Fighting on all Fronts, page 43
Birth of the left
Manila was the centre of the working class, but the majority were dispersed throughout small enterprises; most lacked significant industrial power. In 1928, 80 percent of workers were in “scattered, non-industrial types of employment”, and the 59 registered unions claimed a membership of just over 40,000, about 16 percent of the total workforce. Apart from the structural and legal barriers, there were significant ideological weaknesses. Richardson explains:
The labour movement that developed during the early years of the American occupation reflected the traditions of the revolution in whose embers it was forged… The most striking legacy from the 1880s and 1890s was the obsession with moral regeneration, the conviction that the problems confronting the ordinary Filipino were in large measure internal, springing from weaknesses of his own soul and character… This view of the common masses was still coloured by that amalgam of shame, disgust and fear that had troubled the nineteenth-century ilustrados.43
The early years of labour organising were fraught, but powerful workers’, peasants’ and agricultural labourers’ organisations eventually were established under secular leadership. The Workers Party of America (which would become the Communist Party USA in 1929) forged links with Filipino labour movement leaders in the early 1920s, after the Comintern directed affiliates to advance solidarity to revolutionaries in their country’s colonies. A number of Filipino leaders also attended a Profintern (Red International of Labour Unions) hosted conference in Canton in 1924.
A left-right split in the main union federation resulted in the majority of unions walking out in 1929 to form the Association of the Sons of Sweat (KAP), which affiliated to the Profintern.44 The KAP leadership subsequently set up the Philippine Communist Party (PKP) in 1930. The KAP and the National Council of Peasants in the Philippines (KPMP) had communist leadership; the new party therefore considered that the two organisations constituted its mass base. This was despite the fact that, as Richardson says, “the number of KPMP cadres with more than a rudimentary grasp of communist theory can scarcely have reached double figures”.45
A Socialist Party had also been formed and was organising in central Luzon under the leadership of Pedro Abad Santos. His movement was theoretically inchoate, with an orientation to mass action and self-organisation.46 The party was relatively small, but led the General Workers’ Union (AMT—the largest peasant and tenant farmer organisation in central Luzon) and counted among its ranks Luis Taruc, one of the most talented organisers in the country.
As ripples from the Great Depression lapped the archipelago’s shores, labour unrest grew. “Latent discontent among the poor…is developing into a…definite state of unrest”, warned an article in Philippine Magazine in 1932.47 The KMPM grew from 15,000 to 35,500 in 1929-31, but the state was now cracking down on the communists. Twenty PKP leaders were jailed, then exiled to different provinces. Along with economic conditions, the fortunes of the revolutionaries now declined. KPMP numbers plummeted to 5,000; KAP affiliations dropped by three-quarters to 7,000; and PKP membership collapsed from up to 2,000 to 230 in late 1933.48 The lack of funds and organisers greatly inhibited the work of the party. Some of the problems were brought on by the Comintern’s ultra-left Third Period orientation, which was uncritically accepted.49
As the economy improved and the orientation of the party, along with the world movement, began to shift from mid-1934, the PKP began notching up victories. The leaders were released in 1936, partly because the government was anxious to bring about national unity in the face of what it perceived as Japanese militarism. According to former guerrilla Alfredo Saulo the CPUSA had also dispatched an envoy to lobby President Quezon for the communists’ release and, later, for their pardon. The announcement of the United Front Against Fascism (the Popular, or People’s, Front) at the Comintern’s seventh world congress provided a sweetener. In a letter to President Quezon, the PKP leadership pledged: “We stand ready to drop all difference of the past in the face of the present national emergency in order to make possible the democratic unity of the people”.50
The party, whose leading members were primarily Manila-based workers, now pushed for unity with the socialists, whose mass rural base had “succeeded in raising hell in Pampanga”.51 Unity was consummated on 7 November 1938 at a convention in Manila. “The discussions had very little to do with ideological and doctrinal differences”, Taruc later wrote. “The emphasis was on an urgent program for a united front to fight against fascism and war”.52 The parties merged, retaining the name PKP but maintaining their own organisations for a number of years under the arrangement. Two years after the merger the new PKP had 3,000 members, the KPMP and AMT combined boasted well over 100,000, and KAP affiliations were reportedly 80,000.53
The Catholic campaign
The position of the Catholic church had been undermined by US colonialism. Not only had the friars lost their estates in central Luzon and around Manila, but the doctrine of the separation of church and state was introduced, reducing their political power, the education system had been secularised, partly undermining their social role, and the schismatic Independent Church—a nationalist breakaway formed in the wake of the war against the US—brought a degree of formal ecclesiastical competition, particularly in the far north of Luzon and to a lesser degree in the central plains where Catholicism could be associated with the elite.
Yet the vast majority of the population remained true to the faith. The Catholic hierarchy in the 1930s ran a propaganda campaign against the left and abstained from any social movement associated with communists.54 On one hand the hostility emanated from Rome and the establishment in general. But there was also a deeper reactionary current. Franco’s takeover in Spain was backed by the Spanish clergy. Some of their counterparts in the Philippines began writing tracts extolling the virtues of fascism, Franco and Salazar’s New State in Portugal,55 which no doubt pushed them further to the right and possibly made them less able to respond to the needs of the labouring classes.
The PKP, “a significant number” of its leadership being members of the nationalist church,56 was initially staunchly anti-clerical, but not necessarily anti-religious—although there seems to have been no shortage of “opium of the people”-style denunciations. It was hostile to the Catholic church in particular. The party programme demanded that priests be disenfranchised and barred from public office. After the People’s Front reorientation 25,000 copies of “An appeal to our Catholic brothers” were circulated. The pamphlet sought to pry open the divisions between the parishioners and the church elite and gain the sympathies of devout labourers. Some of the passages were politically appalling, such as that “the Communists are staunch upholders of the family and the home. We consider sexual immorality and looseness in family life as the harmful result of bad social conditions.” But the broader approach was considered necessary not only to avoid isolation, but to enable the party to gain a mass audience:
Sections of the Catholic hierarchy, and fascist elements associated with it, are working hard to influence the mass of Catholics against every democratic and progressive tendency or idea… They are trying to create a conflict between Catholics and Communists, a conflict which is not of our choosing at all…a growing number of Party members retain their church affiliations.57
Invasion
On 9 December 1941 Japan invaded the Philippines. The impact was immense. People left the provinces for Manila, they left Manila for the provinces and they left the towns and the villages for the mountains. Everywhere they saw looting, burning and people cut off from their families. Abad Santos (by this time frail and sick; he would die before war’s end), Evangelista (soon to be executed) and PKP general secretary Guillermo Capadocia were quickly arrested and imprisoned. In Pampang, Pampanga, “the civilians lived in terror”, Maria Rosa Henson remembered. “People were afraid to leave their homes, even to plant crops…only the Japanese Army had the fuel to run their trucks and other vehicles. Electricity was only for the Japanese Army… People did as the Japanese ordered because anyone who violated their rules was punished”.58 The people also had grounds for anger because they had to bow to the Japanese in the towns, and especially because of violent raids called “zona” staged against much of the populace.59
Not everyone opposed the new invaders. A certain number of the middle class nationalists, many of whom were united under the Ganap Party, hoped that Japan would grant independence. These hopes were not as unreal as they might seem: Japan did take some tangible steps towards Indonesian independence, though not till very late. Also, the Japanese were Asian and claimed that they and the Filipinos were one race; they were going to free the country from the whites.60 Many of the oligarchy of landowners and local politicians also were pro-Japanese. They were used to collaborating, and Japanese policies were not radically different from those of earlier regimes. Given that much of the Philippine state was run by the Nationalist Party, it was easy to realign power structures to work with the new occupiers.61 The leader of the ill-fated first republic, Emilio Aguinaldo, also supported the invaders. But broadly speaking there was an interconnection between rural elite, local officials, the Philippine Constabulary and a new puppet government: a loose alignment of everyone hated by the people was supporting the Japanese occupation.
The People’s anti-Japanese Army
A combined meeting of the AMT and KPMP in Pampanga immediately after the invasion drew 50,000 to offer their services to the government.62 Here in central Luzon, where peasant organising was most advanced, the resistance would be most intense. Many were already preparing to fight when the PKP issued a call to prepare for guerrilla warfare. Taruc explained: “Out of [the] call to the peasants and the workers to resist the Japanese, the Hukbalahap was born… Its growth was spontaneous. Whole squadrons came overnight from the towns and barrios”.63
The most interesting battle took place in Pampanga in March 1942 and led to the formal constitution of the Hukbalahap (Huk). Legendary woman fighter Felipa Culala, known popularly as Dayang-Dayang, led some 130 troops in an ambush of the Japanese. The invaders lost 30 to 40 soldiers, along with almost 70 police officers. It was the first organised encounter against the enemy, and it “electrified the countryside”.64 Dayang-Dayang had been a KPMP member who led squads against strike breakers. Later she was executed for corruption. Such were Huk justice and discipline.
Women such as Sakdalista Salud Algabre had played an active role in earlier resistance movements. The Huk, however, were reportedly the first significant political or resistance organisation to actively recruit them. Jesus Lava, a post-war general secretary of the PKP, estimated that females made up around 10 percent of the guerrillas. In a deeply conservative country—because of the Catholic tradition and the central role of the family in rural life—the participation of women as commanders and comrades in arms, rather than simply as sisters and wives, provoked passionate debate about the role and status of women in Filipino society. It also created conflict within the Huk and the PKP, whose ranks harboured the prejudices of the time.65 Nevertheless, rebel practice seems far more enlightened than the “civilised” Japanese or US occupiers. Taruc paid particular tribute to two commanders—Remidios Gomez, a former beauty queen and AMT organiser who took the name Liwayway (Dawn), and a former KPMP organiser who took the name Guerrero (Warrior):
Liwayway…[prior to a battle] would comb her hair, apply lipstick, manicure and polish her nails. “Why shouldn’t I?” she said. “One of the things I am fighting for is the right to be myself”… Guerrero…[was] fond of wearing a man’s clothes. She became adept at handling an automatic rifle, and would command on the firing line. She was one of the organisers of Apalit Squadron 104, which became one of our best. Guerrero was also a good speaker and an effective rallier of the people’s support.66
By September 1942 the number of Huk squadrons had grown from five to 35. Gradually, the amateur fighters, who had been trained primarily in labour solidarity, learned through military engagements to become efficient soldiers. The Japanese mounted a show of force against the rebels at this time. But the atrocities and terror tactics of the invaders only drove more locals into Huk ranks. By the end of the year the guerrillas had 5,000 active supporters. US military analyst Lawrence Greenberg later wrote:
In January 1943, Huk attacks resumed against Police Constabulary garrisons and Japanese supply depots. As their tactical successes grew and the people saw them as more effective fighters, Huk strength grew again—doubling to 10,000 by March 1943. As their strength and popularity mounted, the Huks activated additional squadrons and helped form an all-Chinese force.67
In addition to the Huks’ main presence in central Luzon and the widespread, but less effective USAFFE (United States Armed Forces in the Far East), there were highly effective fighters in the southern islands of Mindanao and Sulu. Despite their superior resources, a hint of weakness on the side of the US and their protégés in the USAFFE emerges from popular anecdotage. When US forces on Corregidor gave up the fight, General Wainwright ordered all USAFFE fighters to surrender. Their commander, Wenceslao Vinzons, angrily refused. The order was ridiculous, he argued, because local guerrilla fighters had, up to that point, beaten the Japanese. In the following period Huk fighters travelled to the Bataan peninsula to stock up on weapons and munitions dumped by the Americans. Similar procurement exercises occurred in other provinces.68
Huk guerrillas were seen as heroes. They killed some 25,000 Japanese, Philippine Constabulary (which worked hand in glove with the Japanese High Command from very early on) and spies. They fought on multiple fronts: against the Japanese, the constabulary, the Ganaps and against potentially thousands of other pro-Japanese collaborators who not only gave up guerrillas to be tortured and murdered, but who sometimes participated in such activities. “There is a point”, wrote Taruc, “…where ‘turn the other cheek’ means to have your head knocked off. Rather than have liberty in our country destroyed, we would destroy the destroyers.” In such circumstances mistakes were bound to be made. “Innumerable cases of execution of Filipinos, deemed to have had some kind of rapport with any Japanese, were perpetrated to such an extent that many Filipinos feared the guerrillas more than the Japanese”, wrote the historian Teodoro Agoncillo.69 Yet the guiding principles were clear. Two documents drafted with the assistance of the Chinese guerrillas, “The Fundamental Spirit of the Hukbalahap” and “The Iron Discipline of the Hukbalahap”, set protocols for interactions both within the movement and between the guerrillas and the people:
Everyone shares the same fortune and endures the same hardship… Insults, coercion or deception are forbidden… Neither officers nor soldiers can have any individual privileges… A revolutionary army should not only love and protect the people, but it should represent the people… 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.70
A severe defeat in March 1943 at the hands of 5,000 Japanese troops resulted in demoralisation and some strategic rethinking. One result was greater emphasis on broad civilian resistance in the villages and towns. Barrio United Defence Corps (BUDC) were originally developed in 1942 to help supply and provide intelligence to the guerrillas and, importantly, to govern in rebel territory. “After centuries of [appointed administrators] the people were given the opportunity to rule themselves”, wrote Taruc.71 Barrio councils set up schools, carried out anti-Japanese propaganda and administered local non-military justice. Ultimately, self-governing areas under the democratic control of the inhabitants were considered facts on the ground that would shape national politics and lay the basis for independent Philippines at the end of the war. “From the experiences and the pioneering of the BUDC it was only a short step to the establishment of local people’s governments, which we began to build in the last stage of the war. The people’s horizons had been immeasurably expanded”.72 This was problematic. BUDCs were conceived as cross-class alliances, which would display to those who were not peasants “that the resistance movement was not ‘a class organisation’.”
The Hukbalahap was as much a political as a military organisation. “Mass schools” were set up to train organisers who could forge links between various resistance organisations and propagate the ideas of democracy and national independence in order to broaden the base of the rebellion and prepare for victory. Similar study groups were established in the guerrilla units.
The guerrillas regrouped after the March defeat and by the end of the year were better positioned. In Huk strongholds “both the landlords and the Japanese grew reluctant to attempt to seize any of the rice harvest. Freed from the heavy rice payments to their landlords, many of the peasants recalled 1942-1947 as the period in which food was most abundant”.73 They also fought in southern Luzon, particularly Laguna province. Huk growth alarmed the US. USAFFE detachments in Nueva Ecija province fought against the rebels from as early as 1942—sometimes in concert with the Philippine Constabulary and even the Japanese. Captain Alejo Santos, commander of the Bulacan Military Area, in 1943 described the Huk as the enemy.74 In 1944 General MacArthur, the commanding officer of the US military’s Pacific operations, ordered US-controlled guerrilla units to take them on.75 The broader momentum of the war and USAFFE disorder seem to have made this a distraction rather than a disaster. The US was pushing back into South East Asia and the Japanese were redeploying troops from Luzon. Guerrillas across the archipelago were on the offensive.
Just before the US regular forces landed on the islands in late 1944, the PKP started spreading a leaflet with the slogans “Long live America, defender of democracy! Destroy the puppetry! Establish people’s democratic governments everywhere!” PKP leaders Casto Alejandrino, Juan Feleo and Jesus Lava were elected provisional governors in the liberated provinces of Pampanga, Nueva Ecija and Laguna in early 1945 as BUDCs gave way to local government in town after town. However, the party would soon find that the leaflet’s first exaltation was misplaced. The US Army took control of the archipelago and was little interested in defending the democratic advances made in its absence.
