.2 hectares, San Pedro Tunasan

(Laguna), 2,286.7 hectares, Dinalupihan Estate (Bataan) - 4,125 hectares.
The land concentration further increased the rate of share tenancy
relationship. The land policies of the Americans assured the continuation of
feudal arrangements and the growth of a Filipino elite landlord class now
gradually being Americanized through a system of colonial education.
The entrenchment of capitalist relation was further strengthened
with a vigorous development of export crops production which was
institutionalized by a free trade policy.

• The homesteading program of the government which opened the

Mindanao Moro homeland to Filipino settlers created its own problems.
(See Aijas Ahmad, Ibid).
The successful October Revolution in Russia (1917) had its impact
also on the Philippine socio-political situation.
The Communist Party of the Philippines was founded by Evangelista
in 1930. However, even before this, the emergence of peasant unions,
associations with a distinct class orientation, were already proliferating.
I~ 1917 the Unyon ng Magsasaka (Bulacan) raised the issues of
tenancy and usury; in 1919 the Anak-Pawis in Pampanga, the Union de

. Aparceros de Filipinas in Bulacan, the Kusog Sang Imol Mainawaon in

Negros Occidental; in 1922 was the first tenants' Congress of the
Katipunan ng mga Manggagawa at Magsasaka sa Pilipinas (KMMP). In 1928
it changed its name to Katipunan Pambansa ng mga Magbubukid sa
Pilipinas (KPMP) under the leadership of Manahan and Fe1eo.
Together with the Socialist Party (1929) and the Aguman Din
Maldong Talapagobra (AMT-1930), the KPMP and the CPP merged in 1938
to present a united front against colonialism and landlordism.
Meantime, Tangulan (Manila-Bulacan-Tayabas-Laguna-Pampanga-Nueva
Ecija-Cavite) led by an ex-newspaperman, a former member of the CPP,

• 11
mobilized 97,000 members, both peasant and workers along revolutionary
social and economic objectives.
•
The Katipunan .ng Anak-Pawis of Laguna-Tayabas led by Teodoro
Asedillo, a former CPP member who was forced to flee to the countryside
as a .result of his participation in a workers' strike, and Nicolas Encallado
came under strong CPP influence.
Robin Hood-type outlaw band of peasants like the Lope de la Rosa
Band of Bulacan-Nueva Ecija slipped in and out of the already growing
numbers of peasant organizations in the area.
Side by side with the nativistic movements like the Jesus-Maria-Jose
(Soldiers of Christ) and the Colosa-led Tayug uprising of 1931 were the
politically inclined Sakdalistas (1935) who participated in the elections of
f934 and raised three main issues: against colonial education, US economic
control, and military bases. They promised the peasant followers the
confiscation of large landholdings to be redistributed to the landless. In the
•
1935 plebiscite they campaigned for electoral boycott in accordance with
their demand for absolute independence. Forced. by repression, they
responded· through an armed uprising which spread out to many provinces,
only to De violently quelled. .
Peasant militant action, while limited in its armed action, engaged in
strikes, attacking landlords' granaries, demonstrations to seek redress for
grievances, arsons in cane fields, and legal court cases. Generally
non-violent, it pursued moderate objectives. Violence was more. local than
Widespread, reforms and VIolent protests rather than rebellion or revolution.
•
The AMT, KPMP, the Socialist Party even fielded candidates in the
1940 elections and won 9 mayorships. The Sakdals, too, participated in the
1933 elections.
While the socio-economic conditions of the peasantry had not
improved but rather worsened, the mixture of force and intimidation, the
moderate legislation, the increased militarization, and the deceptive Social
Justice Program of Quezon, as well as the organization of landlords'
associations and private armies like Cawal Ning Capayapaan forced the
peasantry to wait for the opportune time and the favorable material
conditions before rising up again in arms during the Japanese occupation
with the establishment of the HUKBALAHAP.
It was during the struggle against the Japanese invaders that the
peasants were able to establish control and power once again over their
lands. Landlords who collaborated with the Japanese, and who fled to the
countryside, were dispossessed of their lands and property. The Huks
controlled, and liberated many towns and municipalities, especially in
Central Luzon and did not need the Americans as their liberators.

12
•
• Soon the peasantry were to experience a new betrayal from their
basically non-peasant leadership, when instead of pursuing their objectives
and goals to their ultimate conclusion, the new American-sponsored
Philippine Republic trapped them into a parliamentary struggle, only to be
repressed violently later on, after they were lulled into unpreparedness (See
"Peasant War in the Philippines").
Many things have been written about the demise of the peasant
struggle at this period until the early 1950s and the rhetorics are still very
much alive. Many of the leading actors are still alive and have expressed
their views. Suffice to say that the peasant victories before, during and
after the Japanese occupation were phyrric victories.
US imperialism, in its hegemonic desire to maintain leadership in the

• capitalist countries, could not allow the victory of the peasants to be

sustained. They had to be crushed, and new peasant groups like the
Federation of Free Farmers (1953) as well as new labor organizations, had
to be sponsored to counteract the so-called communist menace.
The victory of the Communist Party of China and the People's
Liberation Army under the leadership of Mao Zedong in 1949 frightened
US imperialism. Although the Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas (PKP)
continued to maintain the remnants of the HUKBALAHAP, now the
Hukbong Magpapalaya ng Bayan (liMB) and started to reorganize the

• peasants under the Pambansang Kaisahan ng mga Magbubukid (later to be

succeeded by the Malayang Samahan ng Magsasaka (Masaka) in the 1960s),
its weakened leadership and its gravely battered organizational structures
could not anymore provide the class leadership to the peasantry. The
peasantry had to wait for another time, another place when the material
basis would allow its new rebirth.
Meantime, reformist organizations which did not raise the peasant
demands to their global and systematic levels continued to come and go. In
the 1960s, eight (8) major peasant organizations formed themselves into
the Philippine Council for Agricultural Workers (PCAW-ALU, CIO, FFF,
MFL, NUPAAW and PLUM) modeled according to American standard labor
unions.
As the oppression of the peasants was heightened by global economic
crises, sporadic, spontaneous peasant uprisings, very local in nature occured.
Members of the Lapiang Malaya were massacred. The Monkees and the
Beatles fought it· out in Central Luzon in an effort to neutralize peasant
unrests. In Mindanao, the llagas were established as the Muslims, established
the Mindanao Independence Movement (MIM).
In 1968, the CPP (MLMZD) was reestablished and in 1969 the New
People's Army (NP,A) was inaugurated.

• 13
 The late 60s and the early 70s witnessed the growing militancy of the
oppressed sectors of Philippine society. Peasants, workers, students, jeepney
•
drivers, urban poor staged mass rallies, demonstrations, protests, pickets,
human blockades, etc. The FFF at the height of its activities had over
200,000 members and a mass base of 3 to 4 million, sufficient for it to
establish its political party, the KAMAYAN Party, and to field candidates
in Mindanao, in particular, the Davao Provinces.
In Bais, Negros Oriental (1971) the struggles of the sugar workers at
the different haciendas also culminated in the trap of participating in the
November 1971 elections under the banner of the Concerted Action Group
- with the false illusions that power does not come from the barrel of a
gun, and the deceptive slogan of "ballot offensive-bullet defensive."
The MASAKA, the KASAKA, theFFF, FARM, FLRF, HUKVETS,
FAlTH, AMA continued to pursue> reformist lines hoping to influence a
basically landlord-controlled and dominated government to accede also to
•
the conservative demands - even when they were generally denied, and
stifling the growing anti-feudal, anti-fascist, anti-imperialist fervor of the
peasantry.
Tolle nativistic and millenarian types also continue to exist -
Lapiang Malaya, the Ibong Adarna, the CRAE and the many other Rizalist
cults.
On September 21, 1972 Martial Law was declared and the ranks of
the basically peasant-dominated NPA rose with the entry of numerous
workers, students and professionals.
•
While it has suffered setbacks, it has also been able to overcome these
and is now the most effective peasant organization in the country.

CONCLUSION

We have seen the Filipino Peasantry in its struggle for power to have
undergone a metamorphosis - its actors have developed/changed
characteristics, and the form and content of its struggles have manifested
themselves differently at different times according to the new material
conditions prevailing.
From nativistic forms that wanted a return to the old order of things
that are within their comprehension and under their control - whether
mystical or real to the millenarian movements - some still exist today -
that looks to a "peasant Utopia" that is a free village,untramelled by tax
collectors, labor recruiters, large landowners, officials with "dreams of
deliverance, the Vision of a mahdi who would deliver the world from
tyranny" (Eric Wolf: On Peasant Rebellions); of a Divine Master who

14
•
• would lead them to the New Jerusalem in Dinagat Island, Surigao.
(PBMA·Philippine Benevolent Missionary Association).
From a localized type of revolt and rebellion, parochial and limited
in their demands, the peasantry has gone beyond mere class interests and
has advocated structural and radical social transformation.
Even outside CPP and NPA influence, a group of peasant leaders and
representatives could issue a Manifesto in 1977 stating,

Our most urgent and most basic problem today is the problem
of oppressive structures in the social, economic, political, cultural and
even religious fields. A very small but highly privileged minority of
Filipino families and some foreign corporations and establishments have
concentrated in their hands practically all the wealth and power of our
land.
The result has been our mass impoverishment and
maldevelopment.
Neo-colonialism, indeed that worldwide structure of the entire
economic, social and cultural system, finds us a victim participating as an
exploited partner. It is our principal and biggest enemy that keeps us
impoverished and our country and our people maldeveloped. It is
however not our immediate enemy. Rather, our immediate enemy is
semi-feudalism and local capitalism, the twin props of neo-colonialism.
Because of the systematic tentacles of these forces of
impoverishing maldevelopment, our people have been polarized into two

•
sharply contrasted dichotomies, namely: we the oppressed and they the
oppressors; or, we who are many who want change, and they who are so
few who want the obtaining order maintained.
Only nationalism with a realistic nationalist force can effectively
counter these vestiges of colonialism. Such a force demands that we the
peasantry, the bigger mass of our people, is effectively involved.
As our country is primarily agricultural, we the broad mass of the
population are so imbeded in the complex agrarian reality that any
genuine people's revolution is imaginable only with us and our reality.
Any revolution without our effective and leading participation is elitist.
Any change beyond us is nothing but temporary. And justly, we can
adequately struggle only when this is waged with and within our reality.
Yet our nationalist force must presuppose a coalesced
participation of all the oppressed, each one aiming at the destruction of
global imperialism (nco-colonialism as it is manifested within our
political reality). But likewise we must recognize that firstly, we have to
liberate ourselves from this global oppression as it has transmuted itself
into local and immediate bondage.
Such a coalesced aspiration however must forestall a deceptive
unity. The many sectors among the oppressed have each uniquely
distinct and at times even contradictory interests. We must identify these
distinctions sooner so as to foster convergence for a multiple yet
comprehensively objective leadership. We must together build a truly
strong united effort but likewise we must eventually account one and all
with the blessings of liberation.

• 15
 Anything less will stir a cycle of vicious violence between the new
breed .of oppressors against a continuing breed of oppressed masses.
•
Usually the latter are we - the peasantry. The history of our country is
replete with this regrettable consequence of a struggle' fought but never
won together.

The Filipino Peasantry has been always the small agricultural

producers with simple farming equipments and with family labor produce
mainly for consumption and to fulfill obligations to the holders of political
and economic powers.
Included in this general defmition are five components, namely:
a. relationship to land - some form of control. Landlords are not
needed to establish the fact of peasantry.
b. family farm - a combined production-consumption unit; the
family being the production-team of the farm.
c. ail occupation that is generally independent of the market
. I
economy. Although many of the jobs done by the peasant are
also done by other occupational groups, the specificity of the
peasant's work lies in its unique combination.
d. village structure which is characterized with members being
born into a single community, undergoing similar
life-experiences and necessarily involved in close, personal
interaction with a consequent absence of anonymity.
e. the peasantry is a "pre-industrial social entity."

Peasant action especially in the last few decades can be characterized

•
as an independent class action where the initiative is from them and the
corresponding organizational structures are created by them and the
leadership is within their ranks; or it can also be a guided political action in
which non-peasants, as in the case of the ilustrados of the Revolution of
1896, assumes the leadership and the directing influence in order to achieve
common aims and goals. "The common element found in all these different
types of movements is the existence of a closely-knit group of activists,
having its own impetus, specific organizational structure, aims and
leadership - a group for which the peasantry is an object of leadership or
manipulation." (Shanin: Peasants and Peasant Societies).
It could also be fully spontaneous, amorphous political action in
some form, of local riots or passivity.
Finally, guerrilla warfare as the most suitable form for the expression
of armed peasant action has been seen and recognized.
Yet the essentially peasant character of guerilla warfare provides not
only its strength but also its weaknesses: segmentation, lack of
crystallized ideology and aims, lack of stable memberships. These

16
eo
• essential weaknesses may be overcome by the injection of a hard core of
professional rebels, making the revolt into guided political action. The
professional rebels' nationwide ideological and organizational cohesions,
their stability and zeal and their ability to work out a long-term strategy
may enable them to unite the peasantry, sometimes transforming its
revolt into a successful revolution. (Shanin: op, -cit.)
It is in this context that the NPA fits. Having incorporated peasant
demands in their Revolutionary Guide for Land Reform, they have further
systematized these and incorporated these further into wide-ranging,
encompassing objectives and aims that even millenarians may be able to
recognize their aspirations.
The NPA's consistency in their agrarian revolution has also
contributed to their attraction especially in cases where rent reduction, and
• even land redistribution are effected immediately.
But even beyond these basically peasant demands, they have raised
the levels of class consciousness of the peasantry and provided the
opportunities of identifying the problems not only from a merely land or
agrarian point of view, but also as structural and systemic problems which
can only be resolved in favor of the peasantry through armed struggle.
The many experiences of the peasantry in frustrating parliamentary
procedures which only resulted in their further impoverishment and
dispossession have taught many of them that the only way is the armed

• struggle way, that the only way to destroy the oppressive semi-feudal mode
of production is the total and radical change of the capitalist system of
which they are the primary victims of exploitation, to a more humane and
equitable system now represented by a socialist form of economy and
government.
While we do not say that the NPA is the panacea to all peasant
problems, and while we do not deny the existence of other types of
peasant manifestation of their demands and aspirations - we submit that it
is only the NPA that has systematically formulated the over all and wide
ranging demands of the peasantry and incorporated them into a workable
program of action with the direct and immediate participation of the

• peasants themselves, and have further raised their peasant demands and
aspiration into an anti-feudal, democratic, anti-imperialist, nationalist, and
anti-bureaucrat-capitalist struggle.

• 17