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A M ovement D ivided
A M ovement D iv id ed
Philippine Communism, 1957-1986
Ken Fuller
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The University of the Philippines Press
Diliman, Quezon City
THE UNIVERSITY OF THE PHILIPPINES PRESS
E. de los Santos St., UP Campus, Diliman, Quezon City 1101
Tel. Nos.: 9282558, 9253243
E-mail: press@up.edu.ph
Website: http://www.uppress.com.ph/
© 2011 by Ken Fuller

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, and/or otherwise,
without the prior permission of the author and the publisher.
The National Library of the Philippines CIP Data
Recommended entry:
Fuller, Ken.
A movement divided: Philippine communism,
1957-1986 / Ken Fuller. — Quezon City: The
University of the Philippines Press, c2011.
p. ; cm.
ISBN 978-971-542-662-6
1. Communist Party of the Philippines— History.

2. Communism— Philippines. 3. Philippines— Politics
and government. I. Title.
JQ1419.A53 324.2599075 2011 P220110610
Book Design by Nicole Victoria

Printed in the Philippines by Aris Printhaus
C ontents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction ix
Abbreviations xv
Prologue 1
Part One 7
Chapter 1: Rebuilding 9
Part Two 37
Chapter 2: The Development of Maoism in China

and the Philippines 39
Chapter 3: Party and Program 67
Chapter 4: The New People’s Army 86
Part Three 101
Chapter 5: Party against Party 103
Chapter 6: The Marxist-Leninist Group 122
Chapter 7: The Sixth PKP Congress 141
v
vi A M o v e m e n t D iv id e d
Chapter 8: Marcos and the “New Society" 161
Chapter 9: Political Settlement 182
Part Four 199
Chapter 10: “More a Mode of Expression . . . ” 201
Chapter 11: The Armalite and the Crucifix 223
Chapter 12: From the Barrel of a Gun - 1 257
Chapter 13: From the Barrel of a Gun - II 279
Chapter 14: Alliances 300
Part Five 325
Chapter 15: An Economic Prisoner of the “Free World” 327
Chapter 16: Marcos Refuses to Play 335
Chapter 17: From Critical Support to

Constructive Opposition 363
Part Six 391
Chapter 18: Outside Influences 393
Chapter 19: Communists in a Time of “People Power” 404
Part Seven 425
Chapter 20: The Aborted Process 427
Bibliography 447
Index 461
A cknow ledgm ents
It is probably true to say that, like its predecessor Forcing the Pace, the
idea for this volume was conceived in the front room of William and
Celia Pomeroy’s house in Twickenham, during the course of the monthly
discussions on Philippine affairs they hosted.
As can be seen from the dates of some of the interviews, A Movement
Divided has had a twenty-year gestation, and during that time many people
have been of great assistance. As with the previous volume, Bill Pomeroy
was generous in his provision of documents. Back in 1989, the members
of the staff at the Philippine Resource Centre in London were helpful in
allowing me to photocopy huge portions of their collection of Ang Bayan
and loaning me several books. Apart from the interviews with Jun Tera and
Ed de la Torre, which took place in London in 1989, the remainder were
conducted during visits to the Philippines in the 1990s and after I took up
residence here in 2003. Thanks are due to the interviewees and to Edilberto
Hao who, at what must have been great inconvenience to him, not only
arranged several of the interviews but uncomplainingly conveyed me to
them. He and Francisco “Dodong” Nemenzo Jr. must also be thanked for
their prompt replies to my e-mails concerning errant details of party life in
the 1970s. On rare occasions, interviews simply did not take place due to
(one assumes) understandable reticence or suspicion. In such situations, a
mutual friend can make all the difference, and, thus, without the assistance
of Vivencio Jose the interview with Nilo Tayag might not have happened.
Sadly, several people are not in a position to receive the thanks due to
them: Pedro Baguisa, 57, died of natural causes on May 29, 2009; Filemon
VII
v iii A M o v e m e n t D iv id e d
“Popoy" Lagman, 47, was assassinated on February 6, 2001; Jesus Lava,

88, died of natural causes on January 21, 2003; Bill Pomeroy, 92, died of
natural causes on January 12, 2009 (followed by Celia, 94, on August 22,
2009).
If any factual errors have crept into the work that follows, responsibility
must be laid at my door. Hopefully, those who dispute the interpretations
made or conclusions drawn will accept that these have come about as a
result of a consideration of the evidence and that neither rancor nor malice
has played a part.
Ken Fuller
September 2009
I n t r o d u c t io n
The work that follows continues the study of Philippine communism

begun with the current writer’s Forcing the Pace,1 which traced the history
of the Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas (PKP) from its foundation in 1930
to the end of the Huk Rebellion in the mid-1950s. A Movement Divided
takes up the story in the late 1950s and follows the twists and turns of the
movement until the fall of Marcos in February 1986. One of the landmark
events of that period was, of course, the formation of the Maoist breakaway,
the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) led by Jose Maria Sison, and
thus the current volume is a study not just of the PKP but of the CPP as
well.
To date, there has been no serious study of both parties, and the
fact that the PKP has been largely ignored has had a significant impact—
overwhelmingly negative— on several of the studies that have dealt solely
with the CPP. Too often, writers have exhibited an uncritical acceptance of
assertions that the PKP “surrendered” to Marcos, or was “moribund,” and
that the Soviet Union was “social-imperialist,” while making little attempt
to research and analyze these questions. Similarly, while there may be
widespread acknowledgement of Chinese influence in the formation and
strategy of the CPP, there is rather less detailed examination of the extent
and nature of this influence than might be expected. Surprisingly, these
omissions are evident not just in works that take an essentially journalistic
approach (whose authors might be accused of failing to seek the views of
all parties in order to arrive at balanced view), but also in some of those
that might claim to be Marxist and/or academic.
DC
x A M o v e m e n t D iv id e d
“Dialectical thought,” explains a Marxist textbook published in the

1930s, “is the study of things in their relations and in [the] process of
development and change.”2 It is precisely this approach that is absent in
many studies of the CPP. While we are often told of the differences between
Sison and “the Lavas” leading to the Maoist breakaway, we are usually kept
in the dark on how the PKP had developed in the decade or so since the
end of the Huk Rebellion, and to what stage it (and the broader mass
movement it influenced) had reached when the split occurred. Such an
investigation not only yields knowledge of the PKP, but also places the
breakaway in context. That context is brought into sharper focus by a closer
examination of the role played by the Communist Party of China. Rather
than relying on the CPP’s characterization of the PKP’s political setdement
with Marcos in 1974, it is surely more scientific to consider all the evidence,
including the analysis upon which the decision to conclude the agreement
was based. And while the Marcos regime may be correctly regarded as one
of dictatorship, and it is indisputable that Washington continued to extend
it official support after the declaration of martial law, was the “US-Marcos
dictatorship” characterization used by the CPP actually accurate? For that
matter, was the Marcos regime, while undeniably brutal and authoritarian,
really “fascist,” a word that has a very particular meaning for traditional
Marxism? Such questions are seldom asked.
The current study commences with a brief prologue which, for the
benefit of readers unfamiliar with it, provides a synopsis of the history of
the PKP until the defeat of the Huk Rebellion. Thereafter, it is divided into
seven parts.
Part 1 consists of a single chapter, tracing the development of the
PKP as it emerged from the defeat of its armed struggle and undertook
the painstaking task not just of rebuilding the party but of developing a
number of mass, sectoral organizations and immersing itself in the tide of
anti-imperialism then on the rise in the Philippines, as elsewhere.
The development of Maoism in both the Philippines and China (a
subject that has received little attention in literature concerning the CPP) is
dealt with in part 2, followed by an examination of the new Maoist party
I n t r o d u c t io n xi
and its program; in discussing the establishment of the New People’s Army,
chapter 4 pays particular attention to the role played by Benigno “Ninoy”
Aquino Jr. in bringing together the fledgling party and the armed group led
by Bemabe Buscayno (Commander Dante).
Part 3 is devoted to the PKP— its mutually antagonistic relations with
the CPP in the wake of the latter’s formation, the development of ultraleftism
within its own ranks (giving rise to another, albeit short-lived, breakaway),
the process of ideological consolidation commenced at its sixth congress
and, finally, its political settlement with Marcos in 1974.
In part 4, the focus switches to the CPP, with five thematic chapters.
The first of these examines the CPP’s characterization of the dominant
mode of production in the Philippines as “semi-feudal,” an analysis which
led the party to prescribe a lengthy period of capitalist development under
a “national democratic regime,” compared to the path of “non-capitalist
development” favored by the PKP, based on the work of Soviet scholars.
The second chapter in this section deals with a subject which
has hitherto attracted little critical examination by the left— the CPP’s
relationship with radical Christians influenced by liberation theology. CPP
practice is viewed in context of the traditional Marxist analysis of religion
and its role in society, and is contrasted to the practice of an earlier practical
revolutionary— Lenin.
Chapters 12 and 13 turn to the various aspects of the “protracted
people’s war” conducted by the NPA. Following a decidedly uncertain
start until the mid-1970s, the publication of Sison’s Specific Characteristics
o f Our People’s War and the adoption of Our Urgent Tasks by the central
committee led to a period, extending into the 1980s, of more consistent
progress. However, the adoption of the new directions prescribed by these
two documents heralded less of a break with undiluted Maoism than has
sometimes been assumed. While CPP-NPA activity now tended to suggest
that political power, rather than coming “from the barrel of a gun,” was to
be achieved by the organization of the peasantry around concrete demands,
those demands (e.g., the reduction of land rent and the elimination
of usury) had been simply lifted from Mao and were not, in Philippine
x ii A M o v e m e n t D iv id e d
circumstances, particularly tenable in the long term. Moreover, the strategy

of “centralized leadership and decentralized operations” posited in Specific
Characteristics gave rise to an alternative, insurrectionary, model of
revolution. This chapter also identifies the fact that many NPA members and
supporters were not ideological converts but “grievance guerrillas,” and that
many estimates of the size of the NPA were seriously inflated. Chapter 13
concludes with a survey of the undesirable results of “protracted people’s
war”— the inevitable deaths on and off the battlefield, the militarization
of Philippine society and, finally, the campaigns against purported “deep-
penetration agents” in Mindanao and elsewhere.
The final chapter in this part considers the question of alliances,
the CPP’s approach to which was characterized by a desire to exercise
hegemony over its allies on the one hand and, on the other (particularly
following the assassination of Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr. in August 1983),
an inconsistency in circumstances where the anti-Marcos movement was
rapidly developing outside of that hegemony. Both tendencies appeared to
be present at the founding congress of BAYAN, where the potential allies,
rejecting the CPP’s “vanguardism,” walked out.
Part 5 turns to a consideration of how the PKP fared in its attempt,
initially via its political settlement with Marcos, to pressure him to adopt
a more consistent anti-imperialist position. This begins with a brief
description of how foreign capital and the multilateral institutions that
represented its interests had effectively reduced the room for maneuver
available to Marcos. The following two chapters chronicle the PKP’s growing
disenchantment with Marcos, while maintaining that the major obstacle to
both development and democracy in the Philippines was imperialism. The
party’s seventh and eighth congresses are dealt with in some detail.
The sixth part is concerned with the “snap” election of February 1986
v
and the “people power” revolt. The external influences prior to and during
these events are often downplayed and so, while charting the development
of the Reform the Armed Forces Movement, chapter 18 also provides an
account of developments in Washington. Chapter 19 then describes the
events and the roles played by both the PKP and the CPP.
I n t r o d u c t io n x iii
A summary (and, in some cases, further development) of the major

points covered in the book is given in the final chapter in part 7.
As with Forcing the Pace, an attempt has been made to allow party
documents to speak for themselves and some of these (particularly those
concerning the three PKP congresses held during this period, which have
been ignored outside of the party) are quoted extensively, but hopefully
not tediously. Unlike Forcing the Pace, however, the current work also
uses interviews, and these have been employed to either supplement party
documents when these have been scanty, or to clarify, confirm or pin down
a point.
N o tes
1. Ken Fuller, Forcing the Pace: The Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas, From
Foundation to Armed Struggle (Quezon City: University of the Philippine Press,
2007).
2. Leningrad Institute of Philosophy, A Textbook o f Marxist Philosophy, English
edition, ed. John Lewis, tr. A.C. Moseley (London: Victor Gollancz, Left Book
Club Edition, 1937), 9.
\
A b b r e v ia t io n s
AAFU Asian-American Free Labor Institute

AFP Armed Forces of the Philippines
AMA Aniban ng mga Manggagawa sa Agrikultura (Union of
Agricultural Workers)
APU Armed propaganda unit
BAYAN Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (New Patriotic Alliance)
BCC Basic Christian Community
BIR Bureau of Intelligence and Research (US State
Department)
BRPF Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation
CAFA Committee on Anti-Filipino Affairs
CC Central Committee
CIA Central Intelligence Agency
CLO Congress of Labor Organizations
CNL Christians for National Liberation
COF Congreso Obrero de Filipinas (Labor Congress of the
Philippines)
Comintern Communist International
CPC Communist Party of China
CPJ Communist Party of Japan
CPP Communist Party of the Philippines
CPUSA Communist Party of the USA
CV Cagayan Valley
DA Democratic Alliance
XV
xvi A M o v e m e n t D iv id e d
EFF Extended fund facility

FFW Federation of Free Workers
GNP Gross national product
GU Guerrilla unit
HMB Hukbong Mapagpalaya ng Bayan (Army of
National Liberation)
Hukbalahap Hukbo ng Bayan Laban sa Hapon (People’s
Anti-Japanese Army)
IMF International Monetary Fund
IRA Irish Republican Army
JUSMAG Joint US Military Assistance Group
KBL Kilusang Bagong Lipunan (New Society Movement)
KBP Katipunan ng mga Bagong Pilipina (Association of the
New Filipina)
KILUSAN Pambansang Kilusan ng Paggawa (National Workers
Movement)
KM Kabataang Makabayan (Patriotic Youth)
KMP Katipunang Manggagawang Pilipino
(Filipino Workers Association)
KMU Kilusang Mayo Union (May First Movement)
KOMPIL Kongreso ng Mamamayang Pilipino (Congress of the
Filipino People)
KPMP Kalipunang Pambansa ng mga Magbubukid sa Pilipinas
(National Association of Philippine Peasants)
LDC Lesser developed country
LM Lapiang Manggagawa (Labor Party)
LP Liberal Party
MAN Movement for the Advancement of Nationalism
MASAKA Malayang Samahang Magsasaka (Free Union of Peasants)
MDP Movement for a Democratic Philippines
MLG Marxist Leninist Group
MPKP Malayang Pagkakaisa ng Kabataang Pilipino (Free Union
of Filipino Youth)
A b b r e v ia t io n s x v ii
NAMFREL National Citizens’ Movement for Free Elections

NASSA National Secretariat of Social Action, Justice and Peace
NATU National Association of Trade Unions
NBI National Bureau of Investigation
NCP Nationalist Citizens Party
NDF National Democratic Front
NEL North Eastern Luzon
NP Nacionalista Party
NPA New People’s Army
NUSP National Union of Students of the Philippines
NUC National Unification Committee
PAFLU Philippine Association of Free Labor Unions
PB Political Bureau, or Politburo
PC Philippine Constabulary
PD Presidential Decree
PGEA Philippine Government Employees Association
PKI Partai Komunis Indonesia (Communist Party of Indonesia)
PKP Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas (Philippine
Communist Party)
PMA Philippine Military Academy
PPP Progressive Party of the Philippines
PT Political Transmission
PTUC Philippine Trade Union Council
RA Republic Act
RAM Reform the Armed Forces Movement
SAL Structural adjustment loan
SCAUP Student Cultural Association of the University of the
Philippines
SEATO South East Asia Treaty Organization
SDK Samahang Demokratikong Kabataan (League of
Democratic Youth)
SIKAP Samahan sa Ikauunlad ng Kabataang Pilipino (Union for
the Advancement of Filipino Youth)
x v iii A M o v e m e n t D iv id e d
SPKP Samahan ng mga Progresibong Kababaihang Pilipino

(Union of Progressive Women)
SKMP Samahan ng Kababaihang Manggagawang Pilipino (Union
of Philippine Working Women)
SPP Socialist Party of the Philippines
TNC Transnational corporation
UIF Union de Impresores de Filipinas (Printers Union of the
Philippines)
UNIDO United Democratic Opposition
USAFFE United States Army Forces in the Far East
USAID US Agency for International Development
USSR Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
YCSP Young Christian Socialists of the Philippines
P ro lo g ue
The work that follows traces the development of Philippine communism

from the end of the Huk Rebellion, led by the Partido Komunista ng
Pilipinas, until the fall of the Marcos regime in February 1986. By way of
introduction, the foundation of the PKP in 1930, and its activities up until
the defeat of the postwar armed struggle, are summarized below.
The foundation of the PKP came about as a result of two factors.
First, the Philippine working class, although still small and largely
confined to Manila, had developed to the point where trade unions had
been formed and were functioning, and a handful of labor leaders had
acquired an interest in Marxism. In the 1920s, these leaders founded the
Partido Obrero (Labor Party, the name of which was later Filipinized to
Lapiang Manggagawa, or LM), which put forward a socialist perspective.
The LM rested upon the support of the left within the major trade union
center, the Congreso Obrero de Filipinas (COF, or Labor Congress of
the Philippines) and a peasant organization, the Kalipunang Pambansa
ng mga Magbubukid sa Pilipinas (KPMP, or National Association of
Philippine Peasants), which was led by members of the same group.
Second, the Russian Revolution of 1917 had hastened the formation
of communist parties throughout the world, and from an early date the
left-wing Filipino labor leaders were in contact with the Communist
International (Comintern), usually via emissaries of the Communist Party
of the USA (CPUSA), as the Philippines was at this time a US colony.
Throughout the second half of the 1920s, the LM leaders received regular
advice and guidance from the Comintern, and this often took the form of
2 A M o v e m e n t D iv id e d
recommending the steps required to lay the basis for the formation of a
communist party. Various errors were committed during these years: the
leaders publicly proclaimed their communist credentials even before the
formation of the PKP, thus attracting unnecessary opposition; attempts to
capture control of the trade union organization amounted to what would
today be called “vanguardism”; and an insensitive approach to the task
of restructuring the labor movement along industrial (as opposed to craft
or occupational) lines provoked opposition from the more conservative
elements, which might otherwise have been avoided or minimized. In
addition, the left failed to utilize the conflicts between Nacionalista party
leader Manuel Quezon and Governor Leonard Wood to both broaden and
sharpen the campaign for independence.
The PKP was eventually formed in less than promising circumstances,
being preceded by a split in the COF labor center after the moderate forces
packed a congress. In addition, the groundwork recommended earlier by
the Comintern had not been fully completed, but now the Comintern had
itself entered into an ultraleftist phase and was .urging that the formation
go ahead. A further problem lay in the fact that the entire leadership of
the party was working class. While, m o th er circumstances, this may have
been an admirable arrangement, very few of these leaders had more than
a rudimentary grasp of Marxist theory, and the absence of revolutionary
intellectuals or “organic” intellectuals (that is, workers educated by the
movement to the point where they could conduct analyses and formulate
appropriate policies) would have repercussions.
Thus, the party was formed prematurely and, as a result, its first
program was extremely confused.
The initial phase of the PKP’s existence was characterized by ultraleftist
sloganizing and activity, which inevitably attracted repression and led to
the banning of the party and the jailing or internal exile of its leaders.
Despite assistance from the Comintern, the young PKP continued to
experience problems with even basic Marxist theory and failed to overcome
its ultraleftist approach, and this, predictably, damaged its “mass work.”
Membership during this period tended to be very volatile. However, in
P ro lo gu e 3
1935 the Comintern reversed its own ultraleftist approach and, thereafter,
with the assistance of the CPUSA the PKP was gradually reoriented.
With President Quezon’s adoption of his “Social Justice Program”
during the Commonwealth period and the pursuit by the international
communist movement of a “united front” approach to combat the growth
of fascism, the CPUSA persuaded the PKP to drop its demand of immediate
independence and to enter a critical alliance with Quezon. Much of the
party’s sectarianism was overcome, and the documents of the 1938 PKP
Congress, at which the reorientation was formalized and the merger with
the Socialist Party of Pedro Abad Santos cemented, were, unlike its first
program, extremely sophisticated. Even so, there were still problems in
the party’s approach to alliances, leading to a complete split in the united
front at the subsequent elections. In the 1940 municipal elections, however,
many candidates (running under the Socialist Party banner) were successful
in Pampanga.
While, during World War II, an extremely effective guerrilla army— the
Hukbalahap (Hukbo ng Bayan Laban sa Hapon, or People’s Anti-Japanese
Army)— was developed, and alternative local government structures
were erected in areas of Huk influence, mistakes continued to be made:
overconfidence led to the arrest of leaders, and an overreaction to a major
Japanese assault led to the adoption (at the policy level, although less so in
practice) of “retreat for defense.” More fundamentally, the neglect of urban
activity during this period meant that the PKP became overwhelmingly
peasant in character.
In September 1944, the PKP held a conference at which its attitude to
the returning Americans and the exiled Commonwealth government was
discussed. Vicente Lava, who had been removed as general secretary due
to the “retreat for defense” policy (which was now acknowledged as a
mistake), warned that the “compradors” and landlords were now turning
against the Huks and that the Filipino USAFFE (United States Army Forces
in the Far East) might try to crush the movement after the US landings.
He therefore argued for the mobilization of allies in the anti-Japanese
struggle and for the formation of provisional governments at national and
regional levels on a “united front” basis, with the aim of insisting that these
send representatives to the returning national government. By and large,
however, Lava’s arguments were not accepted, as others argued that the
returning Americans would be benign.
The Huks stepped up their liberation activity, mounting an all-out
offensive on Japanese and collaborators after the American landing at
Lingayen. However, they found the attitude of the US authorities to be
hostile, with arrests and murders and a refusal to recognize their provincial
governments. Despite a reign of terror, however, the PKP maintained its
pro-US policy and was able to form a new peasant organization and a trade
union center, both of which grew rapidly. The PKP also participated in the
formation of the Democratic Alliance (DA), which fielded candidates in the
national elections, electing six congressmen in Central Luzon. The party
decided to support Sergio Osmena for president against Manuel Roxas,
the US-sponsored candidate, although this was preceded by an exhaustive
debate during which various ultraleftist arguments were advanced. The
Hukbalahap was disbanded, although its arms were retained, but as the
anticommunist terror continued it reassembled for reasons of self-defense.
With Roxas elected president, the six DA congressmen were suspended,
as the government wished to ensure endorsement of the constitutional
amendment required to accommodate adoption of the Bell Trade Act, with
its pro-US “parity” provisions, thus ensuring that US economic interests
continued to be served in an independent Philippines. The most rational
voice in the inner-party debate at this time was that of Vicente Lava, who
warned that the USA looked upon the Philippines as part of its “inner
zone of influence” and urged the forging of alliances and the adoption
of a largely defensive (as opposed to aggressive) posture. But Lava found
himself outvoted.
The postwar armed struggle led by the PKP did, though, begin as a
defensive struggle, as Huk areas were subjected to bombardment by
government forces. However, a minority in the leadership of the party, led
by Jose Lava (brother of Vicente, who died of natural causes in 1947) argued
for the further development of the armed struggle, a line which gained the
P ro l o g u e 5
ascendancy in 1947 and was adopted as policy the following year. The
name of the rebel army was now changed to the Hukbong Mapagpalaya
ng Bayan (HMB, or Army of National Liberation). Increasingly, sectarianism
returned to the party, with the Nacionalista Party being viewed as a
rival rather than a potential ally. Talks with the government of President
Quirino (who came to office after the death of Roxas) failed and so, after
a brief hiatus, the armed struggle resumed. In 1950, the party declared the
existence of a revolutionary situation and proposed a two-year period as
preparation for the seizure of power. Not only was there no revolutionary
situation, but a grave mistake was made in thinking that the USA would
abandon the Philippines. Widespread attacks were mounted in March 1950,
and expansion missions were sent to other parts of the country (the PKP
and the guerrilla army being largely confined to Central Luzon and parts
of Southern Luzon). The same year, the PKP projected its leadership of
the armed struggle, thus turning its back on the “united front” strategy it
had pursued hitherto. A further wave of simultaneous raids was launched
in August, with a third planned for November— and this was viewed as a
“dress rehearsal” for the seizure of power.
If there was a fundamental reason for the ultraleftist trajectory followed
by the PKP in these postwar years, it lay in the fact that, in addition to
an overwhelming peasant membership due to its concentration in the
countryside, the party now had leaders who were generic intellectuals.
The traditional response of the peasants to its oppressors was to seek to
right the wrong with one swift blow, while the intellectual leaders— and
particularly Jose Lava— had a grasp of Marxism but little appreciation of
working-class (let alone peasant) realities. The one combined with the
other constituted a recipe for adventurism.
The “dress rehearsal” was cancelled when members of the leadership
(including Lava) were arrested in the “Politburo raid” of 1950. Despite clear
indications that the tide was now against the Huks, a PKP conference in
1951 decided that nothing had fundamentally changed.
But life proved otherwise: the PKP-led trade union and peasant
organizations were banned; “surrenderism” began to develop; an election
boycott called by the party failed dismally; and the government attacks
took their terrible toll. Soon, the guerrilla army was but a shadow of its
former self, and most of the PKP leaders were either dead, captured, or had
surrendered.
PART ONE
Too often, works dealing with the Communist Party of the Philippines
(CPP) tell us litde of the Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas (PKP), the party
from which the CPP leader split in the late 1960s. While readers may be
allowed a glimpse of the PKP’s wartime role, when it led the Hukbalahap,
we are rarely provided any information concerning that party in the
period between defeat of the Huk Rebellion in the mid-1950s and the
“reestablishment” of the CPP in 1968/1969— other than to emphasize the
shattering impact of that defeat, advise us that the PKP was, under the
leadership of “the Lavas,” virtually lifeless, its sparse membership kept
inactive by something called the “single file" method of organization, and
to describe (almost always from the viewpoint of CPP founder Jose Maria
Sison) the circumstances in which the breakaway occurred.
Not only are the interpretations of this period put forward by Sison and
a few others not challenged or subjected to critical scrutiny, but readers are
given no account of what the PKP actually did during this decade. If, in
order to consider the appearance of the CPP dialectically, we need to study
the phenomena associated with it “in their relations and in [the] process of
development and change,” we surely must provide an account of the PKP
in the period prior to that event, and if alternative interpretations of, say,
“single file" exist we must submit them for the reader’s consideration. TJie
single chapter that follows is an attempt to do this.
7
C h a pter 1 : R ebu ild in g
Following the defeat of the postwar armed struggle, the task of rebuilding
the Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas (PKP, Philippine Communist Party)
proved a slow process. The decision to shift to legal forms of struggle was
not easy to implement, as many underground cadres were both known
to, and wanted by, the authorities. Even so, members were sent down to
the barrios to reestablish the peasant organizations, while others were
despatched to Manila to continue trade union work. Furthermore, it was
now possible to reactivate a large number of members who had become
passive during the period of armed struggle. The task was made more
difficult than it might have been, however, by the fact that no campaign
had been waged to secure the release of the imprisoned leaders.
According to Jesus Lava, in 1958 there were “at most around 50 members
in Manila and between 300 and 500 in the provinces.”1 During this period,
Lava, then the PKP’s general secretary, decided that in the interests of
security the “single-file” method of organization should be adopted, an
arrangement that entailed each member being in contact with only two
others. The membership, especially at leadership level, was so scattered at
this stage that Lava took this decision on his own and only later obtained
the agreement of Casto Alejandrino and other politburo (PB) members,
but even then there was no actual meeting of this body.2 Lava says that
practically “everyone knew what they were supposed to do in terms of
organization, contacts, etc., and not to expect contact with us, the higher
9
io A M o v e m e n t D iv id e d
organ, until a certain period.”3 At this point, there was no central committee
and even the three or four remaining members of the PB did not m eet
regularly between 1958 and 1964.4
Nemenzo maintains that Lava urged all party members who were not
facing criminal charges to “return to civilian life” and to conduct their political
activity through “nationalist and reformist organizations.” He also ch aises
that Lava freed members from any obligation to join party collectives and
that the “return to civilian life” was a euphemism for surrender. Moreover,
claims Nemenzo, there was no recruitment during this period as it was
assumed that only infiltrators would wish to join the party.5 Sison, meanwhile,
accuses Lava of “deciding all by himself to liquidate the Party with his ‘single
file’ policy, a policy of destroying even the least semblance of democratic
centralism within the Party.”6
When confronted by an interviewer in 1979 with a comparison with Spain
and Portugal under fascism, where the communist parties had “somehow
managed,” Jesus Lava replied that “the difference was precisely, from the
start of the suppression, they started with the underground network. In our
case, at the start of the suppression, we started with the armed struggle.”7
What Lava and a few others were now attempting to do was to keep some
form of organization intact so that, when the time was ripe, the painstaking
task of rebuilding the party could commence. Lava responds to Nemenzo
by claiming that “single file” applied only in Manila, “where the problem of
security was so acute and the problem of morale so critical,” and where it
was a “structural necessity not only for survival but also for growth.” While
the obligatory membership of collectives was relaxed for a while in the
capital, “this was not true in other areas— Pampanga, Nueva Ecija, Bulacan,
Quezon. Nuclei and section committees remained whenever there were
cadres to man these organs of the Party.” Finally, while individual members
may, whether through fear or some other reason, have stopped recruiting,
this had not been, and “could never be a party policy.”8
Dizon confirms this in part by stating that “single-file” was “a national
policy, but the situation in some areas permitted a looser structure. The
place where it had to be done was Manila.”9 More recendy, Nemenzo has
gone some way to agreeing that this was the case: “The only organized
C h apter i : R e b u il d in g i i
party organ that continued functioning was the one in Central Luzon.
Commander Hizon refused to implement the single file and he tried to
retain whatever was left of the party. He was recruiting new members. Dante
[Bemabe Buscayno, later to lead the New People’s Army], for example, was
recruited by Hizon (whose real name was Benjamin Cunanan). He tried to
rebuild the HMB, but it was not very strong. So in a sense it’s true that the
party was not totally liquidated. The party organization in Central Luzon,
especially Pampanga, continued to function, but there was no distinction
between the political and the military.”10
Jesus Lava in fact claims that membership grew during the “single-file"
period and that by I960 the party was forming nuclei and various sections.11
It was with the formation of sections that collective leadership of a kind
was resumed, with the section secretaries— Ignacio P. Lacsina (labor),
Pedro Taruc (peasants), and Francisco Lava Jr. (youth)— taking collective
decisions. Against the backdrop of resurgent nationalism whipped up by
progressive intellectuals and even anti-imperialist business leaders, in the
early 1960s the PKP embarked upon a program of building, along with
its allies, open mass organizations by means of which the party’s work
could be carried forward. Jose Maria Sison would play an influential role
in several of these organizations. Although, reading some of Sison’s works,
it is possible to form the impression that these organizations were formed
solely on his own initiative,12 we will see that, while his initiative may have
been a factor, each one was formed as a result of decisions by the PKP
and that, in taking various leading roles in these organizations, Sison was
fulfilling the tasks which the party assigned to him.
Jose Maria Sison rose to prominence through the student movement,

joining a study circle in 1959 that would later develop into the Student
Cultural Association of the University of the Philippines (SCAUP). He says that
because “I had been the most persistent in consolidating the organization,
I would be acknowledged as [the] founding chairman . . . ” of SCAUP.13 In
12 A M o vem en t D iv id e d
1961, SCAUP rallied thousands to a demonstration against the witch-hunting

hearings of the Committee on Anti-Filipino Activities (CAFA, patterned on
the McCarthyite House Un-American Activities Committee). Sison makes the
not unreasonable claim that this demonstration was “of signal importance.
It marked the end of a long period of quiescence and stultifying reaction
in the entire 1950s and the beginning of the resurgence of the progressive
mass movement.”14 Also in 1961, Sison says that he “started to go deep into
the workers’ m ovem ent.. . The secret discussion groups, which increasingly
developed into groups of the proletarian revolutionary party, became the
hard core of the mass movement.”15 The following year, he began work
with Ignacio Lacsina’s National Association of Trade Unions, Felixberto
Olalia’s National Federation of Labor Unions and others.16 In the meantime,
late in 1961 he had visited Indonesia, where for four months he studied
the Indonesian language and literature and “had time to read an enormous
amount of Marxist-Leninist classics” and to develop “good relations with
the Indonesian comrades in the Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI).”17
According to Sison’s own account, in 1961 Jesus Lava asked his nephew,
Vicente Lava Jr., to contact him— obviously with a view to recruiting him
into the PKP. However, the meeting did not take place until December of the
following year, at which time Sison agreed to join the party. Jesus Lava then
authorized the formation of an executive committee to lead the PKP “while
he remained in the background as general secretary.” Francisco Lava Jr., a
clerk in the Court of Appeals (and also known as “Paco”) and Lacsina were
also members. “Paco” then invited “the circulation manager of a major daily
newspaper” to join the committee.18 According to Dizon, this person was the
son of a man who had been active in the Democratic Alliance, the united
front organization in which the PKP had participated during the immediate
postwar period. Sison complains that Jesus Lava made appointments without
consulting the executive committee, and in this way Lacsina and Pedro
Taruc (a distant cousin of Luis, the wartime Huk leader who was expelled
before his surrender in 1954, and his brother Peregrino) were confirmed as
the secretaries for labor and peasants, respectively, while “Paco” became
the secretary for professionals and Sison was appointed as secretary for
youth.19 There were sharp disagreements on the committee. Sison records
C h a p t e r i : R e b u il d in g 13
that Lacsina objected to the co-option of two friends of Francisco Lava Jr.
who “had no connection whatsoever with the mass movement and had
unsavory reputations . . .,,2° Sison claims that at one stage Lacsina “refused
to appear before the secretary for professionals. And when the latter issued
an ultimatum the former got so angry that he challenged him to a duel.”21
It will be apparent that the Lava family occupied a number of positions
in the PKP leadership at this stage— so much so that Sison has made
mention of a “Lava dynasty.”22 Romeo Dizon, who joined the party during
the period under discussion, attempts to place this in context, saying that
Jesus Lava was
a very suspicious fellow because he was being hunted. So what came out
in Manila was that he recruited first his relatives . . . He felt that he could
only rely on his brothers, his nephews. He was sure that these people
would never betray him. Most of the old-time leaders were in prison at
this time.
I remember when I came in . . . I found these people already there—
Sison, Lacsina, Francisco Jr. and Vicente Jr. (who worked for Colgate-
Palmolive). Horacio [Lava] was also there . . . It was only Sison who was
not connected and later on Merlin [Magallona, who in 1986 would become
general secretary] and I were not connected, and then Nemenzo. So Sison
has not really put it in context. He [is] using it to substantiate an argument.23
In 1963, Jesus Lava issued Political Transmission 19. It was this

document that communicated the policy of building mass organizations to
the leading cadres of the party. Although, as already noted, Sison tends to
downplay the role of the party in this work, and claims, for example, that
MASAKA, the mass peasant organization, was formed “outside of the ken”
of the PKP,24 Dizon maintains that
it is clear to me that PT19 made provision for legal mass organizations. Jesus
Lava placed emphasis on the youth, with the students being targeted .. .
In the countryside, young and old [party members and supporters] were
supposed to be put in a peasant organization. So there was MASAKA,
where most of the old cadres of the party who came out of prison were
assigned to lead . . . And the labor sector was also there—the Lapiang
Manggagawa [Labor Party] was provided for.25
i4 A M o v e m e n t D iv id e d
We have seen that the PKP now had a secretary for each area of work.
What PT19 did, in effect, was to put forward a program for the formation
of a mass organization in each of these areas. We will now look at each o f
these organizations in turn.
3
With regard to the labor sector, the emphasis of the PKP would be
placed not so much on trade union work itself but on ensuring that the
trade union movement was given a political voice. As far as trade unions
themselves went, the situation was characterized by the absence of unity
and the proliferation of organizations, although there were positive
developments.
The outlawing of the PKP-led Congress of Labor Organizations (CLO)
during the HMB period had led to the formation of many “moderate” trade
unions, some of which were prey to CLA influence. However, healthier
organizations were also formed. As early as 1952, Cipriano Cid formed
the Philippine Association of Free Labor Unions (PAFLU). By 1964,
PAFLU was claiming 218 member-unions in some twenty provinces, with
a total membership of 121,000.26 The Philippine Trade Union Council
(PTUC) was formed in 1954. Lacsina’s National Association of Trade
Unions (NATU) also saw the light of day in this year, after Lacsina left the
Federation of Free Workers, where he had been first vice-president.27 In
1957, the Katipunang Manggagawang Pilipino (KMP, or Filipino Workers’
Association) was formed, taking part in the nationalist campaign led by
Senator Claro M. Recto and supporting President Carlos Garcia’s “Filipino
First” policy.
In 1963, an attempt was made to form a Philippine Labor Center,
this being, according to Progressive Review, “a gigantic merger of the
two biggest labor federations in the country, the PTUC and KMP.”28 A
few years later, however, Sison complained that this unity agreement
“did not prosper beyond the paper agreement as if the hidden hand of
C h apter i : R e b u il d in g i 5
the reactionaries had always been there to sabotage it and also as if the
petty jealousies among the member labor federations could not at all be
overcome.”29 The printers’ union, the UIF (Union de Impresores de Filipinas),
which had been formed in 1902, was largely inactive during the height
of the anticommunist suppression in the 1950s; in the 1960s, however, it
revived and later in the decade would join with the Philippine Government
Employees Association (PGEA) and dissatisfied member-unions within
PAFLU to attempt the formation of yet another progressive trade union
center— the PKP-led Pambansang Kilusan ng Paggawa (Kilusan, or National
Workers’ Movement). But in the early and mid-1960s it was NATO which,
more than any other labor organization, acted as the vehicle for the PKP’s
industrial activity. In 1964, having significantly expanded its membership,
NATO was transformed into a labor center, and was considered the largest
trade union organization in the years preceding the declaration of martial
law in 1972.
Quite apart from his trade union activity, NATO leader Ignacio Lacsina
had, even during the 1950s, always maintained a political profile. In 1957,
he joined the Nationalist Citizens’ Party (NCP) of Claro M. Recto and
Lorenzo Tañada, following which NATO supported NCP candidates (one of
whom, running for the Senate, was Cipriano Cid). After a period in which
Lacsina was “dissatisfied with the domination of the party by those whom
he called bourgeois nationalists . . .,n3° he became secretary-general of the
NCP following the reorganization of the party. After the death of Recto,
however, the NCP began to founder. Thus, when the PKP was planning
to launch a legal political party based on the labor movement, it was only
natural that Lacsina would be given a leading role,* so when the Lapiang
Nemenzo does not think Lacsina was “a member of the party until the time Sison was
brought in. I would not be surprised if Sison recruited him . . . Lacsina was much more
politicized, more left, than Cid. Cid was a traditional labor leader, a lawyer. Aside from
Cid, you had other labor leaders, all of them lawyers, whose concept was just to elect
labor leaders to government, not really fighting for socialism. Cid was their rallying
point, the most senior member of this group. So there was a rift.” Magallona points out,
however, that Lacsina was working with the PKP before his recruitment into the party. It
“might be that Sison formally recruited him. But, of course, Sison could not have acted
alone. He had a party group that must have decided that."31
Manggagawa (LM) was formed in February 1963 Lacsina was its general
secretary, while Cipriano Cid sat as president.
The new party’s platform was comprehensive: full employment;
improved wages and conditions; a concrete program of land reform; a
nationwide housing program; the reform of laws “which operate to the
injury of the masses” (an obvious reference to the Anti-Subversion Law);
a nationalist economic policy; the nationalization of “industries and
institutions vital to the national interest”; Filipino ownership of the media;
the purging of the education system “of its colonial content and orientation
and the development of Pilipino as the national language”; major emphasis
on basic industrialization (although, said the LM, agriculture should also be
modernized and extended); foreign aid “payable on reasonable terms, and
without strings”; the expansion of foreign trade and the development of an
independent foreign policy; and the encouragement of trade unionism by
the state, with the right to strike being protected.
LM promised to “prosecute, vigorously and resolutely, the campaign
against subversion, be it from the left or from the right,”32 an undertaking
presumably given in order to reassure the authorities of the organization’s
“respectability.” However, it must be said that there was an element of
opportunism here, for it was not as if the undertaking applied only to arm ed
subversion. Had it done so, this would have been perfectly innocuous, as
there was no progressive or nationalist organization at that time calling for
the armed overthrow of the government. As it was, however, the undertaking
could have been interpreted as an endorsement of the Anti-Subversion Law
and, for that matter, of the continued imprisonment of many PKP leaders
and cadres. Also, it is rather striking that, although the document called for
intergovernmental relationships to be based on the principle of equality,
there was no specific mention of the unequal economic and military
treaties forced on the Philippines by the USA. Somewhat ambitiously, the
document from which we have quoted also read as if the LM was seen by
its leaders as not merely a political vehicle for voicing the demands of the
working class and mobilizing workers into political activity, but as a party
which could be elected to government.
Sison certainly had high hopes for the new party. Writing in the first
issue of Progressive Review, he remarked:
The advent of Lapiang Manggagawa should somehow assure effective

replacement or reconstitution of institutions on the labor front that favor
and protect certain vested interests, chiefly those of neo-colonialism. It is,
however, already a fact that the prime cry of social justice is inseparably
linked with the problem of national independence in the platform of
Lapiang Manggagawa.
There is much reason to expect the Lapiang Manggagawa to provide
the Filipino working class with the proper political education, advancing
positive alternatives, preferably of a revolutionary and democratic
character, and exposing the ills of the nation as well as the tricks of its
enemies.33
In the elections of 1963, the LM did not field its own candidates but
supported President Diosdado Macapagal and the Liberal Party as the “party
of change.”34 This followed an approach by Macapagal, who, responding
to the upsurge of nationalism, was then calling for the completion of the
“Unfinished Revolution” of 1896, which resulted in the president signing
an “Instrument of Coalition” drafted by Lacsina. The terms of the coalition
included pledges to root out corruption, the adoption of an independent
foreign policy, land reform and a pro-labor stance.35 The LM was intended
to act as the voice of labor within the emerging anti-imperialist coalition
of classes which was thought to be emerging in the Philippines. Thus,
Progressive Review claimed in early 1964:
The Lapiang Manggagawa can be an effective ally of the national

entrepreneurial class. Our national entrepreneurs may be broad-minded
enough to seek its cooperation. As long as an anti-imperialist platform is to
be mutually propagated, the workers can more effectively put the heat on
foreign competition in favor of nationalization. However, the working class
should recognize the vacillating and opportunistic character of the national
entrepreneurs, their susceptibility to joint ventures with foreign monopoly
capital plus their mental lag deriving from a feudal background.36
Of the links with Macapagal, the journal commented:

It is heartening to observe that President Macapagal has made a coalition

with the lapiang Manggagawa. Today, Lapiang Manggagawa is the
open political organization that can to a large extent claim to represent
the working class in the Philippines. The cooperation between Lapiang
Manggagawa and the Macapagal administration can be more fruitful if it
surpasses the exigencies of conservative politics and its transient gimmicks
and stimulates the activation of the working class which is the one class,
other than the big property-owners, that can easily be integrated and
directed into one massive political factor sustaining a progressive national
solidarity.
Despite Macapagal’s apparently progressive labor policies,
the workers would certainly be happier if the cooperation between the

Macapagal administration and the Lapiang Manggagawa is geared towards
the development of certain political conditions that can stimulate the
development of a well-otganized and well-oriented working class whose
principal responsibility is to crush imperialism within our shores and help
the national government change its neo-colonial foundations so that it can
function as a democratic instrument.37
It can be argued that the open espousal of such a demand was quite
unrealistic— and even dangerous— given the conditions prevailing in the
Philippines in 1964. Certainly, the LM as a broad, loose organization would
be incapable of persuading Macapagal to use his “coalition” with the party
as a mechanism by which the working class might be mobilized to “crush
imperialism.” The editorial from which the above passages are quoted bears
the imprint of Jose Maria Sison, who appeared at this stage to be following
the Indonesian “model,” a country of which he had some experience and
where President Sukarno had entered into an anti-imperialist coalition with
the Partai Komunis Indonesia (PKI). But the history and circumstances of
Indonesia were not those of the Philippines.
Along with other mass organizations (most of which were formed
with PKP leadership as a result of PT19), the LM participated in a number
of important campaigns and mass actions in the mid-1960s. In October
1964, along with the PKP-led student organization, Kabataang Makabayan
(KM, or Nationalist Youth), the LM organized a demonstration of workers

and students “against the state of economic subservience to American
monopoly capital perpetuated by parity rights and preferential trade."38 For
this occasion, the LM put forward a manifesto that boldly stated: “The clear
and urgent task of the Unfinished Revolution . . . is to seek the immediate
liquidation of the Laurel-Langley Agreement.”* Indicative of the LM’s
growing disenchantment with its “coalition” partner, the manifesto insisted:
Instead of joining the jockeying of presidential aspirants to be the

“American boy” in the ensuing election campaign, President Macapagal
is called upon, as the duly chosen leader of the nation, to step forward
and offer a sustained and resolute leadership to the emerging forces of
national freedom and progress.59
On January 25, 1965, a further demonstration was called upon the

opening of Congress, although this actually took place outside the US
Embassy, with a claimed 15,000 in attendance. A “January 25th Manifesto”
was signed by the LM, the KM, the National Anti-Parity Council, MASAKA
(the PKP-led peasants’ organization), AKSIUN (an unemployed workers’
organization, also led by the PKP), and other groups. This called for the
abrogation of parity and the Laurel-Langley Agreement “without further
delay,” the immediate abrogation of the military bases agreement, full
implementation of the Retail Trade Nationalization Law and the passage
of further legislation nationalizing wholesale trade (“nationalization”
here should be taken to mean “Filipinization”), the “decisive and
universal implementation of the Agrarian Land Reform Code without
further ado,” abrogation of the Military Assistance Pact and the Quirino-
Foster Agreement,* “full respect for civil liberties in the face of increasing
* While, immediately after World War n, “parity rights” had been conceded to US
investors in certain areas, such as utilities, the Laurel-Langley Agreement extended this
arrangement to all areas of the economy; “parity” was now supposed to be reciprocal,
although for obvious reasons it was US investors who benefited.
t Under the Quirino-Foster Agreement of 1950, US officials were responsible for identifying
projects upon which $250 million in US aid should be spent, with the Philippine
government being obliged to provide counterpart funding.
threats of alien-inspired repression and witch-hunting," a strategy for full

employment and an increase in the minimum wage, “immediate action to
relieve Filipino businessmen from a foreign-inspired credit squeeze,” and,
finally, “the extension of our diplomatic and commercial relations with
all countries willing to deal with us on the basis of equality and mutual
respect in order to correct our narrow and neo-colonial ‘special relations’
with the United States.”40
As will be seen, the demands of this manifesto reflected the broad
anti-imperialist movement under construction, and there were indications
that the authorities were beginning to feel concern about the success with
which this strategy was meeting. Before the demonstration, rumors were
spread that it would be attended by men with bolos, that a riot would be
provoked and that the US ambassador’s residence would be set ablaze;
this made it necessary for the organizers to call a press conference two
days beforehand to allay such fears.41 At the demonstration itself, leaflets
bearing the hammer and sickle were distributed, but J.V. Cruz stated in
the Manila Times that these had been printed on the press of the United
States Information Service.42
By 1965 it was clear that Macapagal had no intention of implementing
the understandings he had reached with the LM, and in an article in
Progressive Review Lacsina stated: “There is no real difference between the
LP [Liberal Party] and the NP [Nacionalista Party]. On the level of policy,
they are one and the same political party.” The LM, therefore, wanted
“to offer the Filipino voter a real alternative: a distinct political party
representing a distinct political program.” Lacsina recalled that in its early
stages the Macapagal government had forced a land reform program
through “a reluctant, landlord-heavy Congress” and had established an
Emergency Employment Administration. For a time, the government
had appeared “as a self-willed, creative force in the international scene,
militant in the cause of peace, national self-determination, and human
brotherhood.” Thus, the LM had allied itself with the administration.
“Our purpose was to lend mass support and provide encouragement
to the progressive trends visible during the early days of the Liberal
C h apter i : R e b u il d in g 21
administration.” But now the government was lukewarm toward land

reform, while granting large areas of the public domain to Dole and
United Fruit Also, the administration was making a “pathetic effort . . . to
win back the patronage and good graces of the economic lords.” It had
assumed “a mendicant and puppet attitude towards the United States at
a time when the national forces of freedom and progress are awakening,
growing and accelerating.” Lacsina concluded:
From all indications, the bold, progressive and revolutionary Liberal

administration with which the Lapiang Manggagawa had allied itself has
effectively vanished, replaced by a servile, mendicant, retrogressive Liberal
administration, whose policies and actions are completely repulsive to
the platform of our Party. We can assure you the Lapiang Manggagawa
is determined not to play any part in the ignoble role of the Liberal
administration as the “American boy” in the Philippines and in Southeast
Asia.
The Lapiang Manggagawa will militandy forge ahead in its task
of developing a dynamic and progressive leadership for the people, a
leadership rising from the conscious ranks of the people themselves.
There will be organizational drives all over the country. Efforts will not
be spared to unfold all the truths and realities of our national condition,
to raise the level of national and social consciousness, to spur the most
forward national movement. There will be struggles everywhere. In all
this, the Lapiang Manggagawa will resist the inevitable slanders, intrigues,
enticements, and repressions which the enemies of Filipino freedom and
progress will unleash upon us.43
Of the promised “organizational drives all over the country,” however,

there is no record, and the implied intention to stand electoral candidates
of its own never came to fruition. Nemenzo, in any case, says that the
intention was to support Ferdinand Marcos and have LM candidates adopted
as guest candidates by the Nacionalista Party. The PKP’s provisional central
committee was, says the same source, divided on the issue, with Nemenzo
and Sison aiguing for a boycott.44
A year after Lacsina’s article appeared, Sison was complaining that
LM “is seriously faced with the clanger of disintegration from which it
has suffered through four years of existence, apparendy because of

the deleterious impact of colonial-bourgeois politics which wrack the
leadership every election time and because of the right-wing opportunism
of certain elements and also because of narrow inter-federation am or
propio. But in the most objective manner of party criticism, let me state
that a party like the Lapiang Manggagawa, which assumes the role of
proletarian leadership, will be strong only if it fulfils certain conditions in
the field of ideology, organization and politics.” Sison then proceeded to
enumerate these conditions, calling for what amounted to a program of in-
depth Marxist education, with “workers schools on all levels”* and “special
conferences on theoretical problems affecting the working class”; such a
party should have a newspaper “to serve as an ideological vehicle” and
should be organized on the basis of individual membership from “members
of all patriotic classes,” with “massive support from the peasantry.” With
regard to political activity,
the workers’ party must be able to make daily elaborations on the strategy
of the national united front. It must respond promptly to the daily shifting
demands of the anti-imperialist and anti-feudal struggle, independently
and in cooperation with all other anti-imperialist and anti-feudal forces
and organizations . . . It must have the firm and single objective of
developing and acquiring political power for the masses. At the present
stage, the workers’ party must stop choosing only the lesser evil from
among the colonial-bourgeois parties.46
Here, Sison appeared to be arguing for the construction of a Marxist-

Leninist party. It is fairly obvious, however, that the LM had never been
intended as such, but was meant to act as the vehicle by which, in
circumstances where the PKP was illegal, PKP cadres could conduct mass
work and ensure that workers had a legal political voice. Kimura agrees
with Sison, however, that the “LM was plagued with ideological division
Nemenzo says that Sison really wanted the education program for the members of the
more moderate trade unions, but as “Cid and the others were always scared of infiltration,
scared of the Anti-Subversion Law,” in practice it was confined mainly to NATU.45
C hapter i : R e b u il d in g 23
and personal rivalry among its leaders from the beginning.”47 According to
Jesus Lava (who by this time was in prison), the organization was “aborted
because of dissensions from inside. There was a reported rift between
Lacsina and Cid.”48
The Malayang Samahang Magsasaka (MASAKA, or Free Union of

Peasants) was formed in 1964 with a group of former PKM (Pambansang
Kaisahan ng Magbubukid, or National Peasants’ Union, the PKP-led peasant
organization declared illegal in the HMB period) members at its core.49 This
was to prove the most stable of the mass organizations formed by the PKP
in this period, a reflection of the fact that since 1938 the mass base of the
party had been among the peasantry of Central Luzon; now, the majority of
its 1,000 members were peasants.50 Like the LM, MASAKA took part in most
of the major mass actions of the period and was, for example, a signatory
to the January 25th Manifesto referred to above. According to Jesus Lava,
however, the peasant organization was “riding on Macapagal’s land reform,
primarily to be able to gain legality.”51
This is an important point, for it goes some way to explaining the line
taken by both the peasant organization and the LM during this period. With
the PKP and the previous mass organizations it had led banned, it is no
surprise that the nationalist revival witnessed in these years was bourgeois-
led, reflecting the frustrations of the Filipino business community arising
from the privileged position of US business interests within the economy
of the Philippines. It was to accommodate these bourgeois nationalists that
Macapagal initially adopted a progressive stance in so many policy areas,
projecting himself as the leader of the “Unfinished Revolution." To a certain
extent, then, the PKP leaders “tailed” these developments, forming new
(and therefore legal) mass organizations which would offer critical support
to potential allies (including the Macapagal administration) in the fulfilment
of the remaining tasks of the “Unfinished Revolution.” In the circumstances
of the time, this initial “tailism” was inevitable if the communists were n o t
to suffer both illegality and isolation. It seems clear, however, that th e
PKP’s intention was to first ensure that the mass organizations which it led
achieved positions of influence and then use that influence to broaden the
nationalist debate to encompass areas such as civil liberties (the sixth item
in a list of ten demands contained within the January 25th Manifesto, fo r
example) with the eventual aim of regaining legality for the PKP itself.
Such a strategy is faidy evident from a careful reading of the first nine
issues of Progressive Review. According to Sison, it was he who “organized
the Progressive Review in 1962 and became its editor-in-chief and chairman
of the editorial board upon its launching in 1963.”52 This is broadly factual—
although the term “chairman” was not in fact used by the journal until its
seventh issue, in 1965. But PKP sources insist that the organization and
launch of Progressive Review was merely another task which Sison was
undertaking on behalf of the party which he had joined toward the end of
1962.53 Nemenzo says of the journal, while “you can say it was a PKP project,"
it “was a special project of the group of Jom a [Sison]. . . I was still [studying]
in Manchester when Jom a suggested Progressive Review. In fact, I wrote the
first editorial . . . [which] was supposed to be the general line for PR.”54
The first issue, for May/June 1963, contained a mix of articles reflecting
the broad coalition of forces which, the PKP believed, was necessary in
order to carry the nationalist movement further forward. Fortunato de Leon,
a corporation lawyer, ex-congressman, and former executive secretary to
President Ramon Magsaysay, argued that the opening of trade relations with
China would be a demonstration of the Philippines’ independence from
the USA, would stimulate Philippine industries and lessen the country’s
“dependence on the American market, American economic aid and military
assistance . . . It will do away with the suspicion, perhaps unfounded, that
we are America’s puppet.”55 The Dean of the College of Journalism at the
Lyceum, Jose A. Lansang, criticized both “ultranationalistic capitalism” and
communism, but concluded:
A nation where civil liberties become weaker or are overtly suppressed,

and therefore goes under severe tension, is bound to face an even more
serious danger than subversion which after all may not always succeed.
The greater danger is the weakening or loss of its democratic potentials
and [it] thereby gets transformed into an arena of liability to the Free
World instead of being a hopeful source of an increment of strength for
the economic and political sinews of the non-communist camp.56
Such a viewpoint would have been acceptable to the PKP as it

attempted to establish itself in the legal arena and to overcome the ban
under the Anti-Subversion Law.
The editorial in the first issue also made clear (to the careful reader)
the ideological outlook of the journal. In a veiled reference to Marxism, this
stated:
In exporting to the colonies new modes of production and economic

organization, Western imperialism has created in our country a semi
capitalist social system. This explains the inevitable harmony of the
theoretical efforts of Western radicalism and our own.
Another explanation follows from the fact that our own capitalist
system is part and parcel of a larger system: the capitalist world market.
Since the rise of modem imperialism, radical thinkers in the West have been
able to comprehend this larger system, both in its totality and historical
motion. Since understanding the whole is essential to understanding a
part, acquaintance with Western radical literature is indispensable for us.57
The third issue (after a major diversion in July/August 1963, when the
whole of the second issue was devoted to Indonesia— presumably a result
of Sison’s current interest in this model and, possibly, the influence of a PKI
member then staying in the Philippines)58 followed the same pattern as the
first, with a major analysis of Macapagal’s “Unfinished Revolution,” an article
on Andres Bonifacio (thus restating the Philippine revolutionary tradition), a
nationalist statement by students, and pieces by Foreign Secretary Salvador
P. Lopez and Agustín Rodolfo (chair of natural sciences at the University
of the Philippines and a former member of the Hukbalahap). With the
fourth issue, the journal became somewhat bolder: not only were there
articles by establishment figures (Congressman Felicísimo C. Ocampo on
the lack of labor protection, Congresswoman Juanita L. Nepomuceno on
the exploitation of Filipino labor in the US military bases and Congressman

Miguel Cuenco on the military bases and land reform), but a major theme
was civil liberties and the illegality of the PKP— and, as if testing the water,
the journal ran an article by known communist William Pomeroy, who
had been deported to the USA two years earlier after serving ten years
in prison for his part in the Huk Rebellion. The Supreme Court ruling in
the case of Amado V. Hernandez (that mere membership in a communist
party or advocacy of communist theory should not be considered criminal
acts in themselves) was reprinted, along with important articles by Reynato
S. Puno (four decades later the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court) and
Justice Jesus G. Barrera. Puno argued that the Anti-Subversion Law (which
outlawed membership of the PKP and its successors) was in fact a bill of
attainder, the latter being a device which “convicts specific persons or an
ascertainable class and punishes them for crimes without judicial trial.” Such
bills, said Puno, were ruled out by the Philippine Constitution. Moreover,
Congress had not oudawed all organizations seeking to overthrow the
government by force and violence but had singled out the PKP.59 Barrera,
an associate justice of the Supreme Court and formerly a member of the
anti-Japanese Free Philippines and president of the postwar Democratic
Alliance, argued:
considering all conditions and in particular the form of political struggle

which I think is most feasible, the struggle for individual freedom or
liberties is not only on parity with that for national freedom, but is also a
means for the enhancement of the latter. It is obvious that the particular
form I have in mind is the peaceful, parliamentary, propagational,
educational and organizational type, in which militancy can be achieved
without coercion and without sacrifice of individual or civil freedoms. 1
repeat, that the struggle for civil liberties, particularly those of freedom of
speech and of association are a must in the type of political struggle for
liberation that I visualize.60
This could be interpreted to mean that, given a commitment to open,

legal forms of struggle, the PKP should be allowed to function legally and that,
moreover, this would aid the struggle for national liberation. He continued:
Freedom to act or to express a thought presupposes knowledge and,

hence, the former freedom implies the freedom to know. This, in turn,
presupposes the freedom to learn and the freedom to seek information
and knowledge from whatever source. Any attempt, therefore, to prevent
people from learning or to prevent any particular matter from being
learned makes the freedom of expression a mockery. Freedom to express
based on ignorance or lack of knowledge is but the freedom to perpetuate
ignorance and error and induces action based on ignorance.61
As the nationalist movement gained in strength, the editors of

Progressive Review grew more self-confident, and began to place their
cards on the table, face up. The fifth issue editorialized on the formation of
a broad national front.
All classes and forces in Philippine society—with the clear exception

of the compradores and landlords, allies of American imperialism—are
now being forced by objective conditions to accomplish the tasks of the
Philippine Revolution.
The task of bringing about genuine national freedom and democratic
reforms can be achieved only after the successful anti-imperialist and anti-
feudal union of the national bourgeoisie composed of Filipino industrialists
and traders; the petty bourgeoisie composed of small property-owners,
intellectuals, students and professionals; and the broad masses of the
people composed of the working class and the peasantry.
As a matter of democratic principle and with the most realistic]
consideration of the situation, the union of these four major classes of
Philippine society should be founded on the solid alliance of the working
class and the peasantry, with the former assuming the leadership in this .
industrializing era.62
The same editorial suggested that all nationalists “demand that

socialists, scientific and non-scientific . . . be allowed the simple liberties
that should be allowed by any state that has any claim to democracy . . .
In a situation where different ideologies are permitted, the nation stands to
choose the best.”63
The next four issues retained the pattern identified above, which was
also reflected in the composition of the editorial board for the journal. From
the very first issue, the editors were Jose Maria Sison, Francisco N em enzo
Jr. (who was at Manchester University for part of the journal’s life, being
recruited into the PKP during his stay in Britain by the Pomeroys), an d
Luis V. Teodoro. Among the members of the editorial board and associate
editors were those who would later become nationally known as members
of the Maoist breakaway from the PKP, such as Satumino Ocampo and
Fidel Agcaoili (actually a “business manager”). But alongside them were
names like Hernando J. Abaya, Teodoro Agoncillo (the respected historian),
and Antonio S. Araneta— all of whom were contributing editors from the
fifth issue (following which Araneta’s name disappeared from the credits).
The circulation of the journal was quite modest, with just 1,000 copies
being printed each issue, half of which were sent to paid subscribers. The
first issue invited readers to form Progressive Review Discussion Clubs,
adding: “As soon as you form your discussion club, please contact us and
we will gladly help you expand your membership.”64 As well as a method
of expanding sales of the journal, this was presumably intended to be part
of the organizing drive for the mass movements and, given the right caliber
of reader, for the PKP.
Modest though the circulation of Progressive Review was, however,
there is little doubt that the journal was influential, especially among the
middle strata. Like other creations of the PKP’s period of illegality, it was
to fall victim to the split in the party brought about by Sison’s adoption of
Maoism.
A mass organization in which Sison was to play an especially influential

role was KM, the nationalist youth group. As we have seen, students first
became organized in this period via the Student Cultural Association of the
University of the Philippines. In September 1963, the first College Student
Conference on Nationalism, held at the University of the Philippines, passed
a resolution embodying many of the policies then being put forward by the
LM and Progressive Review, and which in turn would constitute the policies
of the KM. The resolution bears the imprint of Sison and, indeed, of the
PKP. “Our pledge to fight for nationalist industrialization,” it read, “will
gain more sincerity and actuality if we actually cooperate with the largest
section of the population, the peasants and the workers, in their struggle
for social emancipation.”65 The founding congress of the KM took place on
September 30, 1964. Its program portrayed the KM “as the vanguard of the
Filipino youth in seeking full national freedom and democratic reforms and
in combating imperialism and feudalism.” The organization was committed
to “nationalist industrialization and state planning” and “the protection
of Filipino industrialists and traders from foreign monopoly capital.” The
program also called for land reform “which benefits all segments of the
peasantry, especially the small independent farmers and the poor landless
peasants, and which accelerates industrialization.” Further demands were
for the abrogation of the Military Bases Agreement, the Military Assistance
Pact and the Mutual Defense Treaty. Sison was elected chairman, while
Senator Lorenzo M. Tañada was made an honorary member and consultant.
The KM was to be Sison’s real power base. As a lecturer himself, he
had direct access to the studentry and most of his colleagues on Progressive
Review were themselves academics. Quite often, the KM would go further
than its sister-organizations in the nationalist alliance in the demands it
made. While it may be tempting to explain this as but an expression of
the excess of youth, one should recall that most of these organizations
were under PKP leadership or influence, and so such disparities should not
really have arisen. To a certain extent, the phenomenon may have been
due to the PKP’s difficulty in supervising its creations from underground.
But as chairman of the KM and a member of the PKP’s inner circle, Sison
was in a position to ensure that the KM toed the line.
An example of these disparities is to be found in the seventh issue
of Progressive Review. The editorial, “The Progressive Stand on the
National Elections,” put forward the view that no particular party should
be supported, although “any candidate who opposes the formal and
basic aspects of American control in the Philippines, and those who have
committed themselves to the defense of civil liberties deserve explicit

nationalist support.” Favored by the journal were Fernando Lopez (running
mate of Ferdinand Marcos) for vice-president, Lorenzo Tañada in the
Senate and Jovito Salonga. In the same issue, however, there appeared a
statement entitled “The Stand of Filipino Youth,” which had been approved
by the KM National Council and read by Sison to the general membership.
This followed the same format and even, in large measure, used the same
wording as the editorial. But there were significant differences in the KM
statement, as, for example, it provided a far longer list of endorsements
for both the Senate and the House of Representatives (including Sotero H.
Laurel, the president of the Lyceum, where Sison lectured).
We have already seen that the January 25th Manifesto was signed
by a number of PKP-led organizations. On this occasion, the KM (itself a
signatory to the document) issued a separate statement in which it went
further than the Manifesto. For example, while the Manifesto had called for
the daily minimum wage to be increased to F6, the “Twelve Demands of the
KM” (the Manifesto had only ten demands, which the KM rephrased in its
own document) demanded an increase of P8.66 Sotero H. Laurel mentioned
in passing that a letter circulated to UP students a day or two before the
demonstration in January 1965 had actually called for a PlO minimum
wage.67 Apart from the two extra demands,* the KM document gave the
impression that it alone had “decided to hold a mass demonstration before
Congress . . .” Having stated its demands, it declared:
Kabataang Makabayan believes that with the above demands it asserts

what is genuine nationalism and implicitly exposes what is opportunism.
In the light of these, it is clear that those who persist in avoiding them as
One of the extra demands added by KM was that the "Filipino mercenaries paid by the
US government to fight American wars in Southeast Asia, particularly in South Vietnam . . .
should be investigated . . . " The PKP (or, rather, the legal organizations it led, participated
in several actions in protest at the escalating war in Vietnam during this period. Leaflets
and wall slogans campaigned against the recruitment of soldiers and medical workers for
Marcos’s Philippine Civil Action Group, but possibly the largest action at the time was
the protest rally outside the Manila Hotel on the occasion of the South-East Asia Treaty
Organization summit, which was attended by US President Lyndon Johnson, in October
1966.
concrete issues and in making an abstract distinction between “extreme”

nationalism and moderate nationalism are opportunists and compromisers,
if not outright traitors, and they in reality begrudge the development of a
strong anti-imperialist and non-chauvinist nationalist movement that still
has to succeed in breaking the chains that tie the Filipino nation and our
sovereignty to American imperialism.
The leftism of the KM might therefore be explained not by virtue of the

natural excess of youth, but by Sison’s striving to be more “revolutionary”
than his comrades in both the broad alliance and the PKP. Furthermore,
it is logical to assume that Sison was at this stage already moving toward
confrontation with the PKP leadership, although Nemenzo doubts that he
was yet thinking of breaking with the party, rather seeing that organization
as an alternative to the traditional labor leaders.68
6
Potentially the most far-reaching contribution to the nationalist
cause came with the formation of the Movement for the Advancement of
Nationalism (MAN) on February 8, 1967. At its founding congress, MAN
adopted basically the same list of fundamental nationalist demands as the
LM, the KM, and MASAKA. The difference, however, lay in the breadth of
support for MAN. Among the new organization’s charter members were 22
businessmen, 91 youth and students, 86 peasant leaders, 61 labor leaders,
21 women, 29 educators, 24 professionals, 6 scientists and technologists,
13 media workers, 17 writers, 7 political leaders, and 11 civic leaders.
According to Perfecto Tera Jr., himself a charter member, such a broad-
based organization had an immediate effect.
MAN was able to air out certain issues like those of nationalism, of
removing the American bases when the agreement expired in 1972. A
lot of people who didn’t know of these issues before got to know about
them. So it was a very, very positive effect it had. But it also had a negative
effect in that people who otherwise would not have been labelled as
communists were labelled communist, such as Senators Tañada and

Diokno.69
The very breadth of the organization brought with it potential problems.

For this reason the ubiquitous Jose Maria Sison, in his general report to the
founding congress as general secretary, issued a note of caution.
We are certain of our common principles and objectives. The various

participants in this Congress may have their own individual minimum
and maximum demands depending on their class or sectoral interests.
To maintain firm unity among us, we must always strive to make the
appropriate adjustments between our respective minimum and maximum
demands and arrive at the most acceptable common position without any
individual or organization betraying his principles. Nationalism provides
us a wide ground for political agreement.70
MAN adopted very ambitious organizational plans. The highest

decision-making body would be the national congress, to be held every
two years. Below this, there would be a national council, an executive
board and then committees at the regional, provincial, district, and
municipal levels. In his general report, Sison was bold enough to boast
that “it is a safe estimate that before the Second Congress of our Movement
we shall have established a chapter in every municipality and city in the
Philippines.” But these aims were never achieved. According to Tera:
The organization was mainly Manila-based. It was always Manila-centered

and in the provinces around Manila. The representation from the other
parts of the Philippines was mainly skeletal. They didn’t have organizations
there. They’d be represented by one or two people. That was one of the
weaknesses of MAN—it didn’t really have a national grassroots following
as yet because it was only starting, and a lot of people who participated
were from Manila, from the university, from the Senate, and a lot of trade
unions were based in Manila, like PAFLU and NATU. MASAKA and the
other peasant organizations were mainly concentrated in Central Luzon,
where the peasant unrest was in the ’30s and ’40s. So it was centered on
the northern island, mainly.71
But while this might go some way toward explaining the speed with
which MAN effectively collapsed within a year or so (although it would
struggle on until the declaration of martial law in 1972), the collapse itself
was a direct result of the split which now occurred within the PKP.
N o tes
1. Interview with Jesus Lava, May 1979, identity of interviewer unknown. A copy
of the typescript is in the papers of William Pomeroy.
2. Ibid
3. Ibid.
4. Ibid.
5. Francisco Nemenzo Jr., “Rectification Process in the Philippine Communist
Movement,” in Armed Communist Movements in Southeast Asia, ed. Lim Joo-
Jock and S. Vani (Hampshire, England: Gower, 1984), 74.
6. “Amado Guerrero,” Philippine Society and Revolution, 3rd ed. (n.p.:
International Association of Filipino Patriots, 1979), 46.
7. Jesus Lava, interview, May 1979.
8. Jesus Lava, “Setting the Record Straight,” PKP Courier, 1/1985, 14-15.
9. Romeo Dizon, interview by the author, January 1990.
10. Francisco Nemenzo Jr., interview by the author, January 2008.
11. Interview with Jesus Lava, undated, identity of interviewer unknown, copy in
the papers of William Pomeroy.
12. See, for example, Jose Maria Sison with Rainer Weming, The Philippine
Revolution: The Leader’s View (New York: Crane Russak, 1989), 32. Henceforth,
this book is referred to as The Leader’s View.
13. Ibid., 11.
14. Ibid., 12.
15. Ibid., 31.
16. Ibid., 32.
17. Ibid.,16.
18. Ibid., 44.
19. Sison, The Leader’s View, 45.
20. Ibid.
21. Ibid., 46.
22. Ibid.
23. Dizon interview.

24. Sison, The Leader’s View, 32. Similarly, in The Communist Party ofthe Philippines,
1968-1993: A Story o f Its Theory and Practice (Quezon City: University of the
Philippines Press, 2001), 29-30, Katherine Weekley quotes from an interview
with Sison in which he claims that Kabataang Makabayan was established
“no thanks to the Lavas," but she points out that the PKP provided the youth
organization with its mass base in Central Luzon. Curiously, although Weekley
claims that by 1968 “the PKP was a negligible force in Philippine political life”
(28), she goes on to acknowledge that it was “at the forefront of [the] revived
nationalist movement" from 1964 onward (29), and, quoting Nemenzo, that
at “the first big anti-imperialist rallies in the mid-1960s, ‘the mass base was
provided by the Lavas, by the PKP’ ” (30).
26. The Labor Monthly, January 1965.
27. Matsataka Kimura, “Philippine Peasant and Labor Organizations in Electoral
Politics: Players of Transitional Politics,” Pilipinas: A Journal o f Philippine
Studies 14 (1990): 45.
28. Progressive Review, no. 1,9
29. Jose Maria Sison, “Nationalism and the Labor Movement,” Progressive Review,
no. 9, 51-52.
30. Kimura, “Philippine Peasant and Labor Organizations.”
31. Nemenzo and Merlin Magallona, interview by the author, March 2009.
32. “The Lapiang Manggagawa Platform," Progressive Review, no. 1, 58-63. Dante
C. Simbulan mistakenly thinks that the “short-lived" LM “broke up" within five
months of its launch, as Roberto Oca, its mayoral candidate in Manila went
to the Nacionalistas and other leaders “coalesced with the Liberal Party." See
his The Modem Principalia: The Historical Evolution o f the Philippine Ruling
Oligarchy (Quezon City: UP Press, 2005), 170. We will see, however, that this
was not the case.
33. Progressive Review, no. 1, 10-11.
34. Lapiang Manggagawa, “Where Labor Stands—The Issues Today,” 1963.
35. Kimura, “Philippine Peasant and Labor Organizations,” 46.
36. “Editorial: The Unfinished Revolution: Hard Facts and Some Possibilities,”
Progressive Review, no. 3, 7.
37. Ibid., 8-9.
38. “Editorial: Towards a Broad, National Front," Progressive Review, no. 5, 2.
39. “Lapiang Manggagawa Manifesto on Laurel-Langley Agreement,” October 2,
1964, reprinted in Progressive Review, no. 5, 11-12.
40. Reprinted in Progressive Review, no. 6, 10-17.
41. Emilio Espinosa Jr., “The January 25th Demonstration,” Progressive Review, no.
6, 2-9.
42. Teodoro Agoncillo, “The Development of Filipino Nationalism,” Progressive
Review, no. 7, 40.
43. Ignacio P. Lacsina, “Lapiang Manggagawa and the Liberal Administration,”
Progressive Review, no. 6, 26-31.
44. Nemenzo interview.
45. Ibid.
46. Jose Maria Sison, “Nationalism and the Labor Movement,” Progressive Review,
no. 9, 39-53.
48. Interview with Jesus Lava, June 1977, interviewer unknown, copy of typescript
in the papers of William Pomeroy.
50. Jesus Lava interview, June 1977.
51. Ibid.
53- Dizon interview.
55. Fortunato de Leon, “The Need for a Re-appraisal of Our China Trade Policy,”
Progressive Review, no. 1, 33.
56. Jose A. Lansang, “Nationalism and Civil Liberties,” Progressive Review, no. 1,
32-33.
57. “Editorial: Theoretical and Practical Problems for Contemporary Radicalism,”
58. According to Nemenzo (“Rectification Process," 74), this Indonesian communist
was doing postgraduate studies at the University of the Philippines, where he
contacted radicals, assuring the PKP that they “were ripe for recruitment.”
59. Reynato S. Puno, “The Anti-Subversion Law—A Bill of Attainder,” Progressive
Review, no. 4, 9-22.
60. Jesus G. Barrera, “Individual Freedom and National Freedom,” Progressive
Review, no. 4, 50.
61. Ibid., 52.
62. “Editorial: Towards a Broad, National Front,” Progressive Review, no. 5, 2.
63. Ibid., 4.
64. Progressive Review, no. 1, 15.
65. Progressive Review, no. 3, 42.
66. Progressive Review, no. 6, 18, 19, 25.
67. “Youth and the National Perspective,” Progressive Review, no. 6, 22.

69. Perfecto Tera Jr., interview by the author, May 1989.
70. MAN, Basic Documents and Speeches of Founding Congress (Manila, 1967), 8.
71. Tera interview.
PART TWO
Splits in parties of the left were, of course, nothing new by the 1960s.
Indeed, many communist parties came into being as a result of splits. The
Communist Party of the Soviet Union, to which many left parties would
for decades look, rightly or wrongly, for guidance, traced its own origins
to the split of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party into Bolshevik
(majority) and Menshevik (minority) factions. Many of the communist
parties formed after the Russian Revolution of 1917 were both influenced
by that momentous event and disenchanted with the leaders of the social-
democratic parties, from which many of them now split, due to their
support of World War I.
But many of the splits in the latter half of the 1960s were of a different
character, being inspired by one particular communist party— that of
China— and resulting in not merely the formation of mainly small ultraleft
sects, but of parties with a distinctly different world oudook, particularly
with regard to the national liberation movement. The dialectical approach
means that we must look, however briefly, at the history of the Communist
Party of China, tracing the development of Maoism to the point where
Mao Zedong both attacked his own party and attempted to split the
international communist movement. Only in this way can its importation
into the Philippines be placed in context and fully understood.
Two of the immediate results of the establishment of a Maoist party
in the Philippines are discussed in chapters 3 and 4— a party program in
which the working class is conspicuous by its absence and an embryonic
guerrilla army conceived with the assistance of a most unlikely ally.
37
C h a pter 2 :
T h e D evelo pm en t o f M aoism
in C hina and t h e P h ilippin es
Jose Maria Sison recalls that at a “rare Executive Committee meeting” of

the PKP in 1965, he moved for the creation of a central committee and that
this was unanimously approved, with Sison himself being asked to draft a
general report on the party.1 According to Nemenzo, the PKP was actually
preparing for a congress at this time, and it was the younger members
who urged the drafting of a document on party history. The older leaders
were “lukewarm,” however, fearing that this would cause demoralization.
According to this account, Sison volunteered to write the draft and, having
done so, found that the Lavas attempted to shelve it due to the fact that
it was critical of them.2 As might be expected, Jesus Lava’ would tell a
different story, saying that, rather than openly attacking the past leadership,
Sison “did so behind the back of the Party,” and “still avoided confrontation
and discussion of the matter within the Party.” Lava says that Sison’s
document, “which he did not submit to the Party,” turned out to be an
attempt to denigrate past struggles and to minimize the role of the PKP
and the HMB during “this very significant period of Philippine history,”3 i.e.,
World War II and its aftermath.
Jesus Lava was not present at this meeting, having been captured in 1964.
39
Matters did not com e to a head until 1967. Sison says that Francisco
Lava Jr. called a meeting of seven people in April (Jesus Lava, as we will
see, says it was March) of that year
ostensibly to discuss the forthcoming local bourgeois elections. Of the

seven, only he and I were members of the executive committee. When
I showed up for the meeting, he arbitrarily called it a meeting of the
provisional political bureau and asked those in attendance to elect a
general secretary, secretaries for organization, education and the like.
I objected to the nature of the meeting because it was approved
neither by the executive committee nor by the four secretaries previously
appointed by Jesus Lava.’ Nevertheless, Francisco Lava Jr. had himself
“elected” as the general secretary, as if the position were a family
heirloom. . . 4
Sison says that following this episode he decided to have nothing

further to do with “any scion of the Lava dynasty.”
This account omits several key details. Jesus Lava maintains that as
early as November or December 1966 none other than Nemenzo warned
the Manila group of the PKP that Sison
was secretly forming a faction within the Party with the intention of
capturing leadership through some sort of “coup” without any open
ideological struggle. Nemenzo also informed the Manila Group that Amado
Guerrero (Sison] did not want the “politburo” prisoners [i.e., those arrested
in 1950] to be released yet as that would interfere with his “plans.”1
• In fact, it would be normal procedure in a communist party for the politburo to elect
the general secretary and department heads, subject to endorsement by the central
committee. The approval o f an outgoing executive committee (essentially a subcommittee
of the politburo) and previous department heads would not be required.
t Nemenzo says he lias no recollection of this point, but he broadly confirms the rest o f
Lava’s account. “At that time, I did not view it as a warning. We were having a meeting
of the provisional central committee. Sison happened to be absent and I did mention his
ideas on rejuvenation. I think Paco already had his suspicions of Sison, and his concept
of rejuvenation was taken to mean the formation of a faction that would get rid of the
old leadership.” The same source claims that at the formation of MAN, Sison “issued a
slate while the conference was going on, and the Kabataang Makabayan people were
instructed to vote for this slate. It excluded Paco and some others, and this is what
alerted him to Sison.”5
C h a p t e r i : T h e D e v e lo p m e n t op M ao ism in C h in a a n d t h e P h iu p p in e s
Regarding the planned Congress, Amado Guerrero proposed the

creation of separate workers’ group, peasants’ group and youth group,
but the majority, including Nemenzo, preferred composite groups, if at all
necessary, to avoid factionalism . . .
It seemed, however, that Amado Guerrero was determined to split
from the Party if he could not capture leadership by stealth. When his
proposals and maneuvers did not gain acceptance, and after the formation
of the provisional PB in March 1967 in which he was elected only to the
post of head of the Youth Section, he forthwith formed his antiparty group
on April 3, 1967. He launched vicious attacks against the “old” cadres and
the past party leadership. Ironically, it was Nemenzo, a latter-day splittist,
who sent a special courier to the leading cadres about Amado Guerrero’s
vicious attacks on the Party behind its back.
Even before the Provisional PB knew about Amado Guerrero’s
antiparty group from Nemenzo, a confrontation meeting was held on
April 8, 1967. It was at this meeting that Amado Guerrero proposed
the dissolution of the Provisional PB; that a “commission” be formed
to assess the capabilities of each Party cadre; and that such assessment
be done through memoranda to be submitted by each member stating
corresponding activities in revolutionary work since 1962 (which
coincided with the time of Amado Guerrero’s entry into the Party). Such
proposal was not accepted specially since those “memoranda” could be
presented as incriminating evidence to the enemy.
Amado Guerrero then challenged the Party itself. Another
confrontation meeting was set, but he refused to attend, on the ground
that he was in the minority anyway. He was accordingly suspended and
told to stop his antiparty activities, but his response was that a split was
alright; anyhow splits were fashionable all over the world. This led to his
expulsion from the PKP.6
Dizon corroborates much of this.
One suggestion of Sison’s was that each of us should have a self-appraisal

of our activities in the revolutionary movement—but from 1962. I
remember this very distinctly as I was taking minutes. So the old men like
iFelicisimo] Macapagal were saying, “Why only from 1962? I have been
there from even before the Japanese period, so why can’t I write about
that7” Because 1962 was the time Sison entered the Party. So obviously he
was tailoring everything to himself. And then he was insisting on packing

the Central Committee with Nilo Tayag and his youth cadres. Naturally,
the rest of the leadership was saying, “Let us have everybody and then
have an election based on our records." So in short Sison’s proposal was
not carried. Nemenzo was the harshest opponent [of Sison] at that time,
and also Merlin {Magallona]. Paco was more diplomatic, but I know Paco,
Nemenzo and Merlin were together at that time.7
At this stage, Sison’s adoption of Maoism became even more apparent.

On March 6, 1967, while still a PKP member, he gave a lecture at th e
University of the Philippines in which he openly criticized previous PKP
errors and hailed the achievements of Mao, who had “inherited, defended
and developed Marxism-Leninism and has brought it to a higher and
completely new stage. Mao Tse-tung Thought is Marxism-Leninism in the
present era when imperialism is heading for total collapse and socialism is
marching toward world victory.”8 Two months later, the People’s World, a
Maoist newspaper in New Zealand, carried an article which purported to
represent the position of the PKP. “The outlawed situation of the Party,” this
stated, “dictates clearly that there is no path to national and social liberation
except armed struggle.” The PKP prompdy issued a disclaimer, pointing
out: “The small but reckless anti-party group that issued the statement. . .
in the hope of gaining international recognition, waves the banner of
the thought of Mao Tse-tung in a vain attempt to achieve a semblance of
authenticity.”9
It was not long before the split began to affect the mass organizations
so painstakingly established over the previous five years. Sison had in fact
been replaced as editor of Progressive Review in 1966 (thereby adding fuel
to his revolt) by Nemenzo. When, in 1967, after a lengthy delay, the tenth
issue finally appeared it carried an announcement from the editorial board
to the effect that Nemenzo had been expelled from the board as, under
the influence of “certain sinister elements,” he had “actively participated in
a campaign of vilification against many of his fellow staffmembers,” had
maintained “improper connections,” had failed to produce the magazine
for over a year and that, finally, on the “instructions of some pseudo-left
C h a p t e r 2: T h e D e v e l o p m e n t of M ao ism in C h in a and th e P h il ip p in e s 43
elements, he participated in a systematic campaign of vilification against

major nationalist mass organizations and their dedicated leaders.”10
To the uninitiated, the “sinister elements” and “improper connections”
could have been anyone— including, of course, the intelligence agencies.
Such obfuscation may have been deliberate, but there can be little doubt
that these were references to the PKP and its collective discipline, from
which Sison had now escaped. With regard to the failure of the journal to
appear for a year, Nemenzo says that Sison, unhappy that the party had
told him to concentrate on KM while he, Nemenzo, edited the journal,
would not agree that the funds, held by his wife, be released.11
The same issue saw the first appearance of anti-Sovietism in the journal,
with the Soviet Union being accused of “the shameful direct betrayal” of
the Arab people because of its attempts to negotiate a ceasefire in the 1967
Middle East war; Soviet Prime Minister Alexei Kosygin was alleged to have
“paid an obsequious pilgrimage” to “pay homage to his imperialist boss”
President Lyndon Johnson.12
At the same time, Lapiang Manggagawa was renamed the Socialist
Party of the Philippines (SPP). Its program, the Socialist Manifesto, owed
much to Sison’s thesis (actually modelled on tfye Chinese Communist
Party’s analysis of prerevolutionary China) that the Philippines was “semi-
feudal and semi-colonial” rather than a dependent capitalist country.13 The
manifesto concluded with a pledge to “demand the establishment of normal
trade and diplomatic relations with all countries, especially those which are
close to the Philippines and those willing to respect the sovereign rights
and independence of our country”— a clear reference to China.14 Given that
Sison viewed the Socialist Party as a party of “scientific socialism,”15 it would
obviously not be able to play the role which the PKP had intended for its
forerunner, the LM— that of a legal, open party through which the party could
channel its demands. The SPP, says Nemenzo, “would get rid of the rightists
and consolidate the Lacsina and Pedro Castro [a former PKP leader expelled
during the HMB period] unions. It had a socialist orientation, so those who
didn’t want to be associated with socialism left. So SPP was nanower than
LM. But Joma was already thinking of armed struggle.”16 Despite the fact that
44 A M ovement D ivided
he would later berate the wartime Huk leader Luis Taruc* as a traitor, Sison
approached him with the request that he join the SP, but Taruc rejected th e
proposal.17 The party itself, which would realign itself with the PKP after
Lacsina fell out with Sison, did not survive martial law.
Within the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, the tactics pursued b y
Sison were, says Pomeroy,
typical of his methods; he contacted a Filipino student friend in Belgium

to cross to London and send a telegram falsely signed with the name of
Bertrand Russell’s secretary claiming that one of Sison’s henchmen was the
authorized BRPF head. This fraudulent effort at forgery and deception . . .
was of course quickly exposed and Sison’s Maoists were ousted from the
organization.18
MASAKA, the peasant organization, proved to be more resilient

than most. Although its president, Felixberto Olalia (not then a PKP
member, having been expelled some time earlier, although the party had
then cultivated relations with him in the interests of broad unity— thus
explaining his presidency of MASAKA) left to join Sison, the latter’s attempt
to establish a rival organization came to naught as “angry peasants drove
his henchmen out of the ‘founding convention’ and dissolved it on the spot
with a unanimously-supported resolution.”19
The most serious casualty among the mass organizations was MAN. An
editorial in Progressive Review, now under Sison’s control, emphasized the
latter’s role in MAN and stressed:
As a genuine alliance of various independent forces, the Movement for

the Advancement of Nationalism cannot and should not be considered as
the private preserve of anyone or any organization or any clan that may
have a hegemonic presumption over the anti-imperialist movement. The
present leadership of the Movement for the Advancement of Nationalism
is the result of the interplay of large progressive forces.20
Upon his surrender to the authorities during the postwar Huk Rebellion, Taruc had not
only renounced his former beliefs but denied that he had ever held them. Despite this,
he received a twelve-year prison sentence.
C h a p t e r 2: T h e D e v e l o p m e n t of M a o ism in C h in a and th e P h iu p p in e s 45
The “any organization” and “any clan” here obviously refer to the
PKP and the Lavas, respectively, and Sison was in effect turning against
the collective discipline of the organization which had projected him into
so many leading positions— partly in an attempt to hold onto those very
positions. Nemenzo recalls that, on the insistence of Lorenzo Tañada, the
CPP remained with MAN, although Sison himself “stopped attending and
sent a representative, and most of the time we had a shouting match. After
martial law, this guy disappeared, but then he became famous because he
was killed in Sulu. He was a colonel, the G2 of General Bautista.”21
MAN never recovered from the upheaval. According to one witness:
I think the work of MAN was completely negatively affected by the split
within the communist party. The intellectuals, the professionals and the
patriotic businessmen got disenchanted about what was happening. The
intellectuals are so difficult to keep within an alliance because they're
basically individualistic. The intellectuals are always the first to bolt when
the situation experiences a certain sea-change.22
Sison retained control of the Kabataang Makabayan, although on

November 30, 1967, a rival organization, the Malayang Pagkakaisa ng
Kabataang Pilipino (MPKP, or Free Union of Filipino Youth) was formed
with PKP leadership. According to Pomeroy, the majority of KM members
and chapters now joined the MPKP, especially the chapters in Central
Luzon.23 Tera lends some support to this claim, agreeing that “students from
the provinces who were mainly organized by the peasants made up the
numbers for the MPKP and KM was more city-based.” Nemenzo qualifies
this by stating that the KM “had a lot of student cadres who were sent to
the rural areas to build a peasant base, and they were able to do it quite
fast,” and that the MPKP’s success in Central Luzon was due to the fact that
most of the members there “were the children of the MASAKA people.”24
However, the following year saw a split in the KM, leading to the
formation of the Samahang Demokratikong Kabataan (SDK, or League
of Democratic Youth). PKP sources allege that this was brought about by
Sison’s “one-man leadership,” and that the leaders of the new SDK issued
a statement attacking Sison for his “careerism, his cowardice for running
away from demonstrations attacked by the police, and his plagiarism o f

writings of others, passed off as his own.”25 One of the leaders of the SDK
explains the split as follows:
What happened was that there were very strong-minded people in the KM
and during the elections for the executive committee certain views were
expressed, certain lines were expressed, and this did not meet with the
approval of half of the executive committee. As one side tried to impose
its views it was inevitable that the other side would separate. There
was a division between the writers, who were advising caution, and the
ones who did the footwork in the organizations. Most of the writers and
intellectuals went with the SDK, Rather than arbitrating when there was a
debate within the executive committee, I think Sison took one side. With
a disagreement between the two groups in the executive committee of
the KM, one side was supported by the chairman [Sison] and that brought
about the split.26
Vivencio Jose and Perfecto Tera Jr., the leaders of the SDK breakaway,
were later expelled, and the organization and the KM would be reconciled,
although the merger sought by the KM never materialized.
Less than five years after the PKP had commenced building mass
organizations, this process was thrown into disarray. The youth movement
was split. The Movement for the Advancement of Nationalism would lapse
into inactivity, as would the Socialist Party of the Philippines. Only MASAKA
in Central Luzon, since 1938 the heartland of PKP support, remained intact,
active, and under PKP leadership. The split obviously threw back the
development of the PKP itself, and its planned congress would not now
take place until 1973.
There can be litde doubt that Sison was the major architect of this
disruption. But the PKP must shoulder some of the responsibility. Why, for
example, did the party assign so many leading positions to Sison? Dizon
offers the following explanation:
C h a p te r 2: T h e D e v e lo p m e n t o f M ao ism in C h in a a n d t h e P h ilip p in e s 47
First, we have to give it to him: he was very militant. He was also one of
the [party’s] few university-trained cadres. When the regrouping started,
only peasants were coming in and the few intellectuals were connected
with professions, therefore to a certain extent they could not open up.
Also, there was an attempt to avoid exposing the name of the Lava family.
Sison, however, could easily assume an open position—not as a party
member, but as editor of Progressive Review or leader of the KM. So that
was one reason. He was militant and also he grabbed space for himself.
Now, that was mistaken for initiative, and they just gave every assignment
to him.27
Needless to say, from the PKP’s point of view, its excessive reliance on
Sison proved to be a major mistake. Ironically, the “single-file” policy about
which Sison was now so critical contributed to his own rise to prominence.
It also facilitated his factional activity as, according to one source, Sison
passed off his own ideas as PKP policy to some of the contacts he recruited
into the party and, because of the single-file policy, the latter were hardly
to know any better.28
A number of factors contributed to the split. Pomeroy has charged that
Sison was “inordinately self-centered,* with an overweening desire to be
the leader of everything on the Left.”30 Not only did he achieve leading
positions in the mass organizations influenced by the PKP, but he obviously
wished to occupy a more leading position within the party itself. Sison’s
decision to have nothing further to do with “any scion of the Lava dynasty”
was, after all, taken as a result of Francisco Lava Jr.’s election as general
secretary. The decision itself, it must be said, is not one that would have
been taken by many disciplined communists. And while the preponderance
of the Lavas may well have been unhealthy, events in the next few years
would demonstrate that this problem was, far from being insurmountable,
capable of resolution within the organization.
In 1989, Sison would write that at the founding congress of the Kongreso ng
Mamamayang Pilipino (Congress of the Filipino People, or Kompil) he was “elected in
absentia as one of the fifteen national council members . . . each one of whom was rated
capable of replacing Marcos as president of the Philippines.”29
For some years after the split, the PKP would allege that the CIA
was involved (see also chapter 4), but there is no evidence of d irect
involvement. It is certainly true, however, that as early as the 1950s th e
rebirth of Philippine nationalism had given rise to concern in Washington.31
Now, moreover, it was quite apparent that communists held leadership
positions in the nationalist mass organizations— in 1966 some congressm en
were referring to the Lapiang Manggagawa and the Kabataang Makabayan
as communist fronts, and Congressman Felix Amante had suggested that
any organization with the same aims as the PKP should be prosecuted
under the Anti-Subversion Law.32 And here, it must be noted, Sison w as
hardly the soul of discretion. In a speech delivered to the Central Luzon
conference of the KM on October 31, 1965, and again at the College o f
Agriculture, UP, on March 23, 1966, he had quite openly said that “(i]n the
present era only the peasant masses themselves can liberate themselves
provided that they follow the correct leadership of the working class and
its party,”33 a statement that only a communist would make.
In such a climate, and given the large and sophisticated intelligence
resources centered on the US Embassy, it would be surprising if the CIA,
which ever since its formation had been highly active in the Philippines,
was not in some way involved in attempts to derail the burgeoning
nationalist movement. However, at least one PKP cadre of the time takes
a fairly charitable view of the period immediately following the split,
suggesting that the intelligence forces acted from the sidelines.
When it came to the conflict between the PKP and the CPP, we are sure
the agents of the state took advantage of it, fanning the fire. Maybe some
of the statements we got were never written by the Maoists and some of
the statements they got from us were never written by us.* The situation
was taken over by the enemy. Even in demonstrations, the provocateurs
weren’t necessarily from the ranks of the movement, from the ranks of the
KM or from us, but maybe from the military or the CIA.35
For example, in 1971 the UP Chapter of the BRPF’s Philippine council issued a statement
in which it claimed that a document circulated in its name entitled “Parliamentary
Struggle Is the Answer” was in fact the work of “fascist agents.”34
C h a p te r 2: T h e D e v e lo p m e n t o f M ao ism in C h in a a n d t h e P h ilip p in e s 49
It is possible that the extent and form of the involvement of the CIA
in the split— if it was involved at all— will never be known, although there
is at least an indication that it was involved on the periphery. It would
have been easier to accept that it was entirely coincidental that the second
“autobiography” of Luis Taruc, He Who Rides the Tiger, was published in
1967, the year of the split, had not his ghost-writer, Douglas Hyde, noted
in the Foreword that when he had first visited Taruc in prison ten years
earlier, “[t]he Philippine authorities, righdy or wrongly, considered the
moment inopportune for its publication. Its lessons are urgendy needed
today.”36 What influence, it might be asked, had the “Philippine authorities”
over a book ghosted by a former British communist who had, like his
subject, found God? The major “lesson” of the book, providing Hyde/Taruc
with the tide was: “Any nationalist who makes an ally of the Communist is
going for a ride on a tiger. We must leam our lessons from the past, and
this is one that nationalists need to remember today, when once again
the Communists are trying to.use them.”37 This might have been written
with the PKP-led nationalist organizations (MAN in particular) in mind.
When one considers that He Who Rides the Tiger was published by Praeger
of New York, a publishing house that Sison himself would in later years
identify as an outlet for CIA material,38 the case for CIA complicity in the
publication would appear conclusive.
However, while Sison’s Maoism was and is perfecdy open, some
previous accounts of this period have placed insufficient emphasis upon
the role of Maoism— and of the Communist Party of China— in the events
of 1967. It is the current writer’s view that Maoism was the major factor in
the breakaway from the PKP and the disruption of the mass organizations
in which it played a leading role, and that Jose Maria Sison was merely its
instrument.
Essentially, Maoism was a reflection of the character of p re

revolutionary China, in which both the bourgeois class and the w orking
class were weak and undeveloped. Mao himself was of petty-bourgeois
origin, as were many other leaders of the Communist Party of China (C PC ).
This combination of circumstances would give rise to the phenom enon
which Lenin (although not referring here to China) termed “petty-bourgeois
revolutionism.” In Left-Wing Communism—An Infantile Disorder, Lenin
explained that
[t]he petty proprietor, the small master . . . who, under capitalism, always
suffers oppression and very frequently a most acute and rapid deterioration
in his conditions of life, and even ruin, easily goes to revolutionary
extremes, but is incapable of perseverance, organisation, discipline
and steadfastness. A petty bourgeois driven to frenzy by the horrors of
capitalism is a social phenomenon which, like anarchism, is characteristic
of all capitalist countries. The instability of such revolutionism, its
barrenness, and its tendency to turn rapidly into submission, apathy,
phantasms, and even a frenzied infatuation with one bourgeois fad or
another—all this is common knowledge.39
Elsewhere, Lenin wrote that “(i]n the land in which the small-proprietor
population greatly predominates over the purely proletarian population,
the difference between the proletarian revolutionary and petty-bourgeois
revolutionary will inevitably make itself felt, and from time to time will
make itself felt very sharply. The petty-bourgeois revolutionary wavers
and vacillates at every turn of events . . .”40 Throughout his political life,
Mao Zedong exhibited this vacillation, at one stage emphasizing the role
of the bourgeoisie, at another that of the working class or peasantry. On
occasion, Mao’s ego seemed to play a part in determining which position
he adopted. In fact, it would not be much of an exaggeration to say that
the history of the CPC’s first half-century is to a significant extent a history
of the struggle against the ideas and “fads” of Mao Zedong, as will be clear
from the following brief account.
C h a p t e r i : T h e D e v e lo p m e n t o f M ao ism in C h in a a n d t h e P h ilip p in e s 51
In 1923, the Comintern (the international center for communist

parties formed after the Russian Revolution) urged the CPC to form a
united front and suggested that, without curtailing the independence of
the party, communists should join the nationalist Kuomintang (nowadays
transliterated as “Guomindang”). Mao was one of those who unsuccessfully
opposed this line— which is ironic, as at a later stage the concept of the
united front was to loom large in Mao’s On New Democracy, which in turn
would be adopted by Sison. Four years later, Mao denied the validity of the
leading role of the working class; in the early 1930s, this was supplanted
by his conception of the “encirclement of the town by the countryside.”
For China itself, it must be said that this had a great deal of validity, but
Mao would later extend the concept as a general principle, applicable first
to all Third World revolutions regardless of local circumstances, and then
as a description of the world revolutionary movement in the 1960s and
1970s. The focus of this movement had, Mao would argue, shifted to the
Third World, at the head of which stood China. This was the “countryside.”
The “town” was taken to be the developed capitalist countries and those
socialist countries led by “revisionists.” Even in 1930, Mao’s petty-bourgeois
nationalism and adventurism were evident, for in that year, in a letter to the
central committee, he supported a scheme suggested by Li Li-san that called
for China to be turned into the world center of revolution, and proposed
that an uprising be organized in Manchuria in order to provoke a Japanese
military offensive against the Soviet Union. Thus, the chauvinism which was
to surface in later years, especially during the “Cultural Revolution,” had
deep roots within the CPC and, more particularly, within the personality
of Mao Zedong. These roots, moreover, were in a soil made fertile by the
historical circumstances and legacy out of which Chinese communism
developed— after all, during the seventeenth century, China had been
considered by its Qing dynasty rulers to be the center of the universe.
By 1935, Mao had been elevated to the leadership of the CPC. The
Seventh Congress of the Comintern, nevertheless, for a while restrained the
sectarian tendencies within the Chinese party by its call for a united anti
imperialist front in the East. However, when in 1941 the Nazis invaded the
Soviet Union Mao, having in the meantime built up a majority for his position
within the central committee of the party, took advantage of the fact th a t
the attention of the Comintern was elsewhere by mounting a “campaign f o r
the rectification of style.” According to Wang Ming, Mao had com m en ced
secret preparations for such a campaign as early as 1938.41 During th e
campaign, which was broken down into five stages and lasted until 1 9 4 5 ,
party periodicals were suspended, party schools were closed or adapted,
and Mao began to talk in terms of “Maoism,” which would play the role o f
a Sinified Marxism, the theoretical basis for which would be his pamphlet,
written in 1939, entitled On New Democracy. In this work, Mao discarded
the notion of the dictatorship of the proletariat* and the leading role of th e
communist party. During the second stage of the campaign (February 1942
to July 1943) the “Commission for the Rectification of Style” announced that
Mao’s works alone should be studied as a means of re-education, citing
On New Democracy as the “prime and capital Maoist theoretical work.”42
Intellectuals were expected to confess to the crime of “dogmatism,” while
workers and peasants were to confess to the lesser crime of “empiricism.”
All, however, had to promise that, having blindly followed “Russian
Marxism” (i.e., Leninism), they would now apply themselves to Maoism
or “Chinese Marxism.” Faced with continued opposition, Mao whipped up
an atmosphere of suspicion and declared that most leading figures and
cadres in the party (with the notable exceptions of himself, Liu Shaoqi, and
a small group of others) were, if they had ever worked in areas controlled
by the Guomindang, agents of that organization. The main targets were the
“dogmatists,” those who maintained an internationalist position. According
to Wang Ming, a minimum of 50,000 to 60,000 people were killed in the
course of the campaign.43
With the Soviet Union poised to deliver the knockout blow to Nazi
Germany, in the summer of 1944 Mao executed an extraordinary about-
This term has been widely misunderstood—and, possibly, misrepresented. It merely

meant that, just as capitalist society is, in effect, subject to the dictatorship of the
bourgeoisie (regardless of the level or extent of formal democracy), socialist society
would be subject to the dictatorship of the working class.
C h a p t e r 2: T h e D e v e l o p m e n t of M ao ism in C h in a and t h e P h il ip p in e s 53
face and embarked upon the fourth stage of the campaign, during which all
those who had been declared traitors or spies had only to “self-refute” their
confessions to qualify for rehabilitation. In the spring and summer of 1945,
the results of the previous four years were summed up and the history of
the CPC was reassessed— amounting, says Wang Ming, to a falsification in
which the “great role” of Mao was emphasized, along with that of “Mao’s
thoughts.” For good measure, Mao had the seventh congress of the CPC
amend the general principles of the party rules to read that the party “is
guided in all its work by the thoughts of Mao Tse-tung.”
But Mao did not have things all his own way. On New Democracy had
foreseen two stages to the Chinese Revolution— the first, the stage of “new
democracy,” in which no one class would exercise leadership (although in
1945 Mao was forced, in On Coalition Government, to talk in terms of “a
united-front democratic alliance based on the overwhelming majority of the
people, under the leadership of the working class”), was seen as existing
for an extended period; the second, socialist, stage was banished to some
distant future. This is an illustration of the vacillating character of “petty-
bourgeois revolutionism,” for whereas in 1930 Mao had championed the
concept of China as the center of world revolution, nine years later he was
emphasizing the role of the national bourgeoisie. In real life, however, things
did not conform to Mao’s formula. After the defeat of Japan in Manchuria
by the Soviet forces, the Chinese people found themselves in control of
the entire area of formerly Japanese industry, transport, communications,
banks, etc., and this was used as the basis for the state sector of the national
economy. At the second plenum of the seventh central committee in 1949,
the internationalists among the CPC leadership gained the upper hand and,
rejecting Mao’s views, committed the party to constructing socialism by
relying on the state sector and assistance from the Soviet Union. Over the
following three years, the party worked out its policy for the transition to
socialism. The CPC’s Theses fo r the Study and Propagation o f the Party's
General Line in the Period o f Transition amounted to a further rebuff to
Mao, declaring at one stage: “Without the leadership of the Communist
Party of China, armed with the Marxist-Leninist theory of the laws of social
development and representing the interests of the working class . . . in

our country it would be impossible to implement socialist industrialization
and the socialist organization of agriculture, the handicraft industry and the
trade and industrial enterprises owned by private capitalists.” Just to make
matters absolutely clear, the theses pointed out: “Collective leadership is
the highest organizational principle of our party . . . Unnecessary, excessive
accentuation of the outstanding role of an individual, no matter who he
may be, cannot be tolerated under any circumstances.”44
In 1956, the eighth congress of the CPC noted that a “decisive victory
has already been won in the socialist transformation,” and that “the
people’s democratic dictatorship, established after the nationwide victory
of the bourgeois-democratic revolution, is in essence the dictatorship of the
proletariat.” However, an indication that all was not well was given by the
fact that note was made by the congress of “subjectivism,” the influence of
“bourgeois and petty-bourgeois ideology,” and of “erroneous Great Hanist
ideas.”45 Sure enough, soon after the congress Mao and the group around
him began attacking the conclusions of that very congress. In 1958, he
unleashed the “Great Leap Forward” upon the country. This was intended
to enable the Chinese economy to outstrip those of the Soviet Union
and developed capitalist countries such as Britain within a few years by
means of the communization of the countryside, to be followed by the
establishment of “people’s communes” in the towns; the urban centers were
characterized by, among other things, “backyard” steel furnaces, much o f
whose product was unusable. The policy was one of subjectivism, that is
to say Mao thought that China could develop by an act of will, regardless
of the objective circumstances. The policy was summed up by the slogan
“Putting Politics in Command.”
Once again, the healthier forces in the CPC came out in opposition
to Mao’s reckless approach. At the eighth plenum of the eighth central
committee in August 1959, Peng Dehuai, member of the political bureau
and a Red Army leader during the anti-Japanese and revolutionary
struggles, and a large group of provincial leaders censured the “Great Leap”
and the experiment was quietly abandoned. Mao’s opponents found that
C h a p t e r 2: T h e D e v e l o p m e n t of M a o ism in C h in a and th e P h il ip p in e s 55
their own position was now strengthened, as the “Great Leap” had cost
the Maoists support in the party, the trade unions, among intellectuals,
and in the Army. It was at this point, therefore, that Mao opened his
campaign against the international communist movement, and in particular
against the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, charging its leaders with
“revisionism.” His real target was revealed two years later when, in 1962,
he swung his attack against “revisionists” within his own party— those,
that is, who had opposed his ideas since the 1930s. In the years 1965-69
this campaign developed into the “Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution,”
which in essence was open warfare against the CPC itself by Mao and
his supporters. Thousands of CPC members, including former allies such
as Liu Shaoqi and Chen Po-Ta (Mao’s “theorist”) were either murdered or
“disgraced.” Elegant points out that this “Cultural Revolution” would “sweep
away the existing structure of the Communist Party, crack its ideological
foundations and, for a time, leave China without government or purpose.”46
It was during the period of the “Cultural Revolution” that the “thoughts
of Mao Zedong” were presented to the world as a “system.” To a large extent,
such “thoughts” amounted to the projection of the Chinese Revolution as
the “classical type” to be followed in all Third World countries by means
of armed struggle, with the peasantry as the leading force and with the
“country revolutionizing the town.” As a Soviet commentator pointed out,
however, even this amounted to a disregard for the actual history of China.
The experience of the Chinese revolution does not bear out the Maoist
thesis about the special role of the peasantry as the decisive strategic
force of the revolution. Until 1927 China’s revolutionary forces grew and
developed in the town, while the transfer of the Party organisations to
the countryside after the counter-revolutionary coup of 1927 was, first,
of a forced nature and, second, a process opposite to what the Maoists
seek to give out. It meant not the conquest of the “counter-revolutionary
town” by the “revolutionary village" but, on the contrary, the introduction
of revolutionary consciousness from the town to the countryside and the
revolutionization of the countryside, i.e. it marked the beginning of a
realistic approach by the CPC to the solution of the peasant problem.47
Second, the Third World was seen as the main revolutionary force on the
world scene and the main struggle was therefore viewed as being between
the developing countries and imperialism, not between imperialism and
socialism. Indeed, the Soviet Union and the other socialist countries (with the
exception of Albania, which fell in with Maoist ideology) were characterized
as “social imperialist.” Moreover, the Maoists took the view that each Third
World country should wage its struggle for national liberation by relying
on its “own resources.” This was certainly something which China had not
done and, indeed, the line was applied with no apparent consistency by
the Maoists. In 1964 and 1965, they ignored proposals put forward by the
Soviet Union for coordinated measures to assist the Democratic Republic
of Vietnam in response to mounting aggression from the United States.
In March 1966, the newspaper Jenm in Jihpao advised the Vietnamese: “A
people should rely on itself alone to execute a revolution and wage a
people’s war in the country, because it is its own cause.”48 This was in
stark contrast to the Chinese assistance given to the right-wing movements
in Angola. As early as December 1963, Chinese Foreign Minister Chen Yi
met the Frente Nacional de Libertacao de Angola (National Front for the
Liberation of Angola) leader Holden Roberto in Nairobi and promised every
assistance; Roberto’s part of the transaction was to use his best endeavors
to undermine the Movimento Popular de Libertacao de Angola (Popular
Movement for the Liberation of Angola), the Soviet-supported organization
which finally liberated Angola from Portuguese colonialism. In June 1975,
Roberto was to admit to Le Monde that his troops had been trained by
the Chinese. Similarly, the Maoists also assisted UNTTA, the South African-
backed organization led by Jonas Savimbi.49
It is clear from this that the Maoists’ outright opposition to all things
Soviet (or Soviet-supported) led them into alliances which were directly
contrary to the interests of those peoples struggling for national liberation.
This is perhaps most graphically illustrated by Beijing’s immediate
recognition of the Pinochet junta after the coup in Chile in 1973; at the
United Nations, China during this period either abstained or did not attend
when motions condemning Pinochet were voted upon.
A further strand to Mao’s policy that came to the fore during the
“Cultural Revolution” was his interference in the affairs of foreign communist
parties, usually with the object of creating a separate organization based
upon “Mao Zedong Thought.” The call for such splitting activity was issued
as early as June 1963 in a letter from the central committee of the CPC:
“If the leading group in any party adopt a non-revolutionary line and
convert it into a reformist Party, then Marxist-Leninists inside and outside
the Party will replace them and lead the people in making revolution.”50
Although the term “Marxist-Leninists” is employed here, Dutt outlines what
this meant for a delegation of the Communist Party of Japan (CPJ) which
visited Beijing in 1966. The draft joint communiqué was rejected by Mao
on the grounds that the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was not
placed on a par with US imperialism. “As a result no communiqué was
issued, and posters were put out in Beijing describing the Japanese Party
as ‘revisionist.’” It later emerged that the CPJ’s journal, Akahata, had been
expected to accept the contention that it was “the touchstone of Marxism-
Leninism or revisionism whether or not unconditionally to follow the word
of Mao Zedong . . .”51 Subsequently, the Maoists organized thugs in Japan
itself to beat up Japanese communists, attack the offices of the CPJ, and
destroy the building housing the Society for Japanese-Chinese Friendship.52
Splits were attempted in communist parties all over the world, in both
Third World countries and developed capitalist countries. (Not all were
what they appeared to be. The Marxist-Leninist Party of the Netherlands
was, it was revealed in 2004, in fact a creation of the Dutch secret service,
its aims being to “undermine the official Dutch Communist party, the KPN,
by denouncing its deviant beliefs and unreliable conduct, and to gam er
information on— and gain access to— the Maoist elite in Beijing.”) 53 Usually,
the results were meager, small splinter groups calling themselves the
“Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist)” of whichever country they inhabited;
sometimes, as in India, the breakaways were more substantial and in a
few countries, such as the Philippines, the breakaway party was able to
establish a dynamic of its own.
Clearly, the appearance of Maoism in the Philippines, which previously

had been host to no ultraleft organization (excepting the PKP’s own periodic
lurches into ultraleftism), was linked to developments within China and
formed part of Mao’s efforts to create an alternative international movement
under his own leadership. Jose Maria Sison was merely the vehicle by which
Maoism sought to enter the Philippines. The PKP’s case against Sison was
that while still a member of the PKP he was “heeding the directives of other
sources than the PKP, from Chinese Maoist connections he had made earlier
as a student in Indonesia, from Maoists in the Chinese community in the
Philippines and in Hongkong, and from Maoists in Beijing itself.”54
As we have seen, it was only after his stay in Indonesia that Sison joined
the PKP. Nemenzo says that Sison “undertook training”55 in Indonesia, but
Muhammad Abdul Hassan goes somewhat further, claiming that in Jakarta
Sison, having been “spotted and recruited” by Chinese Maoists resident in
the Philippines for the purpose of leading a new pro-Beijing communist
party, was tutored in Maoism by a PKI member called Hotapea (also spelt
Hutapea). While ostensibly in Indonesia to study the language, this was,
according to Hassan, a cover arranged by PKI member Ilyas Bakri, then
resident in the Philippines. Hassan claims that after Sison’s return to the
Philippines he sent reports to Beijing via “Kramat 5, the PKI mail drop in
Jakarta”; after the Suharto coup, “such arrangements were taken over by
liaison men of the local Chinese Communist group.”56
The PKI, the third largest communist party in the world after those in
the Soviet Union and China, despite having long ago adopted the line of
peaceful struggle, supported the Communist Party of China in its dispute
with its Soviet counterpart over “revisionism.” In October 1963, following
a visit to China, D. N. Aidit, the PKI leader, issued a statement to the effect
that, in response to “revisionism,” Marxist-Leninists “have the complete right
to propagandize their views outside of the Party, and to form circles and
associations and put out a magazine, and even to establish a new party.”57
Vivencio Jose says that the PKI’s emissaries in the Philippines “had very
C h apter 2: T h e D e v e l o p m e n t of M a o ism in C h in a and th e P h il ip p in e s 59
bad grammar, spoke very badly, but were very passionate . . . One of
those fellows . . . was only known as a student— but an over-aged student
enrolled in UP and another university. So we were wondering what he was
doing here, over-aged and enrolled in two schools. Later on, when there
was a big witch-hunt, all the pieces came together. Among certain people,
they were influential.”58 ,
Sison also visited China before the split. Nemenzo recalls that one of
his own first assignments upon his return from Manchester University
was to go to Indonesia and establish links with the PKI because the PKI
man here was exposed and deported, so the link was cut. The PKI was
already planning to seize power and they told me that the link will no
longer be with Indonesia but with the Socialist Party of Japan, as there
was a faction there that was very pro-China. We were all brought together
at a so-called scientific conference in Indonesia. They said they would like
one key member of the party to go to Japan, and from Japan to link up
with the party in China. Sison volunteered. So he went.
When he came back, he already had his plans. At first I could not
understand him. This was at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution.
He said the line was: “Bombard the headquarters!” He talked about
rejuvenation. That was already one of his buzzwords. At that time, I
simply thought it meant winning new elements, but this time, after his trip
to China, it meant getting rid of the old leadership.59
But if Beijing was using Sison, it is probable that the reverse was also
true. Sison seemed to have a predilection for “models.” Having first been
partial to the Indonesian “model,” this was dropped in the wake of the
Suharto coup and the slaughter of Indonesian communists that followed.* It
The PKI (or some of its leaders) may well, as Nemenzo claims, have been planning to
seize power, but the situation in Indonesia was certainly more complex than this. John
Pilger refers to Peter Dale Scott’s claim that “western politicians, diplomats, journalists
and scholars, some with prominent western intelligence connections, propagated the
myth that Suharto and the military had saved the nation’s honour from an attempted
coup” by the PKI, while former CIA operative Ralph McGehee has written: “The
documents, manufactured stories of communist plans and atrocities, and claims of
communist arms shipments [from China] created an atmosphere of hysteria, resulting in
the slaughter and the establishment” of the Suharto dictatorship. In addition, Pilger refers
to evidence suggesting that, following the murder of six Indonesian generals, Suharto
had “opportunistically exploited an internecine struggle within the army in order to seize
6o A M ovem ent Divided
is perhaps significant that Progressive Review published no Filipino analysis

of these events.61 There are indications that Sison’s Maoism predated the
collapse of the Sukarno regime in 1965. For example, in 1964 Nemenzo
had written to Progressive Review from Manchester, calling for an alliance
with the nonaligned nations and the other peace forces in the world, such
as Britain’s Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Although this was in line
with the policy of most communist parties at the time, Sison saw fit to
publish a long “addendum” arguing that nonalignment was “out-dated
and ineffective,” and that to propagate this principle “only gives the US
a chance to wear the mask of peace” and “only hides the ugly face o f
US imperialism.”62 Such a pronouncement was more representative of the
thinking of Mao Zedong than of contemporary PKP policy.
Sison, who appeared somewhat uncertain in his use of Marxist
terms in the early years of Progressive Review (in the third issue he put
forward the curious proposition that “[capitalist appropriation of land is
neo-feudalism . . .”),63 had by 1966 solved this problem by modelling his
writings on Mao’s works (many of which had themselves been written by
Chen Po-ta),64 employing the favorite terms of the “Great Helmsman.” Thus,
by way of example, in a speech (closely resembling Mao’s On Coalition
Government) in which he explained the need for a united front strategy,
Sison concluded: “Ideologically, it would be an error of dogmatism or
sheer ignorance of the real conditions of our country to insist on making
socialism our immediate goal. At the same time, it would be an error of
empiricism to stick to the minimum goal of national democracy . . .”65
power.” A CIA source told Pilger that the Indonesian operation served as a model for
the 1973 coup in Chile, revealing that the “CIA foiged a document purporting to reveal a
leftist plot to murder Chilean military leaders, (just like] what happened in Indonesia in
1965.” Having shipped in a sophisticated US-supplied communications network from the
Philippines to facilitate coordination of the anti-communist bloodbath, Suharto set about
systematically murdering between 250,000 and a million PKI members. Decades later,
it would be admitted that the CIA had handed the Indonesian military lists containing
the names of thousands of PKI activists it had compiled over the previous two years.
A former BBC Southeast Asia correspondent told Pilger: “There was a deal, you see. In
establishing the Suharto regime, the involvement of the IMF and the World Bank was
part of it. Sukarno had kicked them out; now Suharto would bring them back. That was
the deal.”“
Jones says that Sison returned from China in early 1967, bringing with
him several volumes of Mao’s collected works, which he gave to his “most
advanced cadres” for translation into Tagalog.66 Asked later about the role
of the Communist Party of China in the “re-establishment” of the CPP, Sison
stopped short of denying *he existence of such assistance.
I would like to stress that the rebuilding of the CPP, the resurgence of
the Philippine revolutionary movement, and my having been elected CPP
central committee chairman came about essentially because of Philippine
conditions and domestic factors, including the errors and incorrigibility of
the Lava group and the rise of proletarian revolutionaries.67
According to one source, it was during Sison’s visit to China that the
constitution of a new party was drafted.68 The same source suggests that
members of the Chinese community in Manila also assisted Sison.
We were meeting with Chinese newspapermen who were really

undercover agents of the Chinese Communist Party. These were the
people who would support Sison. The money that was channelled from
China passed through these groups. It might have even come from these
groups, with the authority being given by China. They were in business—
import-export, newspapers . . .
This source maintains that none other than Joaquin “Chino” Roces,
publisher of the Manila Times, was also involved in a discussion of the
constitution of the new party. Lazaro Cruz, previously expelled from the
PKP and known by the nom de guerre of “Bull,” was apparently out of
work and being financially supported by Roces. At a meeting in Roces’s
office, “Bull” suffered a heart attack and was later found by a KM member
(named by the source) to have been discussing the draft party constitution
with Roces.* Similarly, Vivencio Jose maintains that Cruz was “the contact
Joseph Smith supplies another connection, identifying Roces as a friend of the CIA’s
Gabe Kaplan and Jaime Ferrer in the early stages of the CIA operation to establish the
National Movement for Free Elections (NAMFREL) as a de facto pro-Magsaysay campaign
organization.69
between Sison and Chino Roces.”70 Such a possibility is not as outlandish

as it might appear. The mainland Maoists frequendy made use of Chinese
businessmen in the diaspora, drawing on their strong sense of nationalism.
In turn, some Chinese businessmen in the Philippines (Roces am ong
them) were anti-Marcos and prepared to enter into alliances with other
like-minded people. However, Nemenzo maintains that all that occurred
here was that Roces was discovered to have obtained copies of the
CPP foundation documents, and that it was this that necessitated a brief
postponement of the breakaway party’s “re-establishment congress” from
December 26, 1968 (the date on which its anniversary is still celebrated by
the CPP), until early January 1969.71
Hitherto, Sison had been pursuing the construction of a broad united
front, a concept he had adopted from the Mao of 1939-45. The Mao o f
1967, however, was the “Great Helmsman” of the “Great Proletarian
Cultural Revolution,” and this “model” demanded a pro-Beijing split in all
“revisionist” communist parties. Thus, Sisoh’s adoption of the 1967 “m odel”
resulted in the destruction of the most promising product of the work he
had carried out while influenced by the 1939-45 “model”— the developing
national united front as exemplified by the Movement for the Advancement
of Nationalism.
N o tes
1. Jose Maria Sison with Rainer Weming, The Philippine Revolution: The Leader’s
View (New York: Crane Russak, 1989), 45.
Jock and S. Vani (Hampshire, England: Gower, 1984), 75. Nemenzo (interview
by the author, January 2008) says that Sison was also keen that a congress be
held, and that the papers he drafted were later used as the draft documents of
the CPP, “interspersed with anti-Lava assertions.”
3. Jesus Lava, “Setting the Record Straight," PKP Courier, 1/1985, 17.
C hapter 2: T he D evelopment of M aoism in C hina and th e P hilippines 63
6. Jesus Lava, “Setting the Record Straight,” 16.

8. Jose Maria Sison, “National Democracy and Socialism,” in On National
Democracy (Quezon City: Aklatang Gising Na, n.d.), 45.
9. Information Bulletin, no. 22, Prague, 1967.
10. “Apology and Announcement,” Progressive Review, no. 10, 45.
11. Nemenzo interview. In this interview, Nemenzo says that the “sinister elements”
referred to by Sison were not just the Lavas but also William Pomeroy. “I was
accused, even by the Lavas, of being Pomeroy’s man. The Lavas did not have a
good opinion of Bill.”
12. “The Middle-East Crisis,” Progressive Review, no. 10, v.
13. Socialist Party of the Philippines, “The Socialist Manifesto,” reprinted in
Progressive Review, no. 10., 47.
14. Ibid., 50.
15. “The Movement for the Advancement of Nationalism and the Socialist Party of
the Philippines,” Progressive Review, no. 10, iii.
17. William Pomeroy, An American-Made Tragedy (New York: International
Publishers, 1974), 131.
18. William Pomeroy, “Maoist Disruption in the Philippines,” Political Affairs, April
1972, 31.
19. Ibid.
20. “The Movement for the Advancement of Nationalism and the Socialist Party of
the Philippines,” Progressive Review, no. 10.
21. Pomeroy, “Maoist Disruption,” 31; Nemenzo interview. The recollection of
Merlin Magallona (interview by the author, March 2009) is somewhat different:
“Sison was general secretary of MAN, and he was there even after the split,
working closely with Tañada. In fact, when we were preparing documents
for the launching congress, the papers were submitted to Tañada, and Tañada
would share these with Sison. Some of these papers were published by Sison
in his name and on one occasion a paper I submitted was spirited away by
him and published somewhere else. So we prepared an article denouncing him
for plagiarism, which was published by the Philippine Collegian. At this time,
Sison had already split, so he continued to be active in MAN.” It would seem
likely, however, that Magallona’s memory is at fault, for MAN was launched in
early February 1967, whereas we have seen that, according to Jesus Lava, Sison
had not formed his “anti-party group” until April 3, and he had attended a PKP
“confrontation meeting” on April 8.
22. Perfecto Tera Jr., interview by the author, May 1989.
23. Pomeroy, “Maoist Disruption," 31.

24. Tera interview; Nemenzo interview.
25. Pomeroy, “Maoist Disruption," 31. Ernesto “Popoy” M. Valencia (“SDK Revisited
1,” in Soliman M. Santos Jr. and Paz Verdades M. Santos, Militant But Groovy:
Stories o f the Samahang Demokratikong Kabataan [Pasig City: Anvil, 2008], 2)
says that some of the reservations over Sison’s leadership of the KM concerned
“commandism, violations of democracy, use of lies to manipulate members,
adventurism and preoccupation with street action to the neglect of mass work.”
26. Tera interview.
28. Interview with PKP cadre, Metro Manila, January 1990, by the author. This
source has requested anonymity. Vivencio Jose agrees that the single-file
policy “could be used for manipulating the ones down the line. So Sison . . .
manipulated our group using the [anti-] Lava slogan, which we didn’t know
was directed against the entire party" (Vivencio Jose, interview by the author,
January 2008).
29. Sison, The Leader’s View, 114-15.
30. Pomeroy, “Maoist Disruption," 30.
31. In the 1950s, the US National Security Council had been concerned by the
rising popularity of Claro M. Recto. See Nick Cullather, Managing Nationalism:
United States National Security Council Documents on the Philippines, 1953-
1960 (Quezon City: New Day Publishers, 1992).
32. “Silence Is Not the Answer,” Progressive Review, no. 9, 3-5.
33. Sison, “Land Reform and National Democracy," in On National Democracy.
34. Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, Philippine Council, UP Chapter, “UP
Students! Expose, Oppose, and Isolate the Fascist Agents Within Our Ranks!”
September 1971.
36. Douglas Hyde, in Luis Taruc, He Who Rides the Tiger (New York: Prae >er,
1967), xii.
37. Ibid., 21.
38. Jose Maria Sison, “Who Is Gregg Jones and What Is Westview Press?" National
Midweek Magazine, March 28, 1990.
39. V.I. Lenin, Collected Works, vol. 31 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1974), 32.
40. V.I. Lenin, “The Immediate Tasks of the Soviet Government," in Collected Works,
vol. 27 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1979), 276.
41. Wang Ming, Mao’s Betrayal (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1979), 15. Agnes
Smedley, in what was admittedly a subjective view, said of Mao that “his spirit
dwelt within itself, isolating him.” She continued: “In him was none of the
C hapter 2: T he D evelopment op M aoism in C hina and th e P hilippines 65
humility of Chu [Teh]. Despite that feminine quality in him, he was as stubborn
as a mule, and a steel rod of pride and determination ran through his nature.
I had the impression that he would wait and watch for years, but eventually
have his way” (Smedley, Battle Hymn o f China [London: Victor Gollancz Ltd.,
Left Book Club edition, 1944], 122).
42. Wang, Mao’s Betrayal, 56.
43. Ibid., 150.
44. M.I. Sladkovsky, “Lenin and China,” in Leninism and Modem China’s Problems
(Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1972), 27.
45. Ibid., 28-29.
46. Robert Elegant, Mao’s Great Revolution (New York: World Publishing, 1971),
4-5.
47. G.V. Astafyev and M.V. Fomichova, “The Maoist Distortion of Lenin’s Theory of
the National Liberation Movement,” in Leninism and Modem China’s Problems,
216-17.
48. L. Shurin, “Solidarity, Beijing Style: Pages of History,” in supplement to
Socialism, Theory and Practice, Moscow, May 1979.
49. Jom al de Angola, reprinted in supplement to Socialism, Theory and Practice,
Moscow, May 1976.
50. R. Palme Dutt, Whither China? (London: Communist Party of Great Britain,
1967), 23.
51. Ibid., 28.
52. Wang Ming, China: Cultural Revolution or Counter-Revolutionary Coup?
(Moscow: Novosti Press Agency Publishing House, 1969), 62-63.
53. Jon Henley, “Dutch Math Teacher Admits Fake Communist Party Scam That
Fooled Mao Zedong,” Guardian (London), December 4, 2004.
54. Pomeroy, An American-Made Tragedy, 130.
56. Muhammad Abdul Hassan, “But Which Communist Party?” Daily Express,
February 1985. If this account is correct, of course, the implication is that Sison
was already planning a split when he joined the PKP. However, it should be
noted that this piece appeared in a pro-Marcos newspaper.
57. Sheldon W. Simon, The Broken Triangle: Peking, Djakarta and the PK1
(Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1969), 87.
58. Jose interview.
60. See John Pilger, “Spoils of a Massacre,” The Guardian Weekend, July 14, 2001;
Ralph McGehee, “The Indonesian Massacres and the CIA,” Philippine Currents,
April 1991; and Kathy Kadane, “CIA Supplied Suharto with Death Lists in ’65,”
66 A M ovem en t Divided
National Midweek Magazine, August 22, 1990 (this originally appeared in the
San Francisco Examiner).
61. The only coverage the Indonesian events received in Progressive Review was in
an article by Eric Norden entitled “The Rightist Coup in Indonesia,” reprinted
from the National Guardian.
62. Francisco Nemenzo Jr., “A Letter from Manchester. Non-Alignment Is Our
Best Defense” and (presumably authored by Sison) “Addendum from Manila:
National Freedom and Alignment against US Imperialism Is Our Primary
Responsibility,” both in Progressive Review, no. 4, 104-7.
63. Progressive Review, no. 3, 9. This formulation, which conflates two distinct
modes of production, and is akin to referring to the socialist ownership of
factories as “neo-capitalism,” is not one of which many Marxists would approve.
64. See Elegant, Mao's Great Revolution, 21. “No political activist, Chen Po-
ta, almost alone among the senior leadership, was truly an authority on the
complex doctrine called Marxism-Leninism. Since he combined complaisance
verging on sycophancy with that expertise, he was an ideal servant to the
imperious Chairman who had never quite mastered the arcane intricacies of
doctrine. He required a professional guide through the intellectual labyrinth.
Like a brilliant lawyer who finds legal justification for his client’s desires rather
than pointing out their essential illegality, Chen manipulated doctrine to suit
Mao’s needs.” Khrushchev says that Stalin used to refer to Mao as a “margarine
Marxist.” See Nikita Khrushchev, Khrushchev Remembers (London: Sphere
Books, 1971), 425.
65. Sison, “National Democracy and Socialism,” 56.
66. Gregg R. Jones, Red Revolution: Inside the Philippine Guerrilla Movement
(Boulder: Westview Press, 1989), 23.
68. This source, interviewed by the author in Metro Manila in November 1989, has
requested anonymity.
69. Joseph B. Smith, Portrait o f a Cold Warrior (Quezon City: Plaride! Books,
1987), 278.
70. Jose interview.
C h a pter 3 : P a r t y and P rogram
For a brief period after his departure from the PKP, Jose Maria Sison
was without a party. This was remedied by implying that there had
been no breakaway from the PKP and that Sison and his supporters had
actually “expelled” the Lavas— that, in fact, the group around Sison was
really the PKP shorn of its “revisionists,” its name translated into English
and shortly to be “re-established.” Twenty years after these events, Sison
would continue to claim that genuine “proletarian revolutionaries who had
emerged independently of the old merger party from 1959 onward as well
as elder party members agreed with my stand. We decided to expel the
Lava group from the party . . .”
Contrary to the notion spread by the Lavaites that only young Communists
re-established the CPP, the oldest cadres and most tested veterans in
the worker, peasant, youth and armed revolutionary movements—Max
Gutierrez, Amado V. Hernandez, Felixberto Olalia, Simplicio Paraiso (a
Lava relative), Samuel Rodriguez, and many others who as a matter of
prudence cannot as yet be mentioned—supported the struggle to re
establish the party.'
/
Whether or not all of the people named by Sison actually joined
the new organization is open to question; it should be noted that even
Sison stops short of actually making such a claim, stating instead that they
“supported the struggle to re-establish the party.” They may well have
67
done so, for most of them had been expelled from the PKP some tím e
earlier. According to Pomeroy, Sison’s first attempt to attract a following
after his own expulsion consisted of trying “to bring together former PKP
members expelled for Right opportunism in the past, but they would not
accept his demand that they be organized under his sole leadership.”2
Dizon explains that Amado V. Hernandez had been expelled while in
prison, where he had renounced Marxism and begun taking communion.
With regard to Sison’s new party, Hernandez was “not a member, but he
was a sympathizer. He was a very leftist fellow who knew Mao Zedong
personally.”3 Sammy Rodriguez (whose first name was actually Simeon
and not, as stated by Sison, “Samuel”) worked in the theater and had
been arrested in the “Politburo raid” of 1950. It is thought that he and
Angel Baking (arrested in the same raid) did in fact become members o f
the new party. Olalia had been “expelled twice from the PKP for right-
wing activities and ideas,” but then in the early 1960s, as the party w as
regrouping, “we tried to be conciliatory to everyone who still wanted to
contribute, even if only on a mass level,” and so Olalia was accepted by the
PKP as president of MASAKA, the peasant organization.4 The two factors
common to most of those named by Sison were, says Dizon, that “they
had axes to grind against the Lavas” and that they had “refused, rightly
or wrongly, to go underground, they refused the assignments.” That this
was true of Hernandez was borne out by the Supreme Court decision in
his case, which found that mere support for the ideas of communism did
not contravene the Anti-Subversion Law. It was hardly likely, however, that
former communists who had refused armed assignments would play a very
enthusiastic role in a Maoist party bent on armed struggle.
Given this, Sison was forced to rely very heavily on his student and
middle-class following. Lachica tells us in his 1971 study that “[¿Initiators
of the Maoist cult” were “within five college graduation classes from
each other . . . Generally from middle-class backgrounds, they did not
experience economic deprivation comparable to what the Luis Taruc-Jesus
Lava generation went through.”5
C h a p t e r 3: P a r t y a n d P r o g r a m 69
Sison’s next step was to hold a “re-establishment Congress” at which

the “Communist Party of the Philippines-Mao Thought” would be launched.
However, only eleven people attended this “Congress”— Sison and ten
others;6 according to Jones a twelfth, Rodolfo Salas, “walked away in silent
protest” at Sison’s attempt to form an alliance with Commander Sumulong,
a former Huk who had turned to banditry.7 According to Nemenzo, “(f]our
participants recalled . . . that Amado Guerrero iSison] alone was brimming
with optimism; the rest nursed a sense of futility. They could hardly believe
that their rag-tag army of student activists would grow into a serious
guerrilla force.”8 The eleven in attendance elected themselves as a central
committee (Salas would later rejoin the fold and rise to become a general
secretary of the CPP) and adopted a program for the new party. Sison was
elected as chairman, taking the nom de guerre “Amado Guerrero” ( “Beloved
Warrior”). Later, Sison would proclaim: “I am proud to say that 25 percent
of the Central Committee members in 1968 came from working class
families.”9 Leaving aside the fact that this proportion represented only three
people, it is noticeable that Sison does not claim that they were workers
(and even less that they were active in the working-class movement) but
that they “came from working class families.”
Just as the wholly working-class composition of the leadership of
the PKP upon its formation in 1930 had led to very real shortcomings in
the work of the new organization, the overwhelmingly petty-bourgeois
character of the leadership of the CPP in the late 1960s was to exact its
own toll.
In the CPP’s Program fo ra People’s Democratic Revolution adopted by

the “Re-establishment Congress,” the Philippines is characterized as a “semi
colonial and semi-feudal country, dominated by the US imperialists, the
comprador bourgeoisie, the landlords and the bureaucrat capitalists.”10 The
main problems are identified as US imperialism and domestic feudalism.
This “combined oppression of US imperialism and feudalism involves th e

inequitable colonial exchange of cheap raw materials (sugar, cocon u t,
abaca, logs and mineral ore) and finished products imported chiefly from
the United States and the investment of United States surplus capital in
the Philippines chiefly to foster the semi-colonial and semi-feudal type o f
economy that exploits the toiling masses of workers and peasants.” Even
at the time it was written, this description of Philippine conditions was not
particularly accurate, as the dominant mode of production was not “semi-
feudal” but capitalist (see chapter 10). Forty years later, however, objective
conditions have undergone even greater changes, while the CPP’s program
has remained unchanged. This fact alone must cast doubt upon the wisdom
of a communist party adopting a program embodying what is intended to
be a precise analysis of conditions if the means to amend the program as
conditions change do not exist. This would have entailed the convening o f
further congresses, but so far the CPP has not held a single congress since
the one in 1969.* For a party embarking upon a path of armed struggle, it
might have been anticipated that the convening of future congresses would
be difficult. The only way this problem could have been overcome would
have been for the CPP to have had a substantial base in the urban areas
and a central committee able to meet regularly and, at least as individuals,
lead fairly normal lives “above ground.” Another consequence of the
CPP’s failure to convene congresses would be the curtailment of inner-
party democracy. Not only could strategy not be changed as a result o f
democratic discussion and debate throughout the party, but neither could
elections be held to replace those members of the central committee w ho
were captured or killed; instead, replacements would be co-opted.
The Program identifies the main allies of the working class and
peasantry as being the urban petty bourgeoisie and the national bourgeoisie.
Of the latter, the document says that although
There have been two redrafts of the CPP program, but there has been no congress
al which the latest might be adopted. There are, however, unconfirmed rumors that a
congress was held in 2006, possibly in Northern Mindanao, and that no documents have
been released because it was impossible to reach agreement on whether to prioritize the
armed struggle or parliamentary struggle."
C hapter 3: Party and P rogram 71
it wishes to lead the patriotic and progressive classes through its

entrepreneurship and its political actions, its kind of class leadership is
already passed historically by the revolutionary class leadership of the
working class. A proletarian revolutionary leadership, guided by Marxism-
Leninism, Mao Tse-tung’s thought, is what makes the people’s democratic
revolution a new type of national democratic revolution.
This alliance the Program sees as being built during the course of
“the protracted people’s war,” at the successful conclusion of which there
will be a “coalition or united front government.” Such a government, while
“building up the state and cooperative sectors of the economy as factors
of proletarian leadership and socialism . . . shall encourage and support
all private initiative in industry so long as this does not monopolize
or adversely affect the people’s livelihood. The people’s democratic
government shall exercise regulation of capital only to protect the people’s
livelihood and guarantee a people’s democracy.”’
The Program's insistence that the national democratic revolution
could only be achieved by a broad alliance led by the working class
would be accepted by most Marxists. But to imply that the CPP provided a
“proletarian revolutionary leadership” was, as we have seen, mere wishful
thinking. Often, the CPP would talk in terms of “proletarian leadership”
when what it really meant was leadership by the party— a practice also
followed by the Lavas in the immediate postwar period.
The alliance specified in the Program would also meet with
widespread approval by Marxists; many, however, would insist that a
document such as this should give some indication of the possibility of the
national-democratic stage of the revolution developing into the socialist
stage. But the CPP’s concept of the alliance had its origins in a mechanical
This passage has apparently been modeled on a similar paragraph in Mao’s On Coalition
Government, where he quotes Sun Yat-sen, the Chinese nationalist leader, as follows:
Enterprises, such as banks, railways and airlines, whether Chinese-owned or
fbreign-owned, which are either monopolistic in character or too big for private
management, shall be operated and administered by the state, so that private
capital cannot dominate the livelihood of the people: this is the main principle of
the regulation of capital.12
application of Mao’s “new democratic” theory rather than in an analysis

of Philippine reality. Mao had used the concept of a “new dem ocracy” to
banish socialism to some unspecified future.’ So it must be noted that the
CPP says nothing in its Program about the necessity to struggle against the
national bourgeoisie within the broad framework of the proposed alliance.
Without such a struggle, the national bourgeoisie and not the working class
would almost certainly emeige as the leading force within the national
democratic alliance. Even Mao (at least when pressed to do so by his
political opponents within the CPC) called for a policy of unity with and
struggle against the national bourgeoisie. The furthest that the Program o f
the CPP goes is to sound a note of caution.
The national bourgeoisie has a dual character, revolutionary and

reactionary. To some extent, it can accept anti-imperialism and anti
feudalism. But it still has a bourgeois class character to which the
working class and its Party must always be alert . . . Because of this dual
character, the Party has to adopt consistendy a revolutionary dual tactics
towards it. The Party must be cautious towards it although concessions
may be given to it without sacrificing the basic interests of workers and
peasants.
What would happen in practice during the Marcos years was that
the CPP would attract varying degrees of support— sometimes de
facto, sometimes consciously— from individuals within the ruling elite
(not merely members of the national bourgeoisie, but also comprador
As of this writing (2009), it might well be unrealistic for a Philippine communist or

socialist party to think in terms of an eariy transition to socialism; but in 1968/69, when
the CPP’s Program was adopted, such a proposition would have been far more realistic,
as the Soviet bloc was still strong and, moreover, willing to advance assistance to Third
World regimes intent upon eradicating the vestiges of feudalism and laying the basis for
socialism. Indeed, Progress Publishers, Moscow, published a whole series of studies on
the “non-capitalist path of development” (see chapter 10). It must be acknowledged,
though, that once Marcos had opened up diplomatic relations with the USSR the latter
would not have supported an attempt to supplant him. In practice, of course, the CPP
would not (at this stage anyway) have sought assistance from this source, as the Soviet
Union and its allies were branded as “revisionists” and “social imperialists.” It was only
later, when the socialist regimes of Eastern Europe had crumbled, that Sison began to
talk seriously—if not particularly realistically—o f a transition to socialism.
capitalists and even landlords) who had been frozen out or even
dispossessed by Marcos, and who merely wanted to regain their wealth
and positions of influence by fair means or foul or— as was possible in the
case of Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr.— to use the fledgling guerrilla army as
a stepping-stone to greater political power.
It is significant that nowhere in this document is the trade union
movement mentioned. Thus, the economic form of struggle between the
working class and all sections of the bourgeoisie is totally ignored. One
might be forgiven for thinking that this constitutes “sacrificing the basic
interests of the workers.” In fact, this omission possibly derives, at least in
part, from the fact that the CPP had at this time very little influence in the
trade union movement. The Program goes on to stress that the “clanger of
cooperating with the national bourgeoisie always lies in tendencies toward
urban political activity as the main political activity. However, if the Party
should unduly cut itself off from the national bourgeoisie, it can easily
make the error of ‘Left’ opportunism as its main error.” It would seem here
that the question of whether the CPP would be politically active in the
urban areas would be decided not by whether it had a program of activity
for the working class (it did not) but by whether it had an alliance with the
national bourgeoisie.
It appears from this that the working class was only really required to
satisfy the requirements of its theoretically necessary leading role: “If the
working class and the Communist Party of the Philippines do not firmly
uphold and advance proletarian revolutionary leadership, the national
bourgeoisie, with the assistance of the petty-bourgeois leadership, misleads
the peasantry and fosters directly or indirectly a Right opportunist or
revisionist line within the Party.” So the working class is merely a social
force which exists to provide the peasantry with correct leadership. Has
it no interests of its own? One would hardly think so, as they are never
mentioned in the Program. It is almost as if the new party did not “see” the
working class— possibly due to the fact that the Maoist emphasis on the
peasantry had blinded it to its existence. And the Program is, of course,
quite unable to explain how the working class will come to exercise its
leadership of the revolutionary alliance when the “principal instrument o f

the working class” (i.e., the CPP) has no program of activity for it.*
The Program's attitude to the national bourgeoisie is quite as utilitarian
as that to the working class.
But what certainly takes precedence over the question of cooperation

with the national bourgeoisie is the development of the closest alliance
between the working class and the peasantry through armed struggle
conducted by the Communist Party of the Philippines. It is this alliance
that can only be the true foundation of the national united front. Without
this it is senseless to give decisive importance to a formal organization like
the Movement for the Advancement of Nationalism, consider it a united
front and worry most of the time about the tolerance and attitudes of
bourgeois allies for the sake of preserving some weak and artificial unity.
Worrying “about the tolerance and attitudes” of allies, be they bourgeois

or otherwise, is, surely, the very essence of alliances. Had not Sison himself,
less than two years earlier, stressed at MAN’s founding congress that “[t]o
maintain firm unity between us, we must always strive to make the
appropriate adjustments between our respective minimum and maximum
demands and arrive at the most acceptable common position without any
individual or organization betraying his principles”? What could possibly
have happened in the meantime to transform Sison’s correct and principled
position of 1967 into the dismissive attitude of late 1968? Following his
departure from the PKP, Sison had lost influence in MAN, following which
he had withdrawn the KM from the organization.14 Without the benefit of
Sison at the helm of MAN, the CPP Program tells us that it was “getting to
be a vapid and ineffectual group . . .”
A quarter of a century later, the CPP’s Manila-Rizal committee, as it split away from the
party, would make many of these same criticisms, charging that the party program was
“the best proof of [Sison’s] abandonment or ignorance of the most basic principles of
Marxism-Leninism—the class struggle and scientific socialism . . . He completely obscured
and glossed over the struggle for socialism in his obsession for national democracy . . . It
is a Party Program without the struggle for socialism and without a separate section on
workers’ demands in the period of the democratic revolution
C hapter 3 : Party and P rogram 75
The Program is predicated on the belief that “US imperialism is moving

towards collapse and socialism is marching towards world triumph.” The
document lists the national liberation struggles taking place in Asia, Africa,
and Latin America, refers to the deepening crisis in the USA and other
imperialist countries, and then points to the “Soviet revisionist renegade
bloc” which is held to be “fast disintegrating” (while such disintegration
was apparent in the late 1980s, it was hardly a reflection of objective reality
twenty years earlier). On the other hand:
While US imperialism and modem revisionism are in deep crisis, the

People’s Republic of China has consolidated itself as an iron bastion of
socialism and the world proletarian revolution by carrying out the epochal
and great proletarian cultural revolution and by holding aloft Mao Tse-
tung’s thought to illumine the road of armed revolution throughout the
world. Also, in the Eastern European heartland of modem revisionism, the
People’s Republic of Albania stands forth as an advance post of the world
proletarian revolution and Mao Tse-tung’s thought and is encouraging all
the oppressed peoples and Marxist-Leninists there to rebel against the
ruling revisionist renegade cliques.
The most charitable interpretation one can place on this analysis is

that, in common with that adopted by many communist parties from the
1960s to the mid-1970s, it was hopelessly optimistic in its prediction of
the “collapse” of imperialism. Despite its impending defeat in Vietnam,
US imperialism would prove to be flexible enough to not only survive
but to thrive for several more decades. But of course the optimism of
the CPP’s Program stems not from a realistic assessment of the world
situation conducted by the CPP itself, but from the adoption— lock, stock,
and barrel— of the “analysis” of the Communist Party of China.* As one
can divine from the passage quoted above, the CPC “analysis” was more
about the nationalistic self-aggrandizement of the Maoists than anything
else. Many of the Maoist parties formed at around the same time as the
According to Alex Magno, Sison “plagiarized the work of an Indonesian Maoist [he
probably has in mind D.N. Aidit] who, in turn, simplistically applied Mao’s elementary
analysis of Chinese society to explain Indonesian society.”15
CPP adopted precisely the same “analysis" and more often than not u sed
precisely the same florid terminology.
However, the “analysis” is of no little significance, as the belief in the
impending collapse of imperialism must be seen as the basis for the C P P ’s
assertion that the “rectified” CPP would be able to become the “invincible
weapon at the core of the Revolutionary mass movement,” armed revolution
being seen as the only road to “smash the armed counter-revolution that
preserves foreign and feudal oppression in the Philippines.” In this arm ed
struggle, “the peasantry is the main force of the people’s dem ocratic
revolution” and the “peasant struggle for land is the main dem ocratic
content of the present stage of the Philippine revolution.” The strategy put
forward is one of encircling the cities. “It is in the countryside that the
enemy forces are first lured in and then defeated before the capture of the
cities from the hands of the exploiting classes.” That this would now be
possible, whereas for the PKP-led Huk movement it had been impossible,
was due to the fact that the “Philippine reactionary state is increasingly
unable to rule in the old way.” The ruling classes “cannot prolong the
present balance of forces indefinitely. As a matter of fact, armed opposition
now will aggravate their difficulties and hasten the maturing of what is now
discemable as a revolutionary mood among the people.” Central to this fact
is that the “internal and external crisis of US imperialism is clearly depriving
the Filipino reactionaries of a significantly great amount of imperialist
protection and support.”
Again, this analysis would prove to be hopelessly optimistic. Over
the next two decades, the USA would in fact increase its support of the
ruling elite in the Philippines, while imperialism as a whole would not
only strengthen its grip on the country but also significantly restructure the
economy in its own interests.
The road of armed struggle upon which the CPP now embarked would
have far-reaching consequences. First, of course, the hopes of the PKP
to gradually build up a mass base and a broad, anti-imperialist alliance,
eventually achieving a climate in which it could emerge into legality, were
set back for some time. Second, the CPP was, despite Sison’s vituperative
C h a p t e r 3: Pa r t y and P rogram 77
attacks on the PKP’s history, repeating the past mistakes of that party. For
example, if the peasantry was to be the main force and if the countryside
was to be host to armed struggle, it stood to reason that the CPP would be
able (or, at first, inclined) to do precious little about building a mass base
in the working class. The bulk of human resources would be concentrated
in the countryside, as had been the case with the PKP in its postwar armed
struggle, and the party would certainly be unable to lead an open existence
in the urban areas— where, of course, the working class was to be found.
Third, the strategy was litde more than a mechanical application of Chinese
experience in totally different conditions. In China, it had been possible to
“surround the cities from the countryside” because in that country there
existed vast expanses where armies could be based, trained, and securely
encamped. But the Philippines? Lachica points out:
Since that last war, Central Luzon was shrunk by feeder roads to
the remote barrios and by the expansion of the farm population. The
“countryside” of the Mao-quoters is a tiny backyard compared to the
broad reaches of northern and central China where the 4th and 8th Route
Armies successfully outmaneuvered the [Guomindang] and the Japanese.16
Since Lachica was writing in 1971, of course, the countryside has been
shrunk even further by the infrastructural projects implemented under the
“aid” programs directed by the World Bank. Finally, it is difficult to see how
the CPP could have conceived that the immediate unleashing of armed
struggle could have positive results when the involvement, presence,
and assistance of the USA had demonstrably increased since the height
of the Huk Rebellion. Moreover, the existence of “communist guerrillas”
would give a canny politician like Ferdinand Marcos a powerful bargaining
counter in negotiations with the USA— and a pretext to declare martial law.
The other side of this particular coin was that the USA would itself have a
further excuse for retaining its military bases and continuing its interference
in the affairs of the Philippines.
3beyond the national democratic stage of the revolution lies its socialist
stagf. “In upholding proletarian revolutionary leadership, it should not
mean, however, that socialism shall be achieved without passing th ro u g h

the stage of national democracy . . but that this “proletarian revolutionary
leadership is the most important link between the stage of the p eo p le's
democratic revolution and the stage of socialist revolution." Moreover, it “is
dishonest, demagogic and utopian to insist that socialism is the immediate
goal under conditions that the people are still dominated and exploited b y
US imperialism and domestic feudalism.”
Only the vaguest outline is given in the Program , however, of the
economic form which will be assumed by the “people’s democratic state.”
Land will be distributed free to the landless and plantations “and estates
already efficiently operated on a mechanised basis shall be converted
into state farms where the agricultural workers shall establish proletarian
power and provide themselves with better working and living conditions.”
As for industry, there “shall be three sectors in the national economy:
the state sector, the cooperative sector and the private sector. All major
sources of raw materials and energy, all heavy and basic industries and all
nationalized enterprises shall be run by the state sector.” This stops short o f
stating unequivocally that the state sector will be the leading sector of the
economy, a necessity if the national democratic stage of the revolution is
to be used as the platform from which to advance to socialism. In fact, the
list assigned to the state sector would not necessarily be incompatible with
the capitalist system; until recent decades, the state sector of the British
economy bore more than a passing resemblance to this description. And
then, of course, the socialist stage is not described; nor are the prerequisites
for advancing to that stage mentioned at all. In this respect, the Program is
pure “1939-45 model” Maoism.
With regard to time-scale, the Program is, like the PKP’s first program
in 1930,17 little more than a confused jumble. For example, the second
section consists of the CPP’s general program, listing the tasks as the
destruction of US imperialist and feudal oppression, the establishment of
a people’s democratic state, and then the more detailed tasks concerning
culture, agriculture, the economy, foreign policy, etc. This general program
will “remain unchanged during the entire stage of the people’s democratic
C hapter 3 : Party and P rogram 79
revolution.” This is then followed in the third section by the specific

program consisting of immediate demands. This follows the time-honored
formula of projecting first a maximum and then a minimum program,
except that in this case the CPP’s specific program contains demands which
would be impossible to achieve immediately. For example, a list of political
tasks is headed by the call to “[ajttack, isolate and destroy the bourgeois
reactionary state, the US imperialists and all local tyrants until their doom in
our country . . .” while lower down the list appear more modest demands
to campaign for a people’s democratic constitution and to fight the rise of
fascism. Why the movement should need to fight the rise of fascism and
campaign for a people’s democratic constitution when the bourgeois state
has already been destroyed is not made clear.
Similarly, the economic tasks begin with the demand to render
ineffective all the agreements favoring US imperialism, to encourage the
“people and the national bourgeoisie to make a self-reliant economy” and
to outlaw “bureaucrat capital and all property gained through corruption
and criminal means.” Again, these are hardly immediate demands but
tasks which could only be carried out by an anti-imperialist government.
But then, within the same shopping list, we find the call to compel “the
reduction of rent and interest rates in the guerrilla zone and abolish rent
in the liberated areas . . .,” to “help the workers in the factories, mines,
plantations, transportation lines and offices to conduct strikes successfully”
and to expose the “deceptive and reactionary character” of the Marcos
regime’s labor legislation and land reform program. All the latter might
quite properly be considered immediate demands.
For the CPP itself, the Program prescribed a course of “rectification.”

“In carrying out a rectification movement to weed out modem revisionism
and all forms of opportunism, ideological building should be conducted at
all levels with closest supervision of the Central Committee and the Higher
8o A M ovem en t D ivided
Party School, the Revolutionary School of Mao Tse-tung’s T h ou gh t."

It was, as we saw in chapter 2, by means of a “rectification m ovem en t"
which commenced in 1942 that Mao Zedong imposed Maoism o n
the Communist Party of China. At the conclusion of this m ovem ent,
the whole process was capped by a falsification of the CPC’s history.
The rectification movement of the CPP was intended to p ro ce e d
somewhat differently, but the principles appear to have been the sa m e .
This movement (which, according to the document entitled The New
People’s Army adopted in March 1969, would, like Mao’s, last “a num ber
of years”) 18 would begin with a falsification of the history of the PKP,
but its aim would also be to ensure that the ideology of the CPP w as
unswervingly Maoist. The basic document in this campaign, Rectify Errors
and Rebuild the Party, was put forward at the “Re-Establishment Congress.”
Many of Sison’s “criticisms” of the PKP appear in his Philippine
Society and Revolution, which appeared in 1971 under the name “Amado
Guerrero,” published by the “Chinese Maoist publishing house in Hong
Kong, Ta Kuong Pao.”19 The author has discussed many of these “criticisms”
in his Forcing the Pace. The following, however, may serve as an illustration
of the quality of the arguments advanced (it should be remembered that
the intended audience consisted largely of young people for whom this
would be the only knowledge of the PKP’s history).
The PKP is taken to task for failing, in the closing stages of World War II,
to undertake “ideological and political preparation against the return of US
imperialism and the reimposition of feudalism in the countryside”20 and for
welcoming and fighting alongside US troops. According to Sison, the party
“organized the Democratic Alliance so that it could help US imperialism
put up a sham republic”21 and at least one motive behind this was the
“desire to occupy high positions in the puppet reactionary government” of
the “hidden traitors within the Party.” In fact, there was one major error in
the PKP’s work in the latter stages of the war and in the immediate postwar
period: a failure to appreciate fully the nature of US imperialism. This
fundamental mistake was later fully acknowledged by the PKP. Moreover,
while Luis Taruc, the wartime guerrilla leader, may well have harbored
C h a p t e r 3: Pa r t y and P ro g r a m 81
personal ambitions at this stage, it is obviously not true that the Democratic
Alliance was a sham to “help US imperialism”: the DA was an historically
necessary united front organization which aimed to be the voice of anti-
landlordism, anti-imperialism, and nationalist development within the
new legislature. Moreover, it succeeded in electing a sufficient num ber
o f candidates to have blocked the pro-imperialist legislative proposals o f
President Roxas, High Commissioner McNutt, etc. It was after the electoral
success of the DA that the Roxas government stepped up military measures
against the Huks and, of course, the Alliance congressmen were prevented
from taking their seats.
Sison makes mention of the fact that in 1947 Pedro Castro was removed
as General Secretary and replaced by Jorge Frianeza, “who was even worse
because he openly advocated all-round cooperation with the puppet regime
notwithstanding the brazen acts of fascist terror against the Party, the army
and the people.”22 Sison admits, however, that Frianeza was removed a
year later. In fact, there was never any call for “all-round cooperation” with
Roxas. What did happen was that the majority within the politburo insisted
on supporting four Liberal candidates for the Senate on the grounds that
there was no real difference between the Liberals and the Nacionalistas.
This hardly amounts to all-round cooperation. Also unmentioned by Sison
is the fact that the opposition to the politburo majority was led by the
organization bureau headed byfose Lava.
The peace talks of June 1948 with the Quirino government are
represented by Sison as a “sell-out of the revolution.”23 This charge cannot
be justified. In 1948 there was a pressing need to ensure the survival of
the PKP-led forces. Being largely confined to the provinces of Central
Luzon, it was recognized that there was no possibility of a revolutionary
government being formed. Thus, apart from the survival of the veterans of
the armed struggle against Japan, what was required was the opportunity
to develop the PKP into a national organization, to reconstruct the trade
union movement in the urban areas and the peasant movement in the
countryside and then, by forging alliances with other progressive classes
and strata, develop a united front against imperialism. Given the fact that
the armed exchanges between the Huks and the government forces h a d
been of a defensive nature on the part of the former, the PKP could h ard ly
be criticized for seeking peace terms which would permit it to d e v e lo p
along the aforesaid lines. When the amnesty broke down, the H u ks
returned to the hills. The point made by the PKP at the time was that it
could not afford to be seen to be refusing to negotiate; far better for th e
government to appear in the popular perception as the unreasonable p a rty .
This can hardly be called a “sell-out of the revolution.”

The PKP’s support of Jose Laurel’s candidacy in the 1949 elections is
represented as a “counterrevolutionary practice."24 Sison refers to Laurel’s
collaboration with the Japanese during the occupation, but he makes n o
mention of the fact that Laurel promised to join an armed revolt with the
PKP if the election was lost due to fraud, or that the very decision to support
his candidacy was only reached after fierce argument within the PKP. In
fact, a more wholehearted support of his candidacy, accompanied by a
determined attempt to thwart the government’s electoral fraud and terrorism,
could well have resulted in a significantly changed political situation.
It cannot be denied that the PKP made a number of mistakes since
its formation in 1930. However, the CPP’s “rectification” movement made
no attempt whatever to analyze these mistakes and the reasons for them;
instead, every opportunity was taken to attack the PKP, and as we have
seen such attacks would often involve the use of statements which were
questionable. Moreover, on those occasions when the criticism was justified,
no mention was made of the fact that the PKP had itself reached the same
or similar conclusions on some of these. Of course, the breakaway from
the PKP could not have been “justified” quite so facilely if the CPP admitted
that the PKP was amenable to discussion of past errors. Significantly, years
later members of Sison’s group would, while requesting anonymity, admit
to Nemenzo that the 1967 split had been “avoidable.”25
An example of the libellous lengths to which Sison was prepared to
go was provided by his attack on William Pomeroy, the US communist
who joined the HMB in 1950 and, as a result, spent the years 1952 to late
1961 in Philippine prisons. In a series of six articles in the CPP’s journal,
C h a p t e r 3 : Pa r t y and P rogram 83
Ang Bayan, and published in booklet form by the “Revolutionary School

of Mao Tse-tung Thought” in 1972, Sison describes Pomeroy as a “counter
revolutionary renegade and scab” who “also exercises his role as a special
agent of US imperialism.”26 Sison claims that the US Embassy “interceded”
on behalf of Pomeroy and his wife Celia, securing their release from prison.
“It was obvious then,” says Sison, that “Pomeroy had finished one more
tour of duty for US imperialism.”27 These allegations are as absurd as they
are distasteful. If they were true, why did Sison maintain friendly relations
with Pomeroy prior to the split of 1967, sending him the early issues of
Progressive Review with a personal note, congratulating him on his release?28
Why did Sison, as editor, publish an article by Pomeroy in that journal?
If the US Embassy had “interceded” on Pomeroy’s behalf, why was Celia
Mariano Pomeroy, his wife, unable to gain entry into the USA? According
to Nemenzo, Sison had arranged for Pomeroy’s poems to be published,
and, when Nemenzo had been a little reticent in visiting Pomeroy after his
own arrival in the UK, Sison had recommended him to the American. Then
again, says Nemenzo, Celia Pomeroy, and Sison’s wife became close friends
when Celia, after her release, would regularly use the University of the
Philippines library, where Julieta de Lima Sison worked.29 Such behavior
is, surely, inconsistent with a genuine belief that Pomeroy was a “counter
revolutionary renegade.”
We can only wonder at the motives for such an attack, although it is
true that, following his release from prison, Pomeroy, began to publish a
series of works on the Philippines which projected a view direcdy contrary
to the line now being pursued by Sison; and the latter may have felt it even
more important to single out Pomeroy for special treatment because he
was producing more analytical and historical material on the Philippines
than the PKP itself (a situation which did not, of course, reflect well on the
PKP). Sison’s attack in fact took the form of a “critique” of these works.
At this stage of its existence, however, the CPP (or at least its leadership)
was not overly concerned with the truth. More important was the attempt
to apply Maoist policies in the Philippines, and for this an army would be
required.
N otes
1. Jose Maria Sison with Rainer Weming, The Philippine Revolution; The L ea d er's
2. William Pomeroy, Political Affairs, April 1972, 32.
4. Ibid. Quite possibly, it was this circumstance that gave Sison theimpression
that MASAKA had been formed “outside of the ken" of the PKP. (See ch a p te r
1.) The Pomeroys say that Baking and Rodriguez turned against the party
due to Jose Lava’s insistence in prison that no individual PKP prisoner (n ot
even a twelve-year-old courier) should mount an individual appeal against his
sentence (William and Celia Pomeroy, “The Conflict between Jose Lava and
William and Celia Pomeroy,” internal PKP memo, circa 1982).
5. Eduardo Lachica, Huk- Philippine Agrarian Society inRevolt (Manila:
Solidaridad Publishing House), 1971, 171.
6. Gregg R. Jones, Red Revolution: Inside the Philippine Guerrilla M ovem ent
(Boulder: Westview Press, 1989), 17. Henceforth, this book is referred to as R ed
Revolution.
7. Ibid., 18.
Jock and S. Vani (Hampshire, England: Gower, 1984), 80.
9. Sison, The Leader's View, 57.
10. Unless otherwise stated, all quotes in this section are from the CPP’s Program
fo r a People's Democratic Revolution. This can be found as an appendix to
Lachica, Huk.
11 .Discussion with former CPP cadres, September 2009.
12. Quoted in Mao Zedong, Selected Works, vol. 3 (Beijing: Foreign Languages
Press, 1975), 231.
13. Metro Manila Rizal Regional Committee, Communist Party of the Philippines,
“PPDR: Class Line vs Mass Line,” February 22, 1994.
14. Jones, Red Revolution, 25.
15. Alex Magno, “Imposter,” Philippine Star, September 11, 2007.
16. Lachica, Huk, 195.
17. Ken Fuller, Forcing the Pace (Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press,
2007), chapter 2.
18. This document may also be found as an appendix to Lachica, Huk.
19. William Pomeroy, Political Affairs, April 1972, 35.
20. “Amado Guerrero,” Philippine Society and Revolution (n.p.: International

Association of Filipino Patriots, 1979), 32.
21. Ibid., 33-
22. Ibid., 36.
23. Ibid., 37.
24. Ibid.
25. Nemenzo, Rectification, footnotes 13-14, 99.
26. Amado Guerrero, Pomeroy’s Portrait: Revisionist Renegade (Revolutionary
School of Mao Zedong Thought, 1972), vi.
27. Ibid., 39.
28. The author has seenSison’s note among Pomeroy’s papers.
29. FranciscoNemenzo Jr., interview by the author, January 2008.
C h a pter 4 :
T h e N e w P e o p l e ’s A rm y
Some time before his capture in 1964, Jesus Lava arranged for
Pedro Taruc, a distant cousin of Luis Taruc, wartime commander o f the
Hukbalahap, to occupy the position of PKP general secretary, which he
himself had vacated in order to take over the post of chairman.1 It is
possible that the intention was that Taruc would put his name to party
statements, deflecting attention from Lava. The plan backfired, however,
as Taruc fell prey to Faustino del Mundo, better known as Commander
Sumulong, a former Huk who, having degenerated into banditry, had been
expelled by the PKP for “financial and sex opportunism.”2
Sumulong based himself in the Angeles area of Pampanga, where
the nearby Clark airbase provided rich pickings for the guerrilla-tumed-
gangster. According to Felicisimo Macapagal (who would become general
secretary of the PKP in 1970), Sumulong used the party name as a cover
for his protection rackets and was responsible for the deaths of several
PKP members. He also offered his services to establishment candidates
at election time, working for those who offered most and killing “anyone
who went against their way.”3 According to James Wilson, deputy chief
of mission at the US Embassy, Sumulong’s income from Clark airbase
was around PI million annually, although Lachica puts forward the more
modest estimate of between P40,000 and P50.000 per month.4 Pomeroy
claims that Sumulong enjoyed “a ‘security1 arrangement with the US military
86
C h a p t e r 4: T h e N ew P e o p l e s A r m y 87
authorities, who allowed him to dominate the nightclub-brothel-gambling

network in Angeles frequented by American troops.” The same author also
relates that strike-breaking was another of Sumulong’s activities.5 Leonardo
Guerrero recalls that Rex Nazareno, who founded the first union at Clark
Air Base, rejected Sumulong’s demand for “50 percent of the union dues as
‘tax.’”6 In early 1967, a US military officer and an American civilian promised
Nazareno $175,000 if he would dismantle the union. He refused, although
rumors were spread that he was now rich. A few months later, Nazareno
was tortured and killed, allegedly by four Angeles City policemen, followers
of Sumulong, who demanded to know where the money was hidden.7
In 1965, Sumulong’s operation split into two warring factions, one
coming under the leadership of Cesareo Manarang, otherwise known as
Commander Alibasbas, who based himself in Concepcion, Tarlac. After
the split, Alibasbas, his three sons, a daughter-in-law and five others were
all killed as they slept. Two of Alibasbas’s bodyguards later confessed to
the murders, but Lachica suggests that Sumulong was probably behind it,
pointing out that when subordinates fell out with him they usually met
“properly heroic deaths” after being cornered by the Philippine Constabulary
(PC), the inference being that Sumulong would tip off the authorities.8
Thus a Commander Freddie, having fallen out with Sumulong over support
of a mayoral candidate for Tarlac town, was killed by the PC, following
which a young man called Bemabe Buscayno, whose nom de guerre was
Commander Dante, split from Sumulong and established his own guerrilla
group in Tarlac. According to Sumulong, “[o]ur platform was not to topple
the government. Dante did not like this. So now we are fighting each other.
We believe in the right, not in communism. That is why Tarlac separated
from us.”9 Jones tells us that Dante had been reading “Mao’s Little Red Book,
a gift from a Tarlac politician who had visited China.”10
According to Dizon, Pedro Taruc, although nominally general secretary
o f the PKP was
virtually a prisoner. He was in terms of party documents the secretary,

but Sumulong did not recognize this. It was Sumulong and Alibasbas who
were ruling there, not Pedro. Pedro became the excuse for the Sumulong
group to claim the name PKP for themselves, and they said “Look, we
have Pedro, he’s the secretary of the PKP." But he was a virtual prisoner.
Sumulong had become an enemy and had killed many cadres by this
time, so that the HMB' in Angeles was fighting against Sumulong. At one of
the (party] meetings, I remember they assigned a peasant leader to go and
rescue Pedro. But Sumulong got wind of this and Pedro was murdered—
his own bodyguard stabbed him—before we could reach him.11
Pomeroy would appear to have little sympathy with the view that P e d ro
Taruc was a prisoner of Sumulong, pointing out that both played along w ith
those press reports presenting the Sumulong group as the continuation o f th e
HMB “by holding press conferences in which they talked of revolution an d
agrarian reform.”12 Sumulong either surrendered or was captured (Pom eroy
takes the former view) in September 1970. A month later, Taruc was killed
in Angeles City in what Lachica describes as “mysterious circumstances.”13
Pomeroy claims that “Sumulong betrayed Pedro Taruc to his death, to
prevent his hidden loot from being confiscated by his lieutenant.”14
In a 1972 article, Pomeroy alleges that in 1969 Sison had attempted
to persuade Sumulong to provide him with the basis for his guerrilla
army but that the “gangster wanted to share his territory with no one.”15
Dizon finds this hard to accept, “because to be associated with Sumulong
would have been very bad,” and thus he speculates that Sison may have
been more interested in some of the commanders under him, who were
“good elements . . . or the guns that Sumulong had, or the money.”16 In
1989, however, Jones confirmed that Sison had approached Sumulong and
that this led to Rodolfo Salas walking away from the “Re-Establishment
Congress” in disgust. Elsewhere in his book Jones relates that “[ylears later,
ranking CPP associates of Sison recalled that the Party leader had on two
occasions travelled to Central Luzon to meet Commander Sumulong to
discuss a possible alliance, but the Huk overlord had not appeared.”17 Nilo
Tayag confirms that “we were a party looking for an army, so we had to
negotiate with Commander Sumulong, but unfortunately we were one hour
late.” Later, in prison, Tayag asked Sumulong what would have happened
Although formally disbanded, some genuine former HMB forces remained under arms in
Central Luzon.
C h a p te r 4: T h e N e w P e o p le ’s A rm y 89
if the meeting had occurred as planned, and was told: “I would have
buried all of you.”18 There is, then, no doubt that Sison made approaches to
Sumulong. Weekley writes that, according to Rodolfo Salas, Sison had been
motivated by the fact that Sumulong’s group “numbered about 300 and
had ready access to arms.”19 An attempt to forge an alliance with Sumulong
would have been consistent with Sison’s approach to Luis Taruc and other
expelled members of the PKP (equally consistently, Sison would later point
to these very people, despite the fact they had been expelled, as examples
of the PKP’s degeneration).
Many have speculated on the role played by Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino

Jr. in bringing together Sison, the revolutionary in search of an army, and
Commander Dante, whose Tarlac group would eventually form the nucleus
of the New People’s Army.20
Aquino himself admitted that he had cultivated relationships with
remnants of the HMB. He was to boast that in the mid-1950s “I had terrific
credentials among the Huks: the boy who befriended Luis Taruc.”21 Given
the nature of Taruc’s surrender, it is rather doubtful whether genuine Huks
would have been impressed by such credentials. It is apparent, however,
that by “Huks,” Aquino had in mind the Sumulong group. Aquino admitted
that he knew Sumulong, and that in 1965 he had asked the gangster not to
intervene in the presidential campaign in Tarlac.22 At this stage, the army
had promised Alibasbas an amnesty if he would act against Sumulong.23
Following the election, Aquino heard that he was caught in the cross
fire: Alibasbas was now being promised an amnesty if he testified against
Aquino while, on the other hand, Sumulong was after Aquino’s blood as he
“thought I was in on the army’s plot to pit Alibasbas against him.”24
It was in these circumstances that Aquino came to rely on the services
o f Commander Dante. Says Pomeroy:
Dante entered into an alliance with Aquino typical of the corrupt landlord-
dominated Philippine rural politics, under which he delivered votes in
the barrios and fended off encroachments by Sumulong (who formed an

alliance with Aquino’s political enemies in the Marcos Nacionalista Party
administration), in exchange for which Aquino gave paternal protection to
Dante and his men”
Dizon describes the Dante of this period as Aquino’s “bodyguard,”26

while Jones says that the two developed a friendship from the early 1960s.
“As Aquino became more powerful, winning a seat in the Senate [in 1967]
his friendship with Dante flourished. Dante was even a welcome guest at
the Hacienda Luisita, coming around to visit Aquino and chat with his wife
[future president Corazon Cojuangco Aquino].”27
After his arrest following the declaration of martial law in 1972, Aquino
would be charged regarding a number of guerrilla-related matters: that he
had been privy to the 1967 murder of Cecilio Sumat (leader of the Hacienda
Luisita residents who were campaigning for the Cojuangcos to honor their
undertaking to sell land to them) after Aquino had allegedly told Dante
that Sumat was a Philippine Constabulary informer; that in 1965 he had led
a guerrilla raid on the Hacienda Rodriguez owned by Eduardo “Danding”
Cojuangco, Jr., the estranged cousin and political rival of Aquino’s brother-
in-law; that he donated PI 5,000 to finance demonstrations in 1969; that he
had provided the money for the hire of a car just before the New People’s
Army (NPA) raid on the Philippine Military Academy in 1970; that he had
provided shelter and medical attention to wounded NPA members; that he
had allowed the use of Hacienda Luisita as “a sanctuary of the insurgents.”
It was alleged that on two occasions he had given military equipment
to NPA leaders. Between March and November 1969, he was alleged to
have allowed the hacienda to be used as a “haven for the NPAs.” Finally, it
was claimed that in March 1969 he allowed Sison, Arthur Garcia, and Nilo
Tayag, all top CPP leaders, the use of his aircraft when they visited Tarlac
to “lead” a strike against the Pantranco bus company.28
Although, after a trial lasting almost five years, Aquino was found guilty
on all the main charges, it must be conceded that a decision by a Marcos
court (in this case Military Commission No. 2) might be unsound. However,
there are firm indications that Aquino played a role in the formation of the
NPA. Even before martial law, there were rumors that Aquino was involved
C h a p t e r 4: T h e N ew P e o p l e ’s A r m y 91
with the group. In his 1971 work, Lachica makes a number of allusions to
these, pointing out, for example, that there “were important politicians to
whom an independent Huk command in Tarlac would not be unwelcome.
It could be used as a buffer against the ambitious Sumulong and as a form
of leverage in dealing with rival politicians.”29
Dante could not have built up an army on ideology alone. He was getting
material if not political support from somewhere. Commander Sumulong
later denounced Dante’s “voluntary exile” from the HMB [sic] and named
two prominent Tarlac politicians among those who had “poisoned” Dante’s
mind so that they could “use him and his men in intimidating voters in the
elections.”
. . . Senator Aquino and his Cojuangco in-laws have been suspected
by their political enemies of helping grubstake Dante for the reason that
they are the only ones who could afford to do so.30
One of Aquino’s most persistent accusers was, of course, Ferdinand

Marcos. When, in 1968, Aquino put forward a scheme for removing
“guerrillas” from Central Luzon, Marcos scoffed: “I would like to have him
tell us who were those who committed the killings in Concepcion lately.
This I think would determine then how talented he is and how quick he
is in helping us out in the peace and order problem.” Marcos alleged that
under Aquino’s governorship Tarlac had become a “rest and recuperation
area for the Huks.”31 Lachica suggests that the formation of the NPA was
facilitated by Tarlac politicians: “In October, 1968, one of the China scholars
was invited to talk with a group of progressive Liberal congressmen calling
themselves the ‘Young Turks.’ A Central Luzon congressman invited the
‘professor’ to the hills to meet Dante. The ideologue took over from there.”32
A more specific charge which was to arise later was that the discussion
between Dante and Sison concerning the establishment of the NPA had
taken place at Aquino’s home on January 19, 1969; Aquino responded by
demonstrating that he had been out of the country on that date— which is
not to say, of course, that the meeting did not take place at his home. Not
surprisingly, Sison appears to deny any involvement by Aquino:
It was not necessary to have Aquino as go-between because there were so

many possible reliable links. The Kabataang Makabayan was quite strong
in Central Luzon. It was just a matter of firming up which link was to be

used as soon as we heard of Commander Dante’s desire to meet- me.33
This explanation does not ring true. For example, in Central Luzon th e
mass of KM members had in fact gone over to the PKP-led MPKP in 1967.
Nilo Tayag concedes that the KM was “heavily weakened” as a result o f
the split in the PKP, and that the chapters in Central Luzon (which he had
organized) had seen most of their members withdraw from the KM and
join the rival MPKP.34 Also, Sison’s statement stops short of denying that
Aquino was involved and makes no mention of the “link” which was used.
A PKP observer comments:
Aquino was a young politician, very active in seeking support from the
right, from the left, from the center. Sison, even when he was in the PKP,
was projected as a youth leader, as a nationalist leader. He was known,
his name was big in political circles. This attracted Aquino, and it was
through Aquino that Buscayno iDante] was introduced to Sison. We
had information that there were meetings in Luisita between Sison and
Aquino. That’s where the allegation that the CIA had a participation in the
formation of the CPP came about, because Aquino was greatly suspected
of being a CIA operative . . . So he would use his helicopter to carry Sison
and his trusted corporals to Luisita. There were meetings there and there
was money contributed. Finally, when Buscayno was recruited the NPA
was formed. Now, where would they have got their guns? Either they were
given to them or they were given money to buy them.35
With regard to arms, Lachica points out that Dante had more guns than
he had men, and that the former were 5.56 M-l6s which had not then even
been issued to the Philippine Constabulary.36 Jones is rather more specific
than the sources quoted so far, stating that in late 1968 Dante approached
Congressman Jose Yap, whom he describes variously as Aquino’s “protege”
and as the latter’s “chief south Tarlac lieutenant,” and requested that a
meeting be arranged with Sison. This would tally with Lachica’s account
of the arrangements for the meeting between Dante and “the professor”
referred to above. However, Jones also relates that Aquino later claimed
that “he personally drove Sison to the meeting . . .”37
C hapter 4: T he N ew P eople ’s A rmy 93
The matter would seem to be settled by the evidence of Nilo Tayag,

the CPP’s first general secretary. Tayag, while denying the allegation that
he had travelled to Tarlac in connection with the Pantranco bus strike with
Sison and Arthur Garcia, or that he had ever travelled in Aquino’s aircraft,
confirms that negotiations took place in Hacienda Luisita and that Aquino
“was responsible for getting in touch with Commander Dante and arranging
the meeting between Commander Dante and Jose Maria Sison.” He also
says that Aquino allowed one of his houses “to be used as a sort of hospital
for wounded NPAs, and of course he supplied firearms and probably
information.”38
But what evidence is there that this was, in whole or in part, a CIA
operation?
The implications for the CPP of such an allegation are, of course,
potentially devastating: this would mean that, rather than “the revolutionary
army of the broad masses of the Filipino people against US imperialism,”39
the NPA was to a certain extent a creation of US imperialism. The CIA
certainly did not enjoy the same cozy relationship with Marcos that it had
fostered with some of his predecessors: just two years after the formation
of the NPA Marcos would expel the CIA team from the Philippines on the
grounds that it was plotting against him. According to former CIA officer
Victor Marchetti, speaking a year before the declaration of martial law, the
CIA was expected to launch clandestine paramilitary operations in the
Philippines and other countries. “One of the things the CIA clandestine
people can do is start up wars. They can start up a private war in a country
clandestinely and can make it look like it’s something that the local yokels
have decided for themselves.”40 The Marcos government later alleged that
while Aquino “was forging close ties with the CPP-NPA,” he “was ingratiating
himself with a foreign intelligence agency whose goals are diametrically
opposed to the communists.”41 There may well have been truth in this. But
even if Aquino was acting on behalf of the CIA, there is of course no
evidence that either Sison or Dante were aware of this. Presumably, their
approach was essentially pragmatic: the NPA would need support and arms
and a friendly base from which to operate. Aquino could supply all of these
and, besides, he and his in-laws could well qualify for inclusion in the
broad alliance which the CPP-NPA envisaged as necessary for the national-
democratic stage of the revolution.
There is no doubt, however, that Aquino had CIA connections.
Since his part, as a journalist, in the surrender of Luis Taruc in 1 9 5 4 ,
he had led an interesting life. At President Magsaysay’s suggestion he h ad
spent four months in the USA, observing CIA training methods, following
which he reported back to Magsaysay.42 By now he had married into th e
wealthy Cojuangco family When the Spanish-owned Tabacalera com pany
decided to sell the 7,000 hectare Hacienda Luisita, Magsaysay m entioned
this to Aquino, as the former wished to avoid the property falling into
the hands of the Lopez family. Aquino then approached his father-in-law,
Jose Cojuangco, who purchased it.43After the death of Magsaysay, President
Garcia asked Aquino if he would provide refuge for a group of anti-Sukarno
colonels linked with the secessionist rebels of Sumatra. This was agreed,
and a training camp was established on the hacienda which, according to
Seagrave, was “[o]ne of the CIA’s favorite estates” as it “provided the Agency
with facilities to train agents for conspiracies throughout Southeast Asia.”44
Kolko informs us that when the Sukarno loyalists stormed Sumatra to put
down the rebellion, the CLA “assigned some three hundred to four hundred
Americans and foreigners to supply the rebels with arms and supplies . . .”45
Amazingly, and by his own admission, one of these foreigners was Aquino,
who was sent to Menado with two army radio technicians; he stayed a
month and then returned to Manila to report.46 During his imprisonment
in the 1970s, Aquino told military officials that he had received training
in guerrilla tactics, intelligence gathering, propaganda, and agitation from
the CIA. Marcos’s defense secretary, Juan Ponce Enrile, located Aquino’s
intelligence files and, in correspondence with the latter, pointed out:
These include a document on file as of 1967 to the effect that you were
claiming to be a CIA agent and that you had been trained with the CIA in
the United States.
This document which I hereby attach indicates that although you
offered to become a CIA agent, you were rejected.. . . The records contain
a statement to the effect that you were utilizing these claims to advance
your personal and political interests; at a time when identity with the CIA
was considered an advantage in Philippine politics.
In a further letter, however, Enrile admitted that he was now convinced

(possibly because it suited his purposes, it must be said) that Aquino’s
claims were true.
It is now quite obvious that while you were working with the CIA, you
actually were happy to be used by that agency for its purposes, even if it
refused to be identified with you by rejecting your offer to train and work
with the CIA.
It is also quite obvious that you not only rendered service to a foreign
government which could be classified under the nature of espionage, that
you actually went out of your way to offer intelligence information to that
foreign government.47
But if Sison viewed Aquino with pragmatic eyes, it is possible that

Aquino’s motives were equally pragmatic. Relations with Marcos were
sharp, to say the least, and Aquino had his own eye on the presidency.
He therefore would have seen the benefit of using Sison and Dante to
destabilize the Marcos regime. Equally, it is possible that any remaining
links Aquino had with the CIA derived from his desire to become the USA’s
candidate for the presidency. It is also true, however, that the form which
Sison’s Program fo r a People’s Democratic Revolution envisaged for a future
national-democratic regime would not have been repellent to Aquino, and
this opens up a further possibility concerning the nature of the association
between the two men. Certainly Aquino’s vision for the Philippines did not
differ greatly from that of the CPP. While in prison, Aquino would write:
economic independence must be restored under conditions set by the

people themselves.
It was this realization that prompted me to call for the nationalization
of our basic and strategic industries during the late 1960s. I proposed
then that all public utilities—for a start—should come under government
ownership. In the area of mass transit, for example, I advocated a measure
of subsidy to alleviate the difficulties of the working poor.48
Just as Aquino may have had no problem adjusting to a “new democratic”

regime, it is also possible that Sison would have accepted the economic
prescription quoted from Aquino. It is therefore probable that Sison viewed
Aquino as rather more than a source of funds, arms, and a safe h av en .

Indeed, Nilo Tayag recalls that while in prison, as a member of “a sp ecial
branch of the Party, I heard that Ninoy Aquino was being invited to be so m e
sort of president of the National Democratic Front. It could have b e e n a
good combination, with Ninoy inspiring mass support. I heard that he w as
invited to join them in the mountains but [laughter]. . . no agua diente . . .n49
This is confirmed by a recent account, according to which it was suggested
at a meeting between Aquino and the CPP (Sison disagrees with Aquino’s
version, saying that he was not in attendance, the party being represented
by Julius Fortuna) on September 7, 1972, that Aquino lead a revolutionary
government “in the hills.” Aquino declined the offer, saying it was premature.
As far as the role of Sison is concerned, this was a far cry from the actions
of an unblemished revolutionary anxious to “rectify” the party and establish
an uncompromising alternative to the “Lavas and the Tarucs.” Given that
suspicions concerning Aquino’s CIA connections were abroad even at the
time of the foundation of the NPA, the formation of such a relationship must
be considered, at the very least, somewhat reckless. Moreover, according
to the account just referred to, five days after his meeting with the CPP
on September 7 Aquino told the whole story to a political counselor from
the US Embassy “and another Embassy political officer.” An airgram from
the Manila Embassy to Washington reported that Aquino felt that “his ow n
chances of becoming head of the government by legitimate means are slight.
He thus may be willing at some point in the future to ally himself with the
Communists as the leader of a revolution, if he is convinced that this is the
best way for him to realize his ultimate political ambition.”50
3
The New People’s Army was “officially” launched on March 29, 1969—
the anniversary of the foundation of the Hukbalahap. The Basic Rules o f the
New People’s Army adopted at this meeting envisaged three strategic stages
in the “protracted people’s war”: strategic defensive, strategic stalemate, and
strategic offensive. Although it would be subject to the leadership of the
C hapter 4: T he N ew P eople ’s A rmy 97
CPP, membership in an NPA fighting unit was open to any “able-bodied

person, irrespective of age, sex, color, nationality or religious belief, who
is capable of combat duties and who is ready to participate in a protracted
armed struggle against the reactionary state power . .
To cement the marriage, nine NPA members, including Dante, were
“elected” to the central committee of the CPP. The NPA itself consisted at
this stage of a “few score fighting men” according to an NPA leader.51 Sison
admits to a figure of 65.52
But to begin with, the NPA did not pursue “protracted people’s war.”
During the 1969 presidential election, one of Marcos’s cabinet officers
allegedly contacted Sumulong for support because, as Marcos himself was
later to explain: “We aren’t worried about him. We can destroy his people
at any time. But Sumulong serves the purpose of being a buffer against
Commander Dante. If we eliminate Sumulong, Dante would surely extend
his influence to Pampanga, and that would be an extremely dangerous
situation.”53 According to Pomeroy, during the same election the NPA
resorted to the very practice which Sison had criticized earlier and “made a
deal, through Aquino, to support the presidential candidacy of the Liberal
Party Sergio Osmena, Jr.,” who “took a blatantly pro-imperialist line in
his campaign. For this they were paid PI 0,000.”54 Initially, Nilo Tayag was
assigned to negotiate with Osmena. “I tried to see Senator Osmena,” he
recalls, “but he did not know me from Adam,” so the negotiations were
“passed onto someone else.”55 At this stage, then, to a certain extent the NPA
appeared to be operating in much the same way as the Sumulong group.
According to Lachica, the political interests of the guerrillas appeared “to
b e particularistic and short-term.” They exercised “some vested interests
in the lower levels of municipal governments. For instance, some of their
regulars or ‘combat support’ are employed as members of the municipal
police forces or have key positions in the municipal staffs . . Z’56
The marriage between the Tarlac guerrillas and the Manila “theorists”
proved stormy at first. Arthur Garcia, one of the leading KM activists and
at the time the NPA’s “political commissar,” made the mistake of arrogantly
referring to some of his peasant warriors as “no read, no write” and was killed
as a result.57 Worse was to come, for only four months after the formation of
the NPA the Armed Forces of the Philippines’ Task Force Lawin set D ante
on the run. Some of his men were pursued into Hacienda Luisita, w h ere
a bloody confrontation was narrowly averted when government soldiers
tried to frisk plantation employees.58 Lachica says that some members o f
the fledgling guerrilla army retreated as far as the Zambales mountains
and Dante was forced to disband “all but his elite guerrillas.”59 Nilo Tayag
denies Lachica’s claim that this development served to completely sou r
the relationship between Sison and Dante, although he admits that there
were “heated discussions . . . We had to flee Tarlac because the central
headquarters, including all the documents, were captured . . . including a
roster of members.”60 According to AngKomunista, the PKP journal, this latest
reverse was connected with the “landlord politicians” in Tarlac who, having
first used the NPA as protection against Sumulong, providing the form er
with its first “rural bases," now turned against the organization. After the A IT
offensive, which was accompanied by the “killing, torturing and looting o f
people in the barrios, the ‘revolutionary’ mayors got back what they gave
the NPA on a silver platter*After sealing a secret deal at Malacaftang, they
transformed the ‘rural bases’ into Barrio Self-Defense Units.”61 These BSDUs
were antiguerrilla organizations encouraged by the AFP and modelled on
similar organizations existing in South Vietnam’s “strategic hamlets.”
All in all, the NPA hardly enjoyed a propitious beginning.
N otes
1. Interview with Jesus Lava, November 10,1976, interviewer unknown. A copy of
the typescript of this interview is among the papers of William Pomeroy.
2. Interview with Felicísimo Macapagal, date and interviewer unknown. A copy of
the typescript of this interview is among the papers of William Pomeroy.
3. Ibid.
4. Eduardo Lachica, Huk: Philippine Agrarian Society in Revolt (Manila: Solidaridad
Publishing House, 1971), 152.
5. William Pomeroy, “Maoism in the Philippines,” Political Affairs, May 1972, 39.
6. Leonardo L. Guerrero and Jamil Maidan Flores, Where There Are No Slaves
(Tokyo: Nomura International Publishing Co., 1990), 24.
7. Ibid., 55-57.

9. Ibid, 149.
10. Gregg R. Jones, Red Revolution: Inside tbe Philippine Guerrilla Movement
12. Pomeroy, “Maoism in the Philippines,” 39.
14. Pomeroy, “Maoism in the Philippines," 40.
15. Ibid.
18. Nilo Tayag, interview by the author, March 2009.
19. Katherine Weekley, The Communist Party o f the Philippines, 1968-1993: A Story
o f Its Theory and Practice (Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press,
2001), 27.
20. Although it is usually claimed that Sison sought out Commander Dante,
Quimpo says that in the end it was Dante’s group which “managed to link up
with Sison.” See Nathan Gilbert Quimpo, Contested Democracy and tbe Left in
tbe Philippines After Marcos (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press,
2008), 58, 319 fn 7.
21. Nick Joaquin, Tbe Aquinos ofTarlac (Manila, 1988), 256.
22. Ibid, 300.
23. Ibid.
24. Ibid., 301.
28. These details are taken from the “Decision of the Executive Committee of the
National Security Council on the Application for Temporary Release by Benigno
S. Aquino Jr.” issued as a result of Aquino’s request for release to campaign in
the Election of 1978. The author viewed the document in the papers of William
Pomeroy.
29. Lachica, Huk, l6l.
30. Ibid., 165.
31. Philippine Herald, October 30, 1968; Lachica, Huk, 211. Like many Filipinos at
the time, Marcos was here using the word “Huks” in its generic sense.
32. Lachica, Huk, 182-83.
33. Sison, Tbe Leader's View, 59.
34. Nilo Tayag interview.
io o A M ovement D ivided
35. This source, interviewed by the author in Manila in November 1989, has
requested anonymity.
37. Jones, Red Revolution, 27, 29.
38. Nilo Tayag interview. Tayag says that he and Dante discovered that they had
been contemporaries at the same high school.
39. Basic Rules o f the New People 's Army.
40. “An Attack and a Reply,” USNews and World Report, October 11,1971, quoted by
Merlin Magallona, “The Economic Content of Neo-Colonialism,” in M ortgaging
the Future: The World Bank and IMF in the Philippines, ed. Vivencio R. Jose
(Quezon City: Foundation for Nationalist Studies, 1982), 75.
41. “Decision of the Executive Committee of the National Security Council.'*
42. Nick Joaquin, Ihe Aquinos o f Tarlac (Manila, 1988), 249-52.
43. Ibid., 274.
44. Sterling Seagrave, The Marcos Dynasty (New York: Harper & Row, 1988), 150.
45. Gabriel Kolko, Confronting the Third World: United States Foreign Policy 1S>45-
1980 (New York: Pantheon Books, 1988), 175.
46. Joaquin, The Aquinos o f Tarlac, 269.
47. This correspondence appears in “Decision of the Executive Committee of the
National Security Council.”
48. Benigno S. Aquino, Jr., Testament from a Prison Cell (Los Angeles: Philippine
Journal, 1988), 42.
50. Lisandro Claudio, “Ninoy Networked with Everyone, Reds Included," GMANews,
TV, August 18, 2010.
51. Servando Labrador, “On the Current State of the People’s Revolutionary War,” in
The Filipino People Will Triumph (Central Publishing House, 1988), 11.
52. The Leader's View, 60. According to Our Urgent Tasks, the document issued
by the CPP’s central committee in 1976, the NPA started life with 35 rifles and
handguns.
53- Lachica, Huk, 151.
56. Lachica. Huk, 208.
57. Pomeroy, “Maoism in the Philippines,” 41; Lachica, Huk, 191.
59. Ibid., 189-90.
61. Mario Frunze, “Marxism-Leninism and ‘Revolutionary Quixotism,”’ Ang
Komunista, February 1972.
PART THREE
The PKP was not without its own problems during this period.
Externally, of course, there was the CPP to contend with, and attempts
to cooperate with the rank and file members of the new Maoist party
came to naught at this stage as the CPP leadership engaged in what
would become known as “vanguardism,” as evidenced by its role within
the Movement for a Democratic Philippines. Internally, there were signs
of instability, first as the PKP general secretary Francisco “Paco” Lava Jr.
adopted an overcautious approach due to his fear that the party had been
infiltrated, then as voices within the PKP sought to steer the party onto a
A
path of outbidding the CPP in terms of militancy, a situation which gave

rise to a second ultraleftist breakaway. The former problem was resolved
peacefully, thereby demonstrating that the “Lava problem” of which Jose
Maria Sison had made so much was soluble within the ranks of the party.
The problem of the breakaway, on the other hand, was brought to a rather
more sanguinary conclusion, and the reader will find that there are two
different explanations as to why this was the case.
That, so soon after the CPP breakaway, the PKP should be confronted
with a further case of ultraleftism was almost certainly due to its failure
to clarify its position on the use of violence and armed struggle, and its
inability to hold a congress since 1946. It now proceeded to rectify this,
and the Sixth Congress of 1973 is notable for the fact that it adopted what
must be described as the first really up-to-date Marxist analysis of the
economic situation in the Philippines; on the basis of this analysis, the
PKP put forward a program in which it envisaged a path of noncapitalist
development (a concept discussed in part 4, chapter 10).
IO I
102 A M ovement D ivid ed
The part of the book which follows also deals with the controversial
political setdement with the Marcos government concluded by the PKP in
1974. To understand this fully, chapter 8 examines Marcos’s evolution fro m
his first term, when he behaved in the manner expected and encouraged b y
Washington, to the early martial law period, by which time, no doubt partly
due to his own material interests, he was exhibiting a marked tendency to
behave more independently than his predecessors. Although, at its 1 9 7 3
congress, the PKP had been mistaken in its estimate of the role played by
the USA in the declaration of martial law, the political settlement of th e
following year, dealt with in chapter 9, was a logical step in light of th e
strong anti-imperialist orientation provided by that congress.
C h a pter 5 :
P a r t y against P a r t y
After the formation of the Maoist party, the PKP resumed its
organizational work, but increasingly found it necessary to devote attention
to the CPP. While on occasion it would attempt to work with CPP-led groups
and rank and filers on an ad hoc basis, its relations with the breakaway
soon deteriorated to the point of outright hostility.
Following Lacsina’s temporary defection to Sison’s camp (and the loss,
therefore, of NATU), PKP trade unionists formed a new labor federation,
the Pambansang Kilitsan ng Paggawa (KILUSAN, National Workers’
Movement), which brought together the print-workers’ Union de Impresores
de Filipinas (UIF) and others. In early 1969, using the Manila chapter of
the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation as a sponsor, the party launched
a “National Campaign to Free All Political Prisoners”; the other PKP-led
mass organizations provided the “foot soldiers" in this campaign, which
collected 70,000 signatures and resulted in the release of Jose Lava,* Angel
Baking, Sammy Rodriguez and others in February 1970 (although all three
of the aforementioned had been captured in the “Politburo raid" of 1950,
Earlier, Jose Lava, leader of the imprisoned PKP members, had rejected all suggestions
that a campaign should be launched for their release, so confident was he that victory
was at hand.1 After his release, he went to Prague as the PKP's representative on the
journal World Marxist Review, remaining there until the so-called velvet revolution of
1989.
103
10 4 A M o v e m e n t D iv id e d
the latter two had in the meantime been won over to Sison).2The s e co n d
congress of the new PKP-led youth organization, the MPKP, on January 2 5 ,
1970, was attended by a claimed 800 delegates, some 80 percent of w h om
were workers and peasants.3 The following year saw the formation o f a
Young Communist League with the MPKP used as a recruitment base.
While MASAKA, the PKP-led peasant organization, led a fairly healthy
existence, growing to a claimed membership of 60,000, the Movement for
the Advancement of Nationalism was a shadow of the organization formed
in 1967, although it would struggle on until the declaration of martial law
in 1972. Thoroughly bewildered by the polemics between the PKP and th e
CPP, many businessmen (with the exception of staunch anti-imperialists like
Alejandro Lichauco) and professionals decamped, reducing the breadth o f
the organization. Indeed, there are indications that MAN declined into little
more than a PKP front. Certainly its journal Political Review, first published
in March 1971, contained no news of MAN activities and ran articles and
editorials that might have deterred many noncommunist potential allies and
affiliates— analyses of the Sino-Soviet split and Maurice Dobb’s Lenin a n d
Imperialism Today, for example.
In the meantime, the breach between the PKP and Ignacio Lacsina
had been healed. Nemenzo recalls that after Lacsina’s NATU affiliated to
the Prague-based World Federation of Trade Unions, “the Russians were
insisting we have talks with Lacsina. It was confirmed that there was a rift
between Lacsina and Sison.” This led to an alliance between the PKP and
the Lacsina-Ied (although much reduced) Socialist Party of the Philippines
(SPP), and the “SPP newspaper was going to be our common oigan. The
newspaper only came out for one issue, and the SPP folded with martial
law.”4
The second issue of MAN’S Political Review (the similarity of the tide
to Progressive Review was probably not accidental) reprinted the SPP’s
“Program for a People’s Democracy,” which called for socialist-oriented
agrarian reform and nationalist industrialization, proposing a greater role for
the state sector at the expense of the private sector, and promised that “the
SPP will do all within its power to hasten the ripening of one stage to the
C h a p t e r 5: Pa r t y a g a in s t Pa r t y 10 5
next until the ultimate task of building a full socialist society is achieved.” As
for its policy on alliances, the “SPP, from lessons of history and experience,
does not believe in unprincipled, loose and insincere alliance with other
organizations or groups. A united front to be serious, effective and lasting,
must be based on the principle of a worker-peasant hegemony . . ”5 While
the experience referred to might have been that of the LM’s “coalition”
with Macapagal, the public announcement of the SPP’s long-term socialist
aspirations in the MAN journal would have done litde to gam er support for
MAN from those who, while opposing the domination of the Philippines
by foreign interests, stopped short of desiring a socialist economy. Given
such an approach, it was hardly surprising when, following the bombing
of the Liberal Party rally in the Plaza Miranda in 1971, MAN was on the list
of “subversive” organizations the solicitor general submitted to the Supreme
Court in support of the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus.
Relations with Sison’s CPP were obviously tense, and in the countryside
there were armed clashes between the two.* Weekley writes that “[mjemories
of the PKP informing on national-democrat activists, kidnappings and
even killings (in the late 1960s and early 1970s) remain fresh in older CPP
members’ minds,”8 but there were two sides to this dispute. Claims Pedro
Baguisa (PKP general secretary at the time of writing): “We were not the
ones starting the violence against the CPP. In 1971 there were ambuscades
against us . . . Rallies were attacked by them. Our comrades took revenge.”
Baguisa argues that “our stand to other groups was principled. In fact, if the
party had decided to annihilate all of them [the CPP] during the first year,
The situation in Central Luzon was further confused by what Lachica describes as “a
rampage of terror and counter-terror” largely caused by a group of armed thugs dubbed
the “Monkees" which was thought to have been organized by the government. In May
1969, for example, Monkees in eight jeeps drove through Angeles firing at civilians for
the best part of an hour. According to city officials, the Philippine Constabulary had
prior knowledge of the raid and it was rumored that the Monkees received their arms
from military sources.6 Ranged against the Monkees were the followers of Commander
Sumulong who, perhaps predictably, came to be known as the “Beatles.” Completing the
triangle was a group of men under the leadership of Commander Diwa still referred to
as the HMB; these had broken away from Sumulong when instructed by the PKP to do
so, but had not joined Dante (who had, in fact, served under Diwa in the HMB) in the
fledgling NPA.7
io6 A M o v e m e n t D iv id e d
it could have done it because they didn’t have the New People’s Army yet.
We were hoping the differences could be reconciled.”9 Vivencio Jo se, o n e
of the leaders of the SDK breakaway from KM, also has painful m em ories
of the period, having spent time in hospital following an assassination
attempt allegedly directed by Sison.10
In Manila, however, attempts were made to salvage some form of unity.
One such attempt was represented by the formation in late 1969 of the
Movement for a Democratic Philippines (MDP), following the violent and
fraudulent elections in November that year in which Marcos was reckoned
to have spent P200 million to secure his reelection.11 The MDP quickly
developed into a united-front umbrella organization, albeit a fragile on e,
in which the PKP-led mass organizations— the MPKP, MASAKA, KILUSAN,
BRPF, and the unemployed workers’ group AKSIUN— were represented
along with the CPP-led KM and SDK. According to the PKP, however, it
soon became apparent that the CPP was attempting to “capture” the n ew
organization. In preparation for a protest against the curtailment of the
rights of students in private schools to organize protests, the committee
established to draft the students’ manifesto was made up solely of SDK and
KM activists; when published, it was noted that among the signatories to
the document were separate chapters of the KM, whereas the MPKP and
the BRPF were identified as single organizations. This same device w as
then used to outvote the PKP-led affiliates. Nemenzo says that, despite its
avowed purpose of fomenting unity, the MDP “became a debating society.
I remember that Sison sent us a spokesman—Jose David Lapus— who had
a very dirty mouth, so we put up to fight him somebody who also had a
dirty mouth, and that was Haydee Yorac.” In time, Lacsina’s NATU becam e
alienated by the CPP’s tactics and ceased participation in the MDP, and the
PKP-led affiliates also left the organization.12
For many years now, the organization of the series of mass
demonstrations during the first three months of 1970— dubbed, with
a degree of romanticism, the “First Quarter Storm”— has been portrayed
as solely the handiwork of Sison’s followers. According to the MPKP,
however, the first actions were organized by the MDP while the PKP-
C h a p t e r 5 : Pa r t y a g a in st Pa r t y i 07
led mass organizations were still active affiliates and, indeed, some 3,000
members of the MPKP and MASAKA took part in the demonstration of
January 30-31.13 The PKP’s own characterization of the “Storm” appears to
have changed, depending on the state of its relations with the CPP. Writing
in December 1970, Jorge Maravilla (William Pomeroy) described it as “a
mass forum, to demonstrate popular distrust of the corrupt bourgeois
legislature and the need to bring issues for discussion and decision to the
people.”14 By November 1971, however, “Francisco Balagtas” (Jose Lava,
always more prone to discern the hand of foreign intelligence services than
Pomeroy) was describing the CPP as enjoying “ample funds coming from
dubious sources (including Filipino agents of the CIA and other oligarchs)
and staging ‘militant’ mass demonstrations, projecting the slogans of anti
imperialism and anti-feudalism,” but directing their attacks “not only on
the Marcos administration, but also on the Soviet Union and other socialist
countries and on the genuine Communist Party of the Philippines.” With
some prescience, Lava continued:
Whether or not this group is a genuine Marxist party, or is merely a

CIA front, or a combination of the two, is still unresolved. What is more
important, the American imperialists and their class collaborators may
utilize the highly provocative words and actions of the “Maoist” group and
its followers to justify the establishment of a military-fascist dictatorship
for the suppression of the genuine revolutionary movement for national
liberation.15
Lava went further when he later wrote in the same journal: “US agents
instigated anti-imperialist parties and groups to stage mass demonstrations,
hoping to use them to discredit the regime still further. Such demonstrations
were launched in early 1970 by the Maoists and their Movement for a
Democratic Philippines (MDP) organized to counterpose against the MAN.”16
Balagtas/Lava went on to explain that while the PKP had participated
in the demonstrations, it had argued that they should be directed against
US imperialism “in which the role of its puppets (open and concealed)
would be linked and exposed,” whereas the CPP wished to concentrate
its fire on Marcos. Relations between the parties reached a new low when
io 8 A M o v e m e n t D iv id e d
the press reported that only 1,000 had attended the MDP demonstration o n
May Day, 1970, while the PKP-led rally had attracted ten times that nu m b er
(something which may in part have been explained by the fact that m any
of the CPP’s youthful followers studying at Manila universities would have
returned to their homes in the provinces for the summer break, although
the UP chapter of the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation also charged that
this was a result of the KM’s “unnecessary polarization” of the national
democratic movement).17 Following this, the CPP issued a leaflet exposing
the identity of almost the entire central committee of the PKP, leading the
latter to “re-examine its previously conciliatory, defensive policy, in favor
of taking the offensive against the Filipino Maoists.”18* This policy decision
would, therefore, explain the different slant thereafter placed on the “First
Quarter Storm” by the PKP.
The “Storm” began on January 26, when 20,000 anti-Marcos
demonstrators rallied outside the Congress building. The demonstration w as
attacked by police, and this led to a further rally protesting against police
brutality in which, ironically, four students were shot dead in the “Battle o f
Mendiola Bridge.” The situation then escalated, with 150,000 demonstrators
in the streets of Manila and various provincial capitals.20 Over the next
three months, a series of “people’s marches,” attracting between 30,000 and
60,000 each time, took place in Manila and elsewhere. The phenomenon
became known as the “parliament of the streets.” Although the MDP may
have planned the initial demonstrations, and Sison may have predictably
claimed that CPP-led organizations “supervised” the “First Quarter Storm,”
Jones interviewed a former member of the CPP’s central committee who
admitted that “Party control over the protests was looser perhaps than Sison
suggested,” while maintaining that the party was prominent “in secretly
organizing and encouraging the radical upheaval.”21 In truth, it is likely
that, given the numbers involved, some of the actions were spontaneous
In 1971 the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation complained when, in similar fashion, a
memo was published in the Philippine Collegian in which the author, claiming to be a
member, alleged that Francisco Nemenzo Jr. and Ruben Torres had boasted to a BRPF
gathering that they were high-ranking PKP members.19
C h a p t e r 5: Pa r t y a g a in st Pa r t y 10 9
in nature, a possibility which would appear to be borne out by Goodno’s

observation that the “Storm” passed because at “the end of March the
students were packing their bags to return home for the summer.”22 Be that
as it may, even Dizon (then a prominent young PKP member) admits that
Sison’s followers in Manila
were strongest at this time, even if some of us would not admit it. Of
course, the situation agreed with them—the media was adventuristic,
publishing statements by Dante, etc. All the demonstrations became violent
and so they hit the newspaper headlines. So I must say that they were
able to capture the initiative within the left at this point. The student ranks
were almost closed to us. We were not able to penetrate because they
were there. But then their adventuristic methods gave the push for the
suspension of habeas corpus . . . Now, it appears that they were consciously
aggravating the situation, inviting the declaration of martial law by the
Plaza Miranda bombing, the provocation during demonstrations. We would
all be demonstrating together and suddenly a group would come and hurt
stones at us and a fight would ensue. In turn, that invited police action, so
tear gas and all kinds of police violence were used.*
They were really inviting this all the time. The Lyceum University
used to be a base of the progressive movement—owned by Laurel, who
was very helpful to the nationalist movement. One time, they destroyed
all the windows so that the Lyceum was unrecognizable . . . At mass
rallies they had placards calling for Dante to be president. There was no
distinction between legal and armed struggle. They were trying to connect
the two so that you would be forced to go underground . . .
The result was a very messy situation, the political atmosphere
so charged that Marcos declared martial law. It was capped by Plaza
Miranda.24
In August 1971, a Liberal Party rally was bombed in Manila’s Plaza

Miranda, leaving nine dead and ninety-eight (including the eight Liberal
candidates onstage) injured. Marcos immediately blamed the NPA,
Benjamin Pimentel Jr. cites a claim by a former activist that “one out of about 20 members
who joined the KM in 1970 turned out to be a government agent"23—something which
may have explained some of the more counterproductive actions during the “Storm.”
no A M o v e m e n t D iv id e d
suspending the writ of habeas corpus and arresting political activists. M ost,
however, accused President Marcos, or at the very least the Philippine
military, of arranging the bombing. Years later, there were allegations that
the atrocity had, after all, been the work of Jose Maria Sison.25 At the tim e,
the bombing took the Philippines a step closer to the martial law regim e
that would be declared a year later.
Ever since his break with the PKP, Sison has dubbed that party th e
“Lava group.” In fact, no member of the Lava family has led the PKP sin ce
1970, the year that Francisco “Paco” Lava Jr. was removed from his position
as general secretary and expelled.
According to Nemenzo,
Even early on, Paco behaved in a manner that Sison warned me about—
that he took orders from his uncles in prison; that even party decisions
would get reversed when he got the opinion of Peping [Jose Lava]. We
noticed that it was a family council. . . MASAKA and the UIF [the PKP-led
printers’ union] also noticed this and were unhappy—especially when he
did not want to attend meetings any more.26
For Lava now claimed that the PKP had been infiltrated and that his
life was in danger, writing a long memorandum to this effect. According
to one PKP leader, Lava was probably influenced by a Fred Bautista who,
recendy released from prison, considered that “everyone he didn’t know
was suspect.”27 One possibility is that the paranoia concerning infiltration
was being used as a ploy to rid the party of those who did not share Lava’s
views and replace them with those who, like Bautista, were both close to
and loyal to the Lavas.28 Lava, anyway, went deep underground. “What was
funny was that he was going underground from the party. He was hiding
not in the folds of the party but away from the party, saying that he could
not rely on the party.”29 Lava’s memorandum and his behavior angered
C h a p t e r 5 : Pa r t y a g a in st Pa r t y h i
the politburo, and a delegation was sent to meet him. Brandishing a gun,
he warned that they should not approach him closely. He maintained his
refusal to emerge from hiding until the party was clear of “dangers,” and
refused to attend meetings or be subject to democratic centralism. This
led to his expulsion, coupled with a warning— which he heeded— that
he should not attempt to form a faction. He was succeeded as general
secretary by Felicisimo Macapagal, a veteran of the Huk period.
The change of leadership was marked by an intensification of the
struggle against the CPP. Before Sison broke away, the PKP had, ironically,
not taken sides in the Sino-Soviet dispute. In fact, Romeo Dizon recalls that
just prior to the split it was not unusual for articulate leading members such
as him to be asked to lecture on Mao’s On New Democracy.** Nemenzo says
that, although there was no official stance, most of the leaders, including the
Lavas, were pro-China, and that it was only after the Sison split, when the
central committee was reorganized and MASAKA members were brought on,
that his own pro-Soviet stance was reinforced.31 This is an indication of the
extent of the PKP’s isolation from the international communist movement
and the state of its ideological work since the defeat of the HMB.*
In January 1971 the party issued a sixteen-page statement on the
CPP— although this appeared in the guise of a statement by the MPKP
youth organization. Given the lurid title of “Petty-Bourgeois Revolutionism
of the Renegade Opportunist KM-Sison Gang,” the statement appeared
in Struggle, the organ of the Philippine Council of the Bertrand Russell
Peace Foundation.* This explained the origin of the MDP (referred to earlier
in this chapter) and was written in response to a heightened barrage of
propaganda against the MPKP and other PKP-led organizations by the CPP’s
• This isolation was ended when William and Celia Pomeroy, having been released from
prison in 1962, made a lengthy visit to the Soviet Union between September 1966
and March 1967, during which time they rebuilt the links between the PKP and the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union; two years later, the PKP attended what was to be
the last International Meeting of Communist and Workers’ Parties in Moscow. Thereafter,
the PKP became identified with the Soviet camp.52
t One can only wonder what Lord Russell, who had died on February 2, 1970, at the age
of 97, would have made of this.
in A M o v e m e n t D iv id e d
own youth organization. To a certain extent, the statement revealed that th e

PKP at this stage had more in common with the CPP than might have b e e n
expected, for there were references to the “semi-colonial and sem i-feudal”
character of the Philippines, and Marcos’s regime was described as “fascist”
(and this even before the declaration of martial law).
The statement criticized Sison for his plagiarism (recording that he had
submitted an article to the Philippine Collegian which had in fact b een
written by Francisco Lava Jr., Merlin MagaIlona, and Alejandro Lichauco
for MAN) and castigated Sison’s followers for the acts of vandalism
against the property of ordinary citizens during the “First Quarter Storm,”
leading the authors to conclude “that KM leaders are acting consciously
or unconsciously as agents of the ruling classes and are participating in
the plot of the fascist state to defeat the aims of the Movement through
vile means.” Scorn was poured upon the KM’s urgings to “Organize
Rebel Committees!,” “Make Revolution in Neo-Colonial Schools!,” “Jo in
the R e v o lu tio n !a n d “Create Urban Liberated Areas!” Their slogans o f
“Mabuhay si D anter (Long Live Dante!) and “Join the New People’s Army!”
were viewed as even more wrongheaded:
To declare in public allegiance to and support of armed groups engaged

in illegal (armed) struggle is to invite intensification of state repression
and infiltration which would eventually lead to the outlawing of your
own group based on existing bourgeois laws. When a progressive mass
organization is declared illegal, it loses its mass character, its leaders and
most of its members are forced to go underground (which at this stage of
the struggle would be most untimely), and it would be a hundred times
more difficult to engage in politicization of the masses.
Here, of course, the authors were drawing on the bitter experience of

the PKP during the HMB period and issuing a well-intentioned warning to
students apt to be seduced by the romantic imagery of the CPP. It would
appear that the decision to issue the statement under the name of the
MPKP was not taken haphazardly, for the document pointed out that “[t]he
youth front of the struggle has been the most militant sector of the
struggle and it is also on this front that the split within the Movement is
C h a p t e r 5: Pa r t y a g a in st Pa r t y 113
most severely felt.” The warning was not heeded, however, and the KM
was eventually banned by Marcos.
In response to the KM’s claim that the MPKP was controlled by
those in “physical and ideological affinity with the Lavas,” the document
drew attention to the “physical affinities” of some leading KM and SDK
personalities. One was related to an intelligence agent, the father of
another was Judge Advocate General during the suppression of the
movement in the 1950s, a third was the son of the head of the military
intelligence service during the same period, yet another was the son of
a National Bureau of Intelligence (NBI) agent. It was claimed that Sison
himself had a brother who was currently an NBI agent and another who
was with the presidential economic staff. Furthermore, one KM leader
was the technical assistant of “CIA boy Senator Aquino” and— irony of
ironies— none other than Vicente Lava Jr., formerly an executive with
Colgate-Palmolive, was now a KM ally. One KM leader, the document
claimed, was fond of brandishing a safe-conduct pass signed by the
Manila police chief and two others were seen riding in a government-
owned jeep during an eight-day jeepney strike.
Referring to a congressional report, the statement pointed to more
sinister developments.
A revealing document is the “Final Report on the Root Causes of Mass

Demonstrations” submitted by the Agbayani Committee . . . of the Lower
House of Congress. Pages 76-78 of the Report contain the testimony of the
notorious clerico-fascist Fr. Jose Blanco who claims to have trained some
150 student activists since he arrived from Indonesia in 1966. According to
Blanco, he was assigned to the student front by his superiors in the Jesuit
Orders. A number of the 150 students trained were later instructed to
return to their respective organizations like KM, NUSP [National Union of
Students of the Philippines) and NSL [National Student League] as a tactic
of infiltration. Perhaps this would explain why the KM and its fraternal
groups now maintain a similarly purely anti-Marcos line with clerico-
fascist organizations like Lakasdiwa, NUSP, etc.
With regard to the “purely anti-Marcos line,” the MPKP statement

pointed out that it served the interest of one faction of the ruling class,
ii4 A M o v e m e n t D iv id e d
which had split into pro- and anti-Marcos camps. The latter group con sisted
of “the Church establishment, the Jesuit ‘revolutionaries,’ the M anglapus
group (these three are the clerico-fascists), a faction of the Nacionalista
party, the Liberal Party, and the CIA faction in the state’s armed forces an d
the Lopez ‘sugar bloc.’” Marcos, on the other hand, enjoyed the support
of “the ‘political dynasties,’ the ‘private armies,’ his business partners and
dummies, and the loyalist faction of the state’s armed forces.” As far as US
imperialism was concerned,
Marcos has been found sorely wanting. In the process of failing to carry
out successfully American-sponsored programs of reform such as rural
development and land reform because of the government bureaucracy
and corruption he has woven, Marcos has thus failed to carry out the
essential imperialist task of arresting the growth of the revolutionary
movement of the masses led by the national democratic forces. And so
Marcos is now a liability because his very corruption and bankruptcy
obstructs the successful implementation of reform programs and hastens
the revolutionary process aimed against American imperialism.
The CIA was therefore backing the anti-Marcos camp with the aim o f
further discrediting Marcos “in order to launch a CIA-sponsored coup d’état
and install a new US puppet. Of course, a purely anti-Marcos line is w hat
holds this group together.”
Compared to that offered by the CPP, this was a sophisticated analysis
and one which— albeit fifteen years later— was to be proved largely correct.
But of rather more relevance for our present purposes was the position
adopted by the PKP (although in the name of the MPKP) based upon this
analysis.
The present main task of the Movement therefore would be to expose

this anti-Marcos camp of the ruling classes riding on the wave of popular
discontent and posing as champions of genuine reform. Marcos would still
be dealt with but essentially the job of completely discrediting him before
the masses has been, for the most part, already accomplished. It would
also be a secondary task of the Movement to expose pseudo-revolutionary
groups now collaborating with the CIA-managed anti-Marcos camp like
the “left” adventurist KM, the infantile SDK, the clerico-fascists Lakasdiwa
[a moderate group based at the Jesuit-run Ateneo University], NUSP and

YCSP [Young Christian Socialists of the Philippines], and that bunch of
surrenderees—the NPA.
As we will see, some three years later the PKP would dramatically
revise its evaluation of Marcos, while retaining its jaundiced view of those
adhering to the “purely anti-Marcos line.” Much sooner, it became less
dismissive of the CPP-NPA.
In February 1971, the party’s theoretical journal Ang Komunista was
described in the issue of that month as having “resumed publication,”
and while this issue was duplicated, later editions would be printed. The
editorial pointed to the CPP’s apparently “inexhaustible financial resources”
and access to the bourgeois media, and alleged that Ang Bayan, the CPP’s
own journal, was printed in a Catholic convent. Far from adopting a totally
anti-CPP position, however, the piece stated that, despite armed clashes
which had taken place in 1970, “the PKP maintains good relations with the
ordinary NPA partisans,” drawing a distinction between ordinary peasant
members and “the intellectuals from the city who harbor intense hatred
towards us.”33
Five months later, a much harder line* was taken in a Political
Transmission (PT) issued by the general secretary (although he was not
named, Felicisimo Macapagal was by this time holding the position). This
began by listing the recent actions of the CPP (claiming that the PKP was
in alliance with Marcos and that its Commander Diwa was the leader of the
Monkees, and issuing leaflets disclosing the identities of PKP leaders) and
called for stepped-up activity against the Maoists. The document stated that
for too long the CPP had been considered a minor nuisance and, indeed,
the PKP had on occasion not even bothered to explain the differences
between the two organizations; in the provinces, many PKP activists were
simply unaware of the bitter rivalry in Greater Manila. Times had changed.
However, rather than a hardening of the line, this may have been symptomatic of the
difference in the approaches taken by the general secretary and Nemenzo, who, in
editing and writing most of Ang Komunista, did not, as we will see in the next chapter,
always project official PKP policy.
ii 6 A M o v e m e n t D iv id e d
We must take bold and decisive steps to crush the Maoists. Let us discard
the foolish idea that we can prove our political maturity by remaining
silent or keeping our patience.
Unless we counter-attack, demoralization will weaken the ranks and
destroy the mass organizations under our leadership. The Maoists will
then emerge as the real vanguard of the revolutionary movement.34
The PT laid down a number of steps to be followed. Ang Komunista

would be converted from an internal bulletin into a weekly new spaper
“for massive distribution.” The Young Communist League would issue
manifestoes. A handbook for cadres would be produced and a special
seminar for twenty “agitators” would be held on the subject of Maoism;
each of these agitators would then be expected to speak at “pock et
rallies” in various provinces. These proposed rallies were seen as p art
of the preparation for a “Big Demonstration” sometime in September.
Campaigning activity until then would have the theme “STRUGGLE FO R
UNITY, CRUSH THE SPUTTERS AND TRAITORS.” Party cadres w ere
instructed to cooperate with other progressive organizations like th e
Socialist Party of the Philippines with the aim of ensuring that September’s
demonstration in Manila was held in collaboration with the SPP and its
affiliated trade unions. The seriousness with which the Maoists were now
perceived may be gleaned from the instructions to cadres in this sam e
document. All committees were to be informed that the party expected
“total mobilization o fforces'’ in the campaign against the Maoists.
It should be emphasized that the Big Demonstration will be a critical

show of force. Cadres and the masses should be made to understand that
so much is at stake, and that they should not expect the national organ to
subsidize their transport expenses.
The Politburo hereby issues a warning that iron discipline will be
imposed in connection with our dealings with the Maoists. The Party will
not tolerate leniency, much less active collaboration with these people.
PKP leaders were instructed that if Maoist cadres appeared in their

areas they should advise the latter that their contact with the masses would
be opposed unless they publicly renounced the CPP, the KM, and the SDK.
“If they persist in doing mass work despite your warning, take immediate
steps to stop them. But if you do not have the capacity to use force, contact
the Politburo immediately . . . The Party will consider any negligence as a
serious breach of discipline.”
Another Political Transmission issued at around the same time, on this
occasion in the name of the politburo, also referred to “iron discipline.” This
pointed to the similarity of the Liberals and the Nacionalistas (something
apparently overlooked in the previous decade, when, instead, the Liberal
Party had been perceived as the “party of change”), and therefore
instructed the party to call upon the masses “to express their rejection of
the bourgeois electoral process” by boycotting the 1971 elections.35 This
concluded with the ominous warning: “The Party is waging a relentless
struggle against opportunism within our ranks. We must therefore enforce
iron discipline. Automatic expulsion is the MINIMUM penalty for anyone
who violates this policy.” The policy itself was presumably aimed at firming
up the PKP’s own identity and emphasizing its difference from the CPP—
despite the fact that a previous boycott policy had failed. This is borne
out by the November 1971 issue of Ang ¡Comunista, which criticized the
Maoists for opposing only Marcos and for their critical support of Aquino’s
Liberal Party which, in the 1950s, “butchered thousands of worker and
peasant revolutionaries fighting for national liberation.”36
A more conciliatory line towards the CPP was evident in a document
produced for discussion purposes at the same time.37 This talked of
the launch of “an effective campaign against our twin enemies: the
establishment and the super-revolutionaries,” and argued that attempts
should be made to win over “the uncommitted masses and those alienated
by the super-revolutionaries” and to “strengthen our own groups that are
fast becoming demoralized or falling victim to the propaganda onslaught of
the enemy.” The document suggested contacts with the CPP rank and file
with the aim of exposing “the evils of careerism” and the lack of democratic
centralism “experienced by those who tried to criticize [the leaders] and
were consequently expelled from their ranks.” Interestingly, the author
called upon the PKP to “Discredit the Leadership but not the Organization
per se.” In order to strengthen the PKP’s own groups, the party should
“study the errors of our style of work and adopt proven methods p racticed
successfully in other organizations even if they happen to be not o u r
own.” Finally, the document challenged the party to “(s)how the need for
an indigenous system adaptable to the objective realities obtaining in the
country taking into consideration the geographic condition, traditions and
temperament of our people, instead of following blindly a foreign pattern
say of Peking or Moscow.” Such a proposition may, however, have received
short shrift at such a time, when the Sino-Soviet dispute was at its height
and an openly Maoist party had captured the initiative.
In line with the general secretary’s PT, the July 1971 issue of A ng
Komunista announced that it was now a widely circulated journal o n
current affairs and that in due course a journal “bearing a different nam e
will take over its original function as the Party’s theoretical organ.”38 This
was somewhat contradicted by the fact that the contents of Ang Komunista
continued to be more appropriate for a theoretical journal. In the July
issue, for example, an article entitled “PKP Calls for Unity” referred to
the Political Transmission issued that month— which would have b een
received by cadres only. Interestingly, the article made it clear that unity o f
the left could not be achieved on the basis of compromises on questions
of principle, but that this did not constitute “an insurmountable obstacle
to united action on specific issues and for goals that are common to all
groups on the Left.”
The January 1972 issue of the journal carried a ten-page printed
supplement entided “Ideological Dispute between Maoism and the
International Communist Movement.” This was written in response to a
CPP document entided “On the Lavaite Misrepresentation of the Proletarian
Foreign Policy of China,” itself a reply to an article on “ping pong diplomacy”
which Ang Komunista had carried in July 1971. The supplement drew
attention to the inconsistent approach demonstrated by Maoism to the
concept of peaceful coexistence, the objectively pro-imperialist foreign
policy of post-Cultuial Revolution China, the Soviet aid granted to China
in earlier years and to developing countries currendy, the reasons for the
Warsaw Pact intervention in Czechoslovakia in 1968, and Beijing’s claims to
world hegemony.
This issue also ran a story satirically recounting how, after Vigan and
neighboring towns had been raided by fifty armed men in December 1971,
acting governor Villanueva of llocos Sur had urged Marcos to declare martial
law Later, however, it transpired that the raids had been conducted by the
Nacionalista Private Army (as contrasted to Ninoy’s Private Army, better

known as the New People’s Army which was forced to deny any form of
activity in the Marcos-controlled territory). The purpose, it seemed, was to
give credence to the President’s overblown estimate of NPA strength, as
well as to make things difficult for incoming Governor-Elect Singson who
belongs to Ninoy’s opposition.
In the light of events later that year, this would prove of some historical
interest.
N o tes
1. See William J. Pomeroy, Bilanggo (Quezon City: University of the Philippines

Press, 2009).
2. Struggle, vol. 3, no. 1, January 1971.
3. Ibid.
5. Ibid.; Socialist Party of the Philippines, “Program for a People’s Democracy,”
Political Review, nos. 2-3, April-May 1971.
6. Eduardo Lachica, Huk: Philippine Agrarian Society in Revolt (Manila:
Solidaridad, 1971), 222-24. See also William Chapman, Inside the Philippine
Revolution: The New People’s Army and Its Strugglefo r Power (New York: W.W.
Norton & Co., 1987), 79; Gregg R. Jones, Red Revolution: Inside the Philippine
Guerrilla Movement (Boulder: Westview Press, 1989), 36.
7. Mario Frunze, “Marxism-Leninism and Revolutionary Quixoticism,” Ang
Komunista, vol. 2, no. 1, February 1971.
8. Katherine Weekley, The Communist Party o f the Philippines, 1968-1993: A
Story o f Its Theory and Practice (Quezon City: University of the Philippines
Press), 27. Weekley does not appear to have sought the PKP view (other than
interviewing former member “Dodong” Nemenzo) or to have consulted PKP
materials on any of the issues under discussion.
9. Pedro Baguisa, interview by the author, January 2008.

10. Vivencio Jose, interview by the author, January 2008.
11. Lachica, Huk, 192. Nemenzo says that the MDP was initially formed by people
associated with neither the PKP nor the CPP and, having disappeared soon
after its founding, was revived after the demonstration on January 30, 1970
(Francisco Nemenzo Jr., interview by the author, September 21, 2008).
12. Struggle, January 1971; Nemenzo interview.
13- Struggle, January 1971.
14. Jorge Maravilla, “Philippines: Results, Difficulties, Prospects,” World M arxist
Review, December 1970.
15. Francisco Balagtas, “The Philippines at the Crossroads,” World Marxist Review,
December 1970.
16. Francisco Balagtas, “Maoists in the Philippines,” World Marxist Review, June
1973.
17. Editorial, Struggle, July 1971.
18. Francisco Balagtas, “Maoists in the Philippines.”
19. Struggle, July 1971.
20. Jorge Maravilla, “40 Years of Struggle,” Ang Komunista, vol. 2, no. 1, February
1971.
22. James B. Goodno, The Philippines: Land of Broken Promises (London: Zed
Books, 1991), 61.
23. Benjamin Pimentel Jr., Edjop: The Unusual Journey of Edgar Jopson (Quezon
City: KEN Incorporated, 1989), 74.
25. See Jones, Red Revolution, chapter 5. This claim was later reinforced by former
senator Jovito Salonga, one of the Plaza Miranda victims, in his A Journey o f
Struggle and Hope (Quezon City: UP Center for Leadership, Citizenship and
Democracy/Regina Publishers, 2001).
27. Former PKP leader, interview by the author, January 1990.
28. Ibid.
29. Ibid.
31. Nemenzo interview. Jesus Lava confirms that “we were inclined to take more
positions on various issues that coincided with the Chinese side." See Jesus
Lava, Memoirs o f a Communist (Pasig City: Anvil Publishing Corp., 2002), 322.
32. The Pomeroys played a continuing role on the international front. In 1971, at a
meeting in Moscow between Jose Lava, the Pomeroys, and two others, it was
C h a p t e r 5: Pa r t y a g a in st Pa r t y 12 1
decided to establish an international committee outside of the Philippines as

an arm of the party’s international department. (This account is based upon
an internal party memo—William and Celia Pomeroy, “The Conflict between
Jose Lava and William and Celia Pomeroy,” internal PKP memo, c. 1985.) This
would consist of Lava, who would be the party’s representative on the Prague-
based World Marxist Review, and the Pomeroys, but when general secretary
Felicisimo Macapagal appointed Celia Pomeroy to lead the committee, Lava was
bitter. The Pomeroys say that although the arrangement worked satisfactorily
for the first few years, Lava “violated procedure” from the very start, failing to
provide the annual reports on his work required by Celia and on one occasion,
with no consultation, writing a conciliatory letter to the Communist Party of
China (the Pomeroys learned of this from the Soviets and were able to stop its
transmission).
In prison, Lava had been consistendy hostile toward Pomeroy, primarily
because he disagreed with the former’s assessment that victory in the Huk
struggle was still possible, indeed inevitable, and eventually Pomeroy was
accused of having cooperated with the military intelligence service (MIS).
Now, although serving with the Pomeroys on the international committee,
Lava began to warn party members not to visit them in London on “security
grounds.” After the international committee was charged with the responsibility
of preparing a history of the party, Lava responded to Pomeroy’s draft chapter
on the postwar struggle (which took issue with the line pursued by Lava as
general secretary) by reviving his “MIS” allegation. Matters came to a head at a
meeting in Moscow in 1981 when, say the Pomeroys, they spent half the night
berating Lava. Unable to reply to their criticisms, he then began circulating
the allegation that William Pomeroy was working with the CIA. The Pomeroys
wrote to general secretary Felicisimo Macapagal describing the problem and
suggesting that the international committee be disbanded. This was agreed by
the politburo.
33. Editorial, Ang Komunista, vol. 2, no. 1, February 1971.
34. General Secretary, PKP, Political Transmission, July 1971.
35. PKP Politburo, “Boycott the 1971 Elections,” Political Transmission, 1971.
36. Ang Komunista, vol. 2, no. 5, November 1971.
37. PKP, “Few Guidelines for the Propaganda Team ” date unknown.
38. Editorial, Ang Komunista, vol. 2, no. 4, July 7, 1971. Although a more frequent
version of Ang Komunista began to appear, the new theoretical journal failed
to materialize, and thus confusingly this continued under the same name,
volume 2, number 5, appearing in November 1971, i.e., after several issues of
the shorter, more popular version.
C h a pter 6 :
T h e M a rxist -L enin ist G r o u p
Although the PKP had decided in the 1950s to end its armed struggle in
pursuit of state power, it had retained armed units. Whereas some remnants
of the HMB had slid into banditry, others who resisted this temptation had
found, in the mid-1960s, that they needed to defend themselves against
Sumulong and other gangsters. Then in 1965-67 armed propaganda units
were formed, and a little later armed activity was thought an appropriate
response to attacks by the NPA. But a statement appearing in 1972 gave the
impression that armed struggle was once more the order of the day and
that the HMB had expanded into a national force.
On March 29, 1972, the thirtieth anniversary of the founding of the
Hukbalahap, a document entitled “Manifesto of the HMB” was purportedly
issued by the “GHQ, National Staff’ of the HMB, and duly reprinted in Ang
Komunista} According to this document, the PKP had earlier ordered the
remnants of the former HMB to fight the forces of Sumulong. “Failing to
rectify the organization from within because of Sumulong’s deadly reprisals,
they decided to break away in 1967 and form a real people’s army. The true
HMB did not die and instead perseveres until final victory is achieved.” This
“new HMB” had then liquidated Councilor Serrano, a politician on whose
behalf Sumulong had broken strikes, “in a daring raid of the Angeles City
Hall. They killed Sumulong’s men and cleared his hideouts.” Sumulong’s
122
C h a p t e r 6: T h e M a r x is t -L e n in is t G r o u p i 23
gang was then further weakened by the defection of those who joined
Sison’s NPA.
Meanwhile, the IIMB continued to scientifically launch a series of

\
successful operations. They crushed the Soriamont landgrabbing squads
in Quezon province. They liquidated known characters responsible for the
murder of revolutionary leaders. They ambushed fascist units and convoys
laden with supplies. In the cities, the former People’s Revolutionary Front
bombed the main offices of ESSO and CALTEX during the height of the oil
strikes in January 1971. They did the same to JUSMAG [Joint US Military
Assistance Group] in Quezon City, the Thomas Jefferson Library, the
Manila Hotel (site of the Constitutional Convention), and other tools and
symbols of American imperialism. Their latest project was the bombing of
the ARCA Building owned by Antonio Roxas-Chua, vice-chairman of the
Philippine Statehood, USA and the biggest individual contributor to the
recent World Anti-Communist League Conference held in Manila.
The statement concluded by making rather dramatic claims for the

“new HMB.”
Since the revolutionary forces are rapidly spreading throughout the

country, it was decided to place all PKP-led armed groups under one
central command. In a meeting held in January of this year, the HMB
under Commander Diwa [Mariano de Guzman], the PRF under Commander
Maring [Romulo de Guzman, no relation] and a naval force based in
Mindanao were united under the banner of the HMB.
At present, the HMB again has hundreds of men and weapons. Its
range of operations is no longer limited to Central Luzon but spreads to
North and Southern Luzon, the Visayas and Mindanao. The true army of
the people will surely win! Imperialism will surely be crushed! Those who
lived off the blood and sweat of the working people will surely be wiped
out!
SUPPORT THE HMB AND THE STRUGGLE FOR PEOPLE’S
DEMOCRACY!
There was, however, rather less to this document than met the eye.
Magallona says that the People’s Revolutionary Front was not constituted by
the PKP itself but by Francisco Nemenzo Jr. “After he was denied authority
to maintain (an urban guerrilla] group, he asked official permission to

organize a revolutionary front. That was denied . . . but he did follow
his plan to maintain a guerrilla group. That was the major issue for his
expulsion.”2 A cadre close to the leadership at the time claims that the
“Manifesto" was the work of Commander Diwa and Nemenzo, and that
some of the deeds claimed for the “new HMB” existed merely “in the
imagination of Nemenzo.” There was no “naval force based in Mindanao.”
Nemenzo, however, says that the document was the work of “a young
cadre, a staffer of Ang Kom unista . . .” Conceding that the HMB at this
time had no presence in Mindanao, he recalls: “Utterly frustrated by the
complacency of the PKP leaders while the Maoist CPP was showing great
dynamism, the young cadres in Manila indulged in daydreaming, confusing
hopes with reality. I don’t remember authorizing the publication o f this
draft Manifesto. If I did, it was a big mistake.”3
Dizon says that Nemenzo was one of the leading protagonists in th e
inner-party struggle that was taking place in this period. “It was really
between the intellectuals and the peasants— the peasant leaders, and th e
intellectuals led by Nemenzo.”4 This struggle would result, shortly after th e
declaration of martial law, in Nemenzo taking his increasing emphasis o n
armed struggle to its logical conclusion.
The signs that a problem was in the offing had been there for over a
year, particularly in the content of Ang Komunista, which Nemenzo edited.
For example, the February 1971 issue ran an article on the “Diliman
Commune.” A student occupation of the University of the Philippines’
Diliman campus had been marked by theft and vandalism and, once the
students gained control of the radio transmitter, rival organizations w ere
pilloried. Although the article5 drew attention to these negative aspects o f
the occupation, it began by referring glowingly to “a few hundred students,
armed with nothing but sheer courage and small explosives,” and drew
the conclusion that “urban guerrilla warfare has not becom e altogether
C h a p t e r 6: T h e M a r x is t -L e n in is t G r o u p 12 5
obsolete. Properly planned, skilfully executed and linked with broad mass
action, it remains a potent form of struggle against the oppressive neo
colonial system.” The article continued:
Tailism is a cardinal offence in a Communist Party. Comrades know this

well, and yet instances have been reported to the PKP Politburo, when local
Party organs play the role of brakes rather than accelerators and steering
wheels to the mass movement. They restrain the militancy and stifle the
initiative of the resurgent youth . . . The current drive to weed out Right-
opportunist attitudes in Party cadres must be pushed with greater vigor.
This article represented an attempt to encourage the PKP to strive for

greater militancy than the CPP. In the absence of an in-depth analysis and
a program around which the party could unite, however, such an approach
amounted to the very thing which the author inveighed against— tailism,
albeit a leftist tailism for which the CPP set the pace. More than that, the
article was a sign that all was not well in the party and that a further
split was on the way, for the content of Ang Komunista did not always
reflect party policy. (When asked if he recalled the real name of the “Aurora
Evangelista” who had authored the Diliman Commune article, Nemenzo
cheerfully replied this may have been one of his pen names at the time.)6
Nemenzo disagreed with the party’s assessment of the First Quarter Storm
and, therefore, with the party line.
They Ithe PKP] had this slogan, which was more Mao than Lenin, and
which in English meant “The city is the cemetery of the revolution.” So [they
thought] the First Quarter Storm was artificially fomented, masterminded
by the US and intended to surface the genuine revolutionaries, meaning
ourselves. I had a different view. I thought it was the city that was boiling
and that we had to be part of this upheaval. Most of the more militant cadres
we had came from the city. There was no growth in Central Luzon—they
were just reactivating old cadres . . . 7
The same issue of Ang Komunista carried an article entided “Marxism-

Leninism and Revolutionary Quixoticism.” This was written by Nemenzo
under the pen name “Mario Frunze” and recounted the manner in which
Sison had broken away from the PKP and formed the CPP and NPA an d , in
passing, stated:
We uphold the principle of combining parliamentary and armed struggle:

the exact combination depends, of course, on the prevailing political
situation . . . Unluckily for those inveterate liars [Sison and the CPP], the
present PKP leadership fully appreciates the necessity of continuing illegal
work and the obligatory task of building a people’s army for a people’s
war.8
Further on, while stressing that open legal struggle should be th e

primary form in the current conditions, “Frunze” stated that “armed struggle
must be waged even today, but it occupies a secondary and subsidiary
role in relation to the parliamentary struggle.” The author concluded by
warning that
we ought not to be complacent ourselves. Dogmatism of another variety

is manifest in some sections of our Party: the tendency to underrate the
significance of the recent upsurge of activism and stick to the political line
that we adopted in the late 1950s and early 1960s . . . There are comrades
who, consciously or unconsciously, use our arguments against the Mao
Thought Party to justify their fear of a political explosion, their reluctance
to move forward, their dread of personal sacrifices, and their failure to
overcome the hangover of defeat . . . If left unchecked, they will cause
us to lag behind the swift flow of events and alienate ourselves from the
awakened masses . . .
At this stage of the struggle, the Party must discard obsolete forms
and methods of work in order to take advantage of the rapidly developing
revolutionary situation. At the same time, if we fail to take decisive actions
to purge our own ranks of Rightist deviations, we shall not succeed in
purging the entire movement of Left adventurist errors.
To a certain extent, some of the views in this article may have been
expressions of the author’s own “revolutionary quixotism,” but it would also
appear that there was a distinct lack of clarity within the PKP concerning its
line on armed struggle. While the party had abandoned its armed struggle
for state power in the 1950s, it had more recently formed armed propaganda
C h a p t e r 6 : T h e M a r x is t - L e n in is t G r o u p i 27
units and some of its members were clearly engaged in bombing activities
in the capital. It certainly seemed that limited armed activity was now being
encouraged, for in a further article in the issue of Ang Komunista to which
we have just referred, William Pomeroy (usually no ultraleftist), writing under
the name of “Jorge Maravilla,” listed the main tasks of the PKP in the current
period as being the strengthening of the working-class core of the party
while also expanding organization among the peasantry, the intelligentsia
and the middle class, placing greater emphasis on ideological work among
both members and the masses, extending and strengthening ties with the
international communist movement and liberation movements and
preparation and development of the most varied forms of struggle, legal

and illegal, peaceful and armed, in order to involve the broadest possible
masses of the people in the fight for genuine national freedom and to meet
any eventuality forced on the people by a desperate imperialism . . . 9
Undoubtedly, the PKP was host to a certain degree of confusion arising

from the fact that it had not held a congress since 1946, and because it was
finding it difficult to impose collective discipline due to its illegal status.
Furthermore, the impression was given that the PKP believed at this stage
that fundamental— indeed, revolutionary— change was possible within a
relatively short space of time. There can be little doubt that the positive
characteristics in the current situation were being greatly exaggerated. This
confused situation contributed to the development of what became known
as the Marxist-Leninist Group.
According to Nemenzo, once Marcos had declared martial law in

September 1972,
the PKP leaders had scampered for safety without leaving a trace of their
whereabouts. In this state of utter confusion, militant branches took the
initiative and began acting on their own. Between September and early
December 1972 there was a flurry of rank-and-file activities, which showed

the enormous reserve of creativity and resourcefulness that the old party’s
bureaucratic structure had stunted for years.
Then, says Nemenzo, the party’s general secretary “emerged from

hibernation” to issue a Political Transmission entided “New Situation, N ew
Tasks,” which criticized the suspension of civil rights but supported positive
features of the martial law regime such as land reform and the dismantling
of private armies. The document identified the main targets of martial law as
being the Maoists, “clerico-fascists,” and alleged CIA agents such as Aquino.
With regard to the first of these, the PT stated: “We should even help them
[the Marcos government] to annihilate the Maoists.”10 (Interviewed by the
author, however, Nemenzo now says that document merely advised that
“we should lie low and let the government thrash the Maoists.”11)
Nemenzo has written that the “lie low” approach led to a further w ave
of splits. “The internal debates became so acrimonious that the leadership
reverted to the familiar Stalinist technique of conflict-resolution; namely, to
kidnap, torture and execute the dissenters after forcing them to sign false
confessions.” This type of “conflict resolution" involved, claims Nemenzo,
the purging of a number of tendencies from the PKP: “anarcho-Trotskyites,”
“Che G u e v a ris ts “Marighellaists,” “crypto-Maoists.”12 Elsewhere, Nemenzo
refers to the PKP’s “brutal methods of handling internal disputes” and to “a
series of defections.”13
In fact, the terms which Nemenzo employs to describe these puiged
tendencies were used by the PKP to describe merely one faction— that
led by himself; and while the issue would appear to have been resolved
with a measure of brutality by the PKP, rather more than a mere “internal
dispute” was involved. In 1975, the PKP would publish a detailed account
of the split by the Marxist-Leninist Group (MLG) in an article in a party
journal entitled Ang Buklod.H This does not refer to Nemenzo by name,
referring instead to the leader of the MLG as having been head of the
PKP’s education department— the position occupied by Nemenzo prior to
his expulsion.
C h ap ter 6 : The M arxist-L en in ist G roup i 29
According to this article, the MLG was initially composed of “a number

of intellectual and lumpen elements. Failing to impose their adventurist
policy of all-out armed struggle through foco guerrillaism, this grouping
made elaborate plans to subvert the Party by splittist activities both from
within and without, all of which were roundly repulsed.” The head of
the party’s education department is described as having always been the
strongest supporter of armed struggle within the leadership “and even
favored the use of terrorist tactics,” having become “enamoured with the
idea of using Guevarist urban and rural guerrilla tactics.” Shortly before
martial law, he had obtained a book by Carlos Marighella, the Brazilian
communist expelled from the Brazilian CP in 1967 for “unqualified espousal
of armed struggle and the creating of ‘revolutionary centers.’” Immediately
after the declaration of martial law, it is alleged that Nemenzo relinquished
his office as head of the education department “and embarked on the task
of creating an independent military command in the city by assuming
leadership of the urban guerrilla front then existing.” Copies of a chapter
of Marighella’s book were circulated among the YCL (which Nemenzo
effectively led) and this urban guerrilla force. “Because of communication
difficulties at that time, the latter were led to believe that these actuations
were all part of an official policy laid down by the Party.”
Pastor Tabinas—who, as “Commander Soliman,” led the urban guerrilla
force—confirms much of this: “Nemenzo was my close friend at that time.
I had noticed he was somewhat adventurist, and he always adhered to
guerrilla warfare. He gave me a book on Marighella. If you read it, it is
terrorism.” Tabinas says that, as Nemenzo and Danilo Pascual were the only
members of the politburo left in the capital, “I had no one else to talk with,
as everyone else was already hiding.”15
Nemenzo and the group around him set about securing arms. Later,
the account in Ang Buklod would accuse the group of having obtained
these by the forging of “a dubious ‘united front’ with a notorious right-wing
warlord family in the North,” but Magallona claims that arms were also
received from a top executive of a foreign company.16 Nemenzo, denying
any assistance from a foreign company or the existence of a “united front”
with any warlord, puts a rather different complexion on his acquisition o f

arms.
We were able to raid the house of one of the warlords in Ilocos.’ An

executive of the company owned by the family—this is the Crisologo
family—was a friend of mine. After martial law was declared, I was the
only one [PB member] left here [in Manila], so I had to take the initiative. I
said we are going to form an army, so we have to procure arms. Everybody
had to go out and collect arms. And then I visited this friend. I knew that
he had weapons, his own personal collection. Marcos had issued a decree
that all weapons, registered or unregistered, should be surrendered by a
certain day, and that failure to do so was punishable by death by firing
squad. People were scared, turning over their weapons. So I went to see
him and said, “Presumably you’re going to give up those guns, so can you
leave them with me?” He agreed, because he wanted to get them out of his
house. Then he said, “Do you want some more?” He said, “You provide a
vehicle and 1 will show you the armory of Crisologo, as he has instructed
me to surrender all of them.” So I was able to get a PLDT (Philippine Long
Distance Telephone] van and he gave me a sketch of the house. He said
there were only two people there, the caretaker and his wife, and they
were old. His only request was that we did not harm them, and make
it appear as a raid. So wef had to tie the couple up and put them in the
toilet, and we collected all the arms. Some were very modem, taken from
Vietnam. The PKP insisted that I turn them over to the party, but I thought,
you have no intention of fighting, so why should I turn them over to you?
And that became a problem. I thought, if we have more equipment than
people, we might as well turn the surplus over to the NPA, because at
least they are fighting.18
In October 1972, an enlarged meeting of the PKP secretariat, to which

Nemenzo was invited, was called. Nemenzo is of the view that this cam e
about because party leaders, having learned of his successful weapons-
• Pastor Tabinas also recalls collecting arms from a house in Valenzuela. “Since we could
not carry them all, and there were checkpoints everywhere in the city, we buried most o f
them . . . In three days and three nights we buried about a thousand arms.”17
t Nemenzo, who did not himself take part in the raid, is referring here to his MLG
comrades.
C h a p t e r 6 : T h e M a r x is t - L e n in is t G r o u p 13 1
harvest, intended to relieve him of its fruits. Ang Buklod claims that at the
secretariat meeting Nemenzo proposed the adoption of armed struggle as
the main form of activity. Furthermore, the article alleges that he suggested
that the Marcos reform program should be stopped and that Marcos should
be prevented from consolidating his power by means of such reforms,
as the people might be won over to him. His motion was defeated, the
secretariat pointing out that “military adventures would only tend to isolate
the Party from the largely unpoliticized masses.” Macapagal recalled the
painstaking work of rebuilding the party which had taken place since the
1950s, activity which was now threatened “by the subjective and voluntarist
decision to ‘seize the action and the initiative from the Maoists!’” Nemenzo
was severely censured for his activities during the preceding months
and for “unilaterally assuming tasks and interfering in the work of other
comrades, participating in the military and organizational work of other
departments. He supported the un-Marxist ‘old versus youth,’ ‘conservative
versus radical’ dichotomy peddled by some elements in the Party, a clear
resurrection of Jose Maria Sison’s thesis . . .”
Nemenzo claims in fact, that this secretariat meeting never actually
took place, but that he traveled to Aliaga, Nueva Ecija, with the intention
of exploring “the possibility of reconciling our [the MLG’s] line with the
rural warfare line to which the leaders continued giving lip service.” Upon
arrival, general secretary Felicisimo Macapagal and organization secretary
Federico Maclang advised him that the meeting would be held in a
mountain area, whereupon Nemenzo began to suspect that the intention
was to detain him in order to thwart the urban guerrilla project. “It was
then,” he says, “that I decided to escape.” The PKP, however, insists that the
meeting went ahead— in Aliaga rather than the mountains— and that when
Nemenzo insisted on returning to Manila for Christmas he was warned
by Macapagal that he risked arrest by the authorities; when Nemenzo
could not be swayed, Macapagal provided him with an escort as far as
Cabanatuan City.19
Back in Manila, the two MLG members who had accompanied
Nemenzo to Aliaga, only to be disarmed and sent back to the capital, told
13 2 A M o vem en t D iv id e d
him that they had been interrogated regarding the location of the MLG’s
arms. “It was only at this point,” says Nemenzo, “that the MLG core g ro u p
decided to secede from the PKP and form a separate organization.”
Regardless of disagreements over detail, it was clear that the leader

of the MLG had been rebuffed by the PKP leadership, and he now set
about attempting to mobilize support among the youth of Manila and
among “Party members stationed in the South which the Party leadership
had failed to contact due to the difficulties of the period.” In a docum ent
entitled “Where to Begin?” the MLG leader argued:
We are Leninists and Leninism implies struggle . . . Unlike the conservatives

who have lost their revolutionary fervor, we are still full of drive and our
will to fight is unbending. A revolutionary must be passionate or he will
never have the strength to break the system . . .
We have lost faith in the Party, but we will never lose faith in the
Revolution. We get out of the Party precisely because we want to continue
the fight for people’s democracy and socialism. The Party has turned its
back at the Revolution, so we turn our back at the Party to be loyal to the
Revolution.
Breaking away from the Party is not a simple process of getting
together a handful of revolutionary communists and forming a new
organization that will seize the vanguard role by revolutionary action
rather than by vapid references to historical continuity. Our most urgent
tactical responsibility is to win to our side as many comrades as possible,
and leave only the cowards and opportunists to pursue their capitulationist
line. Here we must not be impulsive. We plan and struggle, we plan for
struggle. And the first phase is to struggle prior to open separation Ifrom
the PKP].20
Three stages were oudined with regard to the MLG’s struggle against
the PKP leadership— struggle within, an open break, and, finally, the
launching of a revolutionary war. With regard to the latter,
C h a p t e r 6 : T h e M a r x is t - L e n in is t G r o u p 13 3
[t]he expeditionary force, having undergone intensive re-education and

military training, leaves for our strategic operational zone. There we
open a new front. . . the new revolutionary army will declare war on the
dictatorship with a series of daring but well-executed guerrilla assaults.
The urban guerrilla force that stayls] in Manila will respond with a series
of raids at well-calculated targets.
After this will be the long drawn out phase of consolidating and
gradually extending the revolutionary war. New strategic operational
zones will be opened.21
In its assessment published two years later, the PKP pointed out that
the document failed to make mention of the “alignment of class forces by
which any revolution is shaped” or of the need for a vanguard party to base
its tactics on the working class. Like the Maoists and the Guevarists in Latin
America, the MLG saw revolution “being made through the sheer will of a
group of armed fighters, not through the collective and organized action
of the masses under specific objective conditions . . .” The PKP also drew
attention to the irony contained in the fact that Lenin’s own article entitled
“Where to Begin?” had argued against terrorist tactics. “Lenin, in fact,
warned against ‘the dangers of rupturing the contact between revolutionary
organizations and the disunited masses’ through misplaced ‘heroic blows,’
through ‘becoming infatuated with tenor.’”
Within the PKP, the MLG’s aim was to whip up opposition to the
leadership by a variety of means. The group’s adherents were urged to
“arouse rank and file discontent with the capitulationist line of avoiding
armed struggle,” to “distribute materials contrary to that line,” and to
“operate secretly inside” the party, forming “a Revolutionary Communist
Party (let’s think about the name later).” While there might be an open
split with the PKP, MLG supporters were instructed to “see to it that some
of our cadres will remain in the Party as our infiltrators,” while the MLG
itself would “undertake an intensive re-education program emphasizing the
armed struggle and train our own guerrilla force.” Secrecy was to be of
paramount importance, with cadres being urged to cultivate “prospects” but
to “never drop hints of an internal revolt to your prospect,” asking instead if
“there is no limit to democratic centralism.” Those prospects who remained
indecisive “should immediately be reported to the organizing com m ittee,”

while “those who refuse to join should be reported” and “placed u n d e r
close surveillance.” Should a prospect “express unflinching loyalty to th e
Party,” cadres were instructed to “coerce him to keep his mouth shut.”22
In view of these instructions, the complaint regarding the PKP’s reversion
to the “familiar Stalinist technique of conflict-resolution” can be seen in
perspective.
Nemenzo says that the first phase of the MLG’s arms-collection drive
had “succeeded beyond our expectations” and “we were able to build up a
big arsenal in a few weeks.” Collecting arms was one thing, however, and
using them another. The planned attacks on key points in Manila did not
occur “because most MLG comrades had no combat experience whatever. I
was shocked to learn that many of them had never fired a gun. There had
to be an intermediate stage: military training.” Between October and his
arrest in December, Nemenzo devoured books— even novels— on military
matters and began drafting a training manual on urban guerrilla warfare.
“Col. Perez, my interrogator, was quite impressed by the manuscript. H e
thought I learned the tricks from the KGB. He was disappointed when I
gave the titles of the novels from where I got them.”23 It is clear from this
that the enterprise was doomed to failure.
The arms were discovered in raids by the military and Nemenzo and
others were arrested. According to Magallona,
some of our comrades were arrested and tortured and one of them, the
head of our partisan committee, later admitted that the plan was hatched
by Nemenzo . . . He involved our city partisan committee, representing
that it was on the basis of a decision by the party. So he used his comrades
to store arms, burying them. This was discovered by the military and the
next day it hit the headlines: “PKP Arms Caches Unearthed Preparatory to
Attack on City!”24
Ang Buklod alleged that even after his detention by the martial law
authorities Nemenzo continued to direct “the activities of the elements he
left in the city who blindly continued with his plans of splittism. The Party
firmly rebuffed their violent designs and found out that some of their most
C hapter 6: T he M arxist -L eninist G roup 135
active members were actually agents planted by the military.”24 (Nemenzo,

however, says that while he may have wanted to direct the MLG from his
prison cell, he was in solitary confinement, where the only visitor allowed
was his sister, and it would have been “too dangerous to use her as a link
with comrades outside.”)26 The same article stated that “honest ^members”
who had genuinely been misled and who renounced their association
with the “super-revolutionary” were readmitted to the party. Nemenzo
himself was expelled. Ruben Torres says that, as “chairman of the urban
committee,” he was in charge of resolving the “Nemenzo problem,” and he
therefore “asked for troops.”
These were from Bulacan, Pampanga and Laguna—brave young fighters

but not as well-versed in guerrilla tactics as the cadets with Nemenzo.*
However, the struggle between him and me ended with me recovering
the armed cadres he had taken with him as well as the youth groups. I
also won back the trade-unionists who had gone off with him. After all, I
was the head of the trade union department. I even got back Commander
Soliman [Pastor Tabinas] and his staff.271
The argument put forward by Torres was that armed struggle in the
capital was futile, as there was no support in, and thus no possibility of
retreat to, the countryside* because the party had adopted a strategy of
parliamentary struggle and, with Marcos’s adoption of land reform, the
peasantry could see no point in armed struggle.30
• Nemenzo had, as we have seen, a different view of the abilities o f his troops.
t Nemenzo comments: “To some extent this is true. He ‘recovered’ a few o f the faint
hearted after they murdered the best cadres of the Marxist Leninist Group. Most o f those
who survived the Stalinist purge simply dropped out o f the m ovem ent. . .”28
$ “Looking back,” Nemenzo says, “I concede that our plan for urban guerrilla warfare
(without a rural base) was adventurist. It even deviated from the strategy o f Carlos
Marighella, which regarded the uiban areas merely as an arena for tactical operations
but emphasized die need for rural bases where urban guerrillas could seek refijge after
an operation. We were driven by a sense o f urgency. We thought (wrongly in retrospect)
that the newborn dictatorship could be prevented from consolidating by scaring off the
foreign investors and tourists. Doing nothing, just hiding or lying low would allow him
[Marcos] to consolidate and we thought it was an urgent task to prevent it.”29
What of Nemenzo’s claims of the kidnap, torture, and murder o f MLG

members by the PKP? In this, he is supported by Sison, who alleges that n o
less than twenty-seven members of the MLG were “tortured and m urdered”
and that in this task the PKP used “Danilo Pascual and Federico Maclang as
chief butchers.”31 According to sources who were close to the leadership o f
the PKP at the time, Pascual was actually in prison at this stage and M aclang
was, as we have seen, head of the party’s Organizational Department.* O n e
such source admits to at least some fatalities.
Many of them were released and they’re now in the Party. But there was
an encounter involving about four or five people in Bulacan. I think they
[Nemenzo and Sison] are referring to the five who were armed and when
there was a demand that they lay down their arms they would not. As a
matter of fact, two used their firearms.33
However, a former activist whose loyalty to the party could not b e

questioned admits that, in fact, a number of MLG members were shot a s
they lay in their beds.34
If this were all there was to it, we would be forced to agree that this
did, indeed, amount to a “Stalinist technique of conflict-resolution.” But
brutal tactics were not confined to the PKP, as we have already seen that
MLG cadres were instructed to use coercion against PKP loyalists. A PKP
cadre who joined the party some years after the MLG split claims: “Their
[the MLG’s] guns were pointed at us. They were trying to assassinate ou r
leaders.”35 This is supported by another PKP source who says that after
the anest of Nemenzo “his group carried on with their plan to split, to the
extent of attempting to liquidate some Party leaders who would not join
them.”36 According to Pastor Tabinas, “There was a plan to assassinate ‘all
Soon afier this, Maclang was removed from this position due to finance opportunism.
“Also,” says a PKP source, “many resented his haughtiness, especially his warped idea
about his being more revolutionary than others because he spent a long time as a
political prisoner. A number of comrades also criticized his habit o f impressing upon
lower organs that he would visit that everything he says has the full backing o f the
Party General Secretary (he used to say, in Pilipino, that ‘I am wearing the shoes o f the
General Secretary’).”52
C hapter 6: T he M arxist -L eninist G roup 13 7
these old people’ [i.e., veteran leaders] as they were said to be cowards . . .
All those with an assignment to assassinate the leaders were annihilated.”37
Such situations are rarely black and white.
3
Following the MLG episode, the PKP clarified its position on violence
and revolution in two documents, which appeared in the second and third
issues of the journal Ang Organisador in 1973. The first of these, entitled
“On Violence,” argued:
Violence is a class issue and must be approached from the viewpoint

of the class struggle. Will use, misuse or non-use of violence advance
the cause of class struggle? A Marxist approaches the problem from all
sides and takes into consideration the perspective of the whole struggle,
i.e., the degree of class consciousness of the people inside and outside
the movement, the degree of class organization of the working class, the
strength of the enemy, the possibility of reaction and counter-revolution,
and the overall balance of class forces inside and outside a given country.38
The document combated the anarchist idea that increased repression

leads to increased militancy and political consciousness, pointing out that
more often the result is a descent into hopelessness and despair and the
isolation of the revolutionary movement.
Revolutionary work is not the spontaneous, isolated acts of braggadocio

or display of revolutionary enthusiasm only in seemingly dramatic and
sensational projects or events. Revolutionary work is the slow, patient and
difficult work with the masses in the firm belief that once the legions
of oppressed but disunited masses become organized, they can execute
an act more historic, more dramatic and more inspiring than all kinds of
palabas the anarchists and adventurers in our midst have in mind . . .
The second document, “On Revolution,” developed this theme further,

«'3 pointing out that revolution
1 38 A M o vem en t D iv id e d
is not a product of the conspiracy of a small group of revolutionaries. A

revolution, a working class revolution, if it must be worthy of the name
revolution, must be an act of millions, of the numberless masses of the
dispossessed and exploited classes in society. The role of the Communist
Party is not to make the revolution for the masses but to lead them along
the path of victory and socialism . . *
Revolution was not a single act but “a prolonged historical p ro cess,”

for which reason communist parties throughout the world adopted b oth
maximum and minimum programs, dialectically developing these in the
course of struggle.
To Trotskyites and anarchists . . . momentary or day-to-day successes

appear to be far more important than the ultimate goal. Bernstein, a
European revisionist severely criticized by Lenin, once said, “The movement
is everything, the ultimate aim is nothing" It is surprising to note that
some comrades, particularly from the ranks of the city lumpenproletariat
and the petty-bourgeois intellectuals, came out with a modified version of
this Bemsteinian catch-phrase as follows: “We are nothing, the movement
is everything." If we analyze this catch-phrase deeper, we will find the
romantic but dangerous premise that lives of the Movement’s people can
be sacrificed on the altar of struggles for momentary successes no matter
how unnecessary or avoidable . . .
The struggle against the MLG was not without its organizational
casualties. For example the recently formed YCL fell by the wayside as
its core was composed of those “who would go with Nemenzo, because
he was really the rallying point. It revolved around Ang Komunista. The
full-time writers were all young.”40 For presumably the same reason, Ang
Komunista failed to reappear. Nevertheless, despite and because of the
damage done by first the split by Sison and now that by the MLG, the party
had already embarked upon a process of ideological consolidation, a key
component of which would be the party’s sixth congress, held clandestinely
in Central Luzon in February 1973.41
C h ap ter 6 : The M arxist-L en in ist G roup 139
N otes
1. Ang Komunista, vol. 3, no. 2, March-April 1972.

2. Merlin Magallona, interview by the author, March 2009.
3. Francisco Nemenzo Jr. to Ken Fuller, October 21, 2009.
5. Aurora Evangelista, “The Positive and Negative Aspects of the ‘Diliman
Commune,’” Ang Komunista, vol. 2, no. 1, February 1971.
7. Ibid.
8. Mario Frunze, “Marxism-Leninism and Revolutionary Quixoticism.”
9. Jorge Maravilla, “Forty Years of Struggle.”
Jock and S. Vani (Hampshire, England: Gower, 1984), 84-85.
Jock and S. Vani (Hampshire, England: Gower, 1984), 84-85.
13. Francisco Nemenzo Jr., in The Philippines After Marcos, ed. R.J. May and
Francisco Nemenzo (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1985), 54.
14. PKP, “The Party’s Struggle against Ultra-Leftism under Martial Law,” Ang Buklod,
vol. 1, no. 1, February-March 1975.
15. Pastor Tabinas, interview by the author, March 2009.
16. Merlin Magallona, interview by the author, January 1990.
17. Tabinas interview.
19. Francisco Nemenzo Jr. to Ken Fuller, October 21, 2009, and Antonio Paris, in
discussion with the author, December 2009.
20. Marxist-Leninist Group, “Where to Begin?” quoted in PKP, “The Party’s Struggle
against Ultra-Leftism.”
21. Ibid.
22. Ibid.
24. Magallona interview, 1990.
25. Interviewed by the author, Nemenzo said he was unaware of this.
27. Nick Joaquin, A Kadre's Road to Damascus: The Ruben Torres Story (Quezon
City: Milflores Publishing, Inc., 2003), 104-5. Torres, who left the PKP shortly
after this, was executive secretary in the government of Fidel Ramos.
30. Joaquin, A Kadre's Road to Damascus, 105. Torres says that his assignment to
win back the Nemenzo supporters was in 1974. It is possible but doubtful that
this is correct, for by this time the back of the MLG had already been broken,
and Nemenzo had been arrested as early as Christmas 1972.
31. Jose Maria Sison, The Philippine Revolution: The Leader's View (New York:
Crane Russak, 1989), 79.
32. Edilberto Hao to the author, December 15, 2008.
33- Former leading PKP member, interview by the author, November 1989.
34. PKP activist, interview by the author, November 1989.
35. PKP activist, interview by the author, January 1990.
36. Edilberto Hao to the author, December 15, 2008.
37. Tabinas interview. Nemenzo points out that both he and Tabinas were in prison
“when the surviving MLG [members] allegedly planned these assassinations . . .
I personally have always abhorred the use of assassination as a means of
resolving principled difference[s]” (Francisco Nemenzo Jr. to Ken Fuller,
October 21, 2009).
38. Quoted in Ang Buklod, vol. 1, no. 1.
39. Quoted in ibid.
41. At the time, this was erroneously dubbed the Fifth Congress. However, the
next congress, held in 1977, was referred to as the seventh, thereby correcting
the error.
C h a pter 7 :
T h e S ix t h PKP C ongress
Preparations for a congress had been underway before the MLG

episode. Recalls one former leading PKP member:
The preparation took more than one year. Even before martial law was
declared there were discussions. The usual style of work is like this: the
secretariat holds discussions and maybe they will come out with concept
papers, working papers, and these are then submitted to the Politburo.
Then the PB will really work these up into a semi-final form for adoption
by the Central Committee. After the CC, the documents are brought down
to all levels. After discussion down there, they are brought up again to
see if there were comments and objections, etc. These are discussed,
with some suggestions being incorporated, others not. This, then, is the
document which will be presented at the Congress.1
Due to the fact that the party was still forced to operate in underground
conditions, however, the representation at the congress itself was less full
than it would otherwise have been.
The congress proper started with that discussion downstairs—this was

taken to be part of the congress because the congress could not be a big
one as it was underground. Not everybody could attend, but we wanted
as many members as possible to participate, so we counted the discussion
141
in the lower organs as constituting [part of] the congress. Then all this was
discussed and ratified by a representative few—only about four from each
organ would attend the Congress.2
The two major documents adopted by the congress were the forty-
six-page political resolution and the program. It is no exaggeration to say
that the first of these constituted the first thoroughgoing Marxist analysis
of Philippine society and its economy,* and therefore this chapter will
consider this at some length. In traditional Marxist fashion, the political
resolution began with the general (an analysis of the international
situation) and worked toward the particular (an analysis of the political
situation within the Philippines). The program was then based on these
analyses.
Like most other communist parties at this time, the PKP took an
optimistic view of the international situation, pointing to the growing
strength of the socialist camp, the national liberation movement and the
working-class movement in the major capitalist countries. As evidence of
the fact that the balance now appeared to be tilted against imperialism,
the party pointed to the growth of détente in Europe and the fact that US
President Nixon had visited both Moscow and Beijing. Both the strength o f
the socialist countries and inter-imperialist rivalry had led to a thawing o f
the Cold War and the extension of trade relations with socialist countries;
such factors had also resulted in disunity within NATO, while the South
East Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) was now “virtually defunct.” As on e
would expect, developments in China were not portrayed in a positive
light.
On the other hand, obstructing the advance of the world revolutionary

movement are the destructive policies of the Mao Tse-tung leadership
which are characterized by anti-Sovietism, petty-bourgeois revolutionism
and great-power chauvinism. The Maoist hostility towards the international
The inadequacies of llie PKP’s first program (193U) have been discussed in some depth by
this author in his Forcing the Pace: The Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas, From Foundation
to Armed Struggle, while the CPP’s Program fo r a People’s Democratic Revolution was an
attempt to bend Philippine reality to the requirements of Maoist dogma.
C h a p te r 7: T h e S ix t h PKP C o n g r e s s i 43
communist movement, and the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in

particular, is of great value to imperialism and a crime against the wodd
revolutionary movement. The support of the Maoist leadership to West
Pakistan’s massacre of the Bangladesh people and the apparent sadistic
glee of the Maoists in sending greetings to the Numeiry reactionary
leadership while the latter was engaged in the slaughter of communist and
working-class leaders in Sudan are enough demonstration of hypocrisy
and demagogy that spring from a shameless revisionism of Marxist-
Leninist theory and practice. The attempt of the Maoist leaders to impose
“the thoughts of Mao Tse-tung” on the national liberation movement has
reaped so far the mass murder of more than 500,000 communists and
patriots in Indonesia.3
The political resolution assigned considerable importance to the

development of inter-imperialist contradictions within the changed
international setting; in the struggle between Western Europe, Japan, and
the USA, the latter was seen as losing out in the “struggle for a redivision
of markets among the imperialist powers.”4 These contradictions had
led to a change from the previous form of their postwar relationship
with developing countries, whereby each had enjoyed “special bilateral
relations” with its former colonies, to one characterized by a collective
neocolonialist approach using institutions such as the World Bank, the
International Monetary Fund, and the Asian Development Bank. Indicative
of the flexibility of US imperialism, however, was its vigorous support
of transnational corporations in their drive to establish manufacturing
strongholds abroad, thus easing the USA’s balance of payments crisis; at
the same time, both in the USA and Japan, the relocation of branches
of industry to low-wage economies like the Philippines was driven by
rising trade union militancy at home. The national liberation process,
which in the 1960s had led to more than forty colonies gaining formal,
political independence, had now entered a new phase in which the
emphasis was on gaining economic independence, with the newly
independent countries facing a clear choice: “to follow the capitalist
path of development or take the intermediate steps towards socialist
development.”5 This in part explained why US imperialism in particular
supported the “export of capital to developing countries as a vehicle for

structuring them along (the lines of] private-enterprise capitalism.”6
To a certain extent, this process represented economic progress, fo r the
successful implanting or strengthening capitalist structures was d ep en d en t
upon “the elimination of outmoded institutions built by colonialism o f old,
insofar as they obstruct neocolonialism in the era of the new b a la n ce o f
world forces.” But the development of capitalist relations was
also necessary to imperialism to counteract the phase of national-liberation

struggle that seeks the revolutionary transformation of outmoded social
relations as a prerequisite to genuine progress. Such concessions to the
new states do not therefore run counter to the main imperialist object
of keeping them in a dependent status and retaining them as objects of
exploitation, but under changed conditions.7
This same process of neocolonial industrialization was seen as part

and parcel of “a new international division of labor in which the imperialist
powers specialize in ‘research and development intensive, high skill and
high technology dynamic industries,’ leaving to the developing countries
the ‘labor-intensive industries of relatively small optimum size.’”8
Turning to the situation in the Philippines, the resolution gave a
historical outline of the country’s economic development, remarking
that while capitalist relations grew to a limited extent during the US
colonial period, “on the whole US colonialism based itself on feudalism
as the mechanics of exploitation.”9 This situation continued in the
years immediately following World War II and the granting of formal
independence.
Free-trade arrangement of the colonial days was continued for 8 years

by the Bell Trade Act. The trade agreement between the two countries
expressly limited the benefits of the export quotas to processors,
exporters, asenderos and compradors who were already supplying the
US market in 1940. During the first year of the republic, the country was
under treaty obligation to export its entire exportable production of abaca,
copra and coconut oil exclusively to the US and impose no restriction
on such export. These arrangements reinforced the economic position
C hapter 7: T he S ixth PKP C ongress 14 5
of the landlord-comprador oligarchy and ensured its subservience to US

imperialist interests.10
Then, in the 1960s, the export-import trade between the Philippines and
the USA went into decline, with the USA increasing its direct investment,
and the basis of the relationship between the two countries was revised
as the backwardness, inefficiency, and corruption in the economy “began
to appear to US imperialism as inherited obstacles to its new schemes of
neocolonialism. In brief, the colonial socioeconomic base and the political
superstructure founded on it had become an impediment to the imperialist
policy of accelerating capitalist construction . . ”n This necessitated
“a martial law dictatorship . . . that would bring to fruition the reforms
demanded by foreign monopoly capital in the making of a modernized
neocolonial bourgeois society.”12
The situation was not entirely new for, as the resolution pointed out,
US imperialism’s earlier suggestions for fundamental reform—embodied in
the Hardie Report of 1952—had been shelved in favor of a tactical retreat
in order to maintain a solid anticommunist front in the face of the Huk
rebellion. The pressure for reform now, however, came from a whole
number of imperialist countries. In the 1960s, large loans by the IMF, the
World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, mainly for infrastructural
purposes, had prepared the Philippines for large-scale foreign investment;
by 1971 Japan’s direct investments totalled $73.7 million and by the
following year the same country had a 22 percent share of the Philippines’
external debt, while West European capital was also active in the country.
It should be clear from the above that the PKP had abandoned its
earlier characterization of the Philippine mode of production as “semi
colonial and semi-feudal” by conducting a fresh analysis. This is of
some importance, for it constituted a further major difference between
the PKP and the CPP. The PKP’s political resolution spelled out the new
characterization most clearly in the opening paragraphs of the final section,
subtided “The Present National Situation.”
The Philippines is a neocolonial country of dynamic capitalist development.

Its economy is in the main backward and deformed by colonial plunder.
146 A M ovem ent Divided
Its productive forces are largely underdeveloped. In the countryside, strong

survivals of feudalism and other forms of precapitalist modes of production
still predominate. In sugar haciendas and other big plantations where
[the] wage system [has] been introduced, feudal outlook characterizes the
personal relationship of employment.
Under the hegemony of finance capital, spearheaded by US
imperialism, the Philippines is vigorously being transformed from a
predominantly feudal country into a modem capitalist economy. Today it
is experiencing a tremendously rapid pace of capitalist buildup through
the instrumentality of the martial-law dictatorship. The country is fast
becoming the manufacturing base of labor-intensive products of US and
Japanese monopoly companies. Political agents and economic partners
of foreign monopoly capital, who are in control of the politicoeconomic
processes of the country, are on the campaign to make the Philippines
the base of financial imperialism in Asia. Ihe country’s economy is being
closely integrated to the industrial system of world capitalism, particularly
the industrial demands of US and Japanese imperialism.13
The document looked upon all government reforms, from land reform
to education, as having one end— the facilitation of the exploitation o f the
Philippines, its labor and natural resources, by foreign monopoly capitalism.
“The martial-law regime is the dictatorship of foreign monopoly capital.
It is the rule of imperialist finance capital that brings into fruition all the
trends of new economic and political domination set into motion by the
collective effort of the leading capitalist powers led by US imperialism.”14
This was part of an effort to restructure the Philippine economy.
Thus, instead of providing only raw materials and semiprocessed

agricultural products for the world capitalist market, as it was in the first
stage of foreign investments, the Philippine economy, or specifically
foreign monopoly capital in the Philippines, would also increasingly
produce low-cost component products, textile, electronic and other
technologically simple, labor-intensive manufactured goods, as well as
processed food products for the major capitalist countries.15
Moreover, these initiatives in the Philippines were also part of an

imperialist-fostered regional division of labor in Southeast Asia. “Neighboring
Chapter 7: The Sixth PKP Congress 147
countries are being fashioned into complementary units, forming an

integral part of the industrial structure of the major capitalist powers,
particularly the US and Japan.”16 Within the Philippines, this strategy “opens
the way to limited expansion of the productive forces, changes the form of
exploitation of the masses and realigns the position of social classes.”17
For one thing, albeit within limits, unemployed rural workers would
be absorbed into the new industries, thereby accelerating the growth of
the working class. At the same time, the “rise of a strong bourgeois class
is being assiduously promoted by proimperialist policymakers.”18 The
bourgeoisie was undergoing stratification, with the big bourgeoisie entering
joint ventures with foreign capital, a development which was particularly
strong in banking and finance, with Philippine investment banks being
transformed “into a device for scooping up capital resources from savings
of Filipino working people and as a conduit for funnelling those resources
to selected investment projects designed in the interest of multinational
corporations.”19 The role of the Filipino “junior partners,” in such joint
ventures was “to provide political protection to foreign capital and to raise
capital resources from the local capital market.”20 As a result, the middle
strata of the bourgeoisie would be increasingly starved of foreign exchange
and credit resources.
The new imperialist strategy “advances the frontiers of capital in the
rural areas and tears down the feudal obstacles along the way.”21 Martial
law aimed, in overruling the opposition of the feudal oligarchy to reform,
to defuse “the revolutionary potential of the peasantry” and to restructure
agriculture along capitalist lines. The distribution of land to tenants
“on onerous terms” would be followed by the creation of cooperatives
(samahang nayori) which would be “the production unit of processing
industries financed by foreign monopoly capital and its joint-venture
partners among the big bourgeoisie.”22However, this transformation brought
the former tenants “closer to the objective situation of the proletariat
and thus more disposed to unity with the latter in the struggle for social
emancipation. The rise of corporate farms and agricultural enterprises
will generate conditions for their transformation into [proletarians].”23 As
far as the beneficiaries of land reform were concerned, “[tjhrough lo n g

term amortization payment of family-sized farms, the labor of the petty-
landholding tenants will continue to be a source of capital accum ulation
for the landlords who are now turning to new capitalist horizons in
partnership with foreign monopolies. The undisguised feudal yoke is being
replaced by systematic capitalist bloodsucking.”24
The document saw in all of this imperialism’s aim “to steer the third-
world countries away from the socialist path of development.” However,
Philippine history had “left formidable human and institutional obstacles
to rapid capitalist construction,” and even “proimperialist technocrats”
estimated that 200 years or more would elapse if the task were to b e
attempted by limited reforms, hence the imposition of martial law. This
had two complementary aims. “The first is to suppress the growing
political awareness of the masses and the second is to pave the way for
a more accelerated capitalist development.”25 The regime’s reforms “for
a while will blunt the edges of class contradictions and disorient the
organized masses.”
These reforms were instituted without the benefit of popular participation.

Indeed it is the reactionary character of the martial-law government
that it is ensuring the elimination of mass involvement in economic
and political changes. While it gives boundless opportunities to foreign
capital, it prohibits strikes, pickets, rallies and other forms of mass action.
Newspapers, radio and television are subject to military censorship.26
The martial-law regime imposed by Marcos was also seen as a result

of the USA’s fear of the political advantages that would accrue to the
Philippines by its development of trade and diplomatic relations with the
socialist countries.* Furthermore, the expiry of the Laurel-Langley Agreement
Quite why Marcos, who had taken the initiative in opening relations with the socialist
countries, would then cooperate with the CIA to install a martial-law regime to deny
himself the political fruits of those arrangements, is not explained. In emphasizing the
role of the CIA and Marcos’s presumed cooperation with it, the PKP was, at this stage,
possibly underestimating Marcos’s capacity for independent action. This would change
the following year, when the PKP concluded a political settlement with him.
C hapter 7: T he S ixth PKP Congress 149
in 1974 necessitated a “new constitution tailored to the demands of foreign

monopoly capital.”27 The CIA’s problem was how to create “conditions
for the rise of a dictatorial government”; the “CIA forces” therefore used
the “Maoist ‘communist’ vehicle” to break the unity of the anti-imperialist
movement and to foment “an anti-communist hysteria by drumming up
the imminent threat of a ‘communist’ seizure of state power by way of
deliberately generating the conditions for the imposition of martial law
In the making of the present crisis, Maoist subjectivism complements
imperialist barbarism.”28 The PKP on the other hand saw, in the words of
the political resolution’s closing paragraphs, its task as being
to preserve and strengthen its ranks, and forge close links with the masses.
It must combat terrorism that isolates the party from the people and must
condemn opportunism that seeks unprincipled conciliation with the forces
of reaction. The PKP cannot be dragged into a left-adventurist policy by
infantile revolutionary phrasemongering. At this time there is no substitute
for clarifying the causes of the crisis, for learning well the lessons it can
teach with a selfcritical outlook, and for determining the immediate tasks
of the struggle.
Today we begin to work with the masses to prepare them for the next
step in the revolution.29
2
Based on this analysis, the PKP then laid out its program. This set
the task of completing the revolution of 1896, and like most communist
parties in developing countries at this time it saw the development of a
broad, national united front as the vehicle to achieve this. “Political power
will be shared by parties representing the working class, the peasantry, the
patriotic members of the national bourgeoisie, and the left and progressive
elements among the youth, intellectuals, in the churches and in the armed
forces.”30 However, within such a framework the interests of the working
people would be to the fore. Thus, this national-democratic stage of the
revolution
seeks maximum development of social and political democracy that will

give the working classes full benefit of the fruits of their toil, their active
participation in political life as well as in the management and control
of productive enterprises, the enforcement and guarantee of democratic
rights, and the upliftment of their political awareness and cultural level.
It will strengthen the State sector of the economy by the nationalization
of imperialist-owned enterprises and the consolidation of the people’s
sovereignty in the key sectors of the economy. It will sever the country’s
ties with imperialist-oriented international organizations that obstruct
the full expression of the popular will for political and economic self-
determination. It will maintain close relations with the socialist countries,
friendship with Arab countries, and solidarity with other peoples’ struggles
for their own national and social liberation.31
Although a national-democratic government would consist of a broad

coalition of social forces, a change in the class nature of state power could
only be achieved as a result of a change in the balance of class forces,
something that would require
the most intense struggle against the exploiting classes. This can only be
ered in by the broadest mass involvement, by the strongest unity of
eft» Patri°tic and democratic forces, and by the political maturity of a
ers ip that is free from sectarianism and dogmatism and is intensely
devoted only to the victory of the Filipino masses.
Hence, the struggle o f all anti-imperialist and patriotic forces must
rected against the main enemies o f the people. These are the forces
f ^ ena^*Sm’ mem^ers o f the big bourgeoisie who collaborate with
g monopoly capital, and the strong remnant o f thefeudal oligarchy.
But theprincipal enemy is still US im perialism *
t p p P K P s was sharply distinguished from that of the

P ° s^ o n
; Marcos was certainly not viewed as the main enemy, and if feudalism
^ * Was in fonn of a “strong remnant” only.
th . e8arc* to the various forms of struggle, the document stressed
bv th aS 3 cletermination to use all forms of struggle accepted
All national unitedfront, uHth the leadership o f thePKP,
will wage everyform o f open and legal struggle, including electoral struggle,
m&LAL
C h a p te r 7: T h e S i x t h PKP C o n g r e s s 151
that will lead to a change in the balance o fforces and the setting up o f
a national democratic government.*3 The PKP, the program continued,
rejected all forms of adventurist activity “that attempts to split the masses
from their vanguard party.”34 Whether or not the transfer of power from
imperialism and its allies was peaceful would, however, be determined by
imperialism itself, and the “PKP upholds the right of the people to use
force against those who use force against the people.”35
The PKP placed the working class at the head of the projected national
united front, explaining that
lt]he working class is consistently the most revolutionary and has acquired
considerable experience in militant mass struggles. It is equipped with
class consciousness and the clearest understanding of its exploitation.
Its ranks are imbued with the need for a high degree of oiganization
and discipline as a weapon against capitalist exploitation. The strength
of the working class also lies in its community erf interests with the other
sectors of the working people, with the patriotic members of the national
bourgeoisie, the left elements of the youth and the democratic forces
among the intellectuals, in the struggle for national independence and
democracy. Hence, the working class provides the leading force in the
national democratic revolution.36
The program put forward a perspective for noncapitalist development,

submitting ten sets of demands (summarized here) which, if realized,
would achieve such an aim.
1. Martial law should be terminated and civil liberties restored, all

political prisoners released, and a free and popular discussion of the
new Constitution conducted.
2. Genuine national independence was seen as being achieved by
removing all US military bases, ending the armed forces’ dependence on
US imperialism, abrogating all unequal treaties with the USA, severing
relations with the World Bank and IMF and expelling all agents of the
CIA, AID personnel, Peace Corps Volunteers and members of “other
subversive imperialist agencies.”37
152 A M ovem ent D ivided
3. The political system should be democratized by repealing the Anti-

Subversion Law and legalizing the PKP “and other parties dem anding
revolutionary changes. . .n38 Similarly, mass organizations should
be “guaranteed the widest scope of activities,” and mass political
education “aimed at the people’s awareness of their social conditions
and political rights” should be conducted.39 Universities and colleges
should be state-owned and democratically run, with guarantees o f
academic freedom; scientific socialism should be taught at all levels
in general education. The management of state-owned com panies
should be democratized by allocating seats on the boards to trad e
union representatives and others. The media, meanwhile, would b e
managed and controlled by “self-governing guilds composed o f
practising journalists and newsmen.”40 Any restrictions on the right to
strike should be removed. Members of the armed forces should be
allowed to exercise full political rights and all restrictions on foreign
travel should be removed.
4. The theme of democratization was further pursued with regard to the
economy. This set of demands included a minimum wage, adjusted
periodically to fully compensate for inflation, for both industrial
and agricultural workers, free housing for miners and agricultural
workers, and cheap housing loans for all. With regard to land reform,
the document demanded the redistribution of rice and com lands to
tenants, with no compensation for landlords; all tenants’ debts should
at the same time be cancelled, and lands grabbed from the Muslim and
other national minority groups should be returned; all sugar haciendas
and coconut and banana plantations in excess of 50 hectares should
be turned into cooperatives under worker-management; the peasantry
should enjoy free use of irrigation facilities; and, finally, the rural
cooperatives should own half of the equity in the rural banks.
5. Likewise, the social system should be democratized by the provision
of free health care, the expansion of maternity benefits and medical
facilities for working mothers and the establishment of kindergartens.
Ail education up to high-school level should be free, with university
C hapter 7: T he S ixth PKP Congress i 53
education being made accessible to all on the basis of merit by the

creation of scholarships for students from working-class and peasant
families.
6. In order to place the Philippines on a path of noncapitalist development,
the public sector of the economy should be expanded and managed
in the interests of the whole society. The state should thus take over
all US-owned enterprises and agricultural lands acquired under the
“parity” agreement. A program of nationalization should cover banks
and other financial institutions, the oil industry, the copper and nickel
mining industries, the communications and electric power industries,
foreign trade and all foreign-owned corporate farms and plantations.
All government loans to monopoly corporations, whether Filipino- or
foreign-owned, should be converted into equity participation with
appropriate management rights. The future credit and investment
policies of government institutions should be reoriented toward the
state sector and workers’ and peasants’ cooperatives. The state and the
Filipino big bourgeoisie should embark upon an integrated program
of heavy industrialization on a joint-venture basis. Existing joint
ventures between the Filipino big bourgeoisie and foreign monopoly
capital should be wholly taken over by the former. Those foreign
companies allowed to remain would be subject to strict control of the
remittance of profits, dividends, interest, and royalties. Where foreign
debt repayment involved the use of foreign exchange, a moratorium
would be declared. Effective management of nationalized industries
would be handed to “workers and employees.”41 The government
would pursue a policy of full employment, introducing a system of
unemployment compensation in the meantime. Finally, trade with the
socialist countries would be on a nondiscriminatory basis.
7. Within a framework of national unity, the cultural diversity of the
Philippines would be given full expression. Pilipino, as “enriched by
elements of various native languages or dialects,”42 would be the main
national language, although the cultural expressions of national minority
groups “shall be the subject of planned propagation by the State.”43
8. The Muslim population would establish its own government “with

exclusive legislative, executive and judicial powers over all inter-
Muslim relations, such as family and property relations, and religious
practices.”44 The policy of national unity would seek to preserve the
Muslim way of life rather than “assimilating” it, and thus Muslim culture
would be taught in all schools as a part of general education, w hile
Pilipino would be taught in Muslim schools “as one of the media o f
national unity.”45
9. On religious matters, the program declared that the Catholic Church
should concentrate on the “religious needs” of the Filipino m asses
rather than “the material or financial interests of foreign religious
orders or corporations.” A ban would be placed on the intervention o f
foreign religious orders, with the state “preventing political subversion
through religious conduits.”46 The Filipino clergy, meanwhile, would be
persuaded to end foreign domination of the Church.
10. The foreign policy of the national united front would be characterized
by anticolonialism and anti-imperialism. Thus, the Philippines would
identify with the national liberation movements in Asia, Africa, and
Latin America; enjoy diplomatic relations with the Soviet Union and
other socialist countries; recognize the Provisional Revolutionary
Government of South Vietnam; enter friendly relations with the Arab
countries (supporting the struggle against imperialist and Israeli
aggression); and withdraw from the SEATO “and other aggressive
security arrangements.”47 Instead, the government should attempt to
negotiate an Asian security system based on self-determination, non
intervention, the settlement of disputes by peaceful means, and a
ban on the use of nuclear weapons. Support would be extended to
working-class struggles, “particularly in major imperialist countries.”48
The program ended with a section entitled “The Philippine Road to

Socialism.” This made it clear that the national democratic revolution w as
merely a single stage in the revolutionary process and was dialectically
linked to the next, socialist stage.
C hapter 7: The Sixth PKP C ongress 155
It will strengthen the political position of the working class and develop
its ability to organize and lead the other forces participating in the
revolutionary struggle. Hence, the victory of the national democratic
revolution will advance the development of the socialist factors, opening
to the Filipino people the road to socialism in their own country.49
3
This congress was seen by the PKP as part of the process of
ideological unification within the party. Certainly this was necessary, as
the phenomenon of ultraleftism could not be laid wholly at the door of
Nemenzo; we have seen that many of the leftist positions adopted prior to
the congress actually predated Nemenzo’s break with the party. There did
appear to be a desire to appear more “revolutionary” than the CPP, and this
may be ascribed to the absence of an up-to-date analysis upon which a
consistent political line might be based. With regard to Nemenzo himself,
however, the party appears to have repeated the mistake it had first made
with Sison, promoting him to a senior position with litde apparent ability
to hold him accountable, or to exercise collective editorial control over Ang
Komunista. This lesson did now appear to have been learned.
Following the Congress, membership of the Party was renewed on the

basis of loyalty, past performance, capability and willingness to fulfil
revolutionary tasks and duties, and agreement with the ideological
position of the Party as spelled out by the Congress. Side by side with
the renewal campaign, a vigorous education program involving all Party
members, from the highest to the lowest organs, was started.50
The party also adopted a more forthright approach to ideological

differences within its ranks, having learned from the Nemenzo episode
that to leave such differences unchallenged merely worsened the situation
in the longer term. Therefore, right or left deviations would be opposed,
regardless of the threat of division or the rank of the party members
concerned. Those who showed signs of conducting factional activity
ij 6 A M o v e m e n t D iv id e d
“must be readily criticized, exposed, and if need be, isolated."51 In future,

therefore, there would be regular criticism and self-criticism sessions,
with ideological differences being tackled early and the adoption of an
“organized and constructive” approach to “intra-Party criticism, based on
Party procedures.”52
The party concluded that in order to strengthen its own class position
it was necessary to not only intensify its ideological work but also to
“make practical moves in attracting more workers to become members of
the Party, developing leaders of working class origins and expanding the
Party’s influence in the ranks of both the urban and rural proletariat.”53
It was also accepted that the party had suffered from its isolation from
the international communist movement and that earlier study of the Maoist
phenomenon would have prepared the PKP for its own struggle against it
The documents of the 1973 congress were more sophisticated and

polished than those published by the CPP just over four years earlier. Of
fundamental importance was the detailed analysis of developments within
the Philippine economy that led the party to abandon the “s e m i-c o lo n ia l
and semi-feudal characterization of the mode of production, enabling it

to develop a program based on concrete reality. As we have seen, the
program committed the party to struggle to place the Philippines on the
path of “non-capitalist development.” Thus, it saw the possibility of rallying
to this perspective a wide array of social forces opposed in one way or
another to the neocolonial industrialization then taking place. At first
glance, it might seem that the PKP was casting its net rather too widely in
countenancing the possibility of including members of the armed forces in
such a national united front. But there were grounds for this. For example,
one former leading m em ber recalls that some PKP members who were
university lecturers had been invited to lecture at the National D e fe n s e
College “and the rapport that we got when they knew who we were! Some
C hapter 7: T he S ixth PKP C ongress i 57
of those we were lecturing to were very left. On land reform, some of them
at colonel level advocated expanding the program to coconut, to fishing. . .
Military intellectuals undertook research which reached us, and they were
very, very good.”54 Similarly with the national bourgeoisie:
The national bourgeoisie were all anti-martial law. They favored

industrialization, as we did. On this basis it was possible to form a tactical
alliance. And then the old-time sympathizers were still there, in the Civil
Liberties Union, for example. The line of the nationalist bourgeoisie was
“Let us relate to all countries, let us not be monopolized by the United
States . . ." Around this time, many of the capitalist firms started probing
socialist countries for possibilities—oil exploration, trade, putting up plants
here . . . By this time, Marcos was exploring alternative energy sources.
Instead of getting oil through the Middle East or through the United States
he thought of heightening drilling activity here, and one of the countries
he tapped was the Soviet Union.55
There is no doubt, moreover, that considerable support could have

been mobilized in this sector due to the economic opportunities which the
program would have afforded them at the expense of imperialism.
Although there were similarities between the programs of the PKP
and the CPP inasmuch as both recognized the current tasks as constituting
the national democratic stage of the revolutionary process, the PKP’s was
the more realistic in that it clearly implied that, following the break with
imperialism, the Soviet Union and other socialist countries could be relied
upon for material assistance; given its ideological position, the CPP was
unable to offer such a perspective. Furthermore, whereas the CPP foresaw
a lengthy period during which the national bourgeoisie would share
power and thus retain its privileges, the PKP program quite clearly viewed
the national democratic stage of the revolution as not just preceding the
socialist stage but as being the springboard to it.
It is true, of course, that the role of martial law turned out to be much
as the PKP had predicted at this congress, holding down opposition while
capitalist-oriented reforms were introduced. But this was the role the
regime performed objectively. There is no evidence to indicate that Marcos
had colluded with the USA or any other of the imperialist powers to devise
such a scheme for the benefit of the transnational corporations. As w e will
see in the next chapter, Marcos had his own aims in introducing martial
law.
One of the most important demands in the PKP program was that for
the legalization of the party. It is of interest, however, that this w as not
posed as one of the party’s immediate demands. Did, then, the party at
this stage rule out the possibility of legalization by the Marcos regime? This
would appear likely, as the latter was characterized as “the dictatorship o f
foreign monopoly capital. It is the rule of imperialist finance capital that
brings into fruition all the trends of new economic and political domination
set into motion by the collective effort of the leading capitalist powers led
by US imperialism.”56 While the documents stopped short of labeling the
Marcos government “fascist” (a label the PKP had previously used, and
which the CPP would continue to employ until the toppling of the regime),
it is difficult to imagine such a regime or its imperialist patrons even
contemplating the legalization of a communist party. And yet, just over a
year later, this is precisely what happened, even though the legalization
was only partial in form. This would suggest that the view of the martial-
law regime adopted by the 1973 Congress was insufficiently dialectical.
N o tes

2. Ibid. Even so, Torres says that the congress “was a very big meet, as I could judge
even before it started just by looking at the campsite that had been levelled for
it and the accommodations that had been built for the participants . . . Some
150 Party leaders were expected from all over the country.” See Nick Joaquin,
A Kadre’s Road to Damascus: The Ruben Torres Story (Quezon City: Milflores
Publishing, Inc., 2003), 92.
3. PKP, Fifth [Sixth] Congress, Political Resolution (New Delhi: People’s Publishing
House, 1973), 2-3.
4. Ibid., 5.
5. Ibid., 8.
C hapter 7: T he S ixth PKP Congress 159
6. Ibid, 9.
7. Ibid, 10.
8. Ibid, 11.
9. Ibid, 16-17.
10. Ibid, 18-19.
11. Ibid, 24-26.
12. Ibid, 25.
13. Ibid, 29.
14. Ibid, 30.
15. Ibid, 32.
16. Ibid, 34.
17. Ibid, 35.
18. Ibid, 36.
19. Ibid, 36-37.
20. Ibid, 37.
21. Ibid, 38.
22. Ibid.
23. Ibid, 38-39.
24. Ibid, 39.
25. Ibid, 42.
26. Ibid, 45.
27. Ibid, 44.
28. Ibid, 45-46.
29. Ibid, 46.
30. PKP, “Program Adopted by the Fifth [Sixth] Congress of the Partido Komunista
ng Pilipinas (PKP), February 11, 1973,” reprinted in William Pomeroy, An
American-Made Tragedy (New York: International Publishers, 1974), 166.
31. Ibid., 167.
32. Ibid., emphasis in the original.
33. Ibid., 168, emphasis in the original.
34. Ibid.
35. Ibid.
36. Ibid.
37. Ibid., 173.
38. Ibid., 174.
39. Ibid.
40. Ibid.
41. Ibid, 177.
42. Ibid.
43. Ibid
44. Ibid
45. Ibid, 178.
46. Ibid
47. Ibid
48. Ibid
49. Ibid, 179.
50. PKP, “The Party’s Struggle against Ultra-Leftism Under Martial Law."
51. Ibid.
52. Ibid
53. Ibid.
55. Ibid
56. PKP, Political Resolution, 30.
C h a pter 8 : M arcos and
th e “N ew S o c ie t y ”
Once the helicopter taking Ferdinand Marcos from Malacafiang had

cleared the horizon, the hand of the media would focus the attention of
the public on the contents of Imelda’s wardrobes. Here, the television
images suggested, was a clear indication that the Marcoses had been
helping themselves and that this, along with the regime’s record of civil
rights abuses, was why they had been toppled by “people power.” But
Marcos was dumped not because he was corrupt or brutal but because,
as far as the USA was concerned, he had by 1986 lost all credibility
and there was an acceptable alternative waiting in the wings. Events
were to demonstrate, moreover, that, without a program of genuine
nationalist development, even the most apparently angelic of presidents
would be powerless in the face of the inappropriate economic policies
foisted on the country by the multilateral finance institutions, and
that as long as a dysfunctional economic model was pursued the other
major problems plaguing the Philippines would defy resolution. Herein
lays the importance of a major theme that is emerging in this book: the
contradiction between the anti-imperialism of the PKP and the anti-
Marcosism of the CPP.
i 6i
For all that has been written about him, there was som ething in
Ferdinand Edralin Marcos that both gave US imperialism pause for thought
and allowed the more thoughtful contingents of the national dem ocratic
movement a glimpse of nationalist potential.
Marcos began his presidency in 1965 as the obedient servant o f US
imperialism, so much so that US President Lyndon Johnson dubbed him
“my boy.” For much of his first term, while implementing some policies of
benefit to the nation (and, it is true, to foreign capital) such as his energetic
roads program, Marcos appeared content to be “America’s boy.” Shortly
after his electoral victory, he was visited by US Vice-President Hubert
Humphrey, who appealed for a sizeable contingent of Philippine troops—
at least 10,000— to fight in Vietnam. Despite the fact that he had opposed
the Philippine Civic Action Group expedition during the election campaign,
Marcos sent 2,000 of these “technical troops,” although he would be forced
by mass protests to withdraw them after a few years. But at first, Marcos
toed the line on Vietnam just as Macapagal had done; in June 1966, the
censors even went to the length of banning a film on North Vietnam that
a member of the faculty at the University of the Philippines had wished to
use for a class
In September 1966, Marcos embarked upon a fifteen-day pilgrimage
to Washington, telling the Manila Times before his departure that “the
only acceptable power here in Asia right now which can be utilized as a
shield against intransigent Red China is American power. I therefore feel
that American power should be helped within the limits of our capacity.”1
Speaking before a joint session of the US Congress on September 16,
Marcos distorted both history and contemporary reality by boldly declaring
that the “United States has been a reluctant participant in the affairs of
Asia,” and that it “can truthfully disavow any surviving imperial ambitions
in Asia. The presence of American bases . . . could be justified as aiming
solely to deter or repel any encroachments of Communist power in these
areas.” With regard to Vietnam, he urged the Americans to “never tire of
repeating” that their presence there was “for the purpose of assisting that
nation in defense of its independence and territorial integrity . . . They
C hapter 8: M arcos and the “N ew Society* i 63
are not in Vietnam, nor anywhere else in Asia, for the purpose of political
hegemony or economic gain.”2
Small wonder that Hubert Humphrey was able to purr that Marcos’s
visit had “exceeded our fondest expectations,” or that Time magazine on
October 17 quoted a White House source as saying: “In less than a year he
did well enough for us to decide that it was worthwhile to underwrite him
a little more.” The acclaim within the Philippines was less than unanimous.
Senator Jovito Salonga remarked caustically that “the moment we reach
a point where people are led to believe—and so believe—that nothing
can save us, we shall have lost even the desire to be genuinely free, the
capacity to stand up and work for our freedom, and the ability to face the
storms and stresses of independent nationhood.”3
In return for US economic “assistance,” Marcos was expected to deliver
rather more than just a few pro-American speeches. The month after his
Washington trip, he was assigned the leading role in arranging a summit
in Manila, ostensibly with the aim of seeking a peaceful end to the war in
Vietnam. In truth, the idea for a conference of the “allied” Asian nations
came from the USA and, despite the fact that Marcos was proud to claim
the credit, US secretary of state Dean Rusk admitted that it had been
planned months before Marcos’s arrival in Washington. The real purpose
of the conference was questioned by a number of observers in the region,
the Indian Express predicting that it could “be expected to pay greater
attention to the prosecution of the war than to the search for peace.”4Japan
would not even send an observer.
The doubters were proven correct. It was President Johnson’s show,
as he demonstrated by referring to the assembled heads of state by their
surnames. “Marcos, you are my boy. I will give you whatever you want.
People who do not believe that had better sit up and listen.”5To his credit,
however, Marcos made an attempt to talk peace, complaining of the draft
communiqué: “This is not a peace proposal, this is an ultimatum.”6 It
was true, for the communiqué pledged the signatories to “continue our
military and all other efforts . . " The Philippines Free Press protested: “The
Philippines is now at war, in gross violation of the constitutional provision
164 A M ovem ent D ivided
renouncing war as an instrument of national policy— and without the

benefit of the two-thirds majority vote of all members of the House and
Senate required for a declaration of war.”7
Marcos’s reward for his subservience to Washington’s foreign policy
was increased aid and, more particularly, international loans. However, such
“aid” assisted US capital far more than it helped the Philippines. That this
“assistance” was quickly forthcoming may be gauged from the fact that the
Philippines’ foreign debt rose from $599 5 million at the end of 1965 to $1.9
billion a year later.8As previously, however, all the foreign loans did was to
make good the loss of capital due to profit repatriation and the repayment
of previous debts. By 1966 the net outflow of capital had reached $1 billion
a year. The USA’s balance of payments problems occasioned by the Vietnam
war had intensified an earlier tendency, for while many US companies had
always raised much of their capital locally, they were now under “explirit
instructions from no less than the US government” to do so, and to “remit
to the US as much of their earnings as possible.”9 Bancom stated quite
bluntly: [W]e continue to advise local borrowings as much as possible,
as long as possible and at the earliest possible time.”10 The Manila Times
published a study demonstrating that foreign companies were remitting
$2.50 for every dollar invested; by 1969 this ratio had widened to $7.08 for
every dollar invested.11 In 1966, while US companies invested $9.2 m illio n
abroad, the capital outflow from the USA was only $2.7 million, prompting
one Filipino observer to quip that “where before we were fried in A m e r i c a n
lard, we now fry in our own fat!”12
At the same time, the transnational corporations were learning how
to cope with Third World resentment. In March 1966, David Rockefeller,
president of Chase Manhattan, told a stockholders’ meeting in New York
that “it has been our gratifying experience to observe that by affiliating
with a local institution in a joint venture which retains its local name and
management, we do not encounter the nationalistic resentment which is
often directed toward a branch or sole ownership of a local bank.”13 The
Philippine central bank fell into line, proposing that US banks be allowed
to purchase a one-third interest in local banks.
Chapter 8: Marcos and th e “New Society* 165
Attention was also deflected from the true patterns of influence in

the Philippine economy by the fact that such influence was increasingly
wielded by avowedly “multilateral” institutions. Certainly the International
Monetary Fund and the World Bank strengthened their control of the
Philippine economy as the years passed. In his state of the nation address
to Congress in January 1967, Marcos recounted that the same time the
previous year, shortly after he had taken office, the World Bank’s president
had given notice by formal letter “of a loss of confidence in the ability
of our Government to honor its loan obligations and to put to good use
borrowings from abroad.” This constituted a shot across the new president’s
bows, says Lichauco, indicating that the World Bank “wanted nothing
less than the continuation of an economic program based on a foreign
exchange system free from restrictions . . ”14
In the economic field, therefore, at this stage Marcos fulfilled the
mandate given him by the USA. His Investment Incentives Law of 1967,
for example, gave further privileges to foreign capital and paved the way
for the extension of the substance of parity beyond its expiry date in 1974.
This was done by means of dividing the economy into “pioneer” and “non
pioneer” industries. In “pioneer” industries, foreign capital was permitted
to own 100 percent of the equity in a company for twenty years, after
which time 60 percent of the enterprise would have to revert to Philippine
hands. However, the law allowed that “[sjuch period for attainment of 60
percent ratio of Filipino ownership may be extended for justifiable cause."15
In “non-pioneer” areas, foreign interests were restricted to a maximum of
40 percent ownership. A free trade zone was established in Bataan for
industries manufacturing for export, and for such industries the Export
Incentives Act of 1970 waived import duties on raw materials and granted
generous tax concessions.
In those rural areas most prone to armed dissent, Marcos instituted
reforms of a kind, launching “Operation Central Luzon” in Pampanga
province in 1966 as a pilot land reform measure. The operation, it was
said, “starts as a civic action and community development but becomes one
of land reforms.” In essence, this was nothing more than a variant of the
166 A M ovem en t D ivided
program implemented by Magsaysay in the 1950s and, like its predecessors,

was more concerned with counterinsurgency than genuine reform .16
In Tarlac province, a hotbed of unrest, the US Agency for International
Development (AID) implemented a Systematic Program for Rural Econom ic
Assistance and Development between 1965 and 1968. Such measures w ere
either entirely cosmetic or had the aim of assisting imperialist penetration
of the economy.
Meanwhile, spurred by the nationalism that had revived in the late
1950s, an alternative to foreign domination of the economy began to take
shape in the unlikeliest of places— Congress. Speaker of the House Jo s e
B. Laurel (son of Jose P. Laurel, president during the Japanese occupation)
in late 1968 created a full-time economic staff for the House, directing
them to draft a nationalist blueprint of socioeconomic policies. The staff
duly got to work, holding public hearings with the aim of building a
consensus in the private sector, and after eight weeks it delivered up the
Report of the Special House Committee on Social and Economic Planning
(almost inevitably, the document became known as the “Magna Carta”).
Under Laurel’s sponsorship, the report received unanimous support in the
House of Representatives; despite stiff resistance, Jose W. Diokno piloted it
through the Senate. The document called for “restrictions on the operations
and activities of multinationals, for the Filipinization of the econom y
including domestic credit, and for the use of protective tariffs, import and
exchange controls as the only effective means with which to promote
industrialization.” Says Lichauco: “The policies enunciated by the Magna
Carta embraced the entire range of the nation’s political economy, including
its foreign relations; it demanded an end of parity, the Filipinization of the
economy and called for an independent foreign policy.”17
A constitutional convention which, first mooted in the late 1960s as the
nationalist movement regained strength and began to voice the dem and
for a constitution less amenable to foreign economic domination, w as
finally convened in July 1971. But the vast majority of the 316 delegates
were establishment politicians and businessmen, many of whom w ere,
in Pomeroy’s phrase, “wined, dined and womaned” in swank hotels by
various lobbyists.18 Marcos, of course, had his eye on a constitutional
change which would allow him a third term as president. The minority of
nationalists present as delegates were able to make a considerable impact,
managing to get one committee to commit itself to a preamble to the new
Constitution which would call for “an integrated, nationalistic and socially
oriented economic plan.”
As the convention ground away (having incurred costs of F50 million
in its first year), in August 1972 the Philippine Supreme Court made two
decisions that, given the opportunity, would have acted as an enormous
fillip to the nationalist movement. First, the Court ruled that, come the end
of parity in 1974, there could be no question of the lands and property
acquired by US citizens under its provisions being retained by them; they
would have to be handed over to Filipinos. Second, only Filipino citizens
could in future hold executive and managerial posts in foreign firms located
in the Philippines.
Like Macapagal before him, Marcos began to adopt nationalist

positions. Late in his first term, he caused mounting dismay in imperialist
circles by discussing the possibility of relations with the socialist countries
and criticizing the manner in which US corporations raised their finances
on the local market rather than importing their own capital, and in 1969
he signed into law the “Magna Carta.” Thus, in the election campaign of
1969 the USA decided that it could no longer trust Marcos, and switched its
support to Sergio Osmefia Jr. Marcos, however, bought his way to victory—
to such an extent, ironically, that the peso was rendered vulnerable, forcing
Marcos to concede the World Bank demand for devaluation (which he had
promised to resist prior to his reelection) and therefore for all practical
purposes scuppering the “Magna Carta.”
Even so, there were indications that US imperialism persisted in its
opposition to Marcos and, equally, that he remained desirous of establishing
a degree of independence for himself, if not for his country, that none
of his predecessors had been able to enjoy. Early in 1970 Bias Ople,
Marcos’s Labor secretary, recommended that a $427,000 aid program by the
American-Asian Free Labor Institute be scrapped in view of allegations that
the organization was a CIA front aimed at “capturing” Philippine labor. The
following year, amid rumors of an assassination bid, Marcos insisted that
the entire CIA team in the Philippines be recalled, although the team that
replaced it was no friendlier.*
In his State of the Nation address in January 1971, Marcos spoke
in terms of a “democratic revolution” and proposed several reforms.
Among these were the establishment of a state trading corporation in
order to stabilize the prices of prime commodities, the creation o f an oil
commission to regulate the importation of crude oil and to produce and
market gasoline and other oil products, the introduction of a tax on all
foreign exchange transactions, with higher rates for nonessential goods,
the encouragement of cottage industry, the introduction of a birth control
program, a largely infrastructural “agricultural revolution,” an electrification
program, and the introduction of a “comprehensive development plan” for
education.
Marcos’s thoughts on the “democratic revolution” were elaborated in a
book appearing in the same year entitled Today's Revolution: Democracy.
At the time, both the speech and the book were panned by the PKP and
its allies. Of the speech, the Movement for the Advancement of Nationalism
(MAN) commented that Marcos
has to build desperately an appearance of self-justification, in the face

of the CIA-directed campaign to discredit him, to do away with him as a
puppet who has outlived his usefulness in the service of his imperialist
masters . . . In prattling about “revolution” and “restructuring the social
order,” President Marcos is readily dismissed as a first-rate hypocrite,
because his years in the presidency so far have plainly shown his office to
This makes the PKP’s assertion, expressed at its 1973 congress (see Chapter 7), that the
CIA had collaborated in setting the scene for Marcos’s declaration of martial law seem
somewhat unlikely.
C h a p t e r 8: M a r c o s and th e “ N ew S o c ie t y * i 69
be merely the executive committee of US imperialism in perpetuating an

exploitative social system upon the Filipino people.
MAN’s journal recalled that Macapagal had also spoken of an

“unfinished revolution.”19 The proposals put forward in Marcos’s speech
were for the most part dismissed as World Bank-IMF prescriptions
dressed up as independent initiatives. Marcos’s book, meanwhile, was
laughed at by the PKP’s Ang Komunista: “Fashionable Ferdie has caught
the fever of ‘revolution,’ plunging him into a state of frenzied delirium.
His hallucinations have miraculously evolved into a ‘revolutionary theory,’
actually a confused hodge-podge of glittering platitudes, empty rhetoric,
self-righteous rationalizations, well-worn cliches, assorted quotations and
incredible assertions.” The journal advised: “Be sure . . . that the garbage
can is near your favorite reading chair.”20
As, at this stage, Ang Komunista did not, as we have seen, always
reflect party policy, and so it is possible that this article was a case in
point; however, this appeared in 1971, over a year before the party’s
sixth congress, and so it is equally possible that the piece did not mark a
particularly radical divergence from the party’s view. The PKP’s approach
(o r at least that of Ang Komunista') to Marcos at this stage was somewhat
dogmatic, seeing him as merely fulfilling the role assigned by revolutionary
theory to all “puppets.” Such an approach momentarily blinded the party
(and/or the journal) to the positive potential in the situation. This blindness,
moreover, was at times almost literal, as in February 1971 when an article in
Ang Komunista commented: “Our neocolonial government thinks, speaks
and acts as if the Soviet Union does not exist, as if Chiang Kai-shek is still
the sovereign ruler of the Chinese people ,”21 whereas, in fact, a spokesman
for that very “neocolonial” government had as early as January 1967 stated
that trade relations with “communist” countries was being considered,
and this was echoed more firmly by Marcos himself the following year;
earlier still, in September 1966, he had praised the Soviet Union for its
role in helping to settle the conflict between India and Pakistan.22 Ang
Komunista also seemed to have forgotten the manner in which Marcos had
been described after his first election by an editorial in Progressive Review:
“Unlike Raul Manglapus, the new President is not yet fully identified with
the die-hard reactionary forces . . . As Congressman and, later, Senator, he
skilfully leapt from nationalism to pro-Americanism and back again. In all
likelihood Marcos will hold on to this ambiguity for as long as possible .”23
Now, as Marcos was obviously in a nationalist phase, it may have been
more appropriate if Ang Komunista had seen its task as one of attempting
to strengthen, rather than dismiss, such nationalism. And within the pages
of Today’s Revolution there was much which should have struck (and
eventually did strike) a sympathetic chord with the PKP.
Revolutions begin when the political order must respond to economic

and social change, when for example, it is challenged to integrate into the
society the so-called oppressed groups who have a developed political
consciousness. These groups are often dismissed as “radical minorities”
but the base of their appeal may be wider than their numbers, for they
may truly speak the sentiment of the peasants, the workers, the masses.
They are the active agents of the revolution, although they cannot succeed
without the support of millions. Challenged in this way, the political
authority can accommodate the revolution or try to suppress it. There are
those who think there is a third way: reforms. But reforms, to succeed,
must be radical, and radical reforms are nothing less than revolutionary.24
And later:
When the consciousness of the political authority coincides with the

revolutionary demands of the masses a revolution initiated by government
becomes a matter of necessity.
It is a necessity that, moreover, dates back to the anti-colonial
struggle of 1896 for a political authority that would be the instrument of
national independence, a promoter of the Filipino’s moral and intellectual
development, economic and social well-being. This demand continues up
to this day . . **
One reading (that initially made by Ang Komunista) would find fault in
the above formulations, seeing in Marcos’s proposals for reforms a device
to forestall revolution. An alternative reading, however, might see radical
C hapter 8: M arcos and th e “ N ew S ociety * 17 1
reforms as a way forward, improving the lot of segments of the population,

providing the opportunity to mobilize popular support for such reforms
and, in so doing, building the mass movements as a springboard for
further advance in the future. Such an approach would place the positions
adopted by Marcos in the context of those economic developments in
the Philippines as they affected Marcos and the group he led, principally
Marcos’s own emergence as a capitalist with extensive and substantial
holdings in companies in various sectors of the economy. This brought
him into conflict with some of the older sections of the economic elite,
gave him a vested interest in introducing capitalist methods into the
backward countryside (thereby alienating the landlords) and, in that he
was “acquiring the means to behave independently,”26heightened the fears
of US imperialism.
3
In September 1972, Marcos used the NPA, the 1971 bombing of the
Liberal Party rally in Plaza Miranda, and a number of other factors (such
as a staged attempt on the life of defense secretary Juan Ponce Enrile)
as pretexts for the declaration of martial law. Observers have advanced
a number of alternative motives for the declaration—that Marcos merely
wished to enjoy a third term of office, that the constitutional convention
was proving to be uncontrollable, that recent decisions of the Philippine
Supreme Court needed to be negated in the interests of US imperialism,
or (the theory put forward by the PKP at its 1973 Congress) that martial
law was required by US imperialism so that the Philippine economy could
be subjected to a thoroughgoing series of capitalist-based reforms without
opposition.
Marcos’s motives were, however, surely more complex. Yes, he wished
to remain in power, thwarting US-backed attempts to unseat him (and the
USA, it must be said, was using the excuse not only that he had become
unreliable, but that popular protests against corruption were mounting).
Marcos was of course aware that constitutionally he would have been

barred from running for a third term in 1973 (and even the h e a d of the
CIA team that had replaced the one he had sent packing had attempted
to dissuade him from running again). Another reason for martial law can
be found in the workings of the Philippine party political system. In the
Philippines, there had (and has) never been a situation in which one of
the major parties has tended to represent the interests of capital while
another represented those of labor and the peasantry. Both the Liberal
and Nacionalista parties had, instead, represented different groups among
the ruling elite. Thus, when one party was in, its supporters within the
elite were awarded the spoils; equally, then, the elite supporters of the
opposition party needed to secure the defeat of the government if they
were to be allowed any of the richer pickings. Warning against this
syndrome toward the end of the Marcos regime, Constantino wrote that
opposition leaders who concentrated their attacks on the excesses of the
Marcos government, conveniently ignoring the role of foreign capital and
the need to seek a nationalist alternative,
are liable to the charge that they just want to be “in” because they are
“out” at the moment, and that they are just waiting for the right signal
from Washington to take over the captive throne. Worse, they may be
accused of manipulating genuine mass discontent merely to serve their
own personal ambitions and not to provide a real alternative to the system
that Marcos has served so well.27
Thus the Marcos supporters now made use of the martial law umbrella
to wrest even greater economic power from the Liberal supporters, and
some of the latter now found their companies being virtually confiscated by
the government. As is well-known by now, the one person who probably
benefited from this process more than any other was Marcos himself,
constructing a maze of hidden economic interests. Pomeroy has described
the martial law declaration in the following terms:
The martial law step was, in essence, a decisive strategic move by a

sector of the Filipino national bourgeoisie aimed at transforming the
C hapter 8: M arcos and th e “N ew Society '’ 173
backward semi-feudal features of the economy and at advancing capitalist

industrialization. President Marcos was the spokesman, leader and an
active participant of this sector, and his “new society" was a bourgeois
state form that acted to curtail the political and economic power of the
semi-feudal landlords and to bring them more fully into the capitalist
system of relations.28
Of course, martial law also gave Marcos the opportunity to clamp down
on the popular dissent which had shown signs of becoming increasingly
vociferous. The schools were closed for three weeks while a purge was
undertaken of students and faculty members engaged in “subversion,
insurgency and other similar activities, or are known to be active members
of subversive organizations, or are active participants or supporters of
such subversive organizations.” A list of offenses, including crimes against
national security and violations of the Anti-Subversion Law would be dealt
with by a military tribunal, while those “resisting authority with a firearm”
could expect a mandatory sentence of death by firing squad, and those
merely possessing a firearm would face from twenty years to life. Needless
to say, of the varying estimates of between 8,000 and 20,000 who were
arrested in the first three months of martial law,29 many were trade union
and peasant activists. Strikes and picketing in a large number of “vital”
industries were banned.
The question now arises, given the fact that the CIA appeared to have
been intent on ditching Marcos, as to why the USA was not boiling over
with moral indignation at the host of civil rights violations now taking
place and, exerting the many forms of pressure open to it, taking this
opportunity to unseat him. The situation was rather more complex than
that. The CIA represented merely one strand of opinion within US circles.
US Ambassador Henry Byroade certainly gave the impression that he had
rather more time for Marcos. The day before the imposition of martial
law, Marcos met Byroade and notified him of his intentions, seeking the
USA’s approval in return for a promise that US economic interests would
be protected. Pomeroy takes the view that, as “no statement of disapproval
came from the Nixon administration,” such a deal was indeed struck.30 This
is rather different from the analysis adopted at the PKP’s sixth congress,
according to which US imperialism had devised martial law so that the
reforms it required could be implemented. The US state departm ent’s
official account of these years, in summarizing US relations with Marcos al
this time, has this to say:
The Nixon administration recognized the Philippines as a special friend,

but the culture of corruption, the imposition of martial law in 1972, and
the dictatorial tendencies of the Marcos government worried some U.S.
officials. The Embassy highlighted these problems and U.S. officials tried
to encourage Marcos to reform his government’s practices and move
back toward democracy . . . Although the Nixon administration neither
encouraged nor approved of the imposition of martial law, it chose to
continue working with Marcos as his support for the Vietnam war and the
Philippine role in the Pacific overshadowed doubts about the country’s
internal policies. Yet, while the Nixon administration appeared to support
Marcos, the U.S. Embassy in Manila maintained a low-level dialogue with
Senators Benigno Aquino and Sergio Osmefta and other prominent Marcos
opponents.31
There would seem to be little doubt that the motivation behind the
imposition of martial law was domestic.
The signals sent out during the early part of the martial law period
were highly contradictory.
As we have seen already, there were numerous arrests and certain
civil liberties were curtailed, but within the authoritarian climate following
Proclamation 1081 there were initiatives which were, at least potentially,
progressive. A month after martial law was imposed, Marcos issued
Presidential Decree 27, which in theory gave 715,000 tenant farmers “the
option to acquire a family-size farm" of up to five hectares if not irrigated
or up to three hectares if irrigated. Existing landowners might retain no
more than seven hectares. The cost was limited to 250 percent of the
C hapter 8: M arcos and th e “N ew S ociety " 175
average harvest o f the three years preceding the decree, and tenants were
given fifteen years to p ay Such a decree, described by a M arcos critic as
“the m ost significant agrarian reform program ever to b e introduced as law
in the Philippines,”32 appeared to strike at the very heart o f the traditional
pow er base o f Philippine politics.’
In D ecem ber 1972, Presidential D ecree 86 provided for the
establishm ent o f citizens’ assem blies in each barrio o f a certain size in
every tow n and city district in order to “increase the participation o f the
citizen in national affairs.” M embership o f such assem blies was o p en to all
over the age o f 15 resident in the barrio, district or ward for six months,
w ho w ere citizens o f the Philippines and registered as assem bly m em bers.
In January 1973, Marcos ordered the formation o f barangay assem blies in
Manila, each o f w hich was intended to consist o f around 1,000 m em bers
drawn from the two main parties and all other civic and religious groups
and associations. This obviously opened up the possibility o f breaking the
two-party stranglehold. Tw o w eeks later, Marcos announced the formation
o f the P eop le’s Revolutionary Congress consisting o f 1,000 local barangay
leaders, 100 tow n mayors, 30 city mayors, 11 governors, 1,500 local
councilors, and som e 2,000 representatives o f other groups. T h e purported
functions o f the congress were to transmit the opinions o f the local people,
to forge policies based upon the results o f referenda o r other forms o f direct
consultation, agree on guidelines for action at local level, and to prepare
future plans for the Citizens’ Assemblies. Next, Marcos put the Constitution
ham m ered out by the constitutional convention (after, it must b e said, he
had taken steps to ensure that the finished product was to his liking) to a
referendum. In fact, there were several questions put in the referendum, by
However, the decree was followed by intense activity by the landowners potentially
affected, who took various actions in order to ensure that they retained their holdings—
subdivision among dependents and relatives, hastily bringing idle land under cultivation,
etc. By O ctober 1986, only 13,590 tenants would have received titles to a total of 11,087
hectares o f land.33 Even this is a more optimistic picture than that painted by Constantino
who, writing in 1984, reported that “only about 2,000 have received their Emancipation
Patents or titles o f actual ownership. Only 70,000 are remitting amortization payments
to the Land Bank, and of this number, less than 20 percent are able to keep up their
remittances. Many are behind by a few years, meaning that they may eventually lose
their rights to their lands. Others have taken what seemed to be the only way out: selling
their rights and giving up farming altogether."34
means of which it was decided that the citizens’ assemblies were approved
as a means of popular government, the new Constitution was approved
without the need for a separate plebiscite, elections due in November 1973
were postponed for seven years, and martial law would continue.
The new Constitution was itself a contradictory document. On the
one hand, the state was charged to “promote social justice to ensure the
dignity, welfare and security of all the people. Toward this end, the State
shall regulate the acquisition, ownership, use, enjoyment, and disposition
of private property, and equitably diffuse property ownership and profits.”
It would also
afford protection to labor, promote full employment and equality in

employment, ensure equal work opportunities regardless of sex, race, or
creed, and regulate the relations between workers and employers. The
State shall assure the rights of workers to self-organization, collective
bargaining, security of tenure, and just and humane conditions of work.
The sting in the tail of this particular section came with: “The State
may provide for compulsory arbitration.” The new Constitution abolished
the House of Representatives and the Senate, replacing these with a
National Assembly and creating the post of prime minister. A Commission
on Elections (Comelec) was created which would, among other things,
be responsible for accrediting political parties. However, a political party
would be barred from accreditation if it “seeks to achieve its goals through
violence or subversion,” a condition open to wide interpretation.
With regard to control of the economy, the Constitution represented (at
least on paper) a step forward in nationalist terms. The National Assembly
was empowered, upon the recommendation of the National Economic and
Development Authority, to reserve “certain traditional areas” of investment
to Filipinos or corporations wholly owned by them “when the national
interest so dictates.” As previously, utilities were required to be subject
to 60 percent Filipino ownership. This same requirement applied to the
“disposition, exploration, or utilization of any of the natural resources
of the Philippines,” although the National Assembly was empowered to
allow corporations to “enter into service contracts for financial, technical,
C h a p t e r 8: M a r c o s and th e “ N ew S o c ie t y * 17 7
management or other forms of assistance with any foreign person or

entity. . Ownership and management of the mass media was limited
to Filipino citizens or corporations wholly owned and managed by them.
Finally, the state “may, in the interest of national welfare or defense, establish
and operate industries and means of transportation and communication,
and upon payment of just compensation, transfer to public ownership
utilities and other private enterprises to be operated by the Government.”
The Constitution allowed for the convening of an interim National
Assembly until such time as elections had been conducted. However,
armed with the result of the recent referendum, Marcos now proclaimed
that the interim National Assembly would not be convened. Thus, for the
next seven years the president and prime minister (Marcos assumed the
latter post as well) would conduct his relations with the people via the
citizens’ assemblies.
Firmly on the debit side was General Order 5, which banned strikes
in “vital” industries. This was followed on November 13, 1972, by an order
banning all strikes and picketing, along with collections for strike funds
by trade unions. The Labor Code was amended to make unfair labor
practices “violations of the civil rights of both labor and management
and . . . also criminal offences against the State.” Trade union rights were
further curtailed by the removal of the right of workers in government and
government-owned corporations, security guards, managerial employees,
and employees of nonprofit charitable, medical, and religious institutions
to organize or join trade unions. Given the outcry, both national and
international, against the order banning strikes, a further presidential
decree allowed strikes in “nonvital” industries, although the concession
was considered virtually meaningless in view of the breadth of discretion
allowed in determining whether an industry was “vital.”35
The picture was much the same in education. On September 29, 1972,
Marcos promulgated the Educational Development Decree, laying down
the guiding principles for a ten-year education program. Eventually put
in place for 1978-87, the main aims of the Educational Development Plan
were to place a growing emphasis on “work and production activities. . .
From third grade in the elementary level and extending up to the fourth
year in secondary level, students are provided with such work-oriented

curriculum programs that in case they drop out of school, they can still be
useful, productive and economically self-sufficient citizens.”36 One of the
main victims of the reorganization of education was the University of the
Philippines which, says Jose,
was reorganized and reoriented to serve, through financial, organizational

and institutional means the goals of national development as they were
fostered by imperialism . . . While the UP Presidency was declared a
managerial post and less a position of intellectual leadership, various units
of the institution itself were transformed into technological resource centers
with the help of funding from the Wodd Bank, the Asian Development
Bank, United States and Japanese governments, etc. so that it can serve
better the interests of the various state agencies, the TNCs and their local
affiliates—or in some cases, certain community-oriented projects.57
To quell the opposition which greeted the educational reforms, Marcos

issued various orders allowing the expulsion of students, staff or faculty
members who supported “subversive” organizations and banning student
organizations, publications, demonstrations, etc.
However, the international position adopted by the Marcos martial
law regime must have convinced many of the anti-Marcos elements in
Washington and the CLA that they had been right all along. Gone were the
days, apparendy, when the Filipino delegate to the United Nations would
glance across at his US counterpart in order to see how he was supposed
to vote. Now, the Philippines was adopting a position of solidarity with
the rest of the Third World in its efforts to usher in a New International
Economic Order. Hosting the Group of 77 meeting in Manila in February
1976, the Philippines supported the Manila Declaration, which called for a
world conference to discuss a debt moratorium, for various measures aimed
at stabilizing commodity prices and for strict controls on transnational
corporations in their dealings with the Third World. Furthermore, Marcos
then applied for membership of the Non-Aligned Movement, although
this attempt failed because of the presence of US bases on Philippine
soil and the Philippines’ membership of SEATO. Most dramatically of all,
C h a p t e r 8: M a r c o s a n d t h e “ N e w S o c ie t y '’ i 79
Marcos opened up diplomatic relations with Romania, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria,

Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, the German Democratic Republic, Cuba,
Mongolia, the People’s Republic of China, Cambodia (or Kampuchea as it
was called at the time), the Soviet Union, and the Democratic Republic of
Vietnam. Between 1974 and 1976, trade between the Philippines and the
socialist countries increased by some 70 percent.
So just what were the intentions of Ferdinand Marcos? What kind of
social organism was his “New Society” (the name he gave to the martial
law regime) intended to be? Was he, as would be surmised from the
media assessments made after his fall from power, motivated purely by
personal acquisitiveness and ego? Was the man whom President Lyndon
Johnson had called his “boy” reacting on a purely personal level, eager
to demonstrate that he would never again be anyone’s boy? Or was the
New Society intended to be his attempt to both achieve a greater measure
of real independence for the Philippines and to develop it economically
by placing constraints on both capital and labor, subordinating both to
his own vision of the future, a future to be achieved by, at least initially,
assigning a leading role to the state?
Kolko is of the view that Marcos was totally devoid of ideology in the
true sense.
Marcos always pursued several economic strategies in tandem quite

eclectically, amassing the immediate advantages and long-run liabilities of
all of them. He welcomed World Bank intervention insofar as it provided
funds and helped obtain private loans to advance his crony capitalist
strategy, and when the destructive consequences of bank policies and his
own corruption demanded remedial measures, he accepted yet greater
bank control. At the same time, he never wholly abandoned earlier
protective legislation.38
Kolko’s assertion, a criticism that would also be made by the PKP

in due course, is undoubtedly correct; however, it is likely that Marcos’s
eclecticism was partly the result of the fact that he was subject to pressures
from a number of directions, and that policy was determined according to
which pressure— that from imperialism, his group of crony capitalists, the
Filipino people and, whenever it was possible, his own acquisitiveness—

was greatest at any one time. It is likely, too, that there was a litde more to
Marcos than this, and that besides personal wealth and power he craved
political greatness. As such a distinction is never conferred on mere puppets,
he obviously needed to challenge, or at least to attempt to limit, imperialist
domination of the economy. It can be seen that several of the steps he took
in the early stages of martial law conformed to the vision he had advanced
in Today’s Revolution: Democracy. If his New Society was intended to be
the vehicle which would carry him to greatness, however, he should have
realized that its success or failure would depend not on the “support of
millions” which he had posited for the success of a revolution, but on the
participation of millions in actively challenging the neocolonial status quo.
N o tes
1. Hernando J. Abaya, The Untold Philippine Story (Quezon City: Malaya Books,
1967), 308.
2. Quoted in ibid., 309.
3. Philippines Free Press, September 24, 1966, quoted in ibid., 308.
5. Manila Daily Bulletin, October 28, 1966, quoted in ibid., 314.
6. Ibid., 316.
7. Philippines Free Press, November 12, 1966, quoted in ibid., 319.
8. Alejandro Lichauco, “The International Economic Order and the Philippine
Experience,” in Mortgaging the Future: The World Bank and IMF in the
Philippines, ed. Vivencio R. Jose (Quezon City: Foundation for Nationalist
Studies, 1982), 39.
9. Ibid., 40.
10. Manila Times, February 24, 1968.
11. Manila Times, October 18,1969, and May 4, 1971.
12. Abaya, The Untold Philippine Story, 352.
14. In “The International Economic Order and the Philippine Experience,"
Mortgaging the Future, 41.
15. William Pomeroy, An American-Made Tragedy (New York: International
C h a p t e r 8: M a r c o s and th e “ N ew S o c ie t y ” i 8i
16. Abaya, The Untold Philippine Story, 274.

17. Lichauco, “The International Economic Order and the Philippine Experience,”
44.
19. Political Review, vol. 1, no. 1, March 1971.
20. Ang Komunista, vol. 2, no. 5, November 1971.
21. Domingo Rojo, “Relations with Socialist Countries,” Ang Komunista, vol. 2, no.
1, February 1971.
22. William Pomeroy, The Philippines: Colonialism, Collaboration and Resistance!
(New York: International Publishers, 1992), 269.
23. “The Defeat of Macapagal and the Victory of Marcos,” Progressive Review, no.
8 , 1966, 1.
24. Ferdinand Marcos, Today’s Revolution: Democracy (Manila: n.p., 1971), 20.
25. Ibid., 77.
26. Pomeroy, The Philippines, 262.
27. Renato Constantino, The Nationalist Alternative (Quezon City: Foundation for
Nationalist Studies, 1990), 92.
28. Pomeroy, The Philippines, 265-66.
30. Ibid., 141.
31. US State Department, Foreign Relations o f the United States, 1969-1976,
Vol. 20, Southeast Asia, 1969-1972. See http://www.state.gov/documents/
organizatiorv78432.pdf.
32. James Putzel, “Prospects for Agrarian Reform under the Aquino Government,”
in Mamerto Canlas, Mariano Miranda Jr., and James Putzel, Land, Poverty and
Politics in the Philippines (London: Catholic Institute for International Relations,
1988), 52.
33. Ibid.
34. Constantino, The Nationalist Alternative, 64.
35. Rene E. Ofreneo and Amelita M. King, “Labor Relations in the Marcos Era:
Implications for the Aquino Government,” in Labor’s Vision o f the Economic
Recovery, ed. Sofronio Amante (Quezon City: Institute of Industrial Relations,
UP, 1986), 9.
36. Philippine Yearbook, 1979, 224, quoted in Vivencio R. Jose, “Reorienting
Philippine Education,” in Mortgaging the Future, 144.
37. Ibid., 145.
38. Gabriel Kolko, Confronting the Third World: US Foreign Policy 1945-1980
(Quezon City: KARREL, Inc., 1988), 262.
C h a pt er 9 : P o litica l S ettlem en t
In December 1972, a few months after the declaration of martial law,

Jesus Lava, the imprisoned former general secretary of the PKP, penned a
“Memorandum on the ‘Democratic Revolution’ and Our Struggle.” In this
document, Lava stated:
The moment has arrived, it would seem to us, when leading Filipino
officials have taken a very significant qualitative leap; have started the
country on the road towards meaningful national independence and
people’s social and economic well-being.
It is significant that this qualitative leap is the product and practical
expression of the theoretical formulation set forth by President Marcos in
his Today’s Revolution: Democracy}
Lava noted that revolutions initiated by government were extremely

rare due to the danger of coups and assassinations, but that Marcos was
in the process of initiating just such a revolution. However, noted Lava, it
was ironic that although the nationalist tasks in 1972 were essentially the
same as they had been in 1896 or 1946, Huk veterans remained in jail for
having attempted to complete those very tasks. “It is ironic, because while
so many of those who cling to the coattails of the New Society are free to
inflict injury to the avowed goals and objectives of this society, many who
would be valuable assets to the attainment of aforesaid objectives remain
in prison.”
i8 z
C h a p t e r 9: P o l it ic a l S e t t l e m e n t 18 3
The document then entered into a discussion of means and ends that
concluded by approving Marcos’s acknowledgement of the permissability
of the use of violence by modem “Jacobin” revolutionaries, and thus
endorsing martial law. “Violence thus becomes legitimate, just and humane
when it is used as a last resort against an oppressive regime that imposes
a system of exploitation, deception and corruption; an oppressive regime
that perpetuates and intensifies mass misery and suffering.”
Finally, Lava proceeded to discuss the various stages of the revolutionary
process, noting that where leadership was in the hands of the working
class at the bourgeois-democratic stage,
the goals set forth in the struggle for state power go beyond the limits
set by the classical bourgeois-democratic revolution. While retaining the
fundamental demands of the bourgeois-democratic revolution, the new
democratic revolution aims at nationalization of certain basic means of
production, not only as a spur to economic and social development, not
only as a safeguard to its state power, but as a preparatory step towards
the eventual transition to socialism.
However, said Lava, where the stability of the successful bourgeois-

democratic revolution depended upon the alliance and mutual assistance of
all nationalist forces, a “compromise state” is necessary; moreover, it would
be possible to extend that compromise state, with the main parties agreeing
“to develop the full potentialities of industrial capitalism parallel with the
development of key industries as public enterprises and cooperatively pave
the way towards the peaceful, orderly transition to social ownership when
developing conditions so necessitate.”
As will be seen, with regard to the lengthy period of capitalist
development he seemed to prescribe Lava came close to the position
adopted by Maoism. The importance of this memorandum for our present
purposes, however, lies in the fact that Lava had noted the progressive
potential in Marcos’s reforms and was already advocating cooperation with
him. Curiously, Lava sent his memorandum not to the party for approval,
but direcdy to Marcos.2 It is quite possible that it was this document that
led to Marcos approaching the party shortly after its 1973 congress. And
such a move was, of course, entirely consistent with the approach taken
by Marcos in Today's Revolution, where he had spoken of the challenge
“to integrate into the society the so-called oppressed groups who have a
developed political consciousness.”
Lava's interpretation was not reflected by the decisions of the 1973
congress which, as we have seen, took the view that Marcos’s reforms were
mere sops and that the martial law regime represented “the dictatorship
of foreign monopoly capital.” Thus, Pomeroy is possibly mistaken when
he suggests that the Marcos government’s approach to the PKP later that
year to propose talks was “conceivably in reaction to a study of the party’s
program . . .”3 Nevertheless, such an approach was made ,4 and this led to
an internal debate within the PKP which lasted for several months .5
The transformation in the PKP’s position on the Marcos government
occurred relatively swiftly. Ofreneo explains this in terms of the “big impact
on the peasant base” of the party made by Marcos’s land reform,* the
fact that Marcos began supporting the movement for a New International
Economic Order and that, although the Philippines had previously been
the “anti-communist leader in the region,” he opened relations with the
socialist countries. The concept of noncapitalist development also made a
contribution to the change of line— without which, says Ofreneo, the PKP
would have been committing political suicide.6 According to Magallona,
the party was influenced by indications that Marcos was amenable to
legalization of the party, and thus a central committee meeting called to
discuss the party’s stand on martial law had decided to explore precisely
that possibility. Like Ofreneo, he also cites the sharpening of Philippine-
US relations consequent upon Marcos’s diplomatic forays into Eastern
Europe, following which the Communist Party of the Soviet Union had
asked the PKP whether Soviet assistance to Marcos should be increased .7
Pedro Baguisa, PKP general secretary at the time of writing, who joined the
party in 1971, says that there had been fairly uneventful informal talks even
Interestingly, Ofreneo says that his research revealed that the expansion of the CPP-led
New People’s Army had, in the years 1978-1985, occurred largely in areas not covered by
the Marcos land reform.
C h a p t e r 9: Po l it ic a l S e t t l e m e n t i 85
before the 1973 congress, with the party represented by Federico Maclang,
and that this process had been revived after the congress. The possibility
o f a legal existence had a major impact. “The overwhelming majority of the
party wanted it legalized,” says Baguisa, “considering the changing balance
of forces in the world. From feudalism, some countries could go straight to
socialism— the non-capitalist path. That consideration convinced comrades
one way or another that the negotiations should go ahead .”8
The PKP insisted that Romeo Dizon, then in prison, should be on its
panel and he was therefore released to attend conferences .9 Throughout
the negotiations, the only public manifestation was a national unity call
issued by Marcos; when the negotiations were concluded, the PKP was for
public purposes portrayed as having responded to this call.
In the early exchange of communications between the government
and the PKP, the former had objected to the party’s commitment to armed
struggle and internationalism. The party, however, refused to renounce the
latter.
We resolutely declared that no negotiations could be held if the martial law

government insisted on this condition. They gave in to this; they revised
their conditions and limited it to the scope of membership; they opined
that since our Party is a Filipino Party our membership should not anymore
include foreigners. They did not mention internationalism anymore.10
Even so, this revised condition leads one to believe that Marcos, or
at least his advisors, had a keen appreciation of the PKP’s history and
the contribution made by non-Filipinos such as James Allen and William
Pomeroy (although only Pomeroy had actually been a member oT the P^P).
The party also agreed to renounce armed struggle and to support those
reforms which benefited the masses. For its part, the PKP demanded four
conditions, which were conceded:
1. no person would be detained by virtue of membership of the PKP

or the armed group or mass organizations it led;
2. all members of the PKP, its armed group and mass organizations,
who were in prison would be released;
3. a general amnesty would be declared for all members of the party

and its mass organizations;
4. the PKP would be fully legalized when conditions warranted this.
The negotiations were capped by a publicized meeting between Marcos

and twenty-seven PKP members at Malacañang Palace on October 11,1974.
Felicísimo Macapagal, the party’s general secretary, explained that the party
had responded to the call for national unity because “for the first time in
the political history of our country, genuine reforms are being directed and
carried out in a determined manner by no less than the President; reforms that
are meant to advance the frontiers of social justice and open opportunities
for a better life for all our people .”11 Among the PKP leaders present were
Alejandro Briones (described by the press as the “top commander”) and
Mariano de Guzman, better known as “Commander Diwa.” As a symbol of
the party’s renunciation of the armed struggle, the delegation handed over
nineteen firearms, pledging that all the arms held by the party’s military units
would be turned in to the government. Marcos then directed the Department
of National Defense to grant safe-conduct passes to all politburo members,
enabling them to travel throughout Luzon, convincing the membership to
participate in the amnesty. He also directed the military to cooperate with
PKP officials in preparing a joint study of areas in which the PKP could
participate in the various programs of the government.12 Medical and welfare
assistance would be made available to all PKP “returnees,” while longer-
term measures would include the establishment of relocation centers where
“returnees” could be trained in cottage industry skills.13
Immediately, there were attempts to misrepresent the political settlement
as “sunender.” The Marcos-controlled Philippine Sunday Express not
only ran an editorial on October 13 entitled “Surrender of Rebel Chiefs
Strengthens National Unity,” but claimed that at the meeting two days earlier
the PKP “had ended its 44 years of existence”; this line was echoed in the
journal’s front-page story by Primitivo Mijares. The following day, Teodoro
F. Valencia’s column in the Bulletin Today also referred to “sunender,”
predicting that “this will no doubt be hailed by Maoists around the world
[as] a victory against the revisionist faction of the communist party." The
C h a p t e r 9: P o l it ic a l S e t t l e m e n t i 87
Daily Express on the same day claimed that the party had “put an end to
its 44-year illegal existence” (which was, unintentionally, technically true,
as the PKP’s existence was now legal), while Mijares’s column in the same
edition referred to the “voluntary dismantling” of the party; the same phrase
was repeated in his column two days later. In the Times Journal, Vicente
M. Tanedo used his “Malacaftan roundup” column to set the record straight,
pointing out that “they were aware that theirs was not a capitulation. It was
more of a rediscovery or, let us say, a reassessment of position .”14
The PKP itself called a press conference at Camp Crame on October 16
in order to stress that there had been no surrender. Felicisimo Macapagal
and Merlin Magallona explained that the party had closely monitored
developments in the “New Society,” reading Marcos’s books and speeches
on the reforms and comparing these with the government’s actions. Once
they were convinced that his actions matched his words, the party leaders
had held a series of conferences to reassess the PKP’s position and then
had conducted a partywide consultation before the final meeting with
Marcos on October 11. Macapagal pointed out that the PKP’s offer to the
government of cooperation and active participation would have been
totally ineffective if the organization had, as some wished to believe, been
dismantled. Moreover, military officers present at the press conference
indicated that a study was underway concerning the amendment of the
Anti-Subversion Law. Accurate reports of this press conference were
published by both the TimesJournal and Bulletin Today}5
Throughout November and December a number of public ceremonies
were held at which members of the PKP and its mass organizations handed
in their weapons and claimed amnesty. The first of these took place in Aliaga,
Nueva Ecija, and was attended by 3,000 “rebels” and 50,000 spectators from
five provinces. Here, Marcos declared: “As President of the Republic, I accept
the offer to unite and cooperate with the people by the PKP under Secretary-
General Macapagal and Commander Briones and enlist them in the New
Republic of the Poor, under the New Society.” He then publicly signed a letter
of instruction to the secretary of Agrarian Reform to immediately implement
land reform for rice and com lands down to seven hectares, a reduction
from the previous twenty-four hectares. He also issued two decrees, the
first of which promised dismissal and perpetual disqualification from public

office of all government personnel, including judges and members of the
armed forces, who caused tenants to be evicted from their farms, while
“[ejrring landlords will themselves be subjected to punishment”; the
second required rural banks to open themselves to equity participation by
tenant farmers to the extent of 40 percent of total voting stock .16Interestingly,
when reporters at the ceremony made reference to “surrender,” none other
than Fidel Ramos, then head of the Philippine Constabulary, responded:
“They are not surrendered rebels. They came to pledge their cooperation to
the Government.”17On December 22, a total of 1,200 members and supporters
were granted amnesty at ceremonies in San Jose City and Talavera, Nueva
Ecija.18 Finally, on December 31, the last day of the amnesty, a total of 3,789
members of the PKP, HMB, and MASAKA from Laguna, Quezon, Rizal, and
Batangas attended a ceremony at Victoria, Laguna.19
In mid-December, the government ordered that all 622 PKP detainees
be released. The 291 released in the Greater Manila area included Jesus
Lava who, along with others, attended a ceremony at Camp Crame. Later in
the month, Marcos ordered the armed forces and the defense department
to establish a resetdement town in San Miguel, Bulacan, for PKP members,
stating: “Let us show them that because they fought for the right to a
decent piece of land, a place of shelter to live and work in, their new faith
and new loyalties can provide them with that decent piece of land and
shelter for themselves and their families.”20 In all, a total of 9,000 hectares
was provided at Kawit-Corona, Kalawakan, Talbah, and Kamatching.21
Finally, a year later Marcos rectified a thirty-year-old injustice by extending
recognition to the Huk veterans “as comrades in the last war and as war
veterans,” placing them on pensions.
Needless to say, it was not only sections of the Philippine press which
characterized the political setdement as “surrender.” According to Pomeroy,
the claim was made by Marcos himself (certainly the Daily Express was
little more than Marcos’s mouthpiece) but he speculates that “Marcos may
have been trying to protect himself from US charges of being ‘soft on
communism . . Z”22 More predictably, the charge was also made by the
CPP and Francisco Nemenzo Jr .23 The latter goes further than this, however,
C h a p t e r 9: P o l i t i c a l S e t t le m e n t 189
alleging that “Obedient party members then queued at the PC headquarters

to be photographed and fingerprinted like common criminals.”24 In fact,
however, there was rather more behind the well-publicized amnesty rallies
than met the eye. Not only did the PKP secretly retain some of its arms,
but hundreds of those “handed in” at the ceremonies were provided by the
Army in order to impress the newspaper photographers .25 Moreover, the
PKP insists that there was no registration of individual party members .26
The political settlement could only have been correctly characterized
as surrender if the PKP had abandoned its commitment to anti-imperialism
and to the longer-term objective of socialism, embracing all the policies of
the Marcos government. But this it did not do. So what precisely was the
party seeking from the arrangement9
First, it sought a legalized existence. In order to fully understand this,
it would be wise to consider the relevant resolution of the 1973 Congress:
One of the major obstacles to the spreading of Party influence among

the masses is its underground status. This situation did not arise out
of its own deliberate choice. It was driven underground as a result of
state repression, intending to check and thwart any effective work of
the Party in organizing and leading the working masses into a force for
independence, democracy and economic liberation. This alone clarifies
the point that the fight for legalization of the Party meets the main tactics
of the enemy.
The Party exists only is an advanced unit of the working people. It
is inseparable from the Filipino working people, and its objectives are
indistinguishable from the interests of the working people. The fight
for legalization therefore embodies the most basic right of the working
masses to full consciousness of its [sic] present exploited and oppressed
condition. It expresses the highest demand of the people to be free from
imperialist domination, to shed their feudal bondages and to build a new
life of social liberation. The declared policy to struggle for the right of the
Party to work legally and openly among the masses is not merely a tactical
maneuver but a firm principled position.27
Thus, it did not desire legality for its own sake, but in order to perform
more effectively those tasks that were seen as being the responsibility
of communist parties. At a series of seminars held at the University of
the Philippines in 1983 on “Marxism in the Philippines,” a speaker from

the floor (later identified to the author as Romeo Dizon) responded to
Nemenzo’s charge of “surrender” as follows.
It was a decision stemming from a desire to be able to approach

organization work in a different way—a much more efficient and
convenient way. However you look at it, there is a difference between
operating in the open and operating underground. There is more
opportunity to propagate and disseminate your ideas as a party Mien you
are in the open. Things like these should be weighed. The 1974 settlement
was an attempt to transform the PKP into a legal party. It was premised
on the desire to rally and organize more. The party believes that not only
the intellectuals are important in a revolution. Although we recognize their
importance, the larger masses of the people are far more important and
more decisive in the movement.28
Second, the PKP sought not only to support those policies of Marcos
which it deemed to be progressive in nature, but also to push him
to go further if possible. Less than six months after the settlement, the
press published a letter from Felicísimo Macapagal, who explained: “We
are fighting against US imperialism. But we believe that at this stage, this
should be done by ideologically arming the Filipino people and leading
them to support the government in certain foreign programs which more
than hurt US imperialist interests in our country.”29 This is hardly the tone
of someone who has surrendered. And far from supporting martial law
(another charge hurled at the PKP), it was the desire to effectively organize
the masses that led Macapagal, as early as January 1975 (i.e., just three
months after the political setdement), to write an open letter to Marcos
urging him to “restore the organization rights of the working people” as
“a concrete step toward the lifting of martial law” Having underlined the
positive nature of the government’s reforms, the letter continued:
But as it has been the task of the New Society to articulate the urgent
demands of the broad ranks of the working masses and to give such
demands their normative form, so must it be its greater responsibility now
to arouse mass enthusiasm, to give full expression to all means by which
the masses can mobilize themselves behind these reforms . . . Only the
direct participation of the masses in organizing themselves for the defense
and advancement of the reforms which you, Mr. President, are boldly
asserting, will insure the full development of these positive changes . . .
Now that we have the reforms, who will advance them but the
masses themselves? As things stand now, the people are losing confidence,
because they feel intimidated. They cannot speak of their rights, because
they fear arbitrary arrest. Their enthusiasm for reforms is intermixed with
the feeling of gloom generated by fear.30
The aspects of “New Society” policy which were supported by the

PKP were land reform, Marcos’s proposal for the restructuring of the labor
movement, with one union for each industry,* the newly independent departure
in foreign relations, the formation of worker and peasant cooperatives, and
“all other measures which clearly redound to the improvement of the lot
of the Filipino people .”31 Among these “other measures” were the creation
of barangays and samahang nayons which “hold the potential of a much
broadened popular participation in the political process as well as in the
more democratic direction of the rural economy .”32
But the party had no illusions about such reforms, acknowledging for
example that land reform was an “imperialist scheme [forj dissolving the
vestiges of feudalism and laying the foundations for the rise o f capitalism,”
but recognizing at the same time that this provided “the conditions for the
emergence of agricultural workers and the increase in the ranks of the Filipino
proletariat.”33 It was further estimated that Marcos was forced to adopt many
of his progressive policies by the changed balance of world forces. Thus, the
quickened pace of capitalist construction in neocolonial countries like the
Philippines was an attempt to forestall noncapitalist development and defuse
anti-feudal unrest. This could not take place without a thoroughgoing land
reform. In order to make such capitalist development more attractive, and
therefore more viable, however, “we hear of cooperatives and profit-sharing
This was one uf ihe aims of Crisanlo Evangelism, the PKP’s first general secretary, even
before the foundation of the party. However, support for this initiative was withdrawn
when it was realized that Marcos had in mind a top-down restructuring.
schemes which distribute limited economic benefits to wider segments of

the populace, but which nevertheless remain part and parcel of the overall
exploitative capitalist structure .”34
The Philippines’ newly asserted independence at the United Nations,
where it adopted an anti-Israeli position in the October War of 1973 and
voted for the return of all territories seized in 1967 and for recognition of
the Palestine Liberation Organization, was certainly progressive but was
equally certainly “dictated by economic exigency ,”35 as the Philippines
relied exclusively on the Middle East for oil. Similarly, the development
of relations with the socialist countries was driven by economic exigency,
providing an alternative market for traditional Philippine products. The
new PKP journal Arig Buklod revealed, moreover, that none other than the
Japanese ambassador in Manila had urged the Philippines to establish ties
with China so that textiles manufactured by Japanese companies in the
Philippines could be exported there !36
Nor were the reforms seen as an end in themselves. Instead, the
party recognized the requirement to struggle against those “who wanted
to confine the people’s struggle to purely economic objectives,” drawing
attention to Lenin’s views on the two-sided nature of reforms, with reformists
seeking to divide and deceive workers while others, “having seen through
the falsity of reformism, utilize reforms to develop and broaden their class
struggle.”37 The party summarized its views on the reforms as follows:
Those economic, social and political reforms which are favorable to the
interests of the Filipino working masses, instituted under the martial-law
government, limited (though] they may be at this stage, have the support
of the PKP. PKP considers these changes as a step forward, which have
to be pushed vigorously to fuller radical transformations until economic
liberation from foreign monopoly capitalism and social emancipation of
the Filipino working people are achieved.38
Just as there were areas of agreement between the PKP and the
martial-law government, so too there were areas of disagreement, and
the party openly voiced its opinion regarding these. Needless to say, the
party objected to martial law itself “insofar as it curtails and restricts the
democratic rights of the people ,”39 and in particular to the ban on strikes. It
also opposed neocolonial industrialization “as anathema to genuine national
development.”40 The “PKP strongly opposes and will actively struggle
against imperialist-controlled industrialization. PKP views the heavy inflow
of multinational capital as detrimental to the national interest. PKP as ever
advocates the intermediate stages of nationalist industrialization and non
capitalist development which is set forth in detail in its program .”41 With
regard to land reform, the party undertook to continue the fight to reduce
the prices being charged for family-sized farms. In summary:
As it has consistently done since its founding, PKP will continue to attack,
oppose, expose and condemn every policy or program of government
that, in whatever form of disguise, strengthens the strangulation of the
economy by foreign monopoly capital, perpetuates the economic misery
of the people, continues to serve imperialist interest or worsen hardship,
oppression and exploitation of the working people.42
Despite all of the foregoing, is it not curious and even unseemly that
a communist party could arrive at a political settlement with a regime as
brutal and corrupt as that of Ferdinand Marcos?
It should first be stated that although martial law had been in place for
two years when the settlement was concluded, Marcos’s reputation had not
at that stage reached the depths it was later to plumb. This is largely due to
the fact that the US-led clamor concerning human rights violations did not
really intensify until the late 1970s; and this was due not so much to any
worsening in Marcos’s behavior but to the fact that US imperialism was by
then seeking to have him replaced by Benigno Aquino Jr. (the candidate
it had selected for the 1973 elections prior to their cancellation by the
martial-law regime). Pomeroy has pointed out that the protests over civil
rights abuses had, in fact, a class coloration. The abuses, he says,
were but the extension of measures used to deal with the Maoist-led
guerrilla armed struggle launched in 1969, long before martial law. They
were little different from the suppressive policies of the Roxas-Quirino-

Magsaysay regimes against the PKP-led Huk Movement. The principal
difference between these two uses of suppressive violence was the type of
people on whom it was applied. Resistance to Marcos came not just from
peasants and workers but from opponents in the middle class and elite and
from religious groups, especially in the Catholic Church. The arrest and
maltreatment of priests, nuns, seminary students and foreign missionaries
attracted more attention than the arrest and brutal treatment of ordinary
working people. The detention of the elite politician Benigno Aquino drew
protests that were never aroused over the jailing in the 1950s erf PKP trade
union leaders.
In particular, the Catholic Church became an active center of anti-
Marcos activities. Much erf this was due to Marcos policies that sought
to bring the Church’s semi-feudal and privileged status into line with the
capitalist orientaUon of the regime. Marcos proposed to tax the extensive
Church properties which extended increasingly to banking and business,
and in particular the numerous private schools in the Church’s nationwide
education system. A Marcos policy of population control that involved
the dissemination of family planning birth control methods, advanced to
contend with the effect of a high 3-6 percent population growth rate on
worsening poverty, ran counter to Catholic doctrine. The more conservative
sectors of the Church opposed Marcos because of these policies, but they
did so indirectly, on human rights grounds.43
As late as 1984 Renato Constantino made an oblique reference to this

when he warned against opposition based solely on civil rights.
Violations of civil liberties and physical violence against citizens by agents

of the state should be condemned but they should not constitute the
principal focus of protest while the laiger question of the people’s right to
self-determination has not been resolved. For when a big power controls a
small nation economically and imposes its political and military influence
to the point where the latter loses its right to determine its own goals and
ensure the welfare of its people, human rights are violated on a mass scale.44
In the mid-1970s, moreover, it was not uncommon in developing

countries for authoritarian leaders to embark upon progressive reforms,
gaining the support of left-wing forces, as in Syria, Algeria, Panama, and
Peru; often, such regimes not only employed martial law but the army
actually constituted the ruling body. At precisely this time, moreover,
communist theoreticians in a number of countries, particularly the Soviet
Union, were summarizing these developments and drawing the distinction
between reactionary and progressive authoritarian regimes; this was closely
allied with the considerable body of work produced by Soviet scholars in
the 1970s on the noncapitalist path of development discussed in chapter
10 .“15 Such works commonly made the point that in a developing country
where the ruling body was of an authoritarian character, it was not that
character which was of overriding importance; far more important was the
need to determine which forces that authoritarian power was wielded against
and, if it could be shown that imperialist or local elite forces were on the
receiving end, whether there existed the potential to deepen the reforms
being undertaken and to strengthen the political positions of the working
class and peasantry.
In some countries, whether or not the regime was authoritarian,
communist and socialist parties entered into a relationship of “critical
support” with the ruling party. For example, the fledgling Workers’ Party of
Jamaica was forced to modify its opposition to the People’s National Party
government of Michael Manley, despite the authoritarian tenor of some of
its earlier policies, when the latter began to adopt an anti-imperialist stance,
challenging the IMF and deepening relations with neighboring Cuba. Even
in Guyana, where the People’s National Congress of Forbes Burnham had
a long history of retaining office by vote-rigging and brutality against the
People’s Progressive Party led by Cheddi Jagan, the latter moderated its
opposition when, like Manley, Burnham struck a limited anti-imperialist
pose. Thus, Marxists adopted a class approach to these developments,
paying due regard to the balance of class forces both within their own
countries and internationally.
Having ended its isolation from the international communist movement
in 1969, the PKP was both privy to these developments and able to avail
itself of the theoretical generalizations of such experience being produced
in some quantity by Marxist scholars. That this was so is evident from
the sophistication of the analysis developed at its 1973 congress and the
perspective of noncapitalist development put forward in its program .

Thus, the authoritarian nature of the Marcos regime, or even Marcos’s o w n
corruption, while not overlooked would not have been uppermost in its
mind. Instead, it adopted a class approach to the government’s reform
program, as demonstrated in a statement entitled “The PKP as a Filipino
Party,” issued in 1976.
In all its policies, decisions and actions, the guiding principle that has
consistently served as the PKP’s beacon has been: Would it be in the
interest—short or long-term— of the Filipino people, particularly the
working masses? And the bases for determining these interests are:
Would it mean greater independence and sovereignty for the Filipino
people? Would there be greater participation of the masses of Filipinos
in the policy-making and implementation? Would there be a progressive
raising of the well-being of the masses? Would there eventually result the
complete liberation of the Filipino people from imperialist domination
and influence? Would it finally end man’s exploitation of his fellowmen?
It would remain to be seen, however, whether the potential which the

PKP identified in Marcos would be realized over the next few years.
N o tes
1. Jesus Lava, “Memorandum on the ‘Democratic Revolution,’” typescript, 1972.

2. Jesus Lava, interview by the author, January 1996.
6. Rene Ofreneo, interview by the author, July 2008.
7. Merlin Magallona, interview by the author, July 2008.
9. According to Jose Dalisay’s study of the Lava family, Jesus Lava was concerned
that, unlike Dizon, neither he nor his brother was consulted, and he was
convinced that “deep penetration agents (DPAs) had taken over” the party.
This is a somewhat curious assertion in view of the fact that Jesus Lava had
submitted his own paper in which he virtually called for a political settlement
not to the PKP but to Marcos. Similarly, both brothers were convinced,
says Dalisay, that Jose’s long sojourn in Prague as PKP representative on
World Marxist Review was “engineered by people they believed to be deep
penetration agents." See Jose Y. Dalisay, The Lavas: A Filipino Family (Pasig
City: Anvil Publishing Corp., 1999), 155,159.
The DPA allegations should not be taken too seriously. Sison’s charge that
the Lavas looked upon party leadership as a “family heirloom” was not entirely
without foundation, and they seemed to share with him the practice of labeling
political opponents within the movement as “agents.” (The author visited the
Lava household in Mandaluyong in January 1996 specifically to interview Jesus
about his “Memorandum on the Democratic Revolution” of 1972. However,
both brothers insisted on giving their views on the PKP leadership, Jose
finding sinister implications in the fact that, although one leader had been
urged not to travel to the Soviet Union via Bangkok, where the CIA was said
to be very active, he had ignored the advice. This sort of allegation is seen in
its proper perspective when it is realized that foreign travel arrangements for
party leaders were in fact the responsibility of Jose’s daughter, Aida.) By the
time these allegations appeared in print (1999), Jesus had been expelled from
the PKP a decade earlier, and so it would not be unreasonable to suppose that
his motives contained an element of sour grapes. The allegations would be
repeated in his 2002 autobiography. See Jesus Lava, Memoirs o f a Communist
(Pasig City: Anvil Publishing, Inc., 2002), 335.
10. Interview with Felicisimo Macapagal, September 28, 1976, interviewer
unknown, copy of transcript in the papers of William Pomeroy.
11. Bulletin Today, October 13, 1974.
12. Ibid.
13- Bulletin Today, October 14, 1975.
14. TimesJournal, October 16,1974.
15. TimesJournal and Bulletin Today, October 17, 1974.
16. Ibid.
17. Vicente M. Tanedo, “Malacaftan Roundup,” TimesJournal, November 20, 1974.
18. Daily Express, December 23, 1974.
21. Daily Express, February 18, 1975.
23. See Marxism in the Philippines (Quezon City: Third World Studies Center,
University of the Philippines, 1984) and “Rectification Process in the Philippine
Communist Movement,” in Armed Communist Movements in Southeast Asia,

ed. Lim Joo-Jock and S. Vani (Hampshire, England: Gower, 1984), 54.
24. Nemenzo, “Rectification Process,” 85.
25. PKP member (a high-level cadre in 1974), interview by the author, November
1989.
26. William Pomeroy to Benedict J. Kerkvliet, November 23/December 15, 1974.
27. Quoted in “National Unity: Reforms in the Philippines,” Ang Buklod, vol. 1, no.
1, February 1975.
28. Marxism in the Philippines, 29.
29. Daily Express, April 17, 1975. This was written in response to a speech by US
Congressman Larry McDonald.
30. Felicisimo Macapagal, open letter to Ferdinand Marcos, Ang Buklod, February
1975.
31. “The Party’s Legalization Drive: Realities and Challenges,” Ang Buklod, February
1975.
32. Ibid.
33. Ibid.
34. “The Philippines: An International Perspective,” Ang Buklod, February 1975.
35. Ibid.
36. Ibid.
37. “The Party’s Legalization Drive.”
38. “The Philippines: An International Perspective.”
39. Ibid.
40. Ibid.
41. Ibid.
42. Ibid.
45. In addition to those works cited in chapter 10, see, for example, Yevgeny
Dolgopolov, The Army and the Revolutionary Transformation o f Society (Moscow:
Progress Publishers, 1981); I. Andreyev, The Non-Capitalist Way (Moscow;
Progress Publishers, 1974); Rostislav Ulyanovsky, National Liberation (Moscow:
Progress Publishers, 1978).
PART FOUR
The following five chapters are thematic in nature, dealing with four
aspects of the CPP’s theory and practice. The vexed and much-debated
question of whether the semifeudal or capitalist mode of production
dominates in the Philippines is given a further airing in chapter 10. Hopefully,
this is distinguished by an approach different from that usually adopted,
outlining the method adopted by traditional Marxism in distinguishing one
mode of production from another, examining the “non-capitalist path” as an
alternative strategy to the CPP’s “new democratic” line adopted from Mao,
and putting forward a view of the Soviet Union (the assistance of which
would have been crucial in the implementation of the “non-capitalist path”)
that challenges Maoism’s view of it as “social-imperialist.”
While the mode of production has been hotly debated in the past, the
CPP’s relationship with radical elements in the Catholic Church, the subject
of chapter 11, has attracted little comment or analysis. This is surprising in
view of the materialist ,approach of Marxism and the idealism (both words
are used here in their philosophical sense) of religion.
Chapters 12 and 13 deal with the “protracted people’s war” that
com menced in 1969 and has continued, as of this writing, for forty years.
Here, particular attention is paid to the tactics employed in the countryside,
for while these resulted in swelling the ranks of both the CPP and the
NPA at the time, they were based on a Maoist prescription which would
prove unsustainable in Philippine circumstances. At the same time, the
“centralized leadership, decentralized operations” approach pursued from
the mid-1970s led to a situation in which, in the absence of a policy-making
19 9
congress at which the party’s program could be updated and strategy

subjected to discussion, alternative approaches developed in Mindanao and
Manila. Also discussed are the probable size of the NPA, the effects o f
“protracted people’s war” on Philippine society, and the “anti-DPA” purges
of the mid-1980s.
Chapter 14 deals with the question of the CPP’s approach to alliances,
and while some previous studies of the CPP have chosen to focus o n
the sectarianism and “vanguardism” of the CPP leadership in this regard,
the cunent work takes the view that such studies have missed the point,
which is that the alliances attempted by the CPP were anti-Marcos when it
would have been more appropriate to forge a united front against foreign
domination, particularly of the economy.
This part of the book might usefully have included a chapter on
the CPP’s activity within the labor movement; indeed, as the author has
argued that one of the deficiencies of the CPP’s program lay in its failure
to mention the trade union movement, the absence of such a chapter may
tempt some readers to conclude that he is taned with his own brush. It
seems to make sense, however, to leave an account of the Kilusang Mayo
Uno (KMU, May First Movement) for a further volume, and for two reasons.
The KMU was, after all, founded toward the end of the period covered by
the cunent work, and its most active period was, for obvious reasons, in
the years following 1986. And then there are considerations of space . . .
C h a pter 1 0 :
“M o re a M o d e o f E xp ressio n . .
In chapter 7, we saw that at its sixth congress the PKP discarded the
characterization of the Philippine mode of production as semifeudal, having
conducted a fresh analysis. This was, in fact, a major theoretical difference
between the PKP and the CPP, and has been thoroughly discussed in the
national democratic movement (in its broadest sense)’ ever since— so
much so that, in early 1996, Filemon “Popoy” Lagman jokingly dismissed
the “semifeudal” concept in the Philippine context as “more a mode of
expression than a mode of production .”1 This chapter will examine first
the semifeudal characterization, and then the concept of “non-capitalist
development,” which during the period under discussion occupied a central
role in the PKP’s program.
Although in practice the CPP would, as we have seen, emphasize its
opposition to Marcos, its Program fo r a People’s Democratic Revolution
identified US imperialism and domestic feudalism as the “main problems
afflicting the whole nation and from which the masses of the people aspire
to be liberated . . . US imperialism has made use of feudalism as its social
In the Philippines, the term “national-democratic" has come to be identified solely

with the CPP-led movement. However, it has long been used within the international
communist movement to refer to the anti-imperialist stage of revolutions in the Third
World and is, in fact, also employed by the PKP for this purpose.
201
base in the Philippines.” That was in 1968; but the party would cling to its
“semifeudal” analysis for decades. In its “Urgent Message to the Filipino
People” issued after the assassination of Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr. in
August 1983, the CPP explained that the Philippines was
semifeudal because its economy has been deliberately kept backward,

remaining a supplier of raw materials to capitalist countries and an
importer of industrial goods and consumer products; because feudal and
semicolonial relations of production continue to be prevalent in the vast
countryside; and because US imperialism has continually blocked national
industrialization, allowing capitalism to develop only to a limited extent
and making it a mere adjunct of the imperialist system.2
The nature of the mode of production in the Philippines was discussed

in an article entitled “Our Party’s Economic Program: Change the Production
Relations,” which appeared in Ang Bayan in March 1985.
The basic development of the economy comes with the development of

the forces of production. This means the smashing of the old relations
of production which impede their progress, and the setting up of new
relations appropriate to their level of development.
The main obstacle to this development are the semifeudal and
semicolonial relations, not the limited capitalist relations in the country.
Our revolution at the present time is national-democratic in character, not
yet a socialist one, because it aims to smash the former, not the latter.
In his 1989 book, Jose Maria Sison reiterated the “semifeudal”

characterization, explaining: “As an economic term, semifeudal refers to an
economy whose internal forces of production are mainly and essentially
agrarian and preindustrial and whose relations of production are dominated
by the combination of the comprador big bourgeoisie in the cities and the
landlord class in the countryside.”3*
Sison then exhibited an imprecise use of Marxist terminology by continuing: “The

principal means of production is still agriculture.”4 Agriculture may be described as a
form of economic activity cm* as a branch of production, but it cannot be called a m eans
of production, as the latter term means machinery, buildings, raw materials or, as is
presumably intended here, land.
C h apter io : “ M o re a M ode of E x p r e s s io n . . 2 0 3
Armando Malay Jr. expressed his opposition to the “semifeudal”

characterization by commenting that “history has proven that ‘feudalism’
is basically a hindrance to the further growth of capitalism” and therefore
would hardly be the “social base” of imperialism.5 He characterized the
CPP line as follows:
Do not depend on bourgeois land reform. It will not happen in the

first place since American imperialism for its part has no intention in
liquidating feudalism. It is rather interested in preserving i t . . . I think this
line stems from the Chinese influence and from the fact that the party has
not yet updated its reading of the objective needs of American imperialism
in the Philippines.6
Indeed, Malay was too generous, for it was clear long before the
appearance of the Program fo r a People’s Democratic Revolution in 1968
that Washington wished to see the demise of feudalism in the Philippines:
the Hardie Report of 1952 stated quite clearly that retention of the existing
land tenure system was not in the interest of the USA and that it encouraged
the growth of communism; this produced an anguished outcry from the
Filipino landed elite and, as the US government wished to maintain a
united front against the Huk Rebellion, Hardie was recalled to Washington
in 1953.
Before we examine the CPP’s “semifeudal” characterization, it would be

useful if we clarified what, according to traditional Marxism, distinguishes
one mode of production from another. In the process of production, the
forces of production are
a. the instruments of production, i.e., tools, machinery, etc.

b. the people carrying out the process of production on the basis of a
certain degree of production experience.
At a certain stage in the development of the productive forces, the

basic means of production are separated from the direct producers and
becom e concentrated in the hands of a relatively few members of society.
Thereafter, there can be no production unless the producers and the
owners of the means of production enter into relations— the relations o f
production . The character of the relations of production is determined by
the level of development and character of the productive forces. Thus,
the relations of production appropriate for one stage of society could not
apply at an earlier stage. For example, the relations of production under
slavery could not apply under primitive communism, as under the latter the
instruments of production (the stone axe, the club, etc.) could be produced
by anyone and the level of productivity was so low that there was no
surplus and, thus, no opportunity for exploitation.
Therefore, the mode of production is determined by the unity of the
forces of production and the relations of production.
However, it is possible for the relations of production appropriate to
one mode to appear within a later mode. For example, the relations o f
production appropriate to slavery could be found in the southern states
of the USA until 1865. But that clearly did not mean that the mode o f
production in the USA was the slavery mode, for the forces of production
had developed to the capitalist stage and in most of the country, including
among most southern whites, capitalist relations of production obtained.
Or let us take the case of Jamaica where, Munroe tells us:
capitalism in its early development and in its middle stage did have
colonial empires and Jamaica was a part of the British colonial empire.
In that time . . . capitalism through these colonial empires made use
of every kind of pre-capitalist mode of production to assist in its own
development . . . In China, in Vietnam, in Cambodia, in Laos, in India, in
Africa, in Latin America, all over the world, capitalism in its development
prior to imperialism, used the feudal system that existed in those places,
the semi-feudal system and the slave system. It used them all whenever it
was convenient to develop the system of capitalism and whenever it was
convenient, it discarded and threw away those systems.7
C h apter io : "M o re a M ode of E x p r e s s io n . . 2 0 5
Just as it could not be said that the slavery mode prevailed in the
southern USA, neither could it be said to have existed in Jamaica, for
although the vast majority of the population were subject to the relations
of production of slavery, the instruments of production— the sugar mills,
boiling-houses, distilleries, etc.— simply would not have been possible
under the slavery mode.
Is it not possible, then, for part of the population in the Philippines to
be subject to the relations of production of feudalism without the mode of
production being feudal or semifeudal? Let us hear from Marx:
lln] all forms of society there is one specific kind of production which
predominates over the rest, whose relations thus assign rank and influence
to the others. It is a general illumination which bathes all the other colors
and modifies their particularity. It is a particular ether which determines
the specific gravity of every being which materializes within it.8
Less poetically, a country may contain different kinds of production,

each with its own relations of production, but one of those will prevail
over the others, and in so doing will determine the society’s dominant
mode of production. So do “semifeudal” production relations predominate
in the Philippines? We will begin by enquiring into the stage reached by
the forces of production.
Agriculture has not been the main source of exports for some
time. The export of primary products as a share of the total exports of
merchandise declined from 83 percent in 1966 to 47 percent in 1983 .9
During the Marcos years, the economy was transformed, largely due to
the neocolonial industrialization and the agrarian reform which took place
under martial law. The dramatic effects of the World Bank-IMF program
of industrialization were apparent in every aspect of the Filipino’s life.
When he got up in the morning, he would brush his teeth with toothpaste
206 A M o vem ent D iv id e d
manufactured by a transnational corporation (TNC), take a wash, bath, o r

shower with TNC soap and wash his hair with TNC shampoo. The toilet
paper he used would probably be manufactured by a TNC. If he used a
deodorant, it too would be made by a TNC. His coffee would be a TNC
brand and if he could afford breakfast it would be prepared with TNC
margarine or cooking oil. If he fell ill, he would be treated with TNC drugs.
If he owned a car or drove a vehicle at work, it would be a TNC model. If
he worked in a factory, his machine would have been produced by a TNC;
if he worked on a farm large enough to employ machinery, that machinery
also would have been produced by a TNC. The gasoline he used in his car
or motorcycle would probably be the product of Shell or Caltex. If he ate
any processed food during his lunch break, it would be TNC fare. If he
worked in an office, a TNC would have made the electrical appliances; the
same would be true of those in his home.
Even more astonishingly, though, with the exceptions of the farm o r
factory machinery, most of these products would have been manufactured
in the Philippines by local branches of the TNCs in question (or even,
to a more limited but increasing extent, by companies owned by martial
law beneficiaries like Eduardo Cojuangco). Equally, all of them would
have been made by workers subject to wage relations, and none of the
instruments of production used in their manufacture could possibly have
been developed within the feudal mode of production.
Abinales describes the advance of capitalist production relations during
the martial-law period as follows:
This changing political economy was evident in many regions, but was
most discernible in the major periphery—Mindanao. In this last of the
country's land frontiers, corporate capital, with considerable support
from the dictatorship, led the way in a major alteration of the Mindanao
landscape. By the 1980s, there were 751 major corporations (with an
This is something of an oversimplification. Companies operating in export processing

zones, or “ecozones” as they are now called, are usually unable to market their products
in the Philippines. Thus, a TNC manufacturing or assembling desktop printers in a
Philippine ecozone must export these, while Philippine consumers purchase printers
manufactured by a TNC in an Indonesian ecozone (which cannot be sold in Indonesia).
C h apter io : “ M o re a M ode of E x p r e s s io n . . 2 0 7
average of 10 million pesos capitalization) operating in Mindanao, of

which 89 were foreign or subsidiary firms.10
And what of the countryside?

Even before the changes ushered in by the World Bank-IMF programs
during Marcos’s martial law regime, capitalism was making headway in
the rural areas. Ofreneo points out that, although the abolition of tenancy
favored by the Magsaysay and Macapagal governments was blocked by the
landed interests in Congress, agitation by the peasant organizations had led
to a significant number of conversions to leasehold. “The more forward-
looking landowners did not offer any resistance to the changes, assured
as they were of relatively high rent in the fonn of a definite percentage of
every crop harvest."11 This, in turn, led to a rise in the number of absentee
landlords; when martial law was declared in 1972, there were 10,832
landlords of whom 9,600 were absentee.12 Ofreneo continues:
To a great extent, both the emergence of the landless rural poor working
for wages system and the further growth of absentee landlordism that
was dependent on the katiwala (whereby the land was managed
by the landlord’s agent or steward] are clear indications of a maturing
capitalist development in the post-war countryside. A direct offshoot of
this development was the decline of the traditional paternalistic relation
between landlords and tenants, giving way to a more impersonal money-
oriented contractural relationship.13
The view of the martial law period taken by the CPP was somewhat
different.
Under martial law, Philippine society’s semifeudal character has become

even more pronounced. There has been no genuine land reform, whatever
the lies of the dictatorship. And feudal and semifeudal exploitation has not
only been intensified. It has been aggravated by massive landgrabbing to
accommodate giant US agro-corporations, government corporations, and
private corporations owned by the Marcos clique.14
In fact, the Marcos land reform program was, despite its limitations,
the most ambitious to date in the Philippines, as a result of which the
2 o8 A M o v e m e n t D iv id e d
“centuries-old, feudalistic system of sharecropping was dealt m ortal

blows . . .”15 This transformed “feudal bondage into a capitalist yoke for the
majority of the rural population,”16 replacing traditional tenant indebtedness
with “a new and complicated pattern of indebtedness by the . . . farm er
to a host of public and private lending institutions.”17 Indicative o f this
development was the fact that between 1971 and 1978 the number of rural
banks increased from 500 to 900.18 As a result of this process, the character
of the landlord class underwent changes.
In general, many landlords end up in the growing and newly-emerging

class of rural-based industrialists and businessmen. They find new roles
for themselves in the new scheme of things as rural bankers, as tractor
lenders, as handicraft entrepreneurs-exporters, as fertilizer dealers, as
land speculators and most likely, as allies of big foreign capitalists whose
tentacles are now reaching all comers of the countryside.19
The peasantry, on the other hand, was stratified into “small owner-
cultivators, amortizing landowners and tenants not covered by the [Marcos]
land reform.”20
The CPP’s proposition that feudalism provides the social base o f
imperialism would again be shown to be mistaken when, in May 1987, the
World Bank put forward land reform proposals which went far beyond those
of the Aquino government. Commented Ofreneo:
This is not surprising. The World Bank is acutely aware of the restlessness
among the rural masses. Without a more comprehensive land reform
program in place, the World Bank sees a prolongation of the “state of
instability and uncertainty currently affecting large parts of the rural areas”
which “is not conducive to investment in agriculture.”21
Transnational agribusiness corporations were making deep inroads into

Philippine agriculture throughout the 1970s. Between 1974 and 1980, the
corporate farms increased their lands by no less than 32 times the total
acreage received by the beneficiaries of the Marcos land reform.22 On
Mindanao, Del Monte and Dole expanded from pineapple cultivation into
coffee, tomato, and banana, then into feedlots, using pineapple waste, and
C h apter io : “ M ore a M ode of E x p r e s s io n . . . ” 209
finally into producing their own cans and establishing their own transport
systems. The Philippine countryside became host to the production of feed-
grain and processing and even ranching and meat processing. An Australian
subsidiary of King Ranch established a joint venture with the Yulo group to set
up a 40,000 hectare ranch on Palawan. Other internationally known brands
followed suit. In all of these developments, capitalist relations of production
prevailed. And on Negros, where such production relations had existed for
some time, mechanization of the sugar industry threatened, according to one
estimate, to eliminate 90 percent of the cunent labor requirement.23
Best known of the World Bank programs for Philippine agriculture was
the so-called Green Revolution, which introduced the cultivation of high-
yielding varieties of rice. A study by H. Myint for the Asian Development
Bank made no secret of the fact that the aim of the Green Revolution was to
“spur growth of rural banking and agribusiness, to release part of the land
and farm labor for other agricultural and industrial purposes, to generate a
steady flow of raw materials for industry, to create a market for farm inputs
and other capital goods, to provide cheap food for urban workers, and to
develop a market for mass consumption in the rural areas.”24 Not only could
the inputs and technology used in the Green Revolution not have been
developed in the feudal mode of production, but the program itself was
designed to further stimulate the development of capitalism.
Nor was the development of capitalism in the Philippine countryside
confined to agriculture. Through the system of subcontracting, many
thousands of rural farm families were drawn into the service of transnational
capital. For example, as long ago as 1975 the publication Philippine Trade
& Development stated that “the greater bulk of the labor force engaged in
garments are cottage industry workers paid on a piecework basis” and that
such income constituted “70 or 90 percent of the total income of some farm
families.”25
What was the composition of the Philippine labor force as a result of
these developments? In his 1989 book, Sison claimed that 75 percent of the
“basic exploited classes” in the Philippines was made up of the peasantry.26
Needless to say, such an estimate would, if accurate, lend credence to
the CPP characterization of the mode of production. However, this figure
no A M o v e m e n t D iv id e d
leaves out of account service workers, who account for 30 percent of the
workforce, and it conceals the fact that there are more agricultural workers
(i.e., landless laborers) than actual peasants. According to Constantino,
the peasantry itself in 1976 numbered no more than 2.5 million, while the
landless rural poor numbered 3.26 million.27 Interestingly, the figure given
by Constantino for the peasantry coincides precisely with Sison’s estimate,
based on official figures for 1979, for the industrial working class.28 In other
words, not only were these two groups now roughly equal in size at the end
of the 1970s, but the working class taken as a whole (industrial workers,
service workers, and agricultural workers) was by far the laigest class in
the workforce. This, it must be said, is hardly characteristic of a semifeudal
mode of production.
We are forced to conclude from the foregoing that the Philippines
does not have a feudal, or even a semifeudal, mode of production. It has
an economy in which the capitalist mode of production reigns. It may
be a dependent capitalism, an underdeveloped capitalism, a neocolonial
capitalism, a capitalism within which some feudal practices persist, but it is
capitalism nevertheless.
But why should it matter what name is given to the mode of production
which holds sway in a society at a given time? The importance of this
whole issue lies in the implications it has for the correct identification by
the progressive movement of the stage to which the society should next
develop, and the forces and alliances which will be necessary to achieve
this. It may be instructive to briefly consider the position adopted by
Ricardo D. Ferrer, as his thesis provided a most vivid illustration of the
consequences of an incorrect characterization of the mode of production.
In 1983, Ferrer argued that the growth of a “revolutionary bourgeois
class” had been stunted and that what was needed for those who took the
national-democratic line was
a system that will exploit all the potentialities of a capitalist system without
necessarily putting the capitalists as the rulers of the system . . . [W]hatever
system you introduce will have to contend with the fact that there is still
enough room for the development of the productive forces which has
to be left to the initiative of the capitalists . . . [T]he development of the
productive forces will determine the type of production relations and the
superstructure that will have to be dominant.29
Ferrer was saying that capitalism could not exist in the Philippines, as
imperialism made it impossible for the forces of production to develop to
such a stage. The capital accumulation which would be needed to develop
heavy industry instead went abroad in the form of repatriated profits.
Yes, agricultural products could be exchanged for capital goods on the
international market, but the unequal terms of trade would mean that the
Philippines would have to export more and more sugar, say, for less and
less capital goods. Thus, a revolution was required. However, as those who
should have constituted the revolutionary bourgeois class had been co
opted by imperialism, there was obviously little chance of them playing
a leading revolutionary role. Therefore, that revolution would have to be
led by the workers and peasants. Moreover, the upshot of the revolution
would be a system in which capitalism developed to its full potential. As
Ferrer maintained that the superstructure would be determined by the
level of development of the forces of production, we must assume that the
institutions of society at this stage would be of a bourgeois nature. This
would appear somewhat strange if, as Ferrer maintained, Filipino capitalists
would not necessarily be the rulers of the system; however, he saw his
revolutionary bourgeois class in the farms and “other smaller sectors of
the economy.” Socialism was relegated to some far-off future “when
productive forces have developed to such a level that the wage relation can
be abolished.” In other words, before it ever saw socialism the Philippines
must first pass through the full development of capitalism.
In March 1985, the CPP restated its own, slightly different, position in
its journal, Ang Bayan.
What is appropriate for the present level of development of the

productive forces are national-democratic relations; these will hasten their
development. In fact, through this revolution, the main obstacles to the
development of local capitalism will be smashed, and this will develop
to a certain level. This is needed for the development of the forces of
production, towards the setting of the material conditions for the socialist
revolution.30
Absent from this recipe, of course, was any notion of the dialectical link
between the national-democratic and the socialist stages of the revolution.
For example, what were the forces which would ensure that capitalism
would only develop to “a certain extent”? And what, precisely, w ere
“national-democratic relations” of production? Ang Bayan answered this
one as follows: “For the prevailing relations of production to be drastically
changed, the means of production now in the hands of the imperialists,
the big bourgeois compradors and the big landlords must be transferred to
the hands of the entire Filipino people and to the democratic classes that
comprise the people . . .”31 The “democratic classes” meant, presumably,
everyone except those from whom ownership of the means of production
was being transferred. But who, in the national-democratic order, would
own what? This was somewhat vague.
The “semifeudal” analysis gave rise to a peasant orientation, evidence
of which was to be found in the same article.
We will give primary attention to the land question as the principal means
of production in our society today. The principal problem of the peasant
masses and farm workers who constitute the majority of the people
revolvels] around the land problem. This principal problem of theirs
or, more precisely, its solution, is the principal concern of the people’s
democratic revolution . . .
. . . Industry must fulfil the needs of agricultural development to
serve as the leading factor in the economy,’ and ensure the general
balance of development. Agricultural development is dependent upon
This proposition, of course, had its reflection in the CPP’s approach to working-class and
urban struggle as a means of supporting the “struggle in the countryside.”
industrial development. Agriculture, on the other hand, must be firmed

up as the base of the national economy. If this foundation is weak, it
will not be able to fulfil the needs of industry and of development in
general. In short, industrial development also depends upon agricultural
development.32
If, however, it was accepted (which it was not, of course) that the
working class was the most numerous productive class and that even
within the rural population the peasantry was in a minority, the relative
importance of this task, and the manner in which it might be resolved, was
called into question. The point is made by Rivera, for example:
The rapidly growing mass of the agricultural wage workers and the
rural landless workers who now constitute more than half of the total
agricultural labor force have to be seriously considered since their
immediate and long-term interests do not necessarily^coincide with those
of the share tenants, leaseholders, and amortizing landowners.
. . . a truly progressive agrarian program must go beyond the demand
of simply giving land to tillers of the soil in the tenanted areas. It must be
able to provide for immediate transitional forms for the collective and
social control of the land.53
Similarly, Ernesto M. Valencia has pointed out that
one can see that land reform in the sense of a land-to-the-tiller program
can only partially solve the problem. As food prices go up and the
number of the rural proletariat goes up, the recrudescence of rent-taking
may occur in the form of a black market for tenancy rights. Other partial
solutions such as land price and rent control, zoning, incentives for land
development and limitations on the concept of private property of land
do have their positive effects but in the long run the essential question
that poses itself is the conflict between social and private claims to land.
It always becomes a question of whether it is necessary to finally socialize
land ownership.34
The nature of the revolution itself was discussed in an article entitled

“National United Front to Build People’s Coalition Government” in the
issue of Ang Bayan refesred to above. This stated unequivocally that the
“people’s democratic revolution-is a bourgeois democratic revolution” but
“under the leadership of the revolutionary proletariat” and thus has “a
clear socialist perspective.” The state to be established upon the victory
of the national democratic revolution “would not be a proletarian state, it
would not be a bourgeois state either, since it will be ruled jointly by the
democratic classes and strata.”35
“Depending on the class composition of the revolutionary coalition,”
the Ang iBfiyan article pointed out, “it could lead towards socialism o r
towards capitalism. It also depends upon which class force will effectively
lead the democfatic coalition and the entire people.” Now this is interesting.
Earlier, the CPP had said that the democratic coalition government would
be under the leadership or dictatorship of no single class; now the path of
• * .
development of Philippine society would depend “upon which class will
effectively lead the democratic coalition and the entire people.” The latter
formulation would be accepted as correct by most Marxists. Past practice
would tend to indicate, however, that what the CPP meant by “which class
force” was “which political party or force.” Would the CPP enter such a
coalition if conditions were such that it could not be guaranteed the leading
role? On past form, the answer to the question would be in the negative.
The CPP, then, saw the triumph of the national democratic stage of
the revolution being followed by a period of capitalist development. Few
would doubt this, as Philippine capitalism was— and is— underdeveloped,
and its export sector is totally divorced from the domestic economy, but the
CPP surely overstated the case. Its adherence to Maoism blinded it to both
the reality that the Philippines already had a capitalist economy, and to the
assistance that would have been available from the socialist states, were it
not for its dogmatic anti-Sovietism. One consequence of this was that, as
in Mao’s On New Democracy, socialism was banished to the distant future.*
In the context of present-day realities, this might well be considered realistic. With
the collapse of the Soviet Union and the east European bloc of socialist states, the
era of socialist-oriented revolutions in the Third World for the time being (or until the
appearance of the resource-based socialism of a Hugo Chavez) came to an end. But such
was not the situation in the 1970s and early 1980s.
C h apter i o : “ M ore a M o d e of E x p r e s s io n . . n 5
When Marx and Engels spoke of the development of modes of

production they were describing a historical process. They did not say that
all countries had of necessity to pass through all stages of development.
Once capital became dominant on the world stage it became possible
for capitalism to be introduced anywhere on that stage. Once m ankind
had developed the instruments of production appropriate to the capitalist
mode, it became possible for that mode to develop anywhere that these
instruments of production could be married up with the other requisite
forces of production— for example, the international reserve army of labor,
people who had been or who could be separated from their means of
production, usually the land. And the more communications improved,
the more the world shrank, the more this process was facilitated. Hence,
for example, imperialism’s new international division of labor which has
transformed the Philippine economy since the late 1960s.
Just as it is possible for capitalism to bring within its orbit countries
which could not yet have achieved the capitalist mode had they developed
in isolation, so it was possible, with the existence, until recently, of a
community of socialist countries, for nations to break away from imperialism
and take the path of noncapitalist development or socialist orientation,
bypassing capitalism— or at least its full development. This possibility was
noted by Marx and Engels. Similarly Lenin, addressing the Second Congress
o f the Comintern, stated:
The question was posed as follows: are we to consider as correct the

assertion that the capitalist stage of development is inevitable for backward
nations now on the road to emancipation and among whom a certain
advance towards progress is to be seen since the war? We replied in the
negative . . . With the aid of the proletariat of the advanced countries,
backward countries can go over to the Soviet system and, through certain
stages of development, to communism, without having to pass through
the capitalist stage.36
2 i6 A M o v e m e n t D iv id e d
Throughout human history, peoples have “skipped” stages of

development. The North European peoples passed from the communal-
tribal system, bypassing slavery, to feudalism. “However, only on one
condition: it was necessary that the formation which was to be bypassed
in one or another country had exhausted its progressive possibilities from
the standpoint of world social development and that a higher social system
was already in existence in the world.”37
This, then, allowed for a reversal of the Marxist formula referred to by
Ferrer. Instead of the economic base determining the social superstructure,
it was possible, by means of a political revolution in a country where
capitalism was only partially developed if at all, for the progressive forces to
erect their own socialist-oriented superstructure and for that superstructure
to construct the base, to lay the material basis for socialism— in other words,
to develop the forces of production appropriate to the socialist mode of
production with the assistance of the socialist countries.
The Soviet scholar K. N. Brutents identified two possibilities in the anti
imperialist stage of the liberation struggle:
What are the distinctive features of national-democratic revolutions? These

are revolutions which lead to the elimination of colonial and semi-colonial
oppression and are also latent with an anti-capitalist tendency, instead
of paving the way for the establishment of the capitalist formation in the
country concerned. They not only weaken the imperialist system at that
point . . . but also pave the way for a breakthrough at that point. When
leadership comes from the political forces representing the interests of the
proletariat, these revolutions are popular, develop like popular-democratic
revolutions and grow directly into socialist revolutions. When leadership
comes from nonproletarian democratic forces taking a socialist orientation
and frequently with the participation of forces representing the interests
of the working class or starting from Marxist ideology, these revolutions
produce, alongside important anti-imperialist and anti-feudal changes,
anti-capitalist transformations, paving the way for transition to socialist
construction.38
In present-day national liberation revolutions, the national-democratic
(and popular-democratic) orientation is present only as a possibility, even
if a real one, as a tendency making headway— or suffering defeat— in
conflict with the other, contending tendency backed by domestic and

external class forces seeking to confine these revolutions to a bourgeois
or bourgeois-democratic framework. It is only in struggle that the ultimate
line of development of every national liberation revolution and its
character are determined.59
Brutents posed the question of whether it was justified in the current

epoch to consider the elimination of national and colonial oppression and
the gaining of economic independence as bourgeois tasks merely on the
basis that in the past such tasks were usually realized under the leadership
of the bourgeoisie. He concluded that it was more correct to label them
as democratic tasks. “The substance of the problem is, therefore, that one
and the same democratic task acquires a different character, depending on
which class, which power implements it.”40
The solution to the problem of capital accumulation posed by Ferrer
would, then, depend upon which forces were able to seize national
leadership. If these forces were of a bourgeois of pro-bourgeois character,
then Brutents saw no escape:
the problem of capitalist accumulation can, in practice, be solved to

this or that extent only through cooperation with international finance
capital, and this leads to an entrenchment of the unequal ties between the
newly independent countries and the economic and political system of
imperialism, helping to consolidate the social forces which are prepared
to do a deal with the imperialists, so as to obtain their help in preventing
a switch to the path of social progress and to keep the masses in check.41
If the national democratic revolution was successfully concluded under

the leadership of those representing the interests of the working class,
however, then the state may be used as the vehicle for accumulation.
Without the expropriation of the property of exploiting classes, without

the nationalization or the establishment of strict state control over foreign
capital, without radical agrarian reforms, the expansion and strengthening
of the state’s economic and social functions, without drawing on the
revolutionary enthusiasm of the masses—without all of this, attainment
of the necessary level of accumulation is either impossible or is for

the people an extremely agonizing, slow and contradictory process.
Accordingly, for solving the problem of accumulation, distinctions in the
political superstructure are more important than those in the basis.42
We see from this, therefore, that the problem of accumulation would

not be solved by allowing capitalism to develop fully, as the role of the
state is crucial to the question of accumulation and it can only fulfil that
role at the expense of the private sector of the economy.
The analysis that the mode of production in the Philippines is “semi-
feudal” is, then, incorrect. In itself, this would be innocuous. However,
this analysis led to the conclusion that there must be a further lengthy
development of capitalism in the Philippines before embarking upon
socialism. We are of the view that this would not have been necessary,
and that the proposal stemmed from an ahistorical, mechanical application
of Marxism (or, rather, Maoism). Rather than a lengthy development of
capitalism, it was possible— in certain circumstances— for that development
to be interrupted by states led by the working class or its representatives,
placing the economy on a path of socialist orientation and laying the basis
for the development of socialism.
Finally, it should be underlined that the possibilities for noncapitalist
development at this historical juncture were conditioned by international
factors, the chances of a country successfully embarking on this road being
much greater if the assistance of sympathetic countries (especially with
regard to capital goods) was assured. Ironically, the Soviet works quoted
in this and the previous chapter were all written in the so-called stagnation
period. During this time, however, the Soviet Union certainly fulfilled its
internationalist obligations, both materially and politically. The collapse
of the Soviet Union and its allies now means that this internationalist
assistance is no longer available. This was not the case, however, when the
CPP strategy was first elaborated.
The CPP conducted no analysis of the Soviet Union but, instead, merely
adopted the “analysis” of the Communist Party of China, and thus in Our
Urgent Tasks it noted that “Soviet social-imperialism is trying to penetrate
C h a p t e r io : “ M o r e a M o d e of E x p r e s s io n . . 2 1 9
even such a country like the Philippines which U.S. imperialism considers
a permanent preserve in this part of the world. Soviet social-imperialism
calculates that it must make diplomatic and trade inroads to weaken U.S.
imperialism in as many places as possible and push hard its new-tsarist
ambitions of world hegemony.” Leaving aside the latter slur, would it not
have been in the interest of a party in pursuit of national liberation in what
had hitherto been not just a US neocolony but the USA’s anticommunist
base in Southeast Asia, for Soviet trade and diplomacy to “weaken US
imperialism”? In 1979, Albert Szymanski, a non-aligned US Marxist, decided
to investigate the “social-imperialist” claim. The result was his book Is the
Red Flag Flying? in which the chapter on “Soviet Relations with the Non-
Socialist Third World” concluded:
We have been able to find no evidence that the Soviet Union exploits
the countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America through unequal trade,
economic assistance, or any analog of Western style foreign investments.
Soviet trade and assistance is more generous than that of the West
and is, unlike the latter’s, designed to encourage industrialization and
independence. The absence of anything like Soviet ownership rights in
local productive property means that, unlike such countries as the United
States, France and Britain, the Soviet state has no stake in preserving
the local class structure which guarantees existing property relations. In
summary, the Soviet Union cannot be considered to be a social imperialist
in relation to the non-socialist Third World since the fundamental
characteristic of imperialism (economic exploitation) is absent in the
relationship between the U.S.S.R. and the countries of Africa, Asia and
Latin America.43
Szymanski examined the
political role of the Soviet Union in the non-socialist countries of the

Third World by looking at Soviet military assistance and the actions of
the Soviet Union in the creation of Bangladesh, the Cambodian and
Angolan civil wars, and in the Horn of Africa. Here we have seen that the
Soviets consistently played a progressive role in support of the various
national liberation and left movements without attempting to gain special
advantages for themselves or unduly directing the course of events. In
other words the Soviet Union cannot be considered even hegemonic in its
relations with the Third World.4,1
Unlike Szymanski, it seems that the CPP, rather than conducting

an analysis of its own, was simply following a line— that of the Maoist
leadership in Beijing— with regard to the Soviet Union.
N o tes
1. Filemon “Popoy” Lagman, interview by the author, January 1996

2. Jose Maria Sison with Rainer Weming, The Philippine Revolution: The Leader's
View (New York: Crane Russak, 1989), 22
3. Ibid.
4. Ang Bayan, October 1983.
5. Armando Malay, Jr., “Some Random Reflections on Maoism in the Philippines,”
in Marxism in the Philippines (Quezon City: Third World Studies Center,
University of the Philippines, 1984), 49-50.
6. Ibid., 77.
7. Trevor Munroe, ABC o f Scientific Socialistn (Kingston: Workers’ Party of
Jamaica, 1980), 86-87.
8. Karl Marx, Grundrisse (M. Nicolaus translation) (1973), 105, quoted in Medin
Magallona, “A Contribution to the Study of Feudalism and Capitalism in the
Philippines,” in Feudalism and Capitalism in the Philippines (Quezon City:
Foundation for Nationalist Studies, 1982), 14.
9. European Companies in the Philippines (London: Catholic Institute for
International Relations, 1987), 2.
10. Patricio N. Abinales, “Filipino Communism and the Spectre of The Communist
Manifesto ” in Fellow Traveler (Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press,
2001), 239.
11. Rene Ofreneo, Capitalism in Philippine Agriculture (Quezon City: Foundation
for Nationalist Studies, 1987), 51.
12. Ofreneo, Capitalism in Philippine Agriculture, 54.
13. Ibid.
14. Ang Bayan, October 1983. Kerkvliet tells us that at this very time, “the CPP
top leadership instructed local activists to survey rural conditions in their
areas. The results showed what many activists knew from experience: that
C h apter io : “ M ore a M ode of E x p r e s s io n . . . * 221
class relations, modes of production, and other conditions were far more
complicated than the party’s official view of the country’s political economy.
For fear, however, of being openly at odds with official doctrine—especially
since Jose Maria Sison and other party officials at the highest level had recently
restated that the Philippines remained a semi-feudal society—subordinate
party officials did not release the results of their studies.” See Benedict J. Tria
Kerkvliet, “Contemporary Philippine Leftist Politics in Historical Perspective,”
in The Revolution Falters: The Left in Philippine Politics After 1986, ed. Patricio
N. Abinales (Ithaca: Cornell University Southeast Asia Program Publications,
1996), 13.
15. Ofreneo, Capitalism in Philippine Agriculture, 6 l.
16. Ibid., 63.
17. Ibid., 85.
18. Ibid., 86.
19. Ibid., 88.
Nationalist Studies, 1984), 98-99.
21. Ofreneo, Capitalism in Philippine Agriculture, 174.
23. Alfred W. McCoy, “Rural Philippines: Technology and Change in the Sugar
Industry,” in The Philippines After Marcos, ed. R. J. May and Francisco Nemenzo
(New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1985).
24. Rene Ofreneo, “Modernizing the Agricultural Sector,” in Mortgaging the Future:
The World Bank and IMF in the Philippines, ed. Vivencio R. Jose (Quezon City:
Foundation for Nationalist Studies, 1982), 100.
25. Magallona, “A Contribution to the Study of Feudalism and Capitalism in the
Philippines," 36.
28. Jose Maria Sison, Philippine Crisis and Revolution (Quezon City: Lagda
Publications, 1986), 11.
29. Ricardo D. Ferrer, “On the Mode of Production in the Philippines: Some Old-
Fashioned Questions on Marxism,” in Marxism in the Philippines, 187-240.
30. “Our Party’s Economic Program: Change the Production Relations,” Ang Bayan,
March 1985.
31. Ibid.
32. Ibid.
33. In Feudalism and Capitalism in The Philippines, 11.

34. “Philippine Land Reform from 1972 to 1980: Scope, Process and Resultsin
Feudalism and Capitalism in the Philippines, 71.
35. “National United Front to Build People’s CoaliUon Government,” Ang Bayan,
March 1985.
36. V.I. Lenin, Collected Works, vol. 31 (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1974), 244.
37. V. Solodovnikov and V. Bogoslovsky, Non-Capitalist Development: An Historical
Outline (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1975), 19-20.
38. K.N. Brutents, National Liberation Revolutions Today, vol. 1 (Moscow: Progress
39. Ibid., 149.
40. Ibid., 153.
41. Ibid., 183.
42. V.F. Stannis, G.B. Khromushin, and V.P. Mozolin, eds., The Role o f the State
in Socio-Economic Reforms in Developing Countries (Moscow: Progress
Publishers, 1976), 156-57.
43. Albert Szymanski, Is the Red Flag Flying? (London: Zed Press, 1979), 178-79.
While, at a later stage, the CPP did briefly drop its characterization of the
Soviet Union as “social imperialist,” this falls outside the period covered by the
current work and must therefore await discussion in a further volume.
44. Ibid., 179.
C h a pter 1 1 :
T h e A rm alite and th e C rucifex
From the 1960s onward, the image of the gun-toting priest, committed
to the liberation of the oppressed, became increasingly familiar. This was
a result of the development of “liberation theology,” encouraged by the
progressive encyclicals of Pope John XXIII issued by the Second Vatican
Council in the early 1960s. Arising first in Latin America, liberation
theology took hold in the Philippines in the 1970s, with some adherents
forming an alliance with the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP),
and some priests joining the New People’s Army (NPA), the party’s armed
wing, or even the party itself. This chapter will outline the development
of the radical tendency within the Catholic Church in the Philippines and
examine the approach of the CPP to this phenomenon, considering this
in the context of classical Marxism’s view of religion and Lenin’s balanced
approach to the involvement of believers in the mass movement and the
communist party.
The evolution of the radicalized clergy in the Philippines is perhaps

best exemplified by the former priest Edicio de la Torre. At the time De la
223
Torre became politically conscious, the involvement of the Catholic Church

in the Federation of Free Farmers (FFF) and the Federation of Free Workers
(FFW) was aimed at providing a specifically anticommunist alternative
within the peasant and labor movements. De la Torre recalls:
For a whole generation of middle class Christian activists, church people

and lay, the FFF offered just the right political and ideological stance we
could identify with . . . Its leaders were reassuringly reformist (many of
them were middle class like us), although we would also satisfy our need
to be called radicals by telling each other we were dealing with the root
problems of the grassroots.1
Tensions between radicals and conservatives within the FFF sharpened

from the late 1960s onward. After radicals led a fifty-eight-day vigil outside
the Bureau of Agriculture in 1969, the leadership expelled leading militants
and imposed “ideological censorship.” The FFF leadership supported
Marcos’s declaration of martial law in September 1972.2
De la Torre sees “one of my roots” emerging from this background,
where the guiding rule was to “do reforms to prevent revolution” and “do
reforms to undercut the communists.”3 His “other hair he identifies as
coming from a second tendency which started to develop in the 1960s
among
a section of the Church which didn’t start with a coherent world-view, like
papal encyclicals and so on. You know: “Let’s work with the poor and
we’ll see what comes out of it,” sometimes to the point of romanticising,
saying only the poor have wisdom and ideas, especially if they were
peasants.4
This mixture of reformism and revolutionary romanticism is certainly

evident in De la Torre’s earlier writings. In the late 1960s, for example,
while recognizing the class distinctions within the Church, he was of the
view that the hierarchy could be persuaded to combat injustice.
'Hie Church’s first task is “to denounce the unjust structures, not as one
who judges from without, but one who acknowledges her own share
C h apter i i : T h e A r m a l it e and th e C rucifdc 22 $
of the responsibility and the blame.” These brave words of Archbishop

Helder Camara (Recife, Brazil) refer to the whole people of God, the
whole Church. But the Church we believe in is also a hierarchical Church,
with consequent distinction of roles between laity and clergy. Although
the whole Church, all Christians, have the prophetic task of denouncing
injustice, the bishops speak with official voiccs. Hence it is not enough
that laymen and priests speak out. They also appeal to the bishops to
exercise official moral leadership.5
Even at this stage, however, it was apparent that his revolutionary

romanticism was beginning to triumph over his reformism, for just
two paragraphs later De la Torre laid stress on the clergy’s role in the
mobilization of the poor.
When churchmen speak of preaching the social doctrines of the Church,

they usually mean telling the rich that they are doing injustice to the poor.
But to tell the poor that they are being unjusdy treated—this they consider
agitation, not preaching. It is against this attitude that Archbishop Camara
warns us: “if we omit this—the expression recalls the sin of omission—
then tomorrow their eyes will be opened without us and against us.”6
This argument is obviously shot through with a vein of clerical self-

interest. Twenty years later, however, De la Torre explained that he had
used this “to challenge and to call people to get involved,” while admitting
the existence of self-interest.
You would have . . . people who really got mad at Marcos and the military
precisely for this reason—that they were creating conditions for people to
rebel and the rebellion was not just going to be against Marcos and the
military but even the bishops would have to go. There was very clearly
enlightened self-interest of a section of the elite—from the middle class
and the middle clergy.7
Present in the ranks of the radicalized clergy in the earlier period were
“m any people . . . who wanted to be martyrs as a kind of expiation . . .”
and for whom the notion of sacrifice was important. “It’s very easy,” said De
la Torre, “to reinforce a lot of Christian images.”8 This theme was present
in De la T one’s writing at the time. “The central theme of our faith,” he

wrote in 1969, “is the paschal mystery; and for all the present stress on the
resurrection, it still starts with suffering and crucifixion.”9 The concept of
crucifixion as the necessary first step to resurrection* may well, of course,
explain why some priests gravitated toward the armed struggle.
Another theme found in the writings of De la Tone and others is that
of the identification of the Marxist concept of historical necessity with the
religious notion of the “will of God.” In a pamphlet published in 1986, de
la Tone commented:
But I think, theologically, many of us are not Christians. We refuse to

accept a concept, a God, a living God, who is thoroughly bound up in
history. Or we have a concept of history that is not history because it is
not concrete, it is not dynamic, it is not specific, it is not rooted. That is
what I would like to stress because that is the key link; because once you
accept incarnation seriously, wittingly or unwittingly, you are plunged into
politics.12
In the same year Louie G. Hechanova (a cousin of Luis Jalandoni, a

former priest who became the international spokesman for the National
Democratic Front— ostensibly an umbrella organization but in effect the
CPP’s diplomatic arm) wrote:
Even the Nicaraguan bishops could say: “Our people fought heroically
to defend their right to live in dignity, in peace and in justice . . . We
believe that the present revolutionary movement is an opportune
time to truly implement the Church’s option for the poor.” In a word,
they were inviting Christians to find the working of the Holy Spirit in
This was not a new phenomenon in the Philippines. Reynaldo C. Ileto tells us: “In its
narration o f Christ’s suffering, death, and resurrection, and of the Day of Judgment
[the pasyon] provides powerful images of transition from one state or era to another,
e.g., darkness to light, despair to hope, misery to salvation, death to life, ignorance to
knowledge, dishonor to purity, and so forth.”10 Writing of revolts in the nineteenth and
early twentieth centuries, Ileto maintains: “What can be safely concluded is that because
of their familiarity with such images, the peasant masses were culturally prepared to enact
analogous scenarios in real life in response to economic pressure and the appearance of
charismatic leaders.”11
C h apter i i : T h e A r m a l it e and th e C rucifdc 227
the revolutionary process, and this possibility remains valid even if the
Nicaraguan bishops may seem to have changed their minds about the
Sandinista-led revolution.13
As Hill points out, in the English Revolution God was also looked upon
as the “principle of change.”
The protestant principle of the priesthood of all believers, carried to its

extreme limit in the inner light, together with scholarly protestant textual
criticism, destroyed the authority of the Bible. But what should take its
place? “All comes by nature” is not a creed for those who wish to turn the
world upside down. Until men had worked out a much stronger sense of
history, of evolution, atheism could only be a negative, epicurean creed
in a static universe. Atheists could hardly work for a transformation of
society: for the revolutionaries God was the principle of change. If they
lost belief in God, what remained7 This is what made Milton insist on
human freedom and responsibility, in his desperate attempt to assert
eternal providence and justify the ways of God to men. The backwardness
of history and natural science made it impossible to break through to
a theory of evolution in which God would become an unnecessary
hypothesis.14
In another work, Hill illustrates the revolutionary uses for which the
texts of the Bible were utilized.
The Bible could be put to endless destructive use. Its text was inspired;
it contained all that was necessary to salvation; therefore anything not
specifically mentioned in it was at best indifferent, at worst sinful. The
Presbyterians found no Bishops in the Bible. Milton wrote, “Let them
chant while they will of prerogatives, we shall tell them of Scripture; of
custom, we of Scripture; of acts and statutes, still of Scripture.” Colonel
Rainsborough remarked at Putney, “I do not find anything in the law of
God, that a lord shall choose twenty burgesses, and a gentleman but two,
o r a poor man shall choose none." Therefore, he concluded, God wanted
an extension of the franchise. It was in the Bible that Milton found the
arguments which led him to justify the execution of Charles I.15
But as will be evident from the first of the above quotations,

revolutionaries in seventeenth-century England only needed to maintain
the notion of God because scientific thought had not yet evolved the
means of explaining social change rationally This could hardly be said of
the world in the second half of the twentieth century. The objective value
of a Christian presentation of the case for a social transformation in the
Philippines can be appreciated only by making a comparison with another
aspect of the English revolutionary period, again utilizing the services of
Hill, the recognized expert on the period.
The Church . . . defended the existing order, and it was important for the
Government to maintain its control over this publicity and propaganda
agency. For the same reason, those who wanted to overthrow the feudal
state had to attack and seize control of the Church. That is why political
theories tended to get wrapped up in religious language. It was not that
our seventeenth-century forefathers were much more conscientious and
saindy men than we are. Whatever may be true of Ireland or Spain, we
in England today can see our problems in secular terms just because
our ancestors put an end to the use of the Church as an exclusive and
persecuting instrument of political power. We can be sceptical and tolerant
in religious matters, not because we are wiser and better, but because
Cromwell, stabling in cathedrals the horses of the most disciplined and
most democratic cavalry the world had yet seen, won a victory which
for ever stopped men being flogged and branded for having unorthodox
views about the Communion service. As long as the power of the State
was weak and uncentralised, the Church with its parson in every parish,
the parson with honoured access to every household, could tell people
what to believe and how to behave; and behind the threats and censures
of the Church were all the terrors of hell fire. Under these circumstances
social conflicts inevitably became religious conflicts.16
The situation in seventeenth-century England, “with its parson in

every parish,” was very comparable to that in the Spanish period in the
Philippines, when most of the country was virtually administered by
priests. That period, moreover, drew to a close little more than a century
ago and, although the government of the Philippines has been secularized,
the power of the Catholic Church is still considerable, with over 80 percent
of the population claiming to be adherents. Thus, while a revolution might
be possible without first gaining control of the Church, there is little doubt
that it would be rendered impossible without the support of very many
Christians. De la Torre is quite open about his tactics here.
Since we are waging a cultural revolution, we have to start with the

existing consciousness of Filipinos. They consider themselves Christians;
to them, revolution and Maoism equal atheism equals loss of freedom
to worship equals anything is better than that. Hence it is objectively
advantageous to the national democratic movement if revolution is seen
as a Christian imperative.17
Unlike revolutionaries in seventeenth-century England, De la Torre

and other radicalized priests recognized that their Christianity alone was
insufficient.
I propose that we Christians adopt as our title: SERVANT OF THE

REVOLUTION.
This is, first of all, a recognition of our inadequacy and our duty
to learn not only from the masses but also from the Marxists. For our
Christianity does not give us political and economic categories and
other scientific tools to correctly analyse and solve the contradictions
in our society. It is also the recognition that others have “mastered” this
task ahead of us and have the wisdom that only direct and organized
experience in the struggle can give.18
Thus, sections of the radicalized clergy in the Philippines began to

conduct a Marxist analysis not only of their society but also of the Church
within it, with De la Torre urging that the “Church institution must be analysed
scientifically and should be expected to carry the same contradictions as the
society it serves. Hence the presence of neo-colonial, feudal and capitalist
features in the Church.”19 Understandably— given the fact that, at the time,
he w as a priest— De la Torre curtails the discussion by setting it within
these parameters, whereas a more thoroughgoing enquiry would ask how
and why the Catholic Church came to be present in the Philippines. This
would demonstrate that, rather than merely reproducing Philippine society’s

contradictions within its own ranks, the institution was an instrument of the
Spanish conquest and a means of achieving social control.
De la Torre’s analysis led him to conclude that “(s]ince existing social
structures prevent social development, then the Christian must work to
change these structures; with violence if necessary,”20 although a year after
writing this sentence he was still “personally committed at present to the
belief that reforms can be achieved by socio-political organizations of
farmers (tenants, setders), workers (agricultural and industrial), ‘squatters’
and youth. Other serious-minded people in the Philippines disagree and
claim that those in power are too inflexible and will resist change. They
have therefore opted for direct destruction of the power structure by
violence.”21
It was at this stage, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, that the reformist
and the romantic within De la Torre began to produce a synthesis. While
admitting that the clergy within the FFF came to be perceived in some
quarters as “communist,” even though the organization itself was “partly
motivated by anti-communism,” he recalls:
As the FFF reached out for support among the student youth, it even
used Mao Zedong’s writings as a kind of left-handed confirmation of its
work, citing Mao’s emphasis on peasants as the main force in the new
democratic revolution, while downplaying his recognition [as, in practice,
did Mao himself] of the proletariat as the leading force.22
The romanticism of clergy like De la Torre was given further

encouragement by the “First Quarter Storm,” the series of largely student-
led demonstrations in 1970, which “scattered seeds across the land, and
by 1971, we realized that these seeds had lodged themselves deep in our
consciousness and had struck roots in Our practice.”23 However, there was
a fundamental problem to be overcome in that the Church purported to be
“a mother of all”— rich and poor, oppressors and oppressed— whose role
was seen as one of building bridges, of reconciliation. The romantic within
De la Torre dealt with this contradiction by taking these metaphors at their
face value.
C h apter i i : T h e A r m a l it e and t h e C rucifdc 231
And the farmer, the voice of the oppressed, voice of wisdom, said, “OK,
granted that you’re a mother of us all, when a younger, weaker child is
being bullied by an older child, doesn’t the mother take sides with the
younger against the older? Even if she still eventually loves the other and
will reconcile them, at a certain moment she takes sides.” . . . The farmer
again said, “Fine enough, you should build bridges, but try building
bridges starting from the middle!" You start with one bank and you can
still reach out, but first take sides.24
However, for some clergy and laity this taking of sides involved rather
more than merely defending the poor and opposing the oppressors. We
have seen above that it was recognized that there was a “duty to learn not
only from the masses but also from the Marxists.” In practice, though, for
De la Torre and others this meant first the adoption of the Maoist outlook
and second their integration into the CPP-led mass movements and, for
some, even into the CPP itself.
By 1971, De la Torre was using the pulpit to popularize Maoist ideology,
his Lenten Lecture of that year being entided “The Challenge of Maoism
and the Filipino Christian.” In this, he pointed out that “Marxism-Leninism
had to become Chinese in order to transform China. Similarly, Maoism must
become Filipino if it is to be effective in the Philippines.”25 The lecture
went on to enumerate three “significant results” of the Maoist doctrine: the
enhanced role of the peasantry in the “new democratic revolution,” the
“longer lasting role” of the national bourgeoisie in socialist construction,
and the importance of the “mass line.”26 One must assume that the second
of these would have been reassuring to some members of De la Torre’s
audience (or congregation); moreover this particular “result” ties in neatly
with the aforementioned aim of the Church to “build bridges.” De la Torre’s
romanticism is evident in his endorsement of the third “result”: “This ‘mass
line’ is part of Mao’s tendency to trust the creative enthusiasm of the masses
over organizational skill and technical knowledge. This enthusiasm was
the major factor behind the recent revolutionary movement within China
against bureaucratization.”27
This is part and parcel of the romantic notion that the peasant is the
“voice of wisdom.” The “recent revolutionary movement” is of course a
reference to the Cultural Revolution, which consisted of a direct assault by

Mao on the structures of the Communist Party of China, using politically
immature youths as the “main force.” In practice, this preference for
“creative enthusiasm over organizational skill and technical knowledge”
amounted to little more than Mao’s fear of the working class due to its
organizing ability and political maturity, for these very qualities placed it in
direct opposition to his own egocentric tendencies. De la Torre rationalizes
this by accepting at face value Mao’s “poor and blank” theory:
Mao’s experience as a guerrilla leader and his basic nationalism led him to
make poverty and blankness virtues. Peasants are the most revolutionary
precisely because they are blank, and therefore malleable; rural bases
should be the first targets because they offer the best chances of building a
radically new society; the seizure of cities is the last stage of the revolution.
Internationally, China leads as the “poor and blank” socialist nation.28
It is admitted by De la Torre, however, that this very theory had led at

least one writer to remark that it “reveals the strange mixture of humanist
and totalitarian impulses in Mao.”29 Quite so, because for Mao the vast
majority of the Chinese people constituted a blank sheet of paper upon
which he would inscribe “the most beautiful words . . Z’30
It is somewhat surprising that De la Torre, who was obviously
in possession of a developed intellect, was willing to adopt the Maoist
doctrine quite so wholeheartedly (although, along with others, he would
later break with the CPP). It is even more surprising that he should have
embraced its Filipino version; for his proposition that “Maoism must
becom e Filipino” appeared in practice to amount to little more than an
acceptance of Jose Maria Sison’s view of the world. The Lenten Lecture of
1971 quotes approvingly from the CPP’s Program fo r a People’s Democratic
Revolution, and a year later De la Torre went so far as to claim that
we cannot deny that as of now, the systematic categories and historical

outlook of Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong Thought have been responsible
for clarifying the problems and prospects of liberation in the Philippines.
There is no need to summarize here Amado Guerrero’s Philippine Society
C h apter i i : The A r m a l it e and th e C rucifdc 23 3
and Revolution, which is right now the only systematic guide for further
analysis of Philippine society.31
Having both identified the need to choose sides and adopted the
Maoist doctrine, the one remaining question to be addressed by priests
like De la Torre was that of violence. Was it permissible for Christians to
take— or, if they were not to join the NPA themselves, to condone the
taking of—human life in the cause of national liberation? This problem was
confronted by Hechanova, who pointed out that a blanket condemnation
of violence would mean condemnation of the revolution against Spain and
the resistance to the US invasion which followed. He argued that official
church moral theology apparently has no problem in supporting the
violence of “the established power, even if it is unjust, oppressive, and
tyrannical . . .”32 He concluded that for those of the poor and oppressed,
there is an acceptable option.
The option is to undertake a revolution for justice’s sake, even in the name
of Christian love, in which the risks of giving one’s life for others could
become the highest expression of Christian love.
There is, therefore, room for “responsible violence" which is motivated
not by hate but love, which is careful not to implicate the innocent, as far
as possible, which is not fanatical or adventuristic, and which is calculated
to usher in a new era of justice, truth, freedom, love and peace.33
Intellectually, the way was now clear for radical church people to join
or, to one degree or another, support the armed struggle led by the CPP.
The Student Christian Movement embraced the national democratic line and
in May 1971 affiliated to the Movement for a Democratic Philippines which,
once a broad organization, had been taken over by the CPP. Seven months
later, De la Torre and others formed Christians for National Liberation
(CNL), which soon thereafter cooperated with the CPP in the formation of
the National Democratic Front. Some priests now began to join the NPA
itself. Nick Ruiz, a priest on the island of Bohol, joined as early as 1972
and rose to become a member of the CPP’s central committee. Interestingly
Ruiz, like De la Torre, had been a chaplain in the anticommunist Federation
of Free Farmers.34 In July 1981, the CPP journal Ang Bayan reported that
Vicente Pelobello, a priest in Negros Occidental, had joined the NPA; in
April the following year it reported that the “people of Northwestern Luzon
and the entire country welcome with profound joy” the fact that a further
four priests (Conrado Balweg, Nilo Valerio, Bruno Ortega, and Cirilo
Ortega) had taken to the hills in Abra province.35 Nemenzo points out,
however, that many Christian reformers were impelled to go underground
by the “indiscriminate repressiveness of martial law,” seeking refuge in
areas controlled by the NPA. Once underground, some moved under the
umbrella of the NDF alongside the CPP while others founded the Philippine
Democratic Socialist Party (PDSP) in 1973, offering a perspective which,
according to Nemenzo, was revolutionary but noncommunist, rejecting
dialectical materialism as “incompatible with Christian doctrines” while
borrowing “liberally the Marxist analyses of secular problems as well as
some Leninist organizational principles.” The CPP viewed this development
as unwelcome competition, launching “a strident propaganda campaign
against the PDSP, stigmatizing it as an ‘imperialist trojan horse’ and tracing
its origins to the Jesuits and Jesuit-trained intellectuals in the 1950s who
played an active part in the counterinsurgency operations. Seven years after
its foundation, the PDSP suffered a split over the question of collaboration
with the CPP, with one faction advocating affiliation to the NDF while
the furthest the opponents of this proposal would go was to suggest a
softening of its anti-CPP propaganda.”36 Obviously impressed by the social
impact which the presence of priests within its own ranks and the broader
movement could have, in 1985 the CPP formed a new legal front aimed at
recruiting Christians, establishing similar organizations at regional level.
3
More often than not, communists favor the construction of alliances,
realizing (at least since 1935, when the Comintern’s sectarian— and
disastrously counterproductive— “class against class” approach was
C hapter ii : The Ar m a u te and t h e C rucifdc 23 5
overturned) that they alone are incapable of removing the current capitalist
or pro-imperialist regimes from power. Therefore, disregarding the party’s
Maoism for one moment, few communists would fail to applaud the efforts
of the CPP in mobilizing the breadth of Church support which is apparent
from the foregoing, particularly in view of the role played by that institution
in Philippine society.
Alliances are one thing, but the CPP went further than this, accepting
priests into the ranks of the party itself and even promoting them to its
higher echelons. Membership of a communist party has traditionally been
conditional upon the acceptance of the Marxist philosophical oudook. This
is no small matter, for this outlook informs practical and theoretical activity,
determining how the world is analyzed and acted upon.
Can, therefore, those Christians who joined the CPP be described as
Marxist? It is difficult to see how the answer to this question can be anything
but negative, for while the philosophy developed by Marx, Engels, and
Lenin was materialist, religions are idealist. A textbook published in the
1960s gives a simple outline of this contradiction.
Materialist philosophy is based on recognition of the existence of nature—

the stars, the sun, the earth with its mountains and valleys, seas and
forests, animals, and human beings endowed with consciousness, with the
ability to think. There are no supernatural phenomena or forces, nor can
there be. Man is only a particle of multiform nature, and consciousness is
a property, a faculty, of man. Nature exists objectively, that is, outside and
independent of the human mind.
The question of the relation of the human mind to material being is
the fundamental question of all varieties of philosophy, including the most
recent. Which is primary—being or thinking? Philosophers are divided
into two great camps according to how they answer this question.
Those who consider that the material basis—nature—is primary
and regard thought, spirit, as a property of matter, belong to the camp
of materialism. Those who maintain that thought, spirit or idea existed
before nature and that nature is, in one way or another, the creation of
spirit and dependent upon it, comprise the camp of idealism. That is the
only philosophical meaning of the terms “idealism” and “materialism."37
Thus, religion falls into the camp of idealism because it maintains that
nature— matter—was created by God, that his idea of matter preceded
matter itself. Marxists, on the other hand, argue that matter existed first
and that the human mind (in which all ideas are formed) is merely the
highest organization of matter. Ideas, then, arise through the interaction
of the human mind with matter, i.e., with the concrete conditions existing
at the time. Therefore, the set of ideas which predominate in a society at
any one time will be conditioned by the social and economic conditions
in that society and the level of development of its productive forces. Thus,
the philosophy of Marxist-Leninists is not materialism plain and simple
but dialectical materialism, a materialism which takes full account of the
interplay between the highest organization of matter (the human mind), the
world outside of it, and the concrete conditions existing at the time. And
according to this approach, the notion of a god or gods is exactly that—a
notion, an idea. Engels explained this proposition as follows.
All religion . . . is nothing but the* fantastic reflection in men’s minds of

those external forces which control their daily life, a reflection in which the
terrestrial forces assume the form of supernatural forces. In the beginnings
of history it was the forces of nature which were first so reflected, and
which in the course of further evolution underwent the most manifold
and varied personifications among the various peoples.38
In other words, primitive man, whose productive forces had not

developed to the stage where the natural sciences could arise, was at the
mercy of the elements— flood, wind, earthquake, drought— and, lacking
a scientific understanding of these phenomena, could not but look upon
them as resulting from the actions of supernatural forces. Thus, in various
parts of the world a whole panoply of “gods” arose in the mind of man: of
rain, wind, thunder, etc.
But this state of scientific ignorance did not persist and neither,
therefore, did polytheism. Engels continues as follows.
But it is not long before, side by side with the forces of nature, social
forces begin to be active—forces which confront man as equally alien
C h apter i i : Th e A rm alite and th e C ru cifix 237
and at first equally inexplicable, dominating him with the same apparent
natural necessity as the forces of nature themselves. 'lTie fantastic figures,
which at first only reflected the mysterious forces of nature, at this point
acquire social attributes, become representatives of the forces of history.
At a still further stage of evolution, all the natural and social attributes
of the numerous gods are transferred to one almighty god, who is but a
reflection of the abstract man. Such was the origin of monotheism, which
was historically the last product of the vulgarised philosophy of the later
Greeks and found its incarnation in the exclusively national god of the
Jews, Jehova. In this convenient, handy and universally adaptable form,
religion can continue to exist as the immediate, that is, the sentimental
form of men’s relation to the alien, natural and social, forces which
dominate them, so long as men remain under the control of these forces.59
Here, Engels is referring first of all to the evolution of classes in society

as the forces of production are developed to the point where a surplus over
day-to-day needs is produced. It is the production of this surplus which
allows society to proceed from “primitive communism” to the lower stages
of class society, usually some form of slavery, wherein an exploiter class
is able to live off the surplus produced by the majority. This development
is accompanied by acts of aggression by one community on its neighbors,
either for territory or slaves, and thus deities like the “god of war” are bom.
It is in this way that such gods “become the representatives of the forces of
history.”
Human society then progresses through feudalism and onto capitalism.
Here again, economic crises (increasingly international in their effects)
confront mankind as an alien force, a force which people do not understand
and therefore are unable to control.
The actual basis of the reflective activity that gives rise to religion therefore
continues to exist, and with it the religious reflection itself. And although
bourgeois political economy has given a certain insight into the causal
connection of this alien domination, this makes no essential difference.
Bourgeois economics can neither prevent crises in general, nor protect the
individual capitalists from losses, bad debts and bankruptcy, nor secure
238 A M o v em en t D iv id e d
the individual workers against unemployment and destitution. It is still

true that man proposes and God (that is, the alien domination of the
capitalist mode of production) disposes.40
But religion is more than a mere reflection of apparently “alien” forces

in class society. It can also be, as it was during the Spanish period in the
Philippines, a tool employed by the exploiter classes to subdue the urge to
revolt in the exploited. Lenin takes up the argument.
Religion is one of the forms of spiritual oppression which everywhere

weighs down heavily upon the masses of the people, overburdened by
their perpetual work for others, by want and isolation. Impotence of the
exploited classes in their struggle against the exploiters just as inevitably
gives rise to the belief in a better life after death as impotence of the
savage in his battle with nature gives rise to belief in gods, devils, miracles,
and the like. Those who toil and live in want all their lives are taught by
religion to be submissive and patient while here on earth, and to take
comfort in the hope of a heavenly reward. But those who live by the
labour of others are taught by religion to practice charity while on earth,
thus offering them a very cheap way of justifying their entire existence as
exploiters and selling them at a moderate price tickets to well-being in
heaven.41
So how, in the long run, is this matter to be resolved? We return to

Engels.
Mere knowledge, even if it went much further and deeper than that of
bourgeois economic science, is not enough to bring social forces under
the domination of society. What is above all necessary for this, is a social
act. And when this act has been accomplished, when society, by taking
possession of all means of production and using them on a planned basis,
has freed itself and all its members from the bondage in which they are
now held by these means of production which they themselves have
produced but which confront them as an irresistible alien force; when
therefore man no longer merely proposes but also disposes—only then
will the last alien force which is still reflected in religion vanish; and with
it will also vanish the religious reflection itself, for the simple reason that
there will be nothing left to reflect.42
C hapter i i : T h e A rm alite and th e C rucifdc 239
Of course, the “social act” to which Engels refers is that of socialist

revolution. Only by such an act, with the formerly exploited classes taking
power and then taking the means of production into common ownership
and planning production for the whole of society, will “alien forces”
disappear and, with them, religion.’
For a Christian to fully embrace Marxism, he or she would have to
renounce Christianity as the two— at least in the ideological, philosophical
sense—are clearly incompatible. For this reason alone, those priests who
joined the CPP cannot be considered Marxists. Thus, as we have seen, De la
Torre’s “class analysis” of the Church reveals in that body “the presence of
neo-colonial and capitalist features,” rather than disclosing that the Church
was very much a part of the feudal order in the Philippines. De la Torre’s
“class analysis” is not dialectical. And while some priests claim to have
adopted a dialectical-materialist approach, this really must be questioned.
Goodno introduces us to Father Frank Navarro, an NPA leader in Mindanao
who still, on occasion, celebrates mass. Navarro, says Goodno,
It may be objected that, if this were the case, religion should have disappeared from
the former Soviet Union, given that a socialist revolution had taken place in 1917.
O ne response lo this would be lo point out that Engels specified no timetable for the
disappearance o f the “religious reflection." Such a response would be valid as far as it
went, for it has long been recognized by Marxism that ideas tend to persist long after
the material conditions which gave rise to them have been superseded. But there are
other factors which can be attributed to the persistence o f religion in the Soviet Union:
the fact that the excesses o f the Stalin period cannot but have appeared to many people
as an “alien force.” Then again, the thesis put forward by Engels merely outlines the
conditions required for the removal o f the objective basis o f religion; the timetable for
the removal o f the religious reflection itself depends lo a very great extent upon the
degree and quality o f the ideological work carried out by the party or parties in power.
In the Soviet Union, it also depended upon the extent to which the appearance o f “alien
forces” actually had been eradicated. For what was the experience o f that country since
1917? First, the turmoil o f the revolution itself, followed by a war o f intervention by the
imperialist powers and a bloody civil war. Then the experience o f socialist construction
in a hothouse atmosphere, accom panied by the excesses associated with Stalin’s
leadership. Before they had time to draw breath, the people were subjected to Hider’s
invasion, as a result o f which 20 million were killed and much o f what they had built
was levelled to the ground. And even after Stalin, it is widely accepted that bureaucracy
persisted and that socialist democracy was far from perfect, that the period o f Brezhnev’s
leadership developed into one o f “stagnation.” Is it not likely that many if not all o f these
p henom ena will have appeared as “alien forces” to sections o f a people imbued with
a thousand years o f Russian Orthodoxy, thereby acting as the objective basis for the
persistence o f the “religious reflection”? 'lhus, Engels’s thesis is no way negated by the
experience o f the Soviet Union.
sees no conflict between dialectical-materialism and his belief in God. As

he argues: “Science has not proven that there is a God. But neither has it
proven that there is no God. Some key goals of Marxism and Christianity
are similar. Both aspire to total liberation. The only difference is that
Marxism is more scientific, this-worldly, while Christianity is other-worldly
and idealistic.”43
Like de la Torre, Navarro exhibits the same revolutionary romanticism

which brings a Christian concept of “service” (and, more tacitly, crucifixion)
to the prospect of armed struggle:
I was never really contented with my parish work. The people were poor,
but I was not involved in truly solving the causes of their poverty. Armed
struggle is the highest form of service. One offers not only his time, money
or effort. He offers his life. If lay people can offer their lives, how much
more a priest who has been trained to give his total being to service?44
Another major attraction of Maoism (as opposed to Marxism) to these

priests may well lie in the fact that it, like Christianity, is thoroughly idealist
Both Mao and Sison exhibit strong voluntarist tendencies, i.e., the belief
that, regardless of objective circumstances, a goal can be achieved by an
act of will or by the “revolutionary enthusiasm” of the masses. It was such
an approach which underlay Mao’s catastrophic “Great Leap Forward”
and which still underpins Sison’s line of armed struggle. This is evident in
the writings of De la Torre. For example, he enthusiastically quotes Fidel
Castro as follows: “We don’t feel that the communist man can be developed
by encouraging man’s ambition, man’s individualism, man’s individual
desires. If we are going to fail because we believe in man’s ability, in man’s
ability to improve, then we will fail; but we will never renounce our faith in
mankind.”45 At the time Castro uttered these words, the young revolutionary
regime in Cuba had set its face against the use of materialist incentives to
encourage greater effort by its industrial and agrarian workers. Proclaimed
Castro: “We must use political awareness to create wealth. To offer a man
more for doing more than his duty is to buy his conscience with money.”46
Such a naively idealistic (in both senses of the word) approach ignored the
C h a p te r i i : The A rm a lite and t h e C ru cifd c 241
Marxist prescription for distribution during the socialist stage of society:

“From each according to his ability, to each according to his work.” And it
failed. Following a disastrous sugar harvest (not unlike, in its essence, the
result of Mao’s “Great Leap”) a wiser and more mature Castro resorted to
the use of material incentives.
There is also in De la Torre a tendency to stand Marxism on its head as
when, in deriding “loose talk about ‘Christian-Maoists,’” he states: “It is more
precise to say that many of us wanted to be “proletarian Christian,” having
accepted the insight that as a social class, the proletariat’s interests were
more selfless than those of the middle class.47 Marx made the distinction
between a “class in itself* (where a class has an objective existence) and a
“class for itself’ (where a social class is subjectively aware of both its own
existence and its interests as a class). The proletariat, once it becomes a
“class for itself” is anything but selfless, aspiring to the leadership of society
and the dispossession and abolition of its main class rival, the bourgeoisie.
(Such a view might seem a little fanciful at the moment, in the wake of the
collapse of socialism in eastern Europe, but we must recognize that De la
Torre was writing of the proletariat’s “selfless” nature in 1971, when most
communist parties still held out the prospect of working-class rule in the
not-too-distant future.)
How does the approach of the CPP to radical Christians compare to

that of classical Marxism? The most obvious authority to turn to is Lenin,
for it was he who not only further developed and applied the theory first
formulated by Marx and Engels but also led a successful revolution and,
in so doing, was required to work out a response to many problems,
including the religious question, in practice.
“Marxism,” Lenin wrote in The Attitude of the Workers’Party to Religion,
“has always regarded all modem religions and churches, and each and
every religious organization, as instruments of bourgeois reaction that serve
to defend exploitation and to befuddle the working class.”48 This particularly

blunt formulation might give the impression that Lenin was of the view
that the atheistic legions of the workers’ party should at all times and in all
circumstances wage unrelenting war on religion in all its shapes and forms.
In fact, this was far from the case. His approach was far more subtle-
more dialectical—than this. Broadly, there are in his writings four areas of
discussion concerning the party’s attitude to religion: state policy, the need
for antireligious propaganda, the attitude to Christians in the movements for
social change and, finally, the presence of people with religious beliefs in
the communist party itself. We will touch on each of these in turn.
The first area is by far the most straightforward.'
Religion must be of no concern to the state, and religious societies must

have no connection with governmental authority. Everyone must be
absolutely free to profess any religion he pleases, or no religion whatever,
i.e. to be an atheist, which every socialist is, as a rule. Discrimination
among citizens on account of their religious convictions is wholly
intolerable. Even the bare mention of a citizen’s religion in official
documents should unquestionably be eliminated. No subsidies should
be granted to the established church nor state allowances made to
ecclesiastical and religious societies. These should become absolutely free
associations independent of the state.49
Such a demand has a dual character. It is democratic in that it puts

forward the notion of religious freedom; and it is a blow against the then-
existing (1905) status quo in Russia in that it calls for the removal of all
privileges from the established church which had proved to be such a
dependable ally of reaction. But, continues Lenin, this does not mean that
religion is considered to be a “private” affair by the workers’ party.
Our Party is an association of class-conscious, advanced fighters for the

emancipation of the working class. Such an association cannot and must
not be indifferent to lack of class-consciousness, ignorance or obscurantism
in the shape of religious beliefs. We demand complete disestablishment
of the Church so as to be able to combat the religious fog with purely
ideological and solely ideological weapons, by means of our press and by
C h apter i i : The A rm aute and th e C rucifdc 243
word of mouth. But we founded our association . . . precisely for such a

struggle against every religious bamboozling of the workers. And to us the
ideological struggle is not a private affair, but the affair of the whole Party,
of the whole proletariat.50
Thus, a call for absolute religious freedom and the disestablishment

o f the Church is accompanied by ideological work aimed at the “religious
reflection” which “bamboozles” workers. But throughout his active political
life Lenin was against a mechanical application of atheist dogma, feeling
that this could easily become a diversion away from the main questions
facing the working class. He makes this point in the article, written in 1905,
from which we have already quoted.
Unity in this really revolutionary struggle of the oppressed class for the
creation of a paradise on earth is more important to us than unity of
proletarian opinion on paradise in heaven.
That is the reason why we do not and should not set forth our
atheism in our Programme; that is why we do not and should not prohibit
proletarians who still retain vestiges of their old prejudices from associating
themselves with our party. We shall always preach the scientific world-
outlook, and it is essential for us to combat the inconsistency of various
“Christians.” But that does not mean in the least that the religious question
ought to be advanced in the first place, where it does not belong at all; nor
does it mean that we should allow the forces of the really revolutionary
economic and political struggle to be split up on account of third-rate
opinions or senseless ideas, rapidly losing all political importance, rapidly
being swept out as rubbish by the very course of economic development.51
Just a month earlier, in an article entided “Our Tasks and the Soviet of
Workers’ Deputies,” Lenin had put forward a similar argument.
To be sure, those workers who remain Christians, who believe in God,

and those intellectuals who defend mysticism (fie upon them!), are
inconsistent too; but we shall not expel them from the Soviet or even from
the Party, for it is our firm conviction that the actual struggle, and work
within our ranks, will convince elements possessing vitality that Marxism
is the truth, and will cast aside all who lack vitality.52
Note here that Lenin is not saying that Christians should be targeted
for recruitment into the party. Moreover, while he is against expelling those
who remain Christians, this is based on the belief that they will eventually
discard their religion as a result of “work within our ranks”; otherwise,
such work or “the actual struggle” will “cast aside all who lack vitality."
It is very clear, then, that where he advises caution he is referring to the
party’s public stance on religion. Within the party it is a different matter, as
we shall see more fully in a moment. With regard to the dangers inherent
in a too vociferous public attack on religion, Lenin refers to Bismark’s
struggle against the German Catholic party in the 1870s which “only
stimulated militant clericalism of the Catholics, and only injured the work
of real culture, because he gave prominence to religious divisions rather
than political divisions, and diverted the attention of some sections of the
working class and of other democratic elements away from the urgent tasks
of the class and revolutionary struggle to the most superficial and false
bourgeois anti-clericalism.”53 Later in the same article, Lenin expands on
this theme.
We must combat religion—that is the ABC of all materialism, and

consequently of Marxism. But Marxism is not a materialism which has
stopped at the ABC. Marxism goes further. It says: We must know how to
combat religion, and in order to do so we must explain the source of faith
and religion among the masses in a materialist way. The combating of
religion cannot be confined to abstract ideological preaching, and it must
not be reduced to such preaching. It must be linked up with the concrete
practice of the class movement, which aims at eliminating the social roots
of religion . . . No educational book can eradicate religion from the minds
of masses who are crushed by capitalist hard labor, and who are at the
mercy of the blind destructive forces of capitalism, until those masses
themselves learn to fight this root of religion, fight the rule of capital in all
its forms, in a united, organised, planned and conscious way.
Does this mean that educational books against religion are
harmful or unnecessary? No, nothing of the kind. It means that Social
Democracy’s atheist propaganda must be subordinated to its basic task—
the development of the class struggle of the exploited masses against the
exploiters.54
C h apter ii : T h e A rm a u te and th e C rucifdc 245
As an example of this dialectical approach to religion, in the same

article Lenin puts forward the hypothesis of a strike developing in a
particular region in an industry where the workers are divided into class
conscious socialists and backward Christians under the influence of the
local priest, who is organizing a trade union. Should the socialists preach
atheism at such a time? No, says Lenin, for “it is the duty of a Marxist to
place the success of the strike movement above everything else, vigorously
to counteract the division of the workers in this struggle into atheists and
Christians, vigorously to oppose any such division.”
Even after the October Revolution, Lenin urged tact when dealing with
the religious question. At the First All-Russia Congress of Working Women
in November 1918, he counselled his audience to
be extremely careful in fighting religious prejudices; some people cause

a lot of harm in this struggle by offending religious feelings. We must use
propaganda and education. By lending too sharp an edge to the struggle
we only arouse popular resentment; such methods of struggle tend to
perpetuate the division of people along religious lines, whereas our
strength lies in unity. The deepest source of religious prejudice is poverty
and ignorance; that is the evil we have to combat.55
Again, in the Draft Program of the Russian Communist Party

(Bolshevik), a document which was largely the work of Lenin, it is argued
that while destroying the “connection between the exploiting classes—the
landowners and capitalists—and the organisation of religious propaganda
as something which keeps the masses in ignorance,” attempts should be
made to erase these religious prejudices from the minds of the masses
by propaganda “and by raising the political consciousness of the masses
but carefully avoiding anything that may hurt the feelings of the religious
section of the population and serve to increase religious fanaticism.”56
Similarly, Lenin was alarmed by a proposal within the party to use May Day
1921 to “expose the falsehood” of religion, as the occasion coincided with
the Easter holiday. Writing to Molotov in April, Lenin urged the Politbureau
to “recommend something quite differenf and “absolutely to avoid any
affront to religion.”57
It should be noted that, over a lengthy period, Lenin maintained

a consistent line on this question. Yes, religion was a form of false
consciousness, the social basis of which lay in capitalist relations of
production. Therefore, while antireligious propaganda and education
should take place, they must be subordinated to the main task of working
for the demise of the capitalist system and conducted, moreover, in a way
that did not prove divisive. Thus, Lenin’s concern for the feelings of the
religious had very little to do with his concern for them as individuals: he
preferred them to be among the forces fighting against capitalism rather
than, as a result of tactless antireligious propaganda work, being forced to
join the defenders of capitalism. It is interesting to note that, five months
after Lenin expressed alarm at the aforementioned May Day proposal,
he drafted a decision, which was subsequendy adopted, calling for all
pornography and “books on religious subjects” in the Moscow warehouses
to be turned over to the Paper Industry Board as waste paper.58
So much for Lenin’s attitude to religion outside the party. What about
the possibility of Christians— even priests—joining the party? Lenin was
of the view that conditions in Russia were somewhat different than those
pertaining in western Europe, where it was argued with some regularity
that priests should be allowed to join socialist parties. However:
It cannot be asserted once and for all that priests cannot be members
of the Social-Democratic Party;* but neither can the reverse rule be laid
down. If a priest comes to us to take part in our common political work
and conscientiously performs Party duties, without opposing the program
of the Party, he may be allowed to join the ranks of the Social-Democrats;
for the contradiction between the spirit and principles of our program
and the religious convictions of the priest would in such circumstances be
something that concerned him alone, his own private contradiction; and a
At this time (1909), Lenin’s party was still called the Russian Social Democratic Labor
Party. The term “Social Democrat” was applied to people who would later call themselves
communists. The term “social democracy” came to be applied solely to the right wing of
the international socialist movement when, confronted with World War I, the left wing
opposed the war as a purely inler-imperialisl conflict while those on the right supported
“their” capitalists against those of the opposing side.
political organization cannot put its members through an examination to

see if there is no contradiction between their views and the Party program.
Lenin was of the view that such a case would be “altogether

improbable” in Russia. But what of Christians intent on disseminating their
religious views within the party?
And if, for example, a priest joined the Social-Democratic party and made
it his chief and almost sole work actively to propagate religious views
within the Party, it would unquestionably have to expel him from its
ranks. We must not only admit workers who preserve their belief in God
into the Social-Democratic Party, but must deliberately set out to recruit
them; we are absolutely opposed to giving the slightest offence to their
religious convictions, but we recruit them in order to educate them in the
spirit of our program, and not in order to allow an active struggle against
it. We allow freedom of opinion within the Party, but to certain limits,
determined by freedom of grouping; we are not obliged to go hand in
hand with active preachers of views that are repudiated by the majority of
the Party.59
Ten years after this, when asked for his views by the organizing bureau
of the central committee concerning party members who took part in
religious ceremonies, Lenin replied that he would recommend expulsion.60
We see from the above that Lenin favored a rigorous separation of
church and state. While maintaining that religious ideas should be firmly
combated, he took the view that this should be subordinated to the cause of
unity within the popular movement. Within the party, however, he argued
that while no one should be expelled on account of their religion, party
members retaining religious beliefs should not be allowed to propagate
them, and that they should be recruited with the aim of weaning them
away from such beliefs. Moreover, the admission of priests to the party
(which, due to Russian circumstances, he regarded as unlikely) would be
conditional upon their accepting the party program, and those participating
in religious ceremonies should be expelled.
248 A M ovem ent D ivid ed
5
The CPP’s cultivation of an alliance with progressive Christians was
a valid exercise in broadening support for the anti-imperialist stage of
the Philippine revolution. In so doing, it seemed to share the belief of
Christians for National Liberation’s 1983 program: “The key question facing
us is not atheism or theism. It is revolution or counter-revolution.”61 The
CPP approach would appear, at least in this regard, to have conformed
to Lenin’s advice that the revolutionary forces should not “be split up on
account of third-rate opinions or senseless ideas . . .”
The party’s Program for a People's Democratic Revolution certainly
makes reference to religion. On the one hand, section 2 guarantees free
education to all “irrespective of class, religion, creed, sex or colour.” On
the other, it declares: “Illiteracy and superstition among the masses shall
be wiped out and the scientific spirit of Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong’s
thought shall prevail.” Section 3 promises to campaign “against imperialism
and feudalist or church control and influence over the educational system
and mass media” and to respect “the freedom of thought and religious
belief and use patient persuasion in gathering support for the people’s
democratic revolution.”
What is lacking in the CPP approach is any attempt to combat religion
ideologically, even along the lines suggested by Lenin at his most cautious.
Instead, the party appears to have soft-pedalled Marxism in an attempt to
woo Christians into the broader movement and the party itself. Although one
cadre assured Jones that the CPP’s approach to Christians it had recruited
was, due to their vacillation and petty-bourgeois origins, to “constantly
sustain their political education and expose them to the masses,”62 most
evidence would tend to support the view that religious belief is, in the main,
left unchallenged. For example, Goodno recalls visiting a CPP-controlled
barrio where the men assembled to sing a religious pasyon,63 Jones found
that CPP oiganization in the Church sector was usually left to members of
the clergy, who established national-democratic cells within churches and
seminaries and avoided discussing communism when recruiting “because
of the equation of atheism with communism.”64
C hapter i i : T h e A rm alite and t h e C ru cifix 249
This failure to get to grips with the religious question in the ideological
sense tends to indicate that the CPP’s approach in this field was aimed at
securing a short-term increase in support with little regard for the long-term
consequences. With the promotion of De la Torre, Jalandoni, and other
priests and former priests to leadership positions within the CPP, the party
was obviously running the risk of ideological “subversion” in that these
figures made no secret of the fact that they were still Christians. Indeed, De
la Torre in 1980 argued:
I want to help set up genuine pluralism in the movement, especially

among Christians. Some Christians in the movement can be members of
parties but they must also be able to meet as Christians with others to
develop their faith. Other Christians can share the goals of parties, but
will not be linked organizationally, while others can have some loose
organizational connection. All these people who value their Christian faith
must be able to share with one another in order to strengthen each other
and understand each other. If we don’t, our Christian life will be lost. For
our purposes the bond will be Christ, not ideology. One of the things we
can do, for example, is study Marx and others as Christians.65
It is one thing to read the Bible as a Marxist, quite another to study

Marx as a Christian. Nor should the influence of practising Christians within
the CPP be underestimated. Chapman was told by a former national front
leader: “CNL is very powerful within the party. They have resources and
that is very important. They are skilled and professional and political work
comes easy to them. They have lots of influence for their numbers.”66
In a sense, as we argued previously, the marriage of Maoism and radical
Christianity was not as outlandish as it might have appeared at first sight,
as both are profoundly idealist. What the marriage probably did for the
CPP, however, was to reinforce its idealist outlook and to confirm it in its
dogmatic tendencies. If a significant number of members and supporters,
in addition to viewing the writings of Mao as unalterable truth, believed
themselves to be engaged in a process that conformed to God’s will, this
did not bode well for the democratic consideration of alternative policies
or strategy.
250 A M ovem ent D ivid ed
Moreover, the penetration of Christian ideology (some of which

would, without an attempt to combat it, have been absorbed from the
society anyway) had practical consequences. Rutten refers to the work of
Blum and Geiger, which identifies one “point of friction” between CPP-
NPA cadres and highland indigenous groups as being “‘interference with
internal affairs,’ including cadre efforts to abolish local cultural practices
(polygamy, divorce) that run counter to lowland morality . . .”67 Yes, a drive
against polygamy might, if handled tactfully, be justified on the grounds
of women’s rights, but an effort to abolish divorce? This can, surely, only
be explained by the presence of Catholic dogma. Similarly, McKenna finds
that the CPP made little headway in its attempt to forge unity with Muslim
groups in Mindanao for three reasons: “an overreliance on liberation
theology; an overemphasis on ‘educating’ Muslims in controlled settings
rather than providing them much-needed organizational resources; and,
fundamentally, an unacknowledged Christian chauvinism on the part of
National Democratic organizers.”68 (He also says that any question of an
alliance between the NPA and the Moro National Liberation Front would
have jeopardized the financial assistance the latter received from Islamic
nations.)69
The recklessness with which the party embraced the radical cleigy
derived from the fact that it lacked a consistent and clearly thought-out
ideology, itself a result of its predilection for “models” and Sison’s extensive
“borrowing” from Mao. Had this not been so, the party might have been
able to see that its relationship with radical Christians should have been
on the basis of a principled alliance, recognizing not only the sincerity
of liberation theology’s opposition to imperialism and the excesses of the
domestic elite classes, but also the fact that their committed adherence to
the Christian oudook meant that they should never have been recruited
into the party and promoted quite so unquestioningly. A more analytical
approach would also have enabled the CPP to see that the situation within
the Catholic Church was in certain respects only temporary.
Initially, the Church hierarchy supported the martial law (declared in
1972) regime of Ferdinand Marcos. This began to change as the excesses
C h a pt e r i i : The A rm aute an d t h e C rucifdc 251
of the regime became apparent and large segments of the population (and,
therefore, of the church’s "flock") became alienated, the military turned
its attention to rebellious priests and, moreover, the hierarchy found its
material interests threatened. The first priests were jailed as a result of their
antigovemment activity as early as 1970, two years before martial law, and
in November of that year the government published a paper in which
the church was described as “the single biggest obstacle to progress.”70
Youngblood71 lists 22 military raids on church establishments between
July 1973 and October 1984. Interestingly, a study written in 1975 for Bias
Ople, the labor minister, “discussed the potential for Central Intelligence
Agency (CIA) and Communist manipulation of a ‘Church-led “liberation”
movement.’”72 On the economic front, in 1978 Marcos crony Herminio
Disini attempted a takeover of the Philippine Trust in which the Catholic
Church had a controlling interest. Then again, Marcos threatened to tax
church-owned property. As the church hierarchy became increasingly
hostile, warning bells began to ring, and by 1983 a government report was
recommending that the church should be accommodated by guaranteeing
its central interests, ending attacks on the church in the government-
controlled media, and muting ideological differences between church and
state while playing up those within the church itself.73
Although some bishops remained strident in their anticommunism,
the evidence points to the likelihood that, as the government and cronies
of Marcos came to be identified as threats to the church, much of the
hierarchy muted their opposition to even those members of the clergy who
had joined the armed struggle, on the basis that they were at least fighting
Marcos.
There is little doubt that the CPP benefited, at least in the short term,
from the presence of “rebel priests” in its ranks. This was so in terms of
social impact, organizationally and financially. The 1970s saw the growth
of Basic Christian Communities (BCCs) which, to use Chapman’s phrase,
“gave organizational form to the new theology of liberation.”
Their mission was to awaken parishioners to the causes of poverty and

to encourage them in the belief that their lives could be changed through
252 A M ovem ent D iv id e d
social action. Some were conservative and ventured little more than
discussions of the relation between Christian faith and social crises. But
others became bastions of radicalism whose leaders preached a primitive
Marxism, encouraged demonstrations and sought confrontation with the
authorities. 'ITiey spread the doctrine of the “social sin” which defined
such practices as low wages, land-grabbing, and usury as evils to be
fought with the same righteous conviction as drunkenness and adultery.
Jesus Christ became an apostle of land reform.74
The military viewed the growth of the BCCs with alarm. In the
late 1970s, Colonel Galileo C. Kintanar, a Ministry of Defense specialist
on “religious agitation,” warned: “What is now emerging as the most
dangerous form of threat from the religious radicals is their creation of the
so-called Basic Christian Communities in both rural and urban areas. They
are practically building an infrastructure of political power in the entire
country.”75
Jones claims, however, that “Communist influence in the BCCs was
uneven and varied from province to province and even barrio to barrio.”
Indeed, Goodno mentions a demonstration mounted by members of a BCC
in Negros in 1987 to protest against the excesses of the NPA.76 Bishop
Francisco Claver told Goodno:
The more conservative bishops would think [BCCs] are a front for the
underground, precisely because the underground has tried to use them,
but the fact is the vast majority of the Basic Christian Communities are
not under the thumb of the left, they are just going on by themselves, you
know, very slowly. As far as I can see, the Basic Christian Community is
more of a structure whereby you can make choices, like joining the NDF
or joining the government, but doing so in a critical, effective way.77
However, it is widely believed that a significant number of BCCs

provided support to the CPP-NPA to one extent or another. It is also
accepted that some church organizations provided the party organizations
with funds, often channeled from abroad. In addition, many of the people
who came from the religious sector assisted the party by virtue of their
considerable organizing abilities.
C h apter i i : The A rm aute and th e C rucifdc 253
This would not last forever. While all along there was certainly concern
by conservative bishops that some of those involved in church-led social
justice activity had fallen under the spell of the CPP, little action was taken.
For example, in 1982 the bishops of Mindanao and Sulu, suspecting that
the lay secretariat of the Mindanao-Sulu Pastoral Conference had links to
the underground and that funds were making their way to the NPA, merely
disowned the organization, leaving the National Secretariat of Social Action,
Justice and Peace (NASSA) untouched. This, says Goodno, “was safe as
long as Marcos remained in power. But as soon as he fled, conservatives
within the Church, including Cardinal Sin [the Archbishop of Manila, head
of the Catholic Church within the Philippines!, began a steady attack on
it.”78
Moreover, reassertion of control by the conservative hierarchy would
be accompanied by the fact that the support of many members of the
religious sector, who had been won to an alliance with the CPP on the
basis of its opposition to Marcos (thus reinforcing the party’s anti-Marcos
emphasis), would now melt away.
N o tes
1. Edicio de la Torre, Touching Ground, Taking Root (London: Catholic Institute

for International Relations, 1986), 39.
2. See Robert L. Youngblood, Marcos against the Church (Quezon City: New Day
Publishers, 1993), 80-81.
3. Edicio de la Torre, interview by the author, June 1, 1989.
4. Ibid.
5. Edicio de la Torre, “Some Notes for a Theology of Social Reform,” in Touching
Ground, 20.
6. Ibid., 21.
7. De la Torre interview.
8. Ibid.
9. De la Torre, Touching Ground, 25.
10. Reynaldo C. Ileto, Pasyon and Revolution: Popular Movements in the Philippines,
1840-1910 (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 1979), 14.
11. Ibid., 19.

12. Edicio de la Torre, The Philippines: Christians and the Politics o f Liberation
(London: Catholic Institute of International Relations, 1986), 7.
13. Louie G. Hechanova, The Gospel and the Struggle (London: Catholic Institute of
International Relations, 1987), 24.
14. Christopher Hill, The World Turned Upside Down (London: Penguin, 1975),
182-83.
15. Christopher Hill, The Century o f Revolution, 1603-1714 (London: Sphere
Books, 1972), 154.
16. Christopher Hill, The English Revolution, 1640 (London: Lawrence & Wishart,
1972), 11-12.
18. Ibid., 85.
19. Ibid. 103.
20. Ibid., 24.
21. Ibid., 30.
22. Ibid., 39.
23. Ibid., 52.
24. De la Torre, The Philippines: Christians and the Politics o f Liberation, 9.
26. Ibid., 68.
27. Ibid., 68-69.
28. Ibid., 70.
29. Ibid., 71.
30. Mao Zedong, Peking Review, no. 15, June 10, 1958, quoted in ibid., 70.
32. Hechanova, The Gospel and the Struggle, 23.
33. Ibid., 24.
35. Ang Bayan, April 30, 1981.
36. Francisco Nemenzo Jr., in Ihe Philippines After Marcos, ed. R.J. May and F.
Nemenzo (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1985), 54-55.
37. Otto Kuusinen, Fundamentals o fMarxism-Leninism (Moscow: Foreign Languages
Publishing House, 1961), 24-25.
38. F. Engels, Anti-Duhring (Moscow: Progress Publishers, 1959), 435.
39. Ibid., 435-36.
40. Ibid., 436.
41. V.l. Lenin, “Socialism and Religion,” Collected Works, vol. 10 (Moscow: Progress
42. F. Engels, Anti-Dubring, 436-37.
43. Pen Guerrero (pseudonym), “Ministry in the Mountains,” Liberation, April-
May 1987, 8-10, quoted in James B. Goodno, The Philippines: Land o f Broken
Promises (London: Zed Books, 1991), 232.
44. Ibid., 233.
45. Fidel Castro Speaks (New York: Grove Press, 1969), 278, quoted in De la Torre,
Touching Ground, 71.
46. In L. Huberman and P. Sweezey, Socialism in Cuba (New York: Monthly
Review Press, 1969), 153.
48. Lenin, Collected Works, vol. 15, 403.
49. Lenin, “Socialism and Religion,” Collected Works, vol. 10, 84.
50. Ibid., 85-86.
51. Ibid., 87.
52. Ibid., 23.
54. Ibid., 405-406.
55. Lenin, Collected Works, vol. 28,181.
56. Lenin, Collected Works, vol. 29, 110-11.
57. Lenin, Collected Works, vol. 45, 120, emphasis in original.
59. Lenin, Collected Works, vol. 15, 408-9.
61. Program o f Christians fo r National Liberation (Manila, 1984), quoted in E. San
Juan, Crisis in the Philippines (Massachusetts: Beigin & Garvey Publishers, Inc.,
1986), 38.
63. Goodno, The Philippines: Land o f Broken Promises, 238.
65. De la Torre, Touching Ground, 168-69.
66. William Chapman, Inside the Philippine Revolution: The New People ’s Army and
Its Strugglefo r Power (New York: Norton, 1987), 207.
67. Rosanne Rutten, “Introduction: Cadres in Action, Cadres in Context,” in
Brokering a Revolution: Cadres in a Philippine Insurgency, ed. Rosanne Rutten
(Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2008), 22. Rutten cites (all
too briefly on this particular topic) Heike Blum and Daniel Geiger, Between
a Rock and a Hard Place: 7he Contemporary Indigenous Movement, the State
and the Left in the Philippines. Manuscript.
68. Thomas M. McKenna, “‘Mindanao Peoples Unite!’—Failed Attempts at Muslim-
Christian Unity,” in Brokering a Revolution, 124.
69. Ibid., 128.
70. Youngblood, Marcos against the Church, 80.
71. Ibid., 115.
72. Ibid., 93.
73. Ibid., 94.
74. Chapman, Inside the Philippine Revolution, 202.
75. Colonel Galileo C. Kintanar, “Contemporary Religious Radicalism in the
Philippines,” undated mimeograph, Quarterly National Security Review of the
National Defense College of the Philippines, quoted in Chapman, Inside the
Philippine Revolution, 203.
77. Ibid.
C h a pter 1 2 :
F rom t h e B arrel o f a G un - I
In December 1980, the CPP identified two “distinct periods” of NPA

activity following the declaration of martial law. The first of these lasted
until the mid-1970s, during which
the people’s army experienced a lot of difficulties and sustained heavy

casualties . . . The enemy repeatedly assaulted our initial guerrilla fronts
with the result that almost all of these were reduced in size, and there were
even a few we had to completely leave temporarily. In more extensive
parts of the countryside, we were just starting to open guerrilla zones
under extremely difficult conditions. Propaganda units, which besides
being small also lacked firearms and experience, were assigned to this
task, mostly in places where the peasant movement still had to be revived.
Wherever their presence was discovered, these units were immediately
pursued by much bigger and stronger enemy forces. Quite a few of our
guerrilla units were wiped out. We were able to acquire many rifles, but
many were also lost; there was no significant change in our rifle strength
as a result. Nevertheless, we were gradually able to gain a foothold in
many areas, including Mindanao.1
Another statement claimed that fifteen guerrilla fronts were established

between 1973 and 1975, although it was admitted that “intense enemy
attacks forced us to withdraw from a few guerrilla zones in 1972-1975 . . ”2
^57
258 A M ovem en t D iv id e d
It is clear from these statements, then, that the development of the NPA did
not progress smoothly in this early period. It may prove instructive at this
point to quote from the CPP’s own account of the NPA’s early development,
taking North-Eastern Luzon as an example. The NPA began its activity in
this region (referred to as “NEL” by the CPP) in the province of Isabela.
From the few people that our cadres initially contacted in Isabela, the
revolutionary movement was later to encompass hundreds of thousands
in that province and in Cagayan, Nueva Vizcaya, Quirino, Kalinga-Apayao
and Ifugao.
Now and in the future, North-Eastern Luzon and other parts of
Northern Luzon will play a most important role in the advancement of
the people’s war throughout the land. In fact, this is why as the Party
was established in 1968, it immediately took steps to develop NEL, which
became more popularly known as Cagayan Valley or just plain “CV.”3
One of the attractions of the region according to the CPP was that “in
the whole of Luzon, NEL is farthest from the enemy’s center of power, and
its political institutions are thereby unstable.” It was in NEL that the CPP
began conducting what later came to be called “social investigations”— in-
depth surveys that allowed the CPP and the NPA to draw up a program of
activity for a province or area based on an objective picture of the social
structure, balance of class forces, etc. In the case of NEL, the result was
Sison’s Preliminary Report on Northern Luzon. In 1972, according to Ang
Bayan, the party’s journal, NEL had three guerrilla companies, five guerrilla
platoons and local militias, at the time the largest NPA force anywhere in
the archipelago. The companies and platoons would, assuming that these
were counted separately, have amounted to anywhere between 120 and
420 guerrillas.4
The NPA set about establishing a mass base in the region by means of
“agrarian revolution,” involving the free distribution of land, the lowering of
ground rent and the establishment of marketing cooperatives. Ang Bayan
admits, however, that these “were not extensive . . . and the influence of
the gun often had to be invoked to make the landlords lessen the rate of
exploitation.” It is claimed that by 1972 the mass base consisted of tens of
C h a p t e r 1 2: F ro m t h e B a r r e l o f a G u n - 1 259
thousands in Isabela, Nueva Vizcaya, Quirino, and Ifugao. Then, following

offensives by the NPA, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) launched
its own offensive in 1971-1972 in which 7,000 troops were involved. This
was followed by another from September 1972 to March 1973 and a third
from December 1975 to March 1976. During the first of these the AFP, by
the CPP’s own account, drove more than 50,000 people from the mountain
areas of Isabela. The CPP admits that due to lack of experience and the
strength of the AFP assaults, “our forces committed major errors which
resulted in the loss of a large part of the revolutionary forces. The most
serious of these errors was that they allowed themselves to remain confined
within the enemy encirclement for a number of years.”5
But it was not just AFP offensives that produced setbacks. In Ifugao
province in the early 1970s, for example, the apparendy rapid progress of
the NPA proved to be illusory. The small 1971 expansion team contacted
the Mondiguing family, to which one of its members was related, and
as the family was politically prominent, villagers, having no knowledge
o f the NPA or CPP, were swift to lend “support for activities that they
presumed would advance [Mayor] Mondiguing’s political interests.”6
Some of Mondiguing’s bodyguards were sent for military training by the
NPA in Isabela, and the growing band of local NPAs became involved,
in turn, in the Mondiguing family’s political feud with the Lumauigs. This
involvement in traditional politics meant, as Finin puts it, that “revolutionary
principles were compromised for the sake of survival.”7 Nevertheless, NPA
membership and support seemed to be growing rapidly until Mayor Alipip
Mondiguing was arrested for his alleged responsibility for an ambush on
Governor Gualberto Lumauig; this, along with the capture of a number of
NPA units, reduced the number of barrios the NPA thought it controlled
from forty-two to seven, and its total manpower in Ifugao to fall to “less
than twenty-five.”8 The mass base which had been thought to be pro-NPA
turned out, in short, to be merely pro-Mondiguing.
Surprisingly, the NPA operated for eight years in NEL without a formal
regional party leadership. This was only corrected in August 1977, when the
First Regional Party Conference established a regional committee, following
26o A M o v e m e n t D iv id e d
which, Ang Bayan tells us, work in NEL was guided by the lessons of the
previous eight years and by the central committee’s Our Urgent Tasks. “A
turning point was the belated implementation of the long-standing order
from the Central Committee to leave the confines of Isabela’s forest region
and expand toward Cagayan. Thus did our forces not only break out o f
the enemy encirclement but widened the territory encompassed by the
revolution.”
A far starker account of this period can be found in Jones’s study,
according to which “a misguided attempt in the northern Luzon province
of Isabela to replicate Mao’s self-contained Shensi province stronghold
resulted in heavy losses and the dispersal of the few hundred guerrillas
and supporters who survived.”9 Within a short space of time, the offensive
launched by Marcos “had wiped out the base areas and sympathetic villages
the rebels had spent nearly two years developing.”10 “By 1974, the southern
Isabela campaign, the pride of the New People’s Army, had been reduced
to a pitiful collection of about thirty scrawny and sickly men and women
hiding fearfully in the forest.”11 In Aurora province, the Third Red Company
split into two and in March 1975 began to retreat, fifty-five guerrillas moving
westward while the group left behind was killed, along with one hundred
civilian supporters.* Jones estimates that the “effective strength” of the NPA
in the region never exceeded 500 guerrillas and political cadres and that
between 1970 and 1978 some 300 of these were killed.13
The NPA’s fortunes in the Cordillera took a turn for the better with the
logging and pulp production project by the Cellophil Resources Corporation,
headed by Marcos crony Herminio Disini and licensed for 200,000 hectares,
and the huge hydroelectric project in Kalinga Apayao and Mountain
Province. Whereas previously CPP-NPA cadres had experienced difficulty in
identifying issues which would engage the attention of highlanders, these
two projects did the job for them, and by the late 1970s, “based primarily on
people’s fear of losing their land, highlanders in larger numbers than ever
before joined the CPP-NPA.”14 Finin makes the point, however, that armed
* Jones reveals that, according to one veteran of this campaign, communications with the
central committee had been broken in 1972 and were not restored until 1975.12
C h a p t e r i 2: F ro m t h e B a r r e l o f a G u n - 1 261
struggle in the Cordillera was effective primarily in the areas affected by the
Cellophil and Chico dam projects, and even here the CPP-NPA was unable
to claim sole credit for mobilizing and leading the resistance. Moreover,
he suggests that had these two projects not threatened people’s land (AFP
abuses also led to support of the CPP-NPA) there may have been negligible
opposition to the Marcos government in these areas.15 And, as in the Ifugao
experience, there was a sting in the tail, for the upsurge of popular unrest
which threw up local leaders like Macliing Dulag* and effectively stalled
these projects also contributed to the development of a form of nationalism
more localized than that to which the CPP subscribed, and in the mid-1980s
the CPP-NPA forces would be split as the Cordilleran nationalists broke
away to form the Cordillera People’s Liberation Army.
Elsewhere in the country, the NPA’s early attempts to generate
“protracted people’s war” were hardly more successful. By December 1973,
the NPA in Camarines Sur province had been reduced to nine surviving
guerrillas, seven rifles and just over one peso in funds.16 Early attempts to
launch guerrilla warfare on Negros failed due to the fact that the NPA went
straight onto the offensive in 1969 and 1970 without first building a political
base on the island. (Here, perhaps significantly, in view of the voluntarist
nature of the religious impulse discussed in chapter 11, the NPA was led by
a priest.) After the declaration of martial law, the guerrillas on Negros were
easily crushed with, according to Jones, only five CPP activists escaping the
military dragnet.17 In Mindanao, later a success story and later still a self-
inflicted disaster, by 1973 only two of the five guerrilla fronts which had
been opened remained. Over twenty cadres from Manila were assigned
to Mindanao in 1974, but by the following year only four NPA squads
remained on the whole island.18 In Sorsogon, recklessness and dogma
contributed to early failure. By early 1974, CPP strength in the province
was up to 250, well over half of them armed. When small landowners
offered the NPA 80 percent of their harvests, the latter refused to accept
less than 90 percent. This effectively put paid to any grudging support
Dulag, a Kalinga chieftain, was shot down by government troops in 1980; twenty years
laler, the NPA assassinated the officer it claimed was responsible.
i 6i A M o vem en t D iv id e d
which such landlords might have extended to the rebels; instead, they
banded together to support the local militia units. When a series of reckless
NPA raids provoked a large military counterattack, the NPA was decimated,
and by late 1975 a mere ten CPP cadres remained in the province.19
Throughout this first period, the primacy of armed struggle was stressed
to the extent that it was the NPA, rather than the CPP, which was assigned
responsibility for political work in the countryside. Possibly, this partly
explains why, as noted above, there was no regional CPP leadership in North
Eastern Luzon until 1977, a phenomenon deriving from a central committee
directive issued shortly after the declaration of martial law. According to
this, the “People’s Army is the Party’s principal form of organization and
should be built as such . . .”20 Van der Kroef remarks that this was
a formulation so categorical as to suggest that the NPA was replacing the

regular CPP-ML Party organization. Moreover, according to this directive,
the Party is required to “assign more cadres of workers’ as well as petty
bourgeois background to the New People’s Army.” Particularly those no
longer able to carry forward legal or even underground work in cities and
towns “should be dispatched to the people’s army through the various
regional Party committees.” The directive also stresses again the pivotal
role of the NPA in carrying on land reform. (“Wherever the guerrilla
units of the New People’s Army are, the least that should be done for the
welfare of the peasant masses is to reduce land rent, eliminate usury, and
initiate mutual aid and exchange of labor.”) By comparison, the regular
Party organization seems almost confined to a back-up and supplementary
function, the real burden of political and military struggle falling on the
NPA, particularly in the rural areas.21
As is evident from the serious reverses referred to above, such an

approach tended to demonstrate that the Maoist dictum “political power
grows out of the barrel of a gun” (a formulation that had been inserted word
for word into the CPP’s Program fo r a People’s Democratic Revolution)71 left
a lot to be desired when an attempt was made to put it into practice. It
also implied an inevitable lack of political direction. Furthermore, with no
party body firmly in control of the military arm, the NPA would potentially
be host to any number of undesirable elements— a factor which possibly
C h a p t e r i i : F ro m t h e B a r r e l o f a G u n - 1 263
contributed to the rebels’ extortionate demands on farmers in Sorsogon.

Armed bands have been commonplace throughout much of Philippine
history, and there is little reason to suppose that, in the absence of strict
political criteria, the same kind of people who would have found their
way into millenarian or bandit gangs would not have found a home in the
NPA.* The prescription that the NPA should be the party’s “principal form of
organization” failed to significantly expand the number of guerrillas; in the
mid-1970s, Van der Kroef reported that “most authoritative estimates” put
the strength of the NPA at around a thousand.24
Perhaps the most tragicomic episode in this period of the NPA’s history
concerned its attempts to secure arms from China. In 1971, a nine-strong
CPP delegation traveled clandestinely to China where, as the Communist
Party of China had already agreed, they would arrange for arms shipments
to be delivered to the Philippines. The delegation swiftly found itself
divided over the Plaza Miranda bombing, as some of its members had been
privy to the plans, and relations became bitter as, by Jones’s account, the
“disputes would lead to violent confrontations and to a mutiny by some
of the delegates against Sison’s leadership.”25 As the Chinese refused to
provide transport for the arms, a former trawler was purchased in Japan
and renamed the Karagatan. Three activists were sent from Manila to
undergo training, and in mid-1972 the vessel set sail for Fukien, where it
took on the arms. On July 4, the arms were offloaded onto small boats off
Digoyo Point, Isabela province, but then, as it prepared to embark upon
its return journey, the Karagatan ran aground and, says Jones, most of the
arms and ammunition were captured by government troops over the next
few days. Some ten weeks later, Marcos declared martial law and the China
And in the party itself, the conduct of some members was not always what might be
expected to be found in a communist party, let alone one leading an armed struggle.
Pimentel gives examples of what might be termed the two extremes of inappropriate
behavior. “After a few months in the UG [underground],” one source told him, “I found
out that some of my comrades sometimes went home to have their laundry done or
to have lunch or dinner with their families." Another describes the nature of meetings
in Mindanao before the arrival of Edgar Jopson: “The gatherings were usually very
informal. Comrades, even those in the leading committees, lolled in their seats and
cracked jokes . . . It was more like a barkadaban, a gang meeting, than an underground
meeting. . . There were rarely any prepared documents and very few took down notes.”25
delegation found itself stranded, with no easy way of communicating with

the party leadership back home.
In 1973, Sison came up with a project, even more ambitious than the
Karagatan scheme, whereby a small vessel would drop automatic rifles,
bazookas, and ammunition in vacuum-packed tubes off the northwestern
coast of Luzon. The Andrea therefore left the Philippines for China in
January 1974, captained by a former engineering student who was prone
to seasickness and crewed by three former student activists and eight
peasants from Central Luzon who had never been to sea before. Less than
a day later, the vessel ran aground. Rescued by a salvage ship, the twelve
would-be gunrunners wound up not in mainland China but in Hong Kong,
where they were held by the immigration authorities.26
Jones advises us that the failure of the expedition triggered a series
of critical letters from the China delegation. As before, Sison was held
responsible for the outcome of this latest nautical adventure, but added
to this were a number of other complaints— that the CPP leadership was
“leading” the guerrilla struggle from the city (a charge often leveled at the
Lavas by Sison) and, in a letter from Ibarra Tubianosa, that Sison was a
“mad killer” for ordering the Plaza Miranda bombing.27 Eventually, the
crew of the Andrea was granted political asylum in China where, along
with China’s other CPP “guests,” they stayed until 1981, when most of
them slipped back into the Philippines and the original China delegation
departed for sanctuary in Holland. For some of this latter group, it would
be another five years before they and their families would be able to return
to the Philippines.
In the latter half of the 1970s, the NPA saw an improvement in its
fortunes. Dealing with this period, Ang Bayan claims:
The seeds we planted in the early years grew larger and stronger; we
regained our losses and quickly-surpassed in quantity and quality the
C h a p t e r i i : F ro m t h e B a r r e l o f a G u n - 1 265
initial forces we had deployed. Our full-time guerrilla force more than
doubled in number, our high-powered rifles increased more than four
fold; and the total area of our guerrilla fronts increased many times over.
We have launched more tactical offensives with more fruitful results. We
have speeded up the formation of guerrilla squads and platoons equipped
with better arms. The dictatorship has been shifting an increasingly laige
part of its armed forces to our guerrilla zones, but we have managed to
keep our losses down while continuing to make progress in our work.28
With some justification, the CPP claimed that the turning point in the
mid-1970s was due to the summing up by the third plenum of the central
committee and the publication of Sison’s Specific Characteristics o f Our
People’s War. The latter document ostensibly marked the CPP’s break with
the mechanical application of Chinese experience to Philippine conditions.
Whereas previously the aim had been to achieve “liberated areas,” now
the armed struggle was adapted to take account of the fact that the
geographical peculiarities of the Philippines really did not lend themselves
to “liberated areas” at all.
The weakest link of enemy rule lies in the countryside. The worst of
oppression and exploitation is carried out among the peasant masses by
the reactionaries. And yet the countryside is so vast that enemy armed
forces cannot but be spread thinly or cannot but abandon vast areas
when concentrated at certain points. The countryside is therefore the
fertile ground for the emergence and growth of Red political power—the
people’s army, organs of democratic political power, mass organizations
and the Party. There can be no wider and better area for maneuver for our
people’s army and for our type of warfare.29
Thus, the geographical features of the Philippines provided the basis

for a specific organizational approach to “people’s war”:
Since the central leadership has to position itself in some remote area
in Luzon, there is no alternative now and even for a long time but to
adopt and carry out the policy of centralized leadership and decentralized
operations. We must distribute and develop throughout the country cadres
who are of sufficiently high quality to find their own bearing and maintain
initiative not only within periods as short as one or two months, periods of
regular reporting, but also within periods as long as two or more years, in
case the enemy chooses to concentrate on an island or a specific fighting
front and blockade it.30
It will be apparent from the above that, while Specific Characteristics

jettisoned the concept of “liberated areas,” the arguments it put forward
did not contradict the Maoist notion of “surrounding the cities from the
countryside.” The policy of “centralized leadership and decentralized
operations” would, moreover, facilitate the rise of political and military
differences within the organization, although there is no doubt that it
contributed to a qualitative and quantitative enhancement of the insurgency.
This latter process was assisted by the publication in 1976 of Our
Urgent Tasks, which criticized a number of failings in the party’s work. Most
of the errors were, said the document, of the “dogmatist” variety, as often no
attempt was made to investigate concrete conditions. Criticism was leveled
at the hitherto “haphazard” formation of barrio organizing committees in
the countryside, often with no attempt to consolidate or to form mass
organizations. Therefore, relying on “a mere committee dominated by
unreliable but prestigious personalities [often the first contacts made in the
barrio] has also spawned commandism.” It was therefore proposed that
barrio liaison groups, with no automatic rights to leadership, should be the
first step, followed by the entry of the “guerrilla squad, propaganda team or
cadres,” and the formation of organizing groups.
Particular criticism was aimed at those who “fail to recognize that
to support and ensure the success of any important action, military or
otherwise, requires painstaking mass work.”31 The importance of this
lesson should not be underestimated, for the new prescription came close
to questioning the validity of Sison’s previous insistence on the primacy
of armed struggle, even though this was restated in the document.* If
* Slson (as Amado Guerrero) is usually credited with the authorship of Our Urgent Tasks,
but according to two former CPP cadres in discussion with the author, one of whom
recalled having seen Bernabe Buscayno (Commander Dante) drafting a section of it, a
number of leaders worked on the document.32
C h a p t e r i i : F ro m t h e B a r r e l o f a G u n - 1 26 7
“painstaking mass work" was a necessary prerequisite for the successful

expansion of military operations, this amounted to a shift of emphasis onto
political work— and, in fact, from this point onward the attempt was made
to ensure that CPP organizations were placed in control of all aspects of
work, including military work. The document had opened by arguing that in
order to achieve “the most profound, most wide-ranging and most forward
results in the antifascist movement, we must deliberately and clearly link it
to the antifeudal and anti-imperialist movements,” as to do otherwise would
b e “merely calling for the restoration of formal democratic rights and worn-
out processes of the ruling system.” Now it proposed a number of forms
that the “antifeudal” struggle might take— land reform, reduced land rent or
nonpayment, etc.— and, acknowledging the stratification of the peasantry,
called for its organization along class lines, isolating the rich peasants.
The party itself had not grown sufficiently, said Our Urgent Tasks, and
so it was still, in effect, a cadre party, with the possible exception of the
Manila-Rizal region, which, although it had sent cadres elsewhere in the
archipelago, had continued to grow. Slow growth resulted from sectarianism,
“poor tasking and check-ups, irregular and ponderous study courses and
lack of recruitment planning.” The “outstanding reason” for the situation
outside of Manila-Rizal was “the failure to build the mass organizations and
the mass movement in the localities.” Consequently, there were few leaders
available to take on “large tasks,” there were difficulties in bringing together
the leading comrades at the various levels, and thus “there is always the
danger that single Party leaders decide matters that should be taken up
in a committee.” Therefore, “there are conditions for the phenomenon of
one-m an monopoly of affairs to arise. Indeed it has arisen in the Party and
w e have been combating this for a long time.” Significantly, the document
called for a large number of workers and peasants to be recruited into the
party.
Our Urgent Tasks also filled in some of the blanks in Program fo r a
People’s Democratic Revolution. Thus: “The socialist revolution must begin
upon the completion [admittedly a word that was open to interpretation]
of the people’s democratic revolution, as we shall no longer pass through
a full stage of capitalist development as in the case of the old democratic

revolutions before the era of imperialism and proletarian revolution.”
Perhaps more significantly, in this document the CPP finally paid
considerable attention to the working class.
The revolutionaiy mass movement in the cities, prescribed Our Urgent
Tasks, should be built via the trade unions and other organizations, “engaging
them in a broad democratic movement that is distincdy antifascist and anti
imperialist, a movement sympathetic to and supportive of the distinctly
antifeudal movement in the countryside.” Having gone into some detail on
the strike movement, the document called for the big bourgeoisie and the
foreign monopoly capitalists (and the comprador big bourgeoisie) to be hit
the hardest, given the fact that the rate of exploitation was “highest in their
enterprises.”’ As with rural barrios, an organizing strategy was set out for
urban workplaces. Interestingly, the document did not promote the aim of
having one national-democratic labor center, but observed that, although
there would be party-led independent unions, “when [they are] members
of different labor federations, our unions have the advantage of enjoying
close relations with other unions which the Party can gradually get into.”
From there, the document went on to discuss urban community organizing
activity, with workers and the urban poor taking the lead and the previous
practice of sending in student activists consigned to a “secondary position.”
There was, therefore, much in Our Urgent Tasks that would contribute
to the future growth of the CPP and the NPA. However, despite its initial
insistence that “anti-fascism” must also be anti-imperialist, it proposed no
anti-imperialist activity. While it ended with several anti-imperialist (and
anti-Soviet) pronouncements, the two paragraphs devoted to the US
It may be thought that, as wages are usually higher in foreign-owned workplaces, the
rate of exploitation would be lower. However, the Marxist term “rate of exploitation"
refers not to the wage-level of the worker but the amount of surplus value he creates,
or the time in which he takes to create it, which Marx called “surplus labor,” as opposed
to the time taken to recreate the value of his labor-power, which Marx called “necessary
labor.” For example, in a poorly equipped enterprise a worker’s day may be divided into
five hours necessary labor and three hours surplus labor (giving an exploitation rale of
60 percent), while in a more modem workplace the proportions may be reversed, giving
an exploitation rate of 166 percent.33
C h a p te r i 2: F r o m t h e B a r r e l of a Gun - 1 269
military bases stopped short of calling for their ouster, the closest it came
to this being the observation: “The question of sovereignty over the U.S.
military bases has long been resolved; the point has always been to assert
such sovereignty by deeds.”34
While the document’s opening insistence that antifascism be linked
to the antifeudal and anti-imperialist movements may well have been
designed to absolve the CPP from the charge that it was pursuing a “purely
anti-Marcos line,” in Mindanao the leadership initially resisted the “anti
feudal line,”35 and the failure to flesh out the anti-imperialist line (this may
have been due to the fact that China, to which the CPP was still close,
favored the retention of the US bases) would mean that the CPP would
still, in practice, be primarily anti-Marcos— with negative consequences
for the party after Marcos’s fall. Indeed, activity such as propaganda and
education aimed at inculcating an anti-imperialist consciousness among
the masses was effectively ruled out by the CPP’s emphasis on armed
struggle and its illegal status. And while in practice the party would place
increasing emphasis on political work, including that of a legal nature, it
would often rationalize this by maintaining that such activity was aimed at
winning support for the armed struggle. Armando Malay Jr. referred to this
conundrum in 1983, pointing out that “the admission of the importance of
the legal struggle will question the very basis for the formation of the CPP-
ML in the first place. After all, the new party’s formation was premised on
its separation from the path taken by the PKP.”36
The CPP-NPA now turned to the construction of political bases, usually

by means of campaigns conducted within its guerrilla fronts— even if this
entailed suspending military activity for protracted periods. In 1980, Ang
Bayan reported that in many barrios land rent had been reduced by 50
percent, often initially achieved by simply hiding part of the harvest from
the landlord and only later organizing the peasantry to openly demand rent
reductions. There were also campaigns against usury and low wages, and
in “political education, literacy, health and culture.”37 On Samar, the journal
claimed that an “anti-feudal” campaign launched in four barrios during
the harvest season of 1980 had spread to 166 barrios and 70 sitios in six
towns by the end of the year, by which time 11,000 poor and lower-middle
peasants and agricultural laborers had taken action to lower land rent and
other charges, and increase wages.38
By Jones’s reckoning, however, Samar had even by 1979 “boasted the
strongest communist organization, military and political, of all the islands,”39
and in the mid-1980s, the CPP attributed the success of its operations there
to the comprehensive evaluation of previous experience and the systematic
development and organization of its mass base. Although the formation of
full-time guerrilla units and the intensification of guerrilla warfare in 1979
was a further factor, at the end of 1981 operations were slowed down “to
enable cadres and fighters on Samar to assist in the Visayas and even on
Mindanao . . .” because “the heavy enemy presence made it difficult to
sustain the previous rate of tactical operations and campaigns.”40
It is evident from this that the growth in the size and influence of
the CPP on Samar predated the heightening of its military activity and
was the result of prior political and organizational work. And even the
intensification of the NPA’s military operations seems, according to the Ang
Bayan article from which this information is taken, to have amounted to
a mere seven operations in twenty-one months. Moreover, we see that the
very success of these operations then appear, having attracted the attention
of the AFP, to have resulted in their own reduction.
In 1982, Ang Bayan reported similar developments in North-Eastern
Luzon, where “10,600 peasants (or approximately 40,000 including their
families) benefited from the agrarian revolution in one year alone. Mass
organizations are in the forefront of the campaign to confront the landlords.
Organizing committees and full-fledged mass organizations on the barrio
level are being formed to lay the groundwork for associations on the town
level.” Land rent had been dramatically reduced, while in Isabela many
peasants refused to pay rent at all, and many land reform beneficiaries were
n o longer making amortization payments to the Land Bank. The peasant

associations and mass organizations had been reorganized or formed along
class lines, with poor peasants and agricultural laborers playing the leading
role.41 Again, there is no doubt that the growth of the NPA here would not
have been possible without such prior politico-economic activity. As Jones
remarks: “What made the rebel army a challenge to be taken seriously was
the rapidly expanding communist political organization sinking deep roots
in the countryside.”42
Chapman gives the following example of an “advanced area” in
Mindanao.
In early 1986, Punta Dumalag was a model communist village, a kind

of Philippine commune where under the party’s protection and guidance
the dispossessed had taken possession. The killing days were over, for
no longer did the government’s army attempt to interfere and the NPA
contingent had moved on to other batdes. The revolution had come and
conquered and then marched on, leaving behind this quiet self-contained
enclave of outwardly satisfied converts. There were other communities like
it scattered around the country, outposts where the Manila government’s
writ no longer ran, but none fit as neatly the CPP’s definition of success.
And so when journalists came to this far comer of Mindanao, it was there
that the party delighted in displaying its handiwork.43
After his release from prison in 1986, Jose Maria Sison would claim, in
what might be considered a progress report on such developments, that
the “agrarian revolution depends on the armed strength of the NPA . . .”44
As we have seen, the relationship between the “agrarian revolution,” or
politico-economic activity, and the armed struggle was more dialectical
than this, with the former laying the basis for the latter. What was true,
however, was that the safeguarding o f politico-economic gains in the
countryside was dependent upon the strength of the NPA, and there was a
sizeable problem here, for the demands around which the peasants were
organized were lifted straight from Mao, who had formulated them for
Chinese circumstances. As the geography of the Philippines ruled out the
development of “liberated areas,” any gains which arose were, therefore,
precarious and, in many cases, short term— as the CPP-NPA should have
known from its experience in North-Eastern Luzon in the first half of the
1970s.’
By the end of the 1970s, CPP-NPA statements gave the impression that
steady progress was being made. Nationally, by March 1980 the CPP-NPA
was claiming that it had established twenty-six guerrilla fronts in eleven
regions outside Manila-Rizal, covering 4,000 barrios in forty provinces.
Moreover, all fronts “have passed through and withstood enemy campaigns
and operations. Many had withstood two or more large enemy campaigns
involving one thousand up to seven thousand fascist troops and lasting
several months and even years.”45 It was further claimed that its forces had
reached company strength (anything from twenty to ninety guerrillas, based
on the formula provided in the “Basic Rules of the New People’s Army”) in
most fronts and that in “advanced fronts, if we so desire, we can concentrate
up to two companies of full-time guerrillas.” Ang Bayan went on to point
out, though, that in “relatively weak fronts, our forces make up at least
one guerrilla platoon (between ten and thirty guerrillas) in each front. In
general, however, our guerrilla forces are usually spread out in squads and
platoons.” Between 1976 and 1980, full-time guerrillas were claimed to have
doubled in number, while the number of high-powered rifles had increased
by 200 percent. Apart from full-time guerrillas, the “people’s militia” was
made up of “part-time fighters” who carried “indigenous and home-made
weapons” and who outnumbered the full-timers by five to one.46
In 1980, the NPA claimed that its guerrilla fronts had a combined
population of ten million. “We effectively reach more than half the people
here, and they support the revolutionary movement in various ways. The
core of this mass base consists of some forty thousand (40,000) mass
See chapter 20 for a fuller discussion of this point.

activists and some eight hundred thousand (800,000) active members of the
revolutionary mass organizations.”47 There can be little doubt that these are
grossly inflated estimates, for this would mean that in all areas designated
as guerrilla fronts no less than one in twelve of the entire population (and
therefore a much higher proportion of the adult population) were active
members of the “revolutionary mass organizations.” It was presumably on
the basis of such estimates that the CPP judged that its military arm was
“rapidly leaving behind the early sub-stage of the strategic defensive of our
people’s war and surging forward towards the advanced sub-stage.”48 In the
period ahead, the party foresaw the need to remedy “in a step-by-step but
rapid manner, the condition where a single Party organization takes care of
both the local work and the army work.” The development of local party
organizations would then allow the gradual release of full-time guerrillas to
b e gradually released for solely military work. Within the guerrilla fronts,
the call was to “persist in popularizing and strengthening mass campaigns,
especially the anti-feudal and anti-fascist campaigns. We should not be
content with secret forms of mass mobilization.* As soon as possible, we
should accelerate open mass actions of different types.”50 By the end of
1980, the CPP was boasting that “from the stage where our main task was
to spread guerrilla warfare throughout the land, we are entering the stage
where our main task is to intensify it.”
In 1982, Ang Bayan found it necessary to reissue the call for the
intensification of guerrilla warfare, “carrying out sustained, more frequent,
increasingly bigger and coordinated tactical offensives in the various
guerrilla fronts. Aside from these, small units will step up military operations
outside the limits of guerrilla fronts, even up to the town centers and
cities.”51 Despite the call issued in 1980 for the party organizations to take
over political work within the guerrilla fronts, “armed propaganda units
(APUs) continue to be maintained even while GUs are being formed. The
No explanation is offered of this rather curious concept. Lagman was scornful of the very
notion: “In 1974, when I assumed leadership of the Metro Manila Committee, I abolished
all these underground mass organizations. It was reviewed in 1977 because Joma and
Dante insisted."'”
274 A M o v e m e n t D i v id e d
APUs’ main task is to conduct propaganda work among the masses and
build revolutionary mass organizations. Military work is a secondary task.
At present, APUs are still needed to do expansion work and to recover
areas that had been temporarily abandoned.” Over a year later, the situation
appeared to have improved little.
In the districts where the territorial Party organization has not yet been
fully established, many Red fighters continued to be tied up in mass work.
As soon as possible, the work of supervising mass organizations should be
taken over by the territorial Party organization, from the district committees
to the section committees and down to the branch committees. In many
cases, however, Red fighters continue to assume the task of building and
supervising mass organizations.52
In October 1982, Ang Bayan reported that in the previous two years
the AFP had intensified its own campaigns against the NPA, launching
battalion-sized operations where formerly “these enemy drives were carried
out by platoons and companies.” In response, the NPA had established
“full-fledged guerrilla units” which “are the main combat formations of the
people’s army in the advanced substage of the strategic defensive. They are
the precursors of the regular mobile forces that will emerge in time.”
“Front guerrilla units (FGUs),” this article continued, “and district
guerrilla units (DGUs) are coordinated and combined to launch medium-
scale operations, or to carry out a series of operations against definite
targets within a definite time. Throughout the guerrilla fronts, medium-
scale offensives can now be carried out in combination with many small
ones.” A study of the operations in the first half of the 1980s shows, in fact,
that such “medium-scale operations” were few and far between. It is clear,
then, that the organization and development of the NPA had not proceeded
as far as the leadership would have liked by the early 1980s.
Nevertheless, the CPP maintained that the struggle had reached the
“advanced substage of the strategic defensive,” pointing out that tactical
offensives were being launched at the rate of one a week in Mindanao and
two a week in North-Western and Southern Luzon. From May 1979 to May
1980, forty tactical offensives were launched in Samar.53 In the very same
C h a p t e r 1 2 : F ro m t h e B a r r e l o f a G u n - 1 275
issue that lamented the fact that “many Red fighters continue to be tied up
in mass work,” Ang Bayan stressed the geographical sweep of the NPA’s
presence.
The NPA’s guerrilla fronts and guerrilla zones cover almost all provinces
and major islands in the country. The people’s army is now in all
provinces of Northern Luzon except Batanes; in all provinces and major
islands of Southern Luzon; in all major islands of the Visayas; and in 15
out of 18 provinces in the mainland of Mindanao . . . Our bigger and more
advanced fronts are the size of a province and the NPA’s operational areas
now extend to cities which adjoin or are within our guerrilla fronts.54
By late 1984, the NPA was claiming fifty-nine guerrilla fronts in as many
provinces. Within these fronts, a third of the basic mass organizations had
reached the level of organizing committees, whereas in areas of the interior
“full-fledged mass organizations are already prevalent.”55
It is possible that the CPP was exaggerating the size and influence of
the NPA at this stage. Such exaggeration may have been aimed at increasing
the political influence of the CPP in the period following the assassination
o f Benigno Aquino Jr., when mass political opposition to Marcos increased
dramatically. If the days of Marcos were numbered, the CPP would have
wanted to create the impression that its military arm was nearing the stage
o f “strategic stalemate” with the AFP, and that in the countryside it was
creating the conditions for the development of alternative centers of power.
During this very same period, however, NPA leaders in Mindanao were
considering alternatives to the scenario prescribed in the 1968 program.
N o tes
1. “Statement of the Executive Committee of the Central Committee on the

Twelfth Anniversary of the Re-establishment of the Communist Party of the
Philippines,” Ang Bayan, December 26,1980.
2. “Statement on the Eleventh Anniversary of the New People’s Army,” Ang
Bayan, March 29, 1980.
3. Ang Bayan, January 1985.
4. The Basic Rules o f The New People's Army (this appears as an appendix to
Eduardo Lachica, H uk Philippine Agrarian Society in Revolt [Manila:
Solidaridad Publishing House, 1971], 317-25), adopted upon the formation of
the NPA on March 29, 1969, provided for four forms of fighting unit:
a. Regular mobile forces consisting of:
i. the squad—five to ten troops
ii. the platoon—two to three squads
iii. the company—two to three platoons
iv. the battalion—two to three companies
v. the regiment—two to three battalions
vi. the division—two to three regiments
vii. the corps—two to three divisions
viii. the army—two to three corps.
b. Guerrilla units of between five and fifteen troops.
c. Militia and self-defense corps consisting of those “who continue with their
daily productive life. They shall play a mainly defensive role but they shall
serve as the vast reserve and support for the regular mobile forces and the
guerrilla units.”
d. Armed city partisans, each unit consisting of at least three combat
members to participate in “city operations, in disrupting the enemy rule,
in raising the fighting morale of workers and the urban petty bourgeoisie
and in preparing in a long-term way for a general city uprising upon the
instructions of the Military Commission.”
6. Gerard A. Finin, “‘Igorotism,’ Rebellion, and Regional Autonomy in the
Cordillera,” in Brokering a Revolution: Cadres in a Philippine Insurgency, ed.
Rosanne Rutten (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2008), 93.
7. Ibid, 94.
8. Ibid, 95.
10. Ibid., 54.
11. Ibid., 55.
12. Ibid., 56.
13. Ibid, 57.
14. Finin, “‘Igorotism,’ Rebellion," 99.
15. Ibid., 117.
17. Ibid, 92.
18. Benjamin Pimentel Jr., Edjop: The Unusual Journey o f Edgar Jopson (Quezon
20. Ang Bayan, December 10, 1972.
21. Justus van der Kroef, “Philippine Communist Party Theory and Strategy: A New
Departure?" Pacific Affairs, date uncertain, probably 1975, 184.
22. See Lachica, Huk, Annex B, 297.
23. Benjamin Pimentel Jr., Edjop, 184, 251.
24. Van der Kroef, “Philippine Communist Theory and Strategy,” 184.
26. Ibid, 78-79.
27. Ibid.
29. “Amado Guerrero," “Specific Characteristics of Our People’s War,” in Philippine
Society and Revolution (n.p.: International Association of Filipino Patriots,
1979), 183-84.
30. Ibid., 186-87.
31. Quoted in William Chapman, Inside the Philippine Revolution: The New People’s
Army and Its Strugglefo r Power (New York: Norton, 1987), 130.
32. Two former CPP cadres in discussion withthe author, September 2009.
33. Karl Marx, Capital, vol. 1 (London: Lawrence & Wishart, 1974), Chapter X, “The
Rate of Surplus-Value.”
34. Central Committee, CPP, Our Urgent Tasks, 1976. This and other CPP documents
are available on www.philippinerevolution.net.
35. Katherine Weekley, The Communist Party o f the Philippines, 1968-1993
(Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 2001), 89.
36. “Some Random Reflections on Marxism and Maoism in thePhilippines,”
in Marxism in the Philippines (Quezon City:Third World Studies Center,
University of the Philippines, 1984), 79.
37. Ang Bayan, March 29, 1980.
40. Ang Bayan, August 1984.
41. Ang Bayan, March 31,1982.
Publications, 1986), 36
46. Ibid.
47. Ibid.
48. “Statement of the Executive Committee,” Ang Bayan, December 26, 1980.
49. Filemon Lagman, interview by the author, January 1996.
52. Ang Bayan, October 1983-
55. Ang Bayan, November 1984.
C h apter 1 3 :
From the B arrel of a G un - II
One of the NPA’s greatest success stories (until it turned poisonous)

was represented by its growth in Mindanao. By 1984, according to Jones,
the NPA had platoon-sized units in sixteen provinces on the island. The
work of “sparrow units”— used to conduct individual assassinations in
urban areas, later to form a prominent part of the NPA’s activity in Metro
Manila— began as early as 1977 in Davao.1 By 1983, this activity had
expanded to warfare by “armed city partisans” (ACPs). Chapman says that
the first ACP unit was established in Davao in 1982, describing it as “a
secretive clan whose members both liquidated chosen enemies and set to
work organizing cells of supporters in the poorest communities.”2
One fairly predictable result of such activity was, as Jones points out,
that the military response tended to focus on the legal fronts, as by definition
the sparrow units and the ACPs were so elusive, and often legal activists
w ho may or may not have been CPP members were summarily executed
by the military.5 Chapman quotes a Davao CPP member as saying that most
of the “sparrow killings are by young boys who have had no training . . .
It’s sort of an ‘on the job training.’ We select unknowns for sparrow duty
because they can move about easily without being noticed. Some of the
people they kill are guilty of committing crimes against the people, but
279
they also kill just to get guns.” Some sparrows in Negros, Chapman was
told, were not even NPA members as such, but “mere free-lancers eager
to help.”4 Of the sparrow killings in Davao, Chapman says that the early
arms-gathering or revenge missions had in the course of time evolved into
“rational, even productive” tactics of violence. “Selective killings triggered
elephantine responses from the government and brought more and more
sympathizers to the rebel side. There was a kind of flowering amid the
gore. Political mobilization in the squatter communities progressed more
swiftly in Davao than anywhere else.”5 There were early signs that the
situation would spiral out of control, particularly when one considers that,
as Chapman points out, many policemen “were killed on the streets by
sparrow units coveting their service revolvers. It was difficult to square
the supposed policy of painstaking discrimination with what happened in
Davao in the early 1980s when dozens of policemen, including traffic cops,
were slain for their guns.”6
More and more, the CPP-NPA in Mindanao began to concentrate on
activity— both legal and illegal— in the urban areas. In December 1983, the
members of the Mindanao Commission of the party— Benjamin de Vera,
the political chief, Romulo Kintanar, the military commander, and Lucas
Fernandez, the urban strategist— met in Agusan del Norte and decided
to focus on urban insurrection, looking to cut years off the revolutionary
process. It might be argued that this had been sanctioned by the central
leadership of the party, as Our Urgent Tasks had predicted: “In the future,
popular uprisings or insurrections will arise over extensive areas.” Then
again, in 1980 the eighth plenum of the central committee had discussed
the proposal of Edgar Jopson concerning “three strategic combinations”
(the military and political struggles; urban and rural struggles; national and
international struggles), and although there is disagreement regarding what
degree of agreement this attracted, it did, says Weekley, “form at least part
of the basis for a new emphasis on urban struggles, including ‘people’s
strikes’ and urban guerrilla warfare." (The same plenum, while confirming
its view that the revolution was about to enter the “advanced substage of the
strategic defensive,” then lowered expectations by indicating that this would
C h a p t e r i 3: F ro m t h e B a r r e l o f a G u n - II 281
be followed by the “strategic counteroffensive” before the stage of “strategic

stalemate” was reached.)7 In 1984, the Mindanao leadership adopted a “pol-
mil” strategy that, influenced by the revolutions in Vietnam and Nicaragua,
stressed the building of the mass movement in the urban areas, and the use
of insurrectionary violence in both the cities and the countryside. Thus, in
August 1984 Davao experienced its first welgang bayan (people’s strike).
The approach adopted in the mid-1970s of “centralized leadership and
decentralized operations” was now giving rise to differences in strategy;
and in due course this also occurred in Metro Manila.
Much later, Sison would condemn the “insurrectionist school” as an
aberration, but there are indications that the model was widely supported
within the CPP-NPA. According to Chapman’s interviews with leaders of
the National Democratic Front in Mindanao and the Visayas, this would
take the form of simultaneous strikes in major cities, the severing of power
cables, mass demonstrations choking the streets to block the advance
of government troops, seizure of media outlets, and the announcement
that a provisional revolutionary government had been formed. Chapman
reports that the welgang bayan was, rather than a straightforward labor
tactic employed by the CPP-influenced trade unions, in fact developed by
the NDF as “a model to be used in urban insurrection,”8 and as “the tactic
preparing people for insurrection.”9 A Visayan NDF leader told Chapman:
Our initial discussion calls not for destroying the symbols of government
but simply forcing the government to stop functioning. We would force
government officials just to resign and go away. It would be like what
happened in Nicaragua. There would be barricades and attacks by the
people using stones, bolos, slingshots and homemade bombs. The people
would run into the streets when they heard of the confrontations on the
radio. Our NPA would deal with the military. In many cities we are close
to this stage of mass uprisings already [in late 19851; 1986 and 1987 are the
years to watch.10
This quote lays bare the hopelessly romantic and optimistic nature of
the whole scenario, which, of course, relied on yet another “model” rather
than a thoroughgoing analysis of Philippine conditions.
In the meantime, the sparrows and ACPs were taking their toll. In 1984
alone, there were 854 murders in Davao.11 In the following year, writes
Jones:
The atmosphere in Davao . . . was so politically charged that Mindanao’s

CPP leaders had begun to worry that the movement’s supporters would
rise up in a spontaneous insurrection and attempt to overthrow the local
government. Party leaders were exuberant that the insurrection strategy
appeared to be succeeding beyond their most ambitious calculations, but
their sense of triumph was tempered by fears that they might not be able
to control the rebellion.12
As we will see in due course, however, Mindanao was all too soon to
witness not a CPP-led— or even spontaneous— insurrection, but a ruthless
and lethally effective counteroffensive; and in this the greatest ally of the
AFP would be the NPA itself.
Meanwhile, the CPP at national level was placing increasing emphasis
on urban activity.
By March 1985, Ang Bayan was announcing that the progress of
the armed struggle was “now geared towards the possibility of attaining
decisive victory earlier than had been previously believed.” This should
be interpreted carefully, for there would certainly appear to be cause for
believing that the CPP was by this time struggling to keep pace with the
mass movement which had developed at an accelerated pace since the
Aquino assassination in August 1983. Somewhat optimistically, Ang Bayan
stated:
Today we are assiduously studying the transitional developments of

our guerrilla warfare towards regular mobile warfare, of our guerrilla
fronts towards guerrilla bases, of the advanced substage towards the
next higher substage, thence the strategic stalemate. At the same time,
we are striving to develop concepts for advancing the revolutionary
mass movement towards its intensification and the launching of armed
uprisings and insurrections with the intensification of the armed struggle
in the countrysides.
C h a p te r 13: F ro m t h e B a r r e l o f a G u n - I I 283
There was clearly a debate in the ranks of the CPP-NPA concerning

the direction of the armed struggle at this stage, for the same issue of Ang
Bayan also carried an article entitled “Urban Areas Have Important Role
to Play in Armed Struggle” in which work in these areas was stressed as
never before. The article argued that the line of “encircling the cities from
the countryside does not assign to urban areas a passive role . . .” and
that “we are presently honing our theory and practice with regard to its
strategic role in advancing people’s war and in winning decisive victory.”
The article continued, however, by talking in terms of a coordinated
and complementary advance in two battlefronts— the cities and the
countryside— which “involved the excellent combination, coordination and
complementation of armed and unarmed forms of struggle, with the former
as the main form and the latter supplementing it.” The “thrust” of the armed
struggle was described as being “towards besieging the cities from the
countrysides,” while “we pound the urban areas from within mainly with
open political struggles culminating in armed uprisings and insurrections
in conjunction with the overall development of the armed struggle in the
countrysides.” Here was evidence that the “pol-mil” model adopted in
Mindanao was putting down roots in the wider party.
The article proceeded somewhat opportunistically to the conclusion
that a “strong urban revolutionary movement has the capacity of dispersing
the concentration of the enemy’s attacks and defenses against the armed
struggle in the countrysides.” The urban revolutionary movement was
therefore viewed merely as “a basis for systematic, sustained and solid
direct support for armed struggle in the countrysides.” Developing this
argument, the article pointed out that the importance of the urban areas lay
in their capacity to provide widespread propaganda for the armed struggle,
to conduct “political struggle supportive of the countryside” (for example
against military atrocities and forced evacuations), to act as transportation
and communications centers, to provide “cadre and material support”
in fields such as medicine and military research, to pin down enemy
troops needed to “contain and suppress the urban revolutionary forces”
and, finally, for the conduct of “partisan warfare” in the cities geared to
“sharpening the mass movement and supporting the armed struggle in the
countrysides.” The article concluded by reiterating Maoist dogma.
At all times, the revolutionary struggle in the cities and countrysides

should be well-coordinated and must complement each other. But we
should firmly grasp the central fact that in accomplishing the central task
of the people’s democratic revolution, what is principal and decisive is the
armed struggle in the countrysides. It is the central point in the relationship
between these two battlefronts. We should, therefore, develop an urban
revolutionary movement that is consciously linked to, directly supportive
and fully in the service of, the armed struggle in the countrysides.
In September the same year, Ang Bayan reported NPA activity in

Cebu City, where partisan units launched fourteen operations, resulting
in ten confiscated firearms and nineteen “enemies of the people” being
“punished,” a sign that the line regarding military work in the urban areas
was being implemented.
A number of writers have questioned the extent to which members

of the NPA in these years were really committed to thoroughgoing social
change. Rosanne Rutten has, for example, recorded that NPA organizers
in Negros were silent on its connection to the CPP because “the masses
are against communism.”13 Lachica views the early NPA as “the Pampango
version of a continuing agrarian demonstration in various parts of the
Philippines. History has brought out other agrarian movements differing
from the Huks [Lachica uses this word in its generic sense, referring not
merely to remnants of the HMB but to the NPA as well] only in locality,
degree of political sophistication, and longevity.”14 He goes on to predict
that the NPA would be confined to the Pampango-speaking areas because
other groups “can only superficially identify with its objectives.”15
The succeeding decades have proven Lachica wrong, although he
might appear to be on firmer ground when he argues that the “major
C h a p t e r i 3 : F ro m t h e B a r r e l o f a G u n - II 285
weakness of the CPP-NPA gospel is that it is beyond a simple peasant’s

comprehension. The average farmer doesn’t care about the Maoist ‘world
view’; neither can he be stirred up against ‘US imperialism.’ What moves
him are things directly affecting his own welfare and that of his family and
neighbors.”16 Such an approach is, however, essentially shallow. Although
Vietnamese peasants were stirred up against US imperialism, we must
assume that Lachica would not argue that all members of the Vietcong
were intellectuals. Moreover, as we have seen, it was precisely those things
“affecting his own welfare” to which the NPA addressed itself from the mid-
1970s onward, increasing its support as a result.
In order to consolidate its own membership and mass base, however,
a Marxist party usually uses these parochial concerns ( “the particular”) as
a starting point and, by linking them to the larger economic and political
questions within its own society and internationally ( “the general”),
introduces its “world view” to its members and supporters. Ang Bayan
quoted an NPA instructor as saying “We will hardly make progress in
the revolutionary movement if all we do is fight, without organizing the
masses. And vice versa.” The journal reported that this instructor “criticized
the idea that the masses can learn about revolution by waging armed
struggle alone, without giving them any political education.”17 The fact that
it was necessary to state this, however, indicates the presence of a problem.
Filemon “Popoy” Lagman, who would lead the Manila-Rizal breakaway in
the early 1990s, was certainly critical of the lack of political education,
remarking that “you don’t need it if all you’re doing is ambushing the
enemy.”18
The level of commitment and understanding of some of those who
joined the NPA is open to question. One member told Jones: “I didn’t know
what the underground movement was when martial law was declared.
My going into the movement was totally because of martial law. It wasn’t
anything ideological. It was out of protest.”19 Chapman also gives several
examples of people who joined the armed movement for distinctly non-
ideological motives. One young man came from a family which “fell from
the national bourgeoisie to the petty bourgeoisie”; as a student, he joined
Marxist discussion groups but only joined the SDK, and later the CPP,
after being beaten up by police during the First Quarter Storm. “I was so
infuriated, all I could think of was getting back at the police. It was then
that I perceived the importance of organizations. I joined the SDK . . .”20
Chapman quotes a leading party member in the Visayas as saying, “We
have had trouble before with people who just want to avenge a death in
the family. We tell them they need training to understand why it was their
brothers were killed.”21 Such people are usually referred to as “grievance
guerrillas.” But people become communists and socialists from a host
of starting points. If intellectual conviction were to be the only basis of
acceptance into a Marxist party, such parties would be deprived of many of
their working-class and peasant members.
Having said that, it was to become painfully clear after the fall of
Marcos that not all CPP-NPA members had absorbed the political education
they had received, for a considerable number of surrenderees actually
transformed themselves (or allowed themselves to be transformed) into
anticommunist vigilantes— and in some cases into leaders of such groups.
This is probably accounted for by a number of factors. Some may have
been intelligence plants, but the NPA bore the birthmarks of the society
from which it sprang, possibly containing its fair share of people who
would otherwise have been bandits or other kinds of desperado, possibly
of a religious bent; it was Lagman’s view, however, that the phenomenon
of the guerrilla-turned-vigilante was largely a result of the CPP’s campaign
against supposed “deep penetration agents.”22 (See later in this chapter.)
Chapman cites a number of examples to indicate that Marxism was the
last thing on NPA members’ minds even after they joined the organization
(although it is granted that the NPA does not claim to be comprised solely
of CPP members, merely to be CPP-led). He talks, for example, of the
president of a local parent-teachers’ association in Panay whose village was
cleansed of carabao thieves. Impressed, the man joined the movement and
rose to local party office. Even so, says Chapman, he “cared little for the
NPA’s lectures; he was not even sure that they were communists.”23 On
the same island, a woman whose husband was salvaged by the Philippine
C h a p te r 13: F ro m t h e B a r r e l o f a G u n - II 287
Constabulary decided on the spot to “send her son far away for safety
and to devote the rest of her life to revenge through the NPA.”24 Chapman
quotes Bishop Antonio Fortich of Negros as saying:
A farmer is taken away and never seen again and what happens? The next
day his son is up in the hills with the NPA. What would you expectf But
it is not always like that. In this province [Negros Occidental], you have
more than 200,000 in their mass base and it is through their gifts that the
guerrillas survive. But not all of them are hardcore Marxists, of course.
Many are in the mass base because they are afraid. If you do not give, you
become a marked man. The NPA marks them as ‘anti’ and sometimes they
just disappear.25
The phenomenon we have been discussing— members who, having

joined an armed group for a variety of reasons, do not share the ideology of
that group’s leaders— was not confined to the NPA, even in the Philippines
during this period. In his study of the Moro National Liberation Front in
Cotabato City, McKenna found it “striking to note how rarely any of the
insurgents, in expressing their motivations for taking up arms or fighting on
against great odds, made spontaneous mention of either the Moro nation
(Bangsamoro) or Islamic renewal, the two central components of Muslim
nationalist ideology.”26 McKenna quotes Sluka, to whom the major reason
given by rank-and-file members of the Irish Republican Army in Northern
Ireland for joining the armed struggle was “that repression and state terror
drove them to it. That is, when asked how they came to join the IRA, they
do not usually refer to Republican ideology and goals, but rather they tell
personal histories of their experience with repression and state terror.”27
Throughout the life of the New People’s Army (NPA), there have been
various estimates, often inflated, of its numerical strength. In the final stages
o f the Marcos regime, for example, such estimates, which appeared in both
the Philippine and Western media, gauged the numerical strength of the
guerrillas at between 20,000 and 30,000. Often, these media assessments

appear to have been based on public estimates by the Armed Forces of
the Philippines (AFP), the interests of which were served by inflating
the figures. In the 1980s, US emissaries would regularly report back to
Washington with an inflated estimate of NPA strength, the aim being to
convey the impression that a “communist" takeover was a likely outcome
of Ferdinand Marcos’s prolonged stay in office.
There were indications in the first half of the 1980s that the CPP was
concerned about the slower-than-expected growth of its army. In its issue
of March 31, 1982, Ang Bayan complained:
The people’s army must gain strength more quickly. The revolutionary
movement is now in a position to pay close attention to this. The truth is
that the NPA has not been growing as quickly as the movement’s other
components which have been advancing vigorously. The rapid growth
of the people’s army will be decisive in taking full advantage of the great
opportunities for promoting the revolution that are present in the current
situation.
Three years later the arms harvest reported by Ang Bayan for 1984
totalled 786, and only 234 of this total were M16S.28 Furthermore, the
previous month’s issue had reported that NPA operations in Mindanao in
the months of October and November alone had accounted for 184 arms,
i.e., almost a quarter of the national total for the whole year. Significantly,
of the nine examples of “major tactical offensives” in 1984 reported in the
March 1985 issue of the journal, four took place in Mindanao— and none of
these were in October or November. The inescapable conclusion is that a
hugely disproportionate number of tactical offensives were taking place in
Mindanao; the full significance of this will become apparent in due course.
The same report states that in 1984, 521 “of the enemy’s military and
paramilitary men” were killed in “more than 218 tactical offensives in 35
provinces.” By this stage, however, the NPA was claiming to have guerrilla
fronts in sixty-odd provinces.29
So what was the true size of the NPA in the years before the fall of
Marcos?
Writing in 1983, Nemenzo claimed that the NPA had “at least 12,000
full-time guerrillas and 35,000 part-time guerrillas. It is operating in 56 out
o f 72 provinces, and in 400 out of 1,500 municipalities.”50 Four years later,
Chapman reported that by the 1980s “the NPA had grown to about 20,000
full-time and part-time guerrillas sharing about 12,000 modem weapons, the
party said."31 This would equate to Nemenzo’s estimate with regard to full
time guerrillas, as the NPA’s usual formula equated one full-time guerrilla
to one high-powered rifle. These figures would appear to be overestimates,
however. Sison admits that full-time and part-time guerrillas totaled 25,000,
arms of all kinds numbered 14,000 and that automatic rifles accounted for
precisely half of these.32 Thus, using the aforementioned formula, there
should have been 7,000 full-time guerrillas. This is exactly the number
given by “Servando Labrador,” an NPA leader, in an Ang Bayan interview
in 1987.33 It is true, of course, that there was a decline in the number of
full-time guerrillas after Marcos was toppled in 1986, but even this figure
o f 7,000 should be treated with a degree of caution as an estimate for pre-
1986 years.
A study of NPA operations reported in Ang Bayan, starting with the
issue of May 31, 1981, and ending with that of August 1985, reveals that
in this whole period a total of around 3,000 weapons were captured from
the AFP. Of these, only 1,673 are specified as Ml6s or described as “high-
powered rifles.” In view of the fact that Ang Bayan was in this period
dutifully reporting even the most minor NPA action, we can assume that
this figure is substantially correct. (It would therefore appear that the claim
which appeared in the CPP’s “Urgent Message to the Filipino People” in
October 1983— that a total of 3,000 high-powered rifles had been seized
in the previous thirty months— was false.) To our total, we must add those
acquired before 1981. Precise figures are not available, but Sison tells us that
by 1970 there were only 200 automatic rifles.34 We have seen that the total
number of arms rose only slowly during 1973 to 1976 due to a number of
military reverses and arms losses. From 1976 to 1980, the number of high-
powered rifles was claimed to have increased, as we saw earlier, by 200
percent. But it would appear that there were, in fact, no large arms harvests
in the four years prior to 1981, as the issue of Ang Bayan for September
of that year tells us that the August raids in Nueva Ecija which netted 30
firearms “was the biggest arms confiscation conducted by the New People’s
Army anywhere in the country since 1976 . . Thus, even the total o f 7,000
high-powered rifles claimed by Sison and “Labrador” could only have been
achieved if the arms were coming from alternative sources.
Chapman speaks of a “shipment” purchased from the Palestine
Liberation Organization in 1981.35 And, again, some were actually bought
from members of the AFP, a practice also followed by the HMB in earlier
decades. In fact, Chapman claims that black-market deals “were the
second largest source of military hardware for the guerrillas (the first being
weapons captured in battle).” He continues:
These were not isolated deals consummated by a few corrupt soldiers. In

several provinces, they were well-organized operations involving entire
units which provided a permanent undercover market. In Panay, party
officers told me that the NPA could purchase almost any type of AFP
armaments if it could raise the money and that Armalite rifles were in
steady supply, the cost of each being 18,000 pesos (about $1,000). One
party member expressed irritation that recendy this price had been raised
from 15,000 pesos. The reason, it seemed, was that AFP black-marketeers
had discovered other clandestine customers in the ranks of rich landlords
who began forming private armies when the Marcos regime was displaced
in Manila.36
Given such prices, it is unlikely that many high-powered rifles would

have been acquired in this way; and if this was the “second largest source
of military hardware,” even less would have come from overseas.
All of these factors make it difficult to justify the figure of 7,000 high-
powered rifles (and, thus, 7,000 full-time guerrillas). Perhaps a more
realistic assessment is that given in 1982 by the Makati Business Club, which
estimated the number o f armed guerrillas at between 3,000 and 5,000.37
More recently, the CPP itself has provided a far more realistic figure, stating
in its 40th anniversary statement that the NPA’s “peak strength” in the 1980s
“was only 6,100 [riflemen], without any clear accounting of firearms lost in
Mindanao”38 as a result of the large-scale purge conducted in that decade

(see section 4 below).*
The “protracted people’s war” of the CPP-NPA had a number of

undesirable results. Not least of these were its effects on the people of
the Philippines. Even Sison, when talking of the casualties of the martial
law period, admits that six million people were displaced, around 150,000
were killed, and another 100,000 injured and 70,000 detained for at least a
month.39
The armed struggle of the NPA was counterproductive in the further
sense that it often triggered counterattacks from the security forces which
rarely paused to distinguish whether their victims were actually members
of the CPP or NPA— a phenomenon made almost inevitable by the CPP’s
claim that legal forms of mass action were often inspired by, and objectively
in support of, the armed struggle. This is borne out by Chapman who,
speaking of the rise of vigilante groups in Davao City, points out that the
“victims were usually not NPA members at all but local activists who had
achieved prominence in community campaigns.”40 And while so many
people in the guerrilla zones were said to support the NPA because of
the simple fact that it was able to provide the only form of law, order,
and justice that many localities had ever known, Bishop Francisco Claver
pointed to the long-term flaw in such reasoning:
The chain of events is most predictable: Since the military are everywhere,
their abuses are everywhere too—there is a direct ratio between the size
of military groups in any given area and the number of crimes committed.
These abuses help to make the NPA option all the more attractive to the
people . . . So the NPA make capital of them. But where the NPA are in
It may well be that there is a motive behind this remarkable candor, for if full-time
guerrillas numbered only 6,100 at the high point of the 1980s, the decline to the present
5,000-odd (the military estimate) does not appear quite so precipitate.
strength, there the military presence increases and their abuses proliferate
even more. In all this, it is the people who bear the brunt of the conflict.41
This leads us onto yet another undesirable result of “protracted people’s

war"— the militarization of Philippine society. While one of the arguments
contained in Sison’s Specific Characteristics was that guerrilla operations
throughout the archipelago would force the regime to either spread its
military resources thinly or to concentrate them in a few provinces, thereby
freeing the NPA to operate relatively freely in others, in reality the spread
of the war merely led to the growth of the AFP. Between 1971 and 1980,
the defense budget of the Philippines increased by 279 percent in real
terms; over the same period, gross national product increased by only
75 percent.42 Needless to say, social spending suffered. In 1971, the AFP
consisted of around 58,000 men; by 1982, this number had mushroomed
to 113,000 (although this growth was, of course, partly explained by the
operations against the Moro National Liberation Front in the 1970s), with
the Philippine Constabulary and the paramilitary Civilian Home Defense
Force accounting for a further 108,500.
And then there was the self-inflicted disaster of the campaigns against
suspected deep penetration agents (DPAs) that would leave hundreds dead
and drive thousands more from the movement.
The first of the anti-DPA purges took place in the early 1980s in Bicol.
In 1983, the NPA’s Melito Glor Command released a document entided
“Mga Aral Mula sa Naganap na Impiltrasyon sa Hangganang Quezon-Bicol"
( “Lessons from the Infiltration Incident in the Quezon-Bicol Zone”) that
stated in part:
The Quezon-Bicol zone has become a target for a broad and abundant
infiltration from the last quarter of 1979 to the first quarter of 1982. In the
history of the region’s revolutionary movement, this has been the broadest,
deepest, and most systematic ploy of the enemy to infiltrate and destroy
the Party, the army, and the revolutionary mass organizations.43
A campaign was conducted against the suspected DPAs which, says

Garcia,44 was celebrated as a success. Far worse was to com e in 1985. While
C h a p te r 13: F ro m t h e B a r r e l o f a G u n - II 293
members of the party’s Mindanao Commission were attending a plenum of

the central committee in the capital, a three-person caretaker committee
w as left in charge of Mindanao affairs. Following the apprehension of
suspected DPAs in North Central Mindanao, this committee declared a “state
o f emergency” covering the whole island. After the Mindanao Commission
had had the opportunity to assess the situation, it launched Kampanyang
Abos (abas is garlic, used to deter demonyos, demons) which lasted until
early 1986 and, says Garcia, “left an estimated 600 to 900 persons dead.”45
Weekley also puts the death toll at “up to 900,w46 and Sison would later
write that “close to a thousand people (including cadres and mass activists)
becam e victims of civil rights violations and severe punishment.”47 Weekley
follows Sison in saying that party membership in Mindanao was reduced
from 9,000 to d.OOO.48* At the completion of the campaign, the Mindanao
Commission judged it to have been a success, despite some excesses.
Garcia is of the view that this made it inevitable that the mistake would be
repeated, and it was (although these events lie outside of the time frame
o f this work)— in Cagayan, Southern Tagalog (for the second time, when
Garcia was himself a victim), Central Luzon, the Cordillera region, Leyte,
Cebu, and the National Capital Region.49
How did the CPP itself evaluate or characterize this ghasdy development?
With regard to the events in Mindanao, in December 1991 Sison, in the
document which was to lead to formal splits within the CPP, referred to
the AFP attacks on the movement, saying that in “conditions of setbacks
and extreme difficulties due to effective enemy operations in the cities
and the countryside, those members of the Mindanao Commission who
were left behind were prone to oversuspiciousness and panic” regarding
the possibility of infiltration by DPAs. He stated that reports regarding
the presence of “large numbers of enemy DPAs in the Party, the people’s
army, and the mass organizations and institutions” were received from
Given the fact that, as we have seen, Mindanao had made a disproportionately large
contribution to NPA military activity and arms harvests, the negative effects of the anti-
DPA purge would obviously have an equally disproportionate impact on the whole
organization, added to which would be the consequences of the bad publicity.
“certain political detainees in early 1985 ” Sison, however, laid the blame
at the door of the strategy developed by the local CPP-NPA leaders, which
concentrated on urban mass work with an insurrectionary perspective,
and the deterioration of mass work in the countryside as a result of the
formation of larger military formations. These latter were “forced into a
purely military situation” as the enemy forces built up, whereupon the AFP
“could use to their advantage their military superior forces.” In the cities of
Mindanao, meanwhile, cadres found themselves pursued in a manhunt as a
result of them “displaying themselves in mass actions rather than effecting
and guiding solid oiganizational work.” Believing in the correctness of
the “insurrectionary” and “quick military victory line” which they had
developed, the Mindanao leadership, said Sison, was convinced that this
could “be fouled up only by the enemy agents within the Party and the
m ovem ent. . -”50
Thus, Sison used the Mindanao purge as an opportunity to attack the
“deviations” from the line of “protracted people’s war.” Perhaps significantly,
Sison complained that those responsible for the Mindanao purges had,
instead of being called to account, “been promoted to national positions in
the Party and allowed to spread their wrong line at the further and bigger
expense of the Party and the revolutionary movement.”51
Joel Rocamora, who became a leading member in the “third group,” or
“Democratic bloc” after the splits within the CPP in the early 1990s, points
out that, despite the use of these arguments by Sison after the event, it is
a fact that “successive meetings of the Politburo disregarded the problem
or, as in 1988, considered the anti-DPA campaign ‘essentially correct’ albeit
with ‘excesses.’” Moreover, “the Party center never acknowledged its own
responsibility in calling for mass campaigns instead of conducting careful,
controlled investigations.”52 Thus, the problem was allowed to reappear in
1988, and Rocamora mentions anti-DPA “mass campaigns” launched in a
number of areas as a result of a memo issued by the executive committee
of the central committee. In Leyte and the Cagayan Valley, says Rocamora,
these campaigns “resulted in mass hysteria with many cadres tortured and
killed.”53 Filemon “Popoy” Lagman, who would head the “second group”
C h a p te r 13: F ro m t h e B a r r e l op a G u n - I I 295
after the CPP split, verifies Rocamora’s views but also points to Sison’s
complicity.
The Central Committee assessment by [Benito] Tiamzon in 1986 was

that the Mindanao campaign was a success, although there were many
excesses. On the basis of these two campaigns [Mindanao and the'earlier,
less bloody campaign in Bicol in the early 1980s], the southern Tagalog
and the Metro Manila anti-infiltration campaigns were announced—also
headed by Tiamzon. All throughout this period, Joma Sison agreed with
all these anti-infiltration campaigns. In fact, he ordered the surveillance
of three Central Committee members. So Joma Sison was part of all these
campaigns, even when he was in prison. [The Mindanao campaign began
in 1985, while Sison was not released from prison until the following year.]
Tiamzon headed the review committee regarding Mindanao and the anti
infiltration campaigns in southern Tagalog and Metro Manila were led by
Tiamzon. Now they’re trying to put all the blame on the Mindanao leaders.
Definitely they were responsible, hut not [Romulo] Kintanar because he
was head of the General Command.54
Sison made no mention of an EC memo regarding the 1988 hysteria,

merely saying that “anti-informer hysteria emerged” in several regions and
that this “threatened the very life of the Party until the central leadership
of the Party took firm steps to check and rectify the madness with clear
guidelines on correct principles and methods of investigation, trial and
evaluation of evidence.”55 In fact, in 1989 a meeting of the politburo
reviewed the 1985-86 and 1988 anti-infiltration campaigns, pointing out that
there was a need to review the overall conduct of investigation, prosecution

and punishment of informers and criminals and continued refinement of
the guidelines and rules governing the revolutionary system of justice.
The importance of widescale education among the cadres and members
on the principles of humane treatment of captives, respect for individual
rights and continued refinement of the guidelines and rules governing the
revolutionary system of justice was stressed.56
What was obviously not open to discussion was the basic strategy of
the CPP-NPA-NDF, which continued to view armed struggle as the main
form of activity, regardless of the various permutations within this. Such a

movement is, says Garcia, “clandestine, illegal, a prime target of the state.
Such intrinsic vulnerability makes paranoia a lingering state of mind inside
the organization, a veritable given. The one crucial thing going for it is the
fabric of trust that glues everyone to a common cause. When this delicate
fabric is tom, vulnerability increases and paranoia wreaks havoc.”57
N o tes

(Boulder: Westview Press, 1989), 133-
2. William Chapman, Inside the Philippine Revolution: The New People's Army and
Its Strugglefo r Power (New York: Norton, 1987), 167-68.
3- Jones, Red Revolution, 135.
5. Ibid., 163.
6. Ibid., 186.
(Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 2001), 93-95.
9. Ibid., 232.
10. Ibid., 231-32.
12. Ibid, 141-42.
13. In Patricio Abinales, ed., The Revolution Falters: The Left in Philippine Politics
After 1986 (Ithaca: Cornell University Southeast Asia Program Publications,
1996), 125.
14. Eduardo Lachica, Huk- Philippine Agrarian Society in Remit (Manila:
Solidaridad Publishing House, 1971), 201.
15. Ibid., 202.
16. Ibid., 199.
20. Chapman, Inside the Philippine Revolution, 97-98.
21. Ibid., 113.
22. legman interview. Abinales identifies another factor, describing the Mindanao
C h a p t e r 1 3 : F ro m the Ba r r e l of a G u n - II 297
of the 1980s as an unstable frontier, host to a variety of armed groups, where

violence came to be viewed by many as a “normal way of life." In this situation,
while the CPP was able to recruit with relative ease, the loyalty the party
“hoped to cultivate in its mass base would ultimately be as fragile as the other
social ties and identifications found in unstable frontiers.” Given the “constant
state of war, accompanied by the widespread availability of coercive resources,
and the shifting population,” the party was unable to “consolidate and stabilize
its influence” due to the high rate of turnover, thus explaining in part “why
the same ‘slum’ community that was in the early 1980s the stronghold of
communist urban guerrillas in Davao, became, after 1986, the stronghold of
the anti-communist vigilante group, Alsa Masa (People Arise).” See Patricio
N. Abinales, “When the Revolution Devours Its Children before Victory:
Operasyong Kampanyang Abos and the Tragedy of Mindanao Communism,” in
Fellow Traveler Essays on Filipino Communism (Quezon City: University of the
Philippines Press), 175.
24. Ibid., 183.
25. Ibid., 184.
26. Thomas M. McKenna, Muslim Rulers and Rebels (Pasig City: Anvil Publishing,
Inc., 2002), 186.
27. Jeffery A. Sluka, “Domination, Resistance, and Political Culture in Northern
Ireland’s Catholic-Nationalist Ghettos,” Critique o f Anthropology, no. 151, 85,
quoted in McKenna, Muslim Rulers and Rebels, 355, fn 9.
28. Ang Bayan, March 1985.
29. Sison claims fifty-nine fronts in sixty-three provinces by March 1986.
30. Francisco Nemenzo Jr., in The Philippines After Marcos, ed. R.J. May and
Francisco Nemenzo (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1985), 57. Azama’s estimate
in 1985 was that the “NPA can probably now field some 10,000 to 12,500 full
time guerrillas, and an additional 10,000 part-time militia soldiers." However
he also cites Marcos’s estimate of May 1984 of “at least 6,800 armed guerrillas,"
and this, we will see, was far more accurate. See Major Rodney S. Azama, The
Huks and the New People's Army: Comparing Two Postwar Filipino Insurgencies
(Quantico: Marine Corps Command and Staff College, 1985). This document is
available on www.globalsecurity.org.
33. Servando Labrador, “On the Current State of the People’s Revolutionary War," in
The Filipino People Will Triumph (Central Publishing House, 1988), 3- Labrador
is described as being a member of the Political Department of the NPA General

Command.
34. Sison, The Leader's View, 61.
36. Ibid., 190.
37. Quoted in Felipe B. Miranda, “The Military," in The Philippines After Marcos, 96.
38. CPP central committee, “Strengthen the Party and Intensify People’s Struggle in
Celebrating the 40th Founding Anniversary,” Ang Bayan, December 26, 2008.
Publications, 1986), 20.
41. Ibid., 182.
42. Miranda in The Philippines After Marcos, 95.
43. Quoted in Robert Francis Garcia, To Suffer Thy Comrades: How the Revolution
Decimated Its Own (Pasig City: Anvil Publishing, Inc., 2003), 35.
44. Ibid.
45. Ibid., 36.
46. Katherine Weekley, The Communist Party o f the Philippines, 1968-1993, 102.
47. "Armando Liwanag" (Jose Maria Sison), “Reaffirm Our Basic Principles and
Rectify Errors,” Kasarinlan 8 (1): 100.
48. Ibid.; Weekley, The Communist Party o f the Philippines, 103.
49. Garcia, To Suffer Thy Comrades, 57, 39, 41.
50. “Liwanag,” “Reaffinn Our Basic Principles,” 99-100. Abinales cites a Mindanao
cadre’s view that the party lacked a “systematic education campaign,” and
the fact that cadres had “limited familiarity with Marxist tools for assessment
and summing up.” He also says that the regional committee had become
“increasingly alarmed” by the increasing number of recruits with a lumpen
background. See “When the Revolution Devours Its Children,” in Fellow
Traveler, 177. In another essay, the same author reminds us that the CPP had
supported those guilty of genocide in Cambodia (then called Kampuchea)
after, in Hobsbawm’s words, “good Vietnamese communists had put a stop
to Pol Pot’s killing fields.” See Abinales, “Jose Maria Sison and the Philippine
Revolution: A Critique of an Interface,” in Fellow Traveler, 42, and Eric
Hobsbawm, in Interesting Times: A Twentieth Century Life (London: Allen Lane,
2002), 259. Rather than any commitment to indiscriminate slaughter, however,
this was more likely due to the irresponsible “my enemy’s enemy is my friend”
approach followed by Filipino Maoists and their mentors in Beijing.
51. Ibid., 101.
52. Joel Rocamora, Breaking Through: The Struggle within the Communist Party o f
C h a p te r i 3: F ro m t h e B a r r e l of a G u n - II 299
the Philippines (Pasig City: Anvil Publishing, Inc., 1995), 92.

53. Ibid.
54. Lagman interview.
55. “Liwanag," “Reaffirm Our Basic Principles," 115-16.
56. CPP Central Committee, “General Review of Important Events and Decisions
from 1980 to 1991," Debate, date uncertain, probably 1993, 93.
57. Garcia, To Suffer Thy Comrades, 84.
C h a p t e r 1 4 : A l l ia n c e s
Although it might have appeared that the CPP’s approach to united

front work received its first organizational expression in 1973 with the
formation of the National Democratic Front (NDF), this was only true to a
limited extent.
The “Manifesto of the Preparatory Committee of the NDF” stated
that a “full-blown fascist dictatorship has emerged for the first time in
the Philippines upon the instigation of US imperialism.” The aim of this
dictatorship was “to maintain and promote the extraordinary privileges
of US imperialism and its puppets in the Philippines.” Furthermore, the
“economic scheme of the US-Marcos dictatorship involves essentially the
preservation of the semicolonial and semifeudal economy.” The document
advanced the prescription that “only the armed revolution of the broad
masses of the people can defeat and eliminate the armed counter
revolution of the Marcos oligarchy.” Although armed struggle, based on
an alliance of the workers and peasants, was seen as the main form of
struggle, the manifesto called for the unity of all revolutionary, democratic,
and progressive forces under “a broad united front.”1
This was essentially an updated summary of the CPP’s own program,
containing just the kind of formula which had characterized the latter,
and it was clear that acceptance of this would be a condition of NDF
membership. The manifesto was revamped in 1977, with some of the
300
C h a p t e r 14 : A l l ia n c e s 301
jargon being toned down or even dropped. The basic analysis had not
changed, however. According to the first article of the redrafted document,
Upon the overthrow of the US-Marcos dictatorship, there should be a

coalition government,’ a provisional revolutionary government with a
united front character, to remove the anti-national and anti-democratic
causes and results of the fascist dictatorship . . .
. . . The coalition government should recognize all the national
and democratic forces that shall have caused the downfall of the fascist
dictatorship and give them ample opportunity to participate in legal and
peaceful political activities.
There should be no monopoly of political power by any class, party
or group. The degree of participation in the government by any political
force should be based on its effective role and record in the revolutionary
struggle and on the people’s approbation . ..
. . . A committee of civilian leaders highly respected by the people
for their patriotism, civil libertarian stand and consistent opposition
to fascism and puppetry should assume the reins of government.
The committee should pave the way for genuinely popular, free and
honest elections within a year’s time from the overthrow of the fascist
dictatorship . . . 3
Before we proceed to a consideration of the CPP’s united front

practice, it is necessary to question its basic analysis of the Marcos regime
contained in the above. We have already seen (chapter 8) that while
US imperialism might well have benefited from some of the measures
(prescribed by the World Bank and the IMF) adopted by the Marcos
regime, the USA did not “instigate” the declaration of martial law. Neither
was the USA or the Marcos regime concerned with the “preservation of
the semicolonial and semifeudal economy”— quite the reverse, in fact. But
was it even true that, as claimed by the CPP-NDF, the martial law regime
amounted to a “full-blown fascist dictatorship’? If it was, then it would be
Chapman points approvingly to the provision for a coalition government, citing this as
“new” and likely to appeal to non-communists,2 but such a prescription lay at the heart
of Mao’s On New Democracy, on which Sison had modeled his approach, and, of course,
it appears in the CPP program.
appropriate to view that dictatorship as the number one enemy and build
the broadest possible alliance to topple it. But what if the characterization
was incorrect?
What do most Marxists mean when they use the word “fascism”? In
1928, the program of the Communist International defined it as follows:
The principal aim of Fascism is to destroy the revolutionary labour

vanguard, i.e. the Communist sections and leading units of the proletariat.
The combination of social demagogy, corruption and active White
terror, in conjunction with extreme imperialist aggression in the sphere
of foreign politics, are the characteristic features of Fascism. In periods
of acute crisis for the bourgeoisie, Fascism resorts to anti-capitalist
phraseology, but, after it has established itself at the helm of the State,
it casts aside its anti-capitalist ratde, and discloses itself as a terrorist
dictatorship of big capital.4
Unless defined in this manner, with particular attention paid to its

class content, “fascism” becomes an almost meaningless generic term used
to cover various forms of authoritarian rule. As defined by Marxists, then,
fascism is a phenomenon found in developed (and crisis-ridden) capitalist
societies and thus would not be expected to be found in the Third World;
indeed, it is surprising that the CPP could envisage a “fascist dictatorship”
in what it claimed was a society with a “semifeudal” mode of production.
That Marcos’s regime was authoritarian is beyond dispute, but it was
not— and could not be— fascist in the sense understood by most Marxists.
Rather than being a “dictatorship of big capital,” it represented the interests
of'a faction of Filipino capital— the faction of which Marcos was himself
a member. Moreover, rather than the martial-law regime having either the
inclination or the ability to undertake “extreme imperialist aggression,” this
ruling faction contained capitalists like Eduardo “Danding” Cojuangco who
were keen to progress at the expense of imperialism.
By its mistaken analysis, the CPP-NDF cast in tablets of stone its view
of the “US-Marcos dictatorship,” glossing over the real role of imperialism
in the Philippines, blinding itself to the possibility of alternative strategies,
and conditioning its approach to alliances, the subject of this chapter.
Both Weekley and Jones assign major importance to the sharp conflict
which arose in the CPP over the question of participation in the elections of
1978, seeing this as a watershed, foreshadowing the unsuccessful boycott
policy of 1986 and (in the case of Weekley) the splits of the early 1990s.
Shortly after the declaration of martial law, the CPP in Manila offered
to form an anti-Marcos front with some of the Liberals who were on the
receiving end of the martial law regime’s actions. To this end, a joint
campaign aimed at the restoration of the suspended constitution of 1935
was agreed. In early 1974, however, Julius Fortuna, head of the Manila-Rizal
Committee of the CPP, was called before Sison and told that such a campaign
with bourgeois liberals should be avoided. Jones quotes a person who at
that time had been in the Manila leadership of the CPP as follows: “Had
w e been allowed to raise the issue of the 1935 constitution . . . we could
have dictated the entire anti-fascist, anti-Marcos civil liberties movement
during the early stages of martial law.”5 The position adopted by the CPP
leadership, on the other hand, amounted to what Weekley describes as a
desire to build the urban mass movement in ways “suitable to the protracted
people’s war strategy.”6 In 1975, Manila-Rizal proposed participating in a
campaign for elections, and again the party leadership rejected this on the
grounds that it would “undermine revolutionary campaigns.”7 The Manila
party cam e in for criticism two years later with the publication of Our
Urgent Tasks, in which the Manila leadership was accused of erring on the
side of bourgeois reformism and “Right opportunism.”8
It was becoming clear that the leadership would tolerate nothing that
could not be shoe-horned into conforming to the 1968 program, with its
emphasis on armed struggle. In 1977, Jones tells us, the leading members
of the Manila CPP
were ecstatic about the plans for reviving the “parliament of the streets,”
which after five frustrating years of martial law, would again put them
in the thick of the revolution. But the planning sessions resurrected a
long unresolved issue: what role should urban areas play in the struggle?
The guerrilla war seemed to be unfolding all too slowly, and Manila Party
leaders became convinced that they could advance the struggle on their
own.
“We came to the conclusion,” one Manila-Rizal leader told Jones, “that
you need not wait for developments in the countryside to launch major
political events in the city.”9 The Manila-Rizal party therefore decided,
without instructions from the central committee, that its members should
take part in the 1978 election campaign for seats in the Interim Batasang
Pambansa (Interim National Assembly). This, it thought, would deepen the
rift in the ruling class along pro- and anti-Marcos lines, afford the CPP
an opportunity to conduct propaganda on a scale not possible since the
declaration of martial law, and allow the development of alliances, thereby
strengthening financial and other support for the armed movement.
However, the central committee ordered the Manila cadres to pull out and
to campaign, instead, for a boycott. But the Manila party went ahead with
its plans. All the opposition candidates were defeated, at least partly due to
fraud. Even worse for the Manila cadres, there were no significant protests.
The central committee installed Edgar Jopson as secretary of the Manila-
Rizal party and commenced an investigation.
Eventually, Filemon “Popoy” Lagman, secretary of the Manila-Rizal
committee, and his two deputies were suspended from the party for three
and two years, respectively; a further eight members of the committee were
suspended for six months. The central committee imposed a new committee
on Manila-Rizal and a “rectification campaign" ensued. Pimentel quotes
a source as recalling that a “lot of comrades remained bitter about what
had happened. A lot of them lay low, others resigned. The organization
was practically a shambles.”10 Shortly afterward, the new committee was
captured by the security forces, along with biographical data and the
underground names of 80 percent of the Manila CPP membership and the
legal organizations to which they belonged.
Weekley’s 2001 study throws important light on developments
following the confrontation with Manila-Rizal when, as it was conceded
that fresh strategies were required for the metropolis, top party intellectuals
led by central committee member Isagani Serrano formed Le Monde group.

Weekley says this
is of singular importance in the story of the Party’s theoretical development

because it generated some of the most interesting ideas for CPP engagement
in the legal political arenas. The proposals signalled the emergence of
post-Leninist, post-Maoist thought within the CPP which, however, was
not really to blossom until after February 1986 and most of the former Le
Monde cadres had moved quietly away from the Party. One of the two
major splits in 1992-93 can be attributed in part at least to the refusal of
the Party leadership to address major theoretical questions first raised or
alluded to by the Le Monde group.11
Led by Horacio Morales, one of the two groups established under

Le Monde targeted (in the words of Serrano) “the nationalist opposition,
the anti-Marcos oppositionists, the bourgeois liberals (so-called), and
the various wings of the social democrats.” Concluding that a structure
broader than the NDF would be required in order to attract those groups
and individuals unwilling to be mobilized behind the CPP line, Le Monde
proposed the formation of Ang Bagong Katipunan (the New Katipunan),
to which the central committee responded by suggesting a narrower
National Revolutionary Council. The debate about how broad this should
be never resolved the question of whether it should encompass the “anti-
Marcos reactionaries,” and the National Alliance for Justice, Freedom and
Democracy formed in 1983 was, says Weekley, a compromise.12
Despite the convulsive policy differences of 1978 (Jones says that the
electoral boycott was also ignored in Bicol, where the party committee
received a reprimand), the actual pros and cons of the boycott policy were
never discussed. “Seven years later,” writes Jones, “the failure to address the
deeper questions underlying the rebellion would result in another decision
to boycott an election and a disastrous CPP setback.”13 Such a conclusion
not only overstates the importance of the issue but misses the real point.
The striking thing about this whole debate was that both sides (and,
apparendy, most foreign observers who have written about it) accepted the
party analysis of the Marcos regime as “fascist,” characterizing it as a “US-
Marcos dictatorship.” This being the case, the only alliance discussed was
an anti-Marcos alliance, and the only issues debated was ho\y broad this
should be and whether the urban activity of such an alliance would detract
from the armed struggle.* In this, we must assume that both sides were
guided by Our Urgent Tasks of 1976, which had prescribed: “The door
continues to be open widely for cooperation with those who are against
the Marcos fascist dictatorship who may vary in degree of anti-imperialism
and antifeudalism.” If the primary contradiction were between the people
of the Philippines and imperialism, would it not have been more correct
to offer an alliance to those who were anti-imperialist but “who may vary
in degree” in their opposition to Marcos? In which case, would it not
have been necessary to ensure the inclusion in such an alliance of the
indisputably anti-imperialist PKP? Instead, Our Urgent Tasks pronounced:
The Lava revisionist renegades have long excluded themselves from

the united front. By surrendering to the Marcos fascist dictatorship and
actively participating in vicious counterrevolutionary actions, this handful
of revisionist fascist criminals have become totally discredited even in the
few small areas which they once boasted of as their bailiwicks.1
There was at least one central committee member who questioned

whether the party might have mistaken priorities. Weekley reveals that
Isagani Serrano had “tinker(ed] with the idea of a two-step resolution of
the struggle” involving “uniting with Marcos against the U.S., to setde
the national problem.” Serrano suggested that an offer by armed forces
chief Gen. Fabian Ver for political negotiations be taken up, but this, says
Weekley, “was rejected without discussion.” As, in effect, Serrano came
* Filemon Lagman, apparently not having noticed that anti-imperialism had fallen by
the wayside some time ago, seems to have been more anti-Marcos than Sison, saying
that “anti-fascism" should have been primary, with antifeudalism and anti-imperialism
secondary. “If this had been the case, the outcome of the Marcos period would have
been different, but by 1983 it was already too late.”14
t Here again, the word “fascist" is robbed of all real meaning, and while it is commonly
used as a derogatory epithet with little degree of precision, such usage is not usually
encountered in an important policy statement by the central committee of a communist
party.
close to suggesting that the CPP adopt a strategy strikingly similar to that
of the PKP, which would have called into question the whole raison d’etre
of the CPP, it is somewhat disappointing that Weekley offers no further
discussion.15
Imperialism was let off the hook. In these years, there was no call for
an anti-imperialist alliance, whether against the US military bases, against
the onerous terms of the IMF-World Bank programs, let alone in support
o f Marcos’s 1979 industrialization program. Ironically, this led to the greater
isolation of Marcos, even when he struck a credibly nationalist note.
The period between 1980 and the fall of Marcos in early 1986 was,
of course, punctuated by the assassination of Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino
Jr. in August 1983. Before that event, the CPP showed the usual signs of
wishing to safeguard its “vanguard” role, but after the assassination there
were clear indications of desperation— and opportunism— as it became
evident that the party would have difficulty in keeping pace with the
anti-Marcos movement that developed outside of its control. Its previous
characterization of Aquino was hastily cast aside. On the occasion of the
formation of BAYAN in 1985, the CPP’s vanguardist approach led to its own
isolation, and thus it found itself unable to influence the events of February
1986.
In December 1980, the central committee statement on the twelfth
anniversary of the foundation of the CPP16 announced that the “formation
of a national united front organization is an immediate and important
task of the Party.” However, it was clear that the CPP intended to call the
tune. Thus, with regard to other revolutionary organizations and groups,
“we will create the necessary machinery to improve coordination.”
In the countryside, “we will now develop, step by step, the organs of
democratic power,” while at “the town, district and provincial levels, we
will form organizations with a united front character. In urban areas, aside
from forming clandestine organizations of the united front, we will also

continue developing different kinds of alliances to embrace the various
organizations, groups and individuals who are prepared to advance the
anti-fascist, anti-imperialist and anti-feudal struggles” (emphases added). It
seemed from this that all non-CPP organizations and groups were required
to do was follow the party’s lead. And despite the statement’s brief mention
of anti-imperialism in this regard, anti-imperialism was hardly a feature of
the CPP’s united front work prior to February 1986.
In 1981, the party was involved in the boycott campaign surrounding
the plebiscite on April 7 to amend the Constitution and call a presidential
election, and the presidential election itself on June 16. Ang Bayan
claimed17 that “the broadest possible boycott movement” was facilitated by
the call issued by the CPP.18 This, of course, followed the formal lifting of
martial law by Marcos. The CPP stated that such a boycott movement would
“surely help to create conditions for the faster advance of the revolutionary
mass movement, for the swifter development of the national united front
and the armed democratic revolution which will in time deal the death
blow to the US-Marcos dictatorship.”19 In this campaign, the CPP-led
forces were joined by mainstream opposition groups and politicians such
as the United Democratic Opposition party (UNIDO) of Salvador Laurel
and Benigno Aquino Jr. On May 10-11, groups and leading opposition
politicians opposed to the presidential election met in Baguio City in
order to formalize their pact. Represented were the People’s Opposition
to the Plebiscite-Election (PEOPLE), UNIDO, the Kilusang Mayo Uno
(May First Movement) trade union center, Pagkakaisa ng Manggagawang
Pilipino (PMP, or Solidarity of Filipino Workers), the League of Filipino
Students, the Central Implementing Task Force of the Association of Major
Religious Superiors of Women of the Philippines, the Free Legal Assistance
Group, the Philippine Trial Lawyers Association, Protestants Opposed
to the Presidential Election, Task Force Detainees, the University of the
Philippines Student Council and others.20
The boycott was successful in that, according to the People’s Movement
for Independence, Nationalities and Democracy (MIND), 60 percent
of voters in the capital region boycotted; the Commission on Elections,
C hapter 14 : A lliances 309
however, maintained that nationwide over 50 percent had voted. The CPP
claimed that central to its purported success was the fact that, between May
1 and June 15, marches and rallies were held in twelve cities and thirty-
six towns throughout the country, drawing on the participation of 260,000
people.21* Weekley records that for the presidential election, “Marcos had
to provide his own opponent,” and quotes Rocamora as describing Alejo S.
Santos, the man who agreed to play this role, as a “political non-entity . . .
whom people barely remember today.”231 Marcos claimed an overwhelming
victory.
Two months prior to the assassination of Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino in
1983, Ang Bayan published a carefully argued statement entitled “Bourgeois
Reformists: Facing a Crossroad.” This characterized bourgeois reformists as
“occupying the middle ground between the US Marcos dictatorship and the
revolutionary forces led by the Party” and of comprising “opposition political
parties (national and regional), oppositionist politicians’ groups, ‘social
democrats,’ and groups and individuals influenced by them in business,
academic institutions, mass media, the church and the professions.” Further,
these bourgeois reformists had been “riding on the coat-tails of the national-
democratic mass movement” but had become “apprehensive of the Party’s
growing strength, so that anti-communism became a conspicuous feature in
their pronouncements.” This had continued until the 1978 elections for the
Interim Batasang Pambansa, when they participated in a mass campaign
with the CPP-NDF forces. Following this, different tendencies appeared—
those which attempted to launch urban armed struggle; those who still
saw the possibility of bargaining with Marcos and “continued to court US
imperialism”; and, finally, those who were staunchly against Marcos but
• Chapman quotes an NDF official who lold him lhat the 1981 boycott campaign was “a
key development” for the NDF and that “by our count, about a half-million people at 47
different places joined in the boycott demonstrations in 1981 . . ”22 (emphasis added).
t Although there is no doubt that Santos marred his political record by allowing himself
to be used in this way, Weekley and Rocamora are unkind to him. Far from being a
nonentity, Santos had been a guerrilla leader in Bulacan during the Japanese occupation;
having originally adopted an anti-Huk stance, he was won over and allied with them;24
he was a congressman until 1949, served as governor of Bulacan from 1951 to 1957, and
became defense secretary in the Garcia administration.
3 io A M o vem en t D iv id e d
who wished to distance themselves from the NDF, who thus proposed a
“third alternative.”
From late 1980 onward, the statement continued, “the left wing of the
bourgeois reformists has been drawn nearer to the national-democratic
movement and it has exerted a dominant influence on the whole b lo c .. . ,”
especially since many participated in the 1981 boycott campaign. “The
leaders of the bloc, if not representing the section of the big comprador
bourgeoisie and the landlord class who lost out to the monopolization of
power by the Marcos clique, are from the middle and small bourgeoisie
who adhere to bourgeois liberalism.”
The CPP then put forward the perspective of winning over the left and
middle forces of the bourgeois reformists “while exposing and isolating
the capitulationists and diehard reactionaries of the right wing.” However,
jealously guarding its “leadership” role, the CPP warned: “There is no
place in contemporary politics for a ‘third force’ independent of both the
national-democratic revolution and the US-Marcos dictatorship, and there
is no reason why it should grow strong as a bloc capable of drawing a
considerable number of people away from the revolution.”25 Events in
the very near future were to prove this estimate to have been mistaken,
although the tactics employed by the CPP would contribute gready to the
success of the bourgeois reformists.
The CPP’s approach to other political forces and classes in the post
assassination period is best illustrated by its approach to Aquino himself.* In
December 1980, the CPP had identified two trends within Marcos’s political
opponents. “First, there is the capitulationist trend now represented by
Aquino’s proposal for ‘national reconciliation and unity.’” The party went
By 1980, the CPP’s view of Aquino had obviously soured since he had facilitated the
meeting between Dante and Sison eleven years earlier. The fact that Sison, Dante, and
Tayag were all in prison by this time may have had a bearing cm this.
C h a p t e r 14 : A l l ia n c e s 3 11
on to say that the “other leaders among Marcos’s rivals were correct in
rejecting the Aquino proposal. If the proposal peddled by Aquino for active
collaboration with the fascist regime were followed, the present regime
and its oppression of the people would only last longer.”26 Just over a
year later, Ang Bayan portrayed Aquino unsympathetically as one of the
UNIDO politicians who “had been maneuvering to be chosen as UNIDO’s
presidential bet” in the election called by Marcos for June 1981; moreover,
the journal implied, UNIDO had only joined the boycott campaign when
the regime refused to extend the campaign period, grant equal media
time, cleanse the voters’ lists and revamp the Commission on Elections.27
After the election, Ang Bayan characterized Aquino in the following
terms: “Although petulant, Aquino remains imperialism’s principal ‘horse
in reserve’ to replace Marcos should it decide to discard the incumbent
dictator.”28
Following his assassination in August 1983, there was a remarkable
transformation in the CPP’s assessment of him.
Aquino, the foremost leader of the bourgeois liberal opposition in the

country, had suffered almost eight years of solitary confinement in the
regime’s prisons and three years of exile in the United States. Despite
grave risks and the heavy odds, he was finally coming home for the
avowed purpose of rallying, reorganizing and unifying the fragmented
forces of the legal opposition to fight the Marcos regime.
The people deeply grieved the death of Aquino and their long pent-
up anger that had accumulated over the years exploded in a massive
display of outrage and solidarity against the regime. In their hundreds of
thousands, they patiently lined up to view Aquino’s martyred body.
Turning to the bourgeois opposition, Ang Bayan charged, conveniently

forgetting its previous criticism of Aquino’s “capitulationist” trend:
It is to be noted that this small group of politicians started making noises

about elections even before Aquino had been buried, and even as they
hypocritically mouthed the late senator’s resolute words that there can be
no deal with a dictator, no compromise with dictatorship.29
Almost a year later, the CPP’s florid praise of Aquino still struggled to
keep pace with the protest movement that was developing independently
of the party.
For all his faults—and even his family says he had quite a few—Aquino
was perceived by many people as a steadfast and uncompromising fighter
against the fascist dictator. All he had to do was capitulate [precisely the
tendency of which the CPP had accused him less than four years earlier]
to his old political enemy, Marcos, and the doors to power and privilege
would have been opened to him.30
With the second anniversary of his death, the CPP proclaimed that
Aquino’s “valorous death will be enshrined in the memory of the people
as a historic symbol in the struggle against the fascist dictatorship.” He had
“attained national renown as a symbol of steadfast and valiant resistance to
the regime.”31
The effect that this had on the broad m em bership of the CPP can only
be wondered at, for it should be remembered that these eulogies appeared
not in a journal intended for mass distribution but in Artg Bay a n , the
organ of the central committee. Thus, they were aim ed at CPP members.
It is hardly any wonder, then, that when the Aquino’s widow became a
presidential candidate many CPP members, including some senior figures,
were in favor of not only participating in the election, but of doing so in
support of Corazon Aquino— and, in the event, they actually did this is
contravention of party policy.
One month after the Aquino assassination, the CPP was claiming in
its “Urgent Message to the Filipino People,” published in the October 1983
issue of A ng Bay a n , that “[t]he formal organization of the revolutionary
united front, the National Democratic Front, is consolidating and expanding
its ranks, with more and more organizations rallying to its banner.” This,
however, is open to question; Armando Malay, Jr., writing at almost
C hapter i 4: A lliances 313
precisely this time, was of the view that the very sectarianism of the CPP
was tending to “shut out” other forces from the united front.32 Having said
that, it would certainly appear to be true that the organizations already
under the CPP umbrella were strengthened during these years. For example,
the Kabataang Makabayan (KM, or Nationalist Youth), having dissolved all
but its local structures in 1975, was reestablished in 1977 and in 1984 had
recovered sufficiently to hold its Fourth Congress. However, the message of
the CPP central committee to this gathering made it perfectly clear that the
KM was hardly an independent organization, ending with the exhortation:
Today, it is right that the Kabataang Makabayan should give greater

attention and effort to tasks in the open and underground movement
in the urban areas. Nevertheless, it must also give more attention to
the development of links and mutual support with the revolutionary
organizations of the youth in the countrysides, including the continuing
efforts to invigorate the campaign to recruit cadres and warriors, and the
solicitation of various forms of support for the people’s army and the
peasant movement.33
Thus, the unity of the CPP and the KM appeared to boil down to the
latter tendering support to the military arm of the former.
With regard to wider forms of unity, Jones provides adequate testimony
that the old sectarian ways persisted. He quotes Mila Aguilar, who in
1980 became leader of the CPP’s United Front Commission, as saying that
she had been shocked by the “rigid and narrow-minded” concept of the
united front shared by both the CPP national leadership and the Manila
cadres.34 A “veteran Party cadre” to whom Jones spoke “blamed the narrow
united front views of the top officials for the collapse of a series of united
front organizations.”35 Jones is referring here to the period following the
assassination of Aquino, when protests and demonstrations had developed
outside of the control of the CPP.
Jones errs in asserting that the October 1983 statement “applauded
the Marcos Resign movement launched by Aquino’s supporters and forces
of the middle and upper classes,” which he describes as a “jarring about-
face.”36 Significantly, this section of the CPP statement was entitled “Cast
Away Illusions and Oppose all Capitulationists and Collaborationists.” It

pointed out that “some bourgeois-liberal oppositionists” had “hastily put
together a ‘third alternative’ program with ‘Marcos resign’ as its slogan.”
This position, the statement said, looked for the replacement of Marcos
by a caretaker government, following which the latter would investigate
the assassination, extend an amnesty to all political prisoners, draft a new
constitution and call elections for “president, vice-president, members of the
Batasang Pambansa as well as local officials, and ensure that such elections
would be free, orderly and honest.” (It will be noted that this was almost
exactly the course subsequently taken by the government led by Aquino’s
widow.) The CPP dismissed the first two demands as “window dressing to
attract popular support” and went on to indicate that the call for elections
was “the meat of the question for them” and that such politicians “simply
want to be in Malacanang themselves instead of Marcos and abandon the
people’s struggle if it is no longer useful to them. Dem anding M arcos’
resignation, furtherm ore, is an impractical and futile exercise. Marcos
himself has already said that he will never resign, underscoring his resolve
to stay in power by ordering the AFP to shoot at peaceful demonstrators”
(emphasis added). The statement continued:
Their indecent haste to make political hay out of the Aquino assassination
became more apparent by their own subsequent actions. Their “third
alternative” program and their use of the slogan “Marcos resign” are
nothing but a skimpy cover for the attempt to curry favor with the US,
and advance their own personal ambitions and big bourgeois-landlord
interests . . . They are trying to ride the crest of the current mass movement
merely to be able to bargain for a share of power in the reactionary state,
either through bogus elections or through secret deals.
However, the statement then went on to point out that democratic

organizations and groups had also raised the “Marcos Resign” slogan, but
in order to “thoroughly expose and weaken the regime.” Thus, the CPP
hardly gave its “approval” to the campaign, but merely pointed out which
proponents of the slogan were worthy of support and which should be
shunned.
C h a p t e r 1 4 : A l l ia n c e s 3x5
In May 1984, when elections were held for the Batasang Pambansa, the
CPP once again pursued the boycott line. In this, it was joined by a number
of opposition groups, as had happened in the plebiscite and election of
1981 and the January 1984 plebiscite (when, according to the CPP, only 40
percent of the electorate had participated).37 The organizational expression
of the boycott campaign was the Kongreso ng Mamamayang Pilipino
(Congress of the Filipino People, or KOMPIL).
Jones, discussing the post-assassination period, tells us that Rodolfo
Salas, in two 1988 interviews,
disclosed extraordinary details of the interaction between the CPP and

legal opposition forces during the period. Salas said that Benigno “Ninoy”
Aquino, Jr. prior to his return to Manila, had initiated an exchange of
messages between them to discuss some form of alliance. But Salas’
most startling revelation was the CPP’s role in the formation of KOMPIL.
According to Salas, Agapito “Butz" Aquino (brother of Benigno] turned to
the CPP when plans for founding KOMPIL were sputtering.38
This is borne out by Sison, who gives the following version:
Agapito “Butz” Aquino took the initiative in organizing the Kongreso ng

Mamamayang Pilipino . . . and invited the progressive forces to send
delegates and myself to send a major address to the founding congress. I
made a long address detailing how the broadest antifascist alliance could
be forged to topple the dictator ..
Prior to the May elections, KOMPIL put forward sue demands: the
removal of Marcos’s law-making powers; the immediate repeal of repressive
legislation; that the declaration of martial law and the suspension of habeas
corpus should require a two-thirds vote in the Batasang Pambansa; the
amendment of the 1973 Constitution to provide that all top government
appointments be subject to confirmation by the Batasang Pambansa; a
general amnesty and the release of all political prisoners and detainees;
and electoral reform.
Of course, this marked a shift in the CPP’s position stated a few months
earlier. This apparent contradiction was rationalized by arguing, perfectly
logically, that although the above demands “do not direcdy express the
long-term and basic objectives of the people’s democratic revolution” it had
to be realized that “in fighting for these, the people learn precious lessons
from their experience, through the correct guidance of the revolutionary
line.”40 Just two months later, however (and still prior to the elections), the
party appeared to contradict itself yet again by returning to the proposition
that the “central task now confronting the revolutionary movement and the
broad masses of the people is the overthrow of the US-Marcos dictatorship
which thoroughly embodies the semicolonial and semifeudal order in the
Philippines.”41 Possibly bewildered by the rate at which the anti-Marcos
movement was growing, the party appeared to be vacillating between
a desire to draw closer to the bourgeois opposition and an attempt to
distinguish itself from it.
The CPP claimed that the 1984 boycott was a success and that the
reactionaries were being isolated from the progressives. This latter claim
was based on the fact that the conservatives had participated in the election,
but, as a third of the seats fell to the opposition, and as the majority voted,
Marcos won a degree of legitimacy.
6
The more the anti-Marcos movement grew, the more the CPP’s
approach to alliances became marked by confusion, inconsistency, and
opportunism.
CPP members may have been surprised when, turning to the fourth
page of the January 1985 issue of Ang Bayan, they spotted the headline:
“Entire National Bourgeoisie Now Open to Revolution.” Stressing the effects
of the economic crisis that had intensified since the Aquino assassination,
the article estimated: “As more and more of them go bankrupt, the national
bourgeoisie generally has become more receptive to revolutionary change.”
Although Weekley is correct when she describes this as an “overly optimistic
view,”42 it should be understood that the journal was not referring here to
the whole bourgeoisie. Ang Bayan obliged with an explanation:
C h apter i 4: A l l ia n c e s 3 17
The investments of the national bourgeoisie are rather dispersed, and

these are mostly in non-strategic areas of the economy. They are spread
out in small industries such as food, garments, furniture and footwear;
intermediate industries such as textiles and rubber; and in service and
commercial establishments such as transport (both land and sea),
restaurants and schools. A big part of their production relies principally
on local sources of capital and raw materials, and serves the needs of the
local market; another part relies on imported machinery and raw materials.
The formula of “unity and struggle” which the CPP had employed on
other occasions when talking of bourgeois allies, while present in this
article, was given a rather curious slant:
Let us convince them to allow genuine trade unionism among their

workers, and patiently explain to them the need for unions to develop
to strengthen the forces fighting the principal enemy. Let us foster
revolutionary unity between them and the working class. On the other
hand, the workers must struggle with them on just grounds and with
restraint, that is, not push them to bankruptcy.
The first point to be made regarding this remarkable passage is that

it may have been penned by a CPP cadre or leader with limited firsthand
experience of “genuine trade unionism.”’ Secondly, the influence of Mao
is evident here, as in 1953 (four years after the triumph of the national-
democratic stage of the Chinese Revolution) he complained that “some
workers are advancing too fast and won’t allow the capitalists to make
any profit at all."43 But let us analyze the passage itself. What was it really
saying?
It argued that the national bourgeoisie should be persuaded to
allow genuine trade unionism among “their” workers. It strikes one that
if a member of the national bourgeoisie did not “allow” trade unionism
already, he would be unlikely to do so as a result of argument alone.
“Genuine trade unionism," which, commonly known as simply “GTU,” was in the later
1980s characterized by “ultra-militancy," is the credo of the Kilusang Mayo Uno, formed
under CPP guidance in 1980. The term is used ironically here.
Recognition and bargaining rights are all too often conceded by a capitalist
only if confronted by pressure, actual or potential, on the part of his
employees, who will have previously organized in a trade union for this
purpose. It must be conceded, however, that such capitalists could be
open to persuasion of the kind implied in the above passage, i.e., that
his employees would “struggle . . . with restraint.” Such “genuine trade
unionism” is usually known by another name. For Ang Bayan appeared to
be saying to the national bourgeoisie: join our national united front and we
will ensure that the workers under our influence will not unduly undermine
your profitability, even if this means that they are forced to accept lower
wages than those to which they might feel entitled.
By 1985, as other class forces were becoming more and more active
in the anti-Marcos struggle for their own ends, the CPP appeared ready to
stop at nothing in order to win allies from outside of the working class and
peasantry. “The call for the formation of a democratic coalition government,”
proclaimed Ang Bayan in March of that year, “is fast becoming a practical
slogan.” The journal then described the “people’s democratic revolution”
as “the unified action of the working class, the peasantry, the urban petty
bourgeoisie and the national bourgeoisie and other anti-imperialist and
antifeudal forces, in waging revolutionary struggle and in organizing state
power.” Moreover, the journal went on to assert that in order to “solve
the existing basic problems and the fundamental contradiction in our
society, what is needed is the full, not just formal, participation of all four
revolutionary classes in the establishment and wielding of democratic
political power. The exclusion o f any o f the classes will result in the
revolution’s failu re .” The CPP was pulling out all the stops in an attempt
to persuade the urban petty bourgeoisie and the national bourgeoisie that
their place was within the united front.
An important part of the united front, and of the democratic coalition

government that will be set up, are the liberal-democratic organizations
and personages. Although for now they do not completely uphold the
armed struggle, they have been active in advancing the people’s militant
actions against the enemy. The decisive shift of the liberal democrats
C h a p t e r 14 : A l l ia n c e s 3 19
and the middle forces to the side of the revolution is a very important
factor in the formation of the national united front and the victory of our
revolution. Those in the comprador bourgeoisie or landlord class may also
be included in this government provided they are active and consistent
in upholding the basic national and democratic demands o f the people.
(Emphasis added.)
The CPP was now opening its arms to those whom it had formerly
regarded as its enemies. It might be argued that the proviso in the above
“invitation” effectively ruled out the comprador bourgeoisie and the landlord
class, for the comprador bourgeoisie is by its very nature in a close
relationship with imperialism, i.e., it is “a social class deemed to be
compliant with foreign interests, and uninterested in developing the national
economy.”44 However, in its statement of June 1983 (see page 310), the CPP
had referred to the compradors among the “bourgeois reformists” as being
those “who lost out to the monopolization of power by the Marcos clique.”
We must therefore assume that they were now being courted because they
were anti-Marcos, not due to any anti-imperialist potential.*
This position was then contradicted by the following article (“Our
Party’s Economic Program: Change the Production Relations”), which
proposed the smashing of the remaining feudal relations in order to
permit the development of capitalism, which “will develop to a certain
level.” For this, “the means of production now in the hands of the big
bourgeois compradors and the big landlords must now be transferred to
the hands of the entire Filipino people and to the democratic classes that
comprise the people.” Just to ensure that there could be no dubiety, the
article stated quite categorically that the “confiscation of the capital of the
overthrown classes . . . will be a basic step in the general development in
the production of society . . Most Marxists would find nothing wrong
with this if the situation was such that this step could be taken without
the risk of a massive counterrevolutionary backlash, but the previous
As we will see in chapter 17, as early as 1980 the PKP also took a softer line on the
compradors, but on llie basis of an analysis which identified their differences with
imperialism.
3 2o A M o v e m e n t D iv id e d
invitation to members of the classes who would have their productive

property confiscated was now translated as: “You may be represented in
the democratic coalition government as long as you allow us to confiscate
your land and capital.” There would, it is obvious, be no takers.
Potentially, the most promising development in the CPP’s united front
work was the formation in May 1985 of the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan
(BAYAN, or New Patriotic Alliance). At the founding congress some 500
organizations were represented by over a thousand delegates. The leaders
elected by the congress included former senators Lorenzo Tañada and
Jose Diokno (chairman and president, respectively), Rolando Olalia (KMU
chairman), Agapito “Butz” Aquino, Joker Arroyo (later to be a member
of the Aquino cabinet), Joaquin “Chino” Roces (publisher of the Manila
Times'), and former Justice J.B.L. Reyes. The congress declared, Ang Bayan
reported, that
its urgent task is to end the Marcos dictatorship and US and other foreign
interference in the internal affairs of the Philippines. Its ultimate aim is
to establish popular democracy in the country . . . Although significant
differences remain among these organizations, they forged a principled
unity for the sake of the anti-dictatorship struggle.45
Sison also makes reference to certain “differences”:
When BAYAN was being organized in May 1985, with the full participation
and support of the progressive forces, these pro-US elements wanted to
have a disproportionately large share of the organs of leadership and take
control of BAYAN. Failing to grab BAYAN, they bolted out and formed
BANDILA—a very small group. But they were also able to mislead and
carry away two small influential human rights groups of lawyers, the
Free Legal Assistance Group (FLAG) and the Movement of Attorneys for
Brotherhood, Integrity, Nationalism and Independence (MABINI).46
Chapman tells a different story, explaining that there appeared to have

been an initial, tacit agreement to grant each of BAYAN’s “three major
factions” equal votes, but that the NDF had then demanded a greater share.
Jose Diokno, one of those who “bolted,” told Chapman later:
C h apter i 4: A l l ia n c e s 3 11
It was not entirely the left’s fault, there was much mistrust on all sides . . .
But it showed that we can never deal with the underground left on a
permanent basis. Until the underground learns how to work with the
concept of shared powers, you cannot work with them.47
Chapman goes on to allege that many NDF leaders were “furious with
the ideological purists who had wrecked the new front.” One dissident is
quoted as follows:
The breakup of BAYAN, especially the walkout of businessmen like

Ongpin—it was not over big principles, but just over how many seats
each group would get. It was not over the (US military] bases, for example.
Some of our people now realize the nature of this problem and will teach
more flexibility. 1 think there is this lingering influence of the Chinese
approach to the united front. I think eventually that there will be a more
realistic united front structure.48
Jones corroborates this version, terming the founding congress of

BAYAN a “disaster.”
By August 1985, the protest movement that had once seemed capable of
forcing Marcos from power had all but collapsed, a victim of the bickering
between the NDF forces and the rest of the anti-Marcos elements . . . A
showdown with Marcos was looming, yet the CPP, by missing its finest
opportunity to forge a broad united front, had played itself out of a
position to influence the decisive events.49
In September 1985 an article appeared in Ang Bayan ( “Unite the Many,

Defeat the Few”) which, somewhat belatedly, urged corrective action. “The
national united front,” it stated, “is a real magic weapon [a curious echo
of millenarianism] if wielded firmly by the revolutionary proletariat skilled
in the creative application of the basic principles of Marxism-Leninism
in uniting with the many and defeating the few.” This latter aim “means
mobilizing all positive forces that can be won over at different levels of
unity to defeat the principal enemy or gain victory in particular struggles.”
More to the point, in view of the recent debacle at the BAYAN congress,
the solidarity of the united front could be achieved not by discarding

the independence of the constituent organizations, “but by conducting
a healthy struggle of opposing views and arriving at a consensus based
on principles and not primarily on organizational superiority' (emphasis
added).
But even here, the main lesson was missed. There can be little doubt
that the term “the principal enemy” in the above referred to Marcos. Far
from BAYAN being seriously concerned with ending “US and other foreign
interference in the internal affairs of the Philippines” as claimed by Ang
Bayan, we have it from Sison himself that “pro-US elements” were involved
in its organization. Thus, in 1985 BAYAN could only have been conceived
as an anti-Marcos alliance. This was a logical extension of the CPP’s
characterization of the Marcos regime as “fascist” and of its practice since
at least 1976, when Our Urgent Tasks had extended a welcome to “those
who are against the Marcos fascist dictatorship who may vary in degree of
anti-imperialism and antifeudalism.” More recendy, Ang Bayan had made
clear that this welcome extended to the comprador bourgeoisie, which by
its very nature could not be other than pro-imperialist.
By neglecting anti-imperialism, the CPP would find itself in a situation
analogous to that of the PKP in 1944-45 when, with an inadequate
appreciation of the nature of US imperialism, the latter party was
unprepared for the ruthless manner in which the returning US forces under
the leadership of Douglas MacArthur ensured that the postwar Philippines
would, even with formal independence, serve US economic and geopolitical
ambitions. Now, having characterized Marcos as the representative of
imperialism, and as someone who had created his “New Society” at its
behest, the CPP would be unable to explain why, after his fall, foreign
capital would be able to tighten its economic grip on the Philippines.
N o tes
1. Manifesto of the Preparatory Committee of the NDF: “Unite to Overthrow the

US-Marcos Dictatorship,” April 24, 1973-
2. See William Chapman, Inside the Philippine Revolution: The New People’s Army
and Its Strugglefo r Power (New York: Norton, 1987), 221-22.

3. Quoted in Daniel B. Schirmer and Stephen Rosskamm Shalom, The Philippines
Reader (Quezon City: KEN Incorporated, 1987), 209-10.
4. Quoted in R. Palme Dutt, Fascism and Social Revolution (London: Martin
Lawrence Ltd., 1934), 89.
(Boulder. Westview Press, 1989), 110.
(Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 2001), 115. Weekley takes
the view that relations between the CPP leadership and the Manila-Rizal
committee were complicated by “territorial and personal differences,” including
the “personality and leadership style of Filemon Lagman.” Ibid.
7. Ibid., 116.
8. Central Committee, CPP, Our Urgent Tasks, 1976. This and other CPP documents
are available on www.philippinerevolution.net. See also Jones, Red Revolution,
111.
9. Jones, Red Revolution, 113-
10. Benjamin Pimentel Jr., Edjop: The Unusual Journey o f Edgar Jopson (Quezon
11. Weekley, The Communist Party o f the Philippines, 1968-1993, 119-20. Here,
Weekley is referring to the “third group” or “Democratic Bloc” that would
organize the short-lived Siglaya-, after the demise of this organization, many
of those involved would link up with BISIG (Bukluran sa Ikauunlad ng
Sosyalistang Isip at Gawa, or Movement for the Advancement of Socialist
Thought and Action) and others to form Akbayan (Citizens’ Action Party).
12. Ibid., 121-22. The same author suggests that the proposal for a National
Democratic (Coalition Government was due to Ije Monde influence, but as we
have already seen this featured in the 1977 program of the NDF. Prior to this, it
had appeared in the CPP program and had its roots in Mao.
13. For a detailed examination of the “Manila Rebellion,” see Jones, Red Revolution,
113 - 22 .
15. Indeed, the revelation is confined to a footnote: Weekley, The Communist
Party of the Philippines, 1968-1993, 141, fn 49.
17. Ibid., April 30, 1981.
18. Ibid., March 31,1981.
19. Ibid., April 30, 1981.
20. Ibid., May 31, 1981.
21. Ibid., July 15, 1981.

23. Weekley, The Philippine Communist Party. 1968-1993, 125; Joel Rocamora,
Breaking Through: The Struggle Within the Communist Party o f the Philippines
(Pasig City: Anvil Publishing, Inc., 1995), 26.
24. See Ken Fuller, Forcing the Pace. The Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas. From
Foundation to Armed Struggle (Quezon City: UP Press, 2007), 188-89.
25. Ang Bayan, June 1983.
26. Central Committee of the CPP, “Statement on the 11th Anniversary of the New
People’s Army,” Ang Bayan, March 29, 1980.
28. Ibid., July 15, 1981.
29. Ibid., October 1983.
30. Ibid., August 1984.
31. Ibid., August 1985.
32. “Some Random Reflections on Marxism and Maoism in the Philippines,”
in Marxism in the Philippines (Quezon City: Third World Studies Center,
University of the Philippines, 1984), 79.
33. Ang Bayan, November 1984.
35. Ibid., 149.
36. Ibid., 148.
37. Ang Bayan, February 1984.
View (New York: Crane Russak, 1989), 114-15.
40. Ang Bayan, February 1984.
41. Ang Bayan, April 1984.
42. Weekley, The Communist Party o f the Philippines,1968-1993, 133-
43. Mao Zedong, Selected Works, vol. 5 (Beijing:ForeignLanguages Publishing
House, 1977), 113-
44. John Scott and Gordon Marshall, A Dictionary o f Sociology (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, Oxford Paperback Reference, 2009).
45. Ang Bayan, May 1985.
48. Ibid., 224.
PART FIVE
In chapters 16 and 17, we will examine how the PKP fared in the
decade following its conclusion of the political settlement in 1974. As
will be recalled, the PKP’s intention in entering this agreement was to
support those policies of Marcos it deemed progressive and to attempt
to push his regime in the direction of a more consistently anti-imperialist
position. It is important to understand, however, that Marcos’s freedom of
action was severely constrained by the extent to which— and the manner
in which— control of his country’s destiny had been removed from his
hands (and, indeed, those of any rival or successor) by foreign capital and
the multilateral financial institutions. Chapter 15, therefore, sketches this
economic background.
3*5
C h a p te r 1 5 : A n E c o n o m ic
P r i s o n e r o f t h e “F r e e W o r l d ”
To a very large extent, at least from the mid-1970s, Marcos never

exercised control of the development process in the Philippines, and
therefore did not have the room to maneuver he would have needed to
pursue an independent economic strategy aimed at satisfying Filipino, as
opposed to TNC, needs. This was due to two main factors: first, largely as
a result of the operations of the IMF and the World Bank, the development
within the Philippines of an “export-oriented” capitalism characterized
by chronic indebtedness and almost total dependency; second, a stealthy
operation by the World Bank that ensured Marcos was sidestepped in its
plan to see that the Philippines was securely tied into the new international
division of labor required by the TNCs and banks. By the early 1980s, the
Philippines would be, in effect, an economic prisoner of the “free world.”
Until 1980, the dictation of economic policy was the province of the
IMF. After a serious trade deficit in 1975, the Philippines applied to the
Fund under its extended fund facility (EFF), drawing down $117 million
in 1976 and $141.37 million in 1977. In order to make the first drawing,
the Marcos government was required to give a letter of intent, outlining
a three-year economic program that would be subject to review by the
IMF on a six-monthly basis. The undertakings given consisted of a shift of
export emphasis onto manufactured, agricultural processed products and
mineral products, continuation of heavy capital investment in infrastructure
317
financed by borrowing from external sources, and higher taxes to finance

government deficits. These were incorporated into the National Economic
and Development Authority’s plans for 1974-77 and 1978-82.1
The World Bank and the IMF jointly ensured that every requirement of
the TNCs was catered for by the “host” government— the credit facilities,
the infrastructure, the rural development, and the government economic
policies. The World Bank even saw that future generations of the cheap
labor supply received the “appropriate” education, deciding for 1976-
1980 that it (and therefore the Philippine government) would “increase
the relevance of the [education] system to national needs by improving
facilities for industrial and agricultural training.”2 Significantly, in view of
the increasing penetration of the Philippines by Japanese capital, Japan
entered the educational restructuring program in 1980, with a grant of $12.7
million for the establishment of a Technical University of the Philippines.3
Minds successfully molded in the manner desired by foreign capital were,
of course, effectively lost to nationalism.
A noteworthy facet of the Philippines’ new industrialization (which to
a large extent took place in export processing zones virtually unconnected
with the domestic economy) lay in the fact that the TNCs now controlling
so much of the economy did not always find it necessary to purchase or
build fixed capital in order to exercise that control. In many industries, it
was exercised through subcontracting. According to Constantino, this was
practiced in the manufacture of car parts, refrigeration and air-conditioning
parts, leather goods, furniture, toys, processed food, paper, metal, wood,
plastics, and rubber products. “In agriculture,” says the same author, “it is
known as contract growing, which exists in the following areas: bananas,
rubber, cotton, feedgrains, poultry, piggery and beef catde.” The garment
sector started as a “basically sub-contracting, re-exporting industry where
raw materials are shipped from abroad for processing . . . and then re
exported.” The same characteristics were noted in the US- and Japanese-
owned electronics industry “wherein only the most labor-intensive process
(semi-conductor assembly) is done here by tens of thousands of women
workers in the export processing zones and elsewhere.”4
C h apter i 5: A n E c o n o m ic P r is o n e r of t h e “ F ree” W o rld 3 29
The advantages for the TNCs of this arrangement were obvious: they
did not need to commit resources to direct investment, they could avoid
labor problems by having subcontractors employ the workers and, of
course, they could evacuate with little or no risk of financial loss. Third
World nationalism and possible nationalization held no fears for them
under such a regime. What was good for TNCs, however, was almost by
definition bad for the Filipino business sector producing for the domestic
market. Magallona asserts that the World Bank policy was quite simply
to eliminate this sector. “The only way they can stay in business is to
reorganize themselves for export by making themselves as sub-contractors
of TNCs or joint-venture partners of foreign investors.”5
In the late 1970s, Marcos had still not abandoned all hope of nationalist
industrialization, and in 1979 the government announced a $6 billion
program for, in effect, developing backward linkages that were intended to
“anchor” the export-oriented industries in a heavy industrial base. Eleven
industrial projects were announced— an integrated steel mill, a copper
smelter, an expanded cement industry, a project for heavy machinery, a
diesel engine plant, a phosphate fertilizer plant, a project for obtaining
fuel from sugarcane, a coconut chemicals plant, an integrated pulp and
paper miller, and a petrochemicals complex. Given the potential that
such a program would impart to a nationalist industrialization program,
the World Bank did not approve and, anyway, the crisis following the
Aquino assassination in 1983 killed most of the projects. However, the
copper smelter com menced operations in May 1983 (with 32 percent of
the company owned by Japanese interests), the fertilizer complex began
production in 1985 and the coconut chemicals plant, owned by Unichem,
part of the empire of Eduardo Cojuangco, started up in 1984.6
Although the Philippines had already embarked upon the “export-
oriented” road, this received far greater emphasis as the new international
division of labor moved into its second stage. Briefly, this saw the newly
industrializing countries (NICs) such as Taiwan, Singapore, Hong Kong,
South Korea, etc. moving into the higher stages of production, having
embarked upon industrialization by concentrating on the labor-intensive
330 A M o vem ent D iv id e d
stages of production for the TNCs. As the economies of these countries

developed, so their wage-costs began to increase, whereupon the TNCs
began to switch the labor-intensive stages of their production cycles to
lesser developed countries (LDCs), where labor costs were appreciably
lower. To enable this to occur, however, the economies of the LDCs would
need to be “restructured.” The vehicle used to accomplish this was the
structural adjustment loan (SAL), and the Philippines was chosen as a
guinea pig. According to Broad and Cavanagh, “restructuring” required
adherence to one basic tenet— “submit your economies to international
market forces. And that means privatize, open up, liberalize, offer more
incentives to private foreign investment— in short: inject Reaganomics
into the Third World.”7 In the Philippines, the process would see light
manufacturing, electronics, and garments emerge as the country’s leading
export industries.
By and large, the TNCs would transfer to the LDCs those parts of their
production cycles that were labor intensive and that required only low
technology. The advantages to the TNCs were not confined to cost— the
“host” country would be responsible for just one stage in the production
cycle and thus there would be little danger of a competitive product being
developed locally, while any threat of a nationalist takeover of foreign
interests could be countered by simply transferring this stage of production
to an alternative site. The fundamental disadvantage to the host country
was, of course, that the nature of the Philippine economy would be dictated
even less by the needs of the local people and even more by those of
the TNCs. Before long, it would become obvious that this new orientation
would not only solve none of the basic problems of the Philippines, but
that it spelled disaster for the economy and even deeper privation for the
people.
Constantino has described such a “development” strategy as a “one
way ticket to a debtors’ prison” due to the fact that substantial sums are
required for infrastructural improvement to attract the TNCs in the first
place. Additionally, loans for such improvements advanced by the World
Bank must be accompanied by “counterpart” funds from the recipient. The
C h apter i 5: A n E c o n o m ic P r is o n e r of th e “ F ree” W o rld 331
TNC products for export have a high import content and so, ironically,
this “export-oriented” economy would hardly ever enjoy a favorable trade
balance. In addition, the TNCs require the ability to remit profits to their
home base without hindrance, and, the terms of trade between a Third
World country like the Philippines and the developed capitalist countries
are, anyway, inherently unequal, being dictated by the latter.8
Until the World Bank’s experiment in the Philippines, the enforcement
of the required conditions would have been the task of the IMF. It had
considerable experience in the Philippines, and by 1980 it had already
ensured that the country was the most indebted LDC in the world.
Despite the fact that, under the EFF administered by the Fund over the
years 1976-78, the vast majority of targets set for the Philippine economy
(GNP growth, inflation, balance of payments, the ratio of tax to GNP,
interest rates, domestic and foreign borrowing, foreign currency reserves,
and devaluation) were simply unmet, the IMF boldly dubbed the EFF a
“successful exercise,”9 because, as Broad says, “the country was moving in
the desired direction . . .”10
But the IMF was confronted with two problems, the first of which
was its own image as an oppressive institution that constandy made belt-
tightening demands of the hapless mendicants who shuffled to its door.
Second, its prescriptions were resisted where nationalists held key positions
in the government and economy. Most significantly, such people held sway
at the Central Bank, the governor of which, Gregorio Licaros, had refused
to implement policies detrimental to producers for the domestic market. To
force the medicine down the patient’s throat would have meant doing batde
with Marcos himself, as he supported the protection of domestic industry.
It was in these circumstances that the Fund handed over the leading role
to its sister-organization, the World Bank. With its more benign image, the
Bank was successful in persuading the Philippines to sign for its first SAL
in September 1980, whereas the IMF had failed to secure acceptance of a
similar loan.
The virtual surrender of any meaningful national sovereignty was
underlined by the fact that a representative of the World Bank’s Consultative
332 A M o vem ent D i v id e d
Group for the Philippines (consisting of those nations advancing loans to

the Philippines via World Bank programs) occupied an office at the Central
Bank and reportedly saw “reports and analyses from government agencies
and . . . probably [had] access to more documents than some high Central
Bank officials.”11
The Philippines’ earlier dependence upon the IMF and the World Bank
had meant that to an increasing extent the direction of the economy had
been effectively handed over to the group of economists referred to as
“technocrats,” many of whom had been trained in the USA at the World
Bank and IMF Institutes before being inserted into sensitive positions back
home. While the negotiations over the SAL were nearing completion, a
Bank report was drafted, analyzing the political risks within the Philippine
situation. Written by William Ascher, this emphasized the need to protect the
technocrats as they, and not Marcos, would constitute the most important
factor in determining the “success” or otherwise of the World Bank’s program.
Ascher feared that as domestic producers began to suffer as a result of the
program, Marcos might ditch, or at least ignore, the technocrats. The Bank
took heed and so, following the established practice of the IMF, doled out its
C
cash in tranches only when strict criteria had been met. Ascher was proved
correct in his estimate of Marcos, for in late 1980 he yielded to nationalist
pressure and eased the pace of tariff reform. When, early the following
year, he threatened to renege on the next phase of that reform, the World
Bank refused to sanction the second tranche of its loan. The government
was then prevailed upon to launch a “consultation” with the private sector,
dissipating opposition, before the second tranche was released.
The technocrats, having internalized the World Bank-IMF ideology,
already formed what Broad describes as “a powerful, but not yet hegemonic,
transnationalist faction of the Marcos government.” Their assistance was
crucial to overcoming the resistance to the Bank’s desired policy changes
that was apparent at the higher levels, particularly in the Central Bank, and
by 1981 the technocrats in fact achieved hegemony in even that institution.
The nationalists in the Central Bank were challenged not by the World
Bank directly but by a coalition comprising “transnationalist” ministers and
C h a p t e r i 5 : A n E c o n o m ic P r is o n e r o f t h e “ F r e e ” W o r l d 333
technocrats in the “interagency committee” formed to draw up the industrial

reforms, using the World Bank’s industrial-sector report as a guide. By
January 1981, this coalition had secured the resignation of Central Bank
Governor Licaros, who was succeeded by Jaime Laya, a pro-World Bank
technocrat. According to Broad, the Bank “injected a tight cell of technocratic
transnationalists” into the Central Bank which “expanded its domain until
it was able to push the entire Central Bank in a transnationalist direction.”12
The structural adjustment program failed in its declared aim of setting
the Philippines on the road to export-oriented recovery, with the value of
the peso plummeting (by 1985 it had fallen to 20 to the dollar), exports
of electronics and clothing falling sharply after initial surges, employment
in export-oriented manufacturing actually declining between 1980 and
1985 (as did employment in the Bataan export processing zone), over
150 financial institutions failing between 1984 and 1986, and hundreds of
domestic firms being wiped out.13
On the other hand, the TNCs increased their hold on the economy,
occupying 230 places in the list of the top 1,000 companies by October,
1987; and while TNC assets in 1986 accounted for only 35 percent of the
total, their income accounted for a massive 85 percent of the total— P6.81
billion as opposed to the P i . 11 billion earned by the 770 Filipino companies
in the top 1,000.14 The four transnational banks with fully owned Philippine
branches increased their net income by 72 percent in 1982, and by a further
60 percent in 1983.15
The Philippines had been taken prisoner. At the policy level, those
institutions that, like the Central Bank, had once adopted nationalist
positions were now dominated by technocrats, enabling the World Bank-
IMF Group to tighten its control of economic policy. In the economy itself,
the TNCs had strengthened their grip in terms of ownership and control.
Those Filipino entrepreneurs who had at one stage formed the class base
of bourgeois nationalism had been severely weakened by the results of
the restructuring program and thus were in no position to offer political
leadership. Indeed, some businessmen who had once taken a nationalist
stance had abandoned such positions at a relatively early stage. One such
334 A M o v e m e n t D i v id e d
figure, Hilarion Henares, had reluctantly adopted the new credo of “export
or perish” as early as 1980.16 Others had, as Broad points out, always had a
foot in both camps anyway.17
Marcos was, therefore, hemmed in, with little room for maneuver
unless he was willing to risk a dramatic break with Washington. This was
the size of the challenge facing the PKP.
N o tes
1. Edilberto M. Villegas, “Debt Peonage and the New Society,” in Mortgaging

the Future: The World Bank and IMF in the Philippines, ed. Vivencio R. Jose
(Quezon City: Foundation for Nationalist Studies, 1982), 56-58.
2. Vivencio R. Jose, “Reorienting Philippine Education,” in Mortgaging the Future,
137.
3. Ibid., 139.
5. Merlin Magallona, “The Economic Context of Neo-Colonialism,” in Mortgaging
the Future, 86.
6. Catholic Institute for International Relations, European Companies in the
Philippines (London: CIIR, 1987), 119.
7. Robin Broad, Unequal Alliance 1979-1986: The World Bank, the International
Monetary Fund and the Philippines (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University
Press, 1988), xvii. The preface and conclusion of this work are coauthored with
John Cavanagh.
9. Ibid., 59-61.
10. Ibid., 60.
11. Jose, “New Perspectives," in Mortgaging the Future, 216, citing Wall Street
Journal, August 15, 1979.
12. Broad, Unequal Alliance, 1979-1986, 128.
13. Drawn from Broad, Unequal Alliance, 1979-1986, 222-26.
14. Philippine Currents, July 15, 1988.
15. Broad, Unequal Alliance, 1979-1986, 167.
16. Ibid., 115.
17. Ibid., 106-7.
C h a pter 1 6 :
M arcos R efu ses to P lay
Immediately following the conclusion of the political settlement with

Marcos, the PKP launched an information campaign among its members,
explaining the reasons for the agreement and its perceptions of the “New
Society.” Just a few months later, however, the party was complaining:
There are, in place of the old leftist errors, the rightist clangers of complacency,
false sense of security, and timidity in pointing out certain shortcomings
in President Marcos’s administration. There is also the failure to be more
conscious of long-range goals, introduce innovative styles of work, and
consolidate organizational gains.
All this demands from each member of the Party an unremitting struggle
to study and leam further from each new problem and development, from
each decision we make, from the historical experiences of each fraternal
party and from the whole international revolutionary movement.'
Complacency, coupled with unevenness in the ideological development

of party members led to a further danger.
Unless promptly combated there is always the possibility that the relative
freedom [of the PKP’s amnestied status] may be interpreted as an end to
the class struggle. The PKP’s amnestied status may also be taken to mean
that the politico-economic interests of the reactionary classes are now
subsumed to the interests of the working masses.2
335
In response, the party upgraded its Marxist-Leninist schools, intensified

its propaganda work and issued documents “on every aspect of Party life.”
But the legacy of over forty years of illegal existence and underground
methods was difficult to shake off in the rural areas, where some cadres
emerging from the armed struggle simply did not know how to work
openly.3 Despite the fact that party committees in the provinces were
working under instruction to campaign on the basis of legality, this “never
worked due to the conservatism within the peasantry . . . Even when we
instructed Party organs: ‘Look, discuss with the masses!’ they replied: ‘The
masses would not like to discuss with us. Remember, we’re under martial
law!’ And some refused to discuss openly.”4 Furthermore, at least one of
Marcos’s programs— land reform— had repercussions within the PKP, as
those rural members who had received plots of land under the program
began to develop differences with those who were still landless. These
differences developed to such an extent that the party established separate
organizations for the beneficiaries of land reform and the landless.5
Despite the initial problems, the PKP succeeded in one of its aims
in concluding the political settlement, working openly and establishing a
whole range of mass organizations.
The year following the settlement saw the creation of a women’s
organization, the Katipunan ng mga Bagong Pilipina (KBP, Association of
New Filipinas). This traced its origins to the League of Filipino Women
established in the 1930s, some of the founders of which were now members
of the KBP, and the Philippine Women’s Society formed in 1947.6 The KBP
began its existence as a partner of an organization established earlier in the
rural areas— the Samahan ng mga Progresibong Kababaihang Pilipino—
Union of Progressive Women, SPKP.7
In January 1976, an organizing committee of seven was established
with the aim of forming a nationwide youth organization. Preparations
for the founding congress were extensive; forty-six delegates from Central
Luzon laid the broad plans for the congress at a meeting in March, with
more detailed plans being worked out at a further meeting in May.
Such preparation paid off, for by the time of the founding congress of
the Samahan sa Ikauunlad ng Kabataang Pilipino (SIKAP, or Union
C h a p t e r i 6: M a r c o s R e f u s e s t o P la y 337
for the Advancement of Philippine Youth) on June 27, the organization

boasted 4,000 members, and this would increase to 10,000 a year later.8
SIKAP’s aims were the “pursuit of equality, progress and peace, within the
framework of the New Society.” Links were established with government
and private institutions concerned with development and the new
organization participated in a number of seminars and conferences, as well
as conducting its own membership seminars with the aim of “inculcating a
sense of nationalist consciousness among the youth.”9 An indication of the
relative freedom which PKP cadres now enjoyed was the fact that SIKAP’s
first congress was attended by various government functionaries and the
guest of honor was none other than Marcos’s mother.
By mid-1977, the new youth organization had groups in nineteen
provinces throughout Luzon and the Visayas, the largest being in Nueva
Ecija where 4,000 members were divided between eighteen barrio
chapters. Provincial conventions were held in Nueva Ecija in September
1976, and in Bulacan in March 1977.* SIKAP established its own journal—
Bukang Liwayway (Dawn)— and, later, regional journals were established.
A cultural group was formed “to develop songs, plays and poems to reflect
the national situation.” Fundamentally, though, the main aim of SIKAP
was to attempt to ensure that the reforms of Marcos were implemented
in a thoroughgoing manner, and it therefore sought to “cooperate with
institutions and individuals which translate these laws into action, into actual
programs benefiting the masses of the Filipino people.”11 Internationally,
SIKAP opened relations with the International Union of Students, the World
Federation of Democratic Youth and the Czechoslovak Union of Socialist
Youth (the head of whose International Department, Karel Lukas, visited
the Philippines in April 1977). SIKAP gained access to the mass media,
where it received sympathetic coverage, as illustrated by a full-page article
in Expressweek, which profiled the organization’s president, Pedro Baguisa,
and detailed the growth and aims of the organization.12
According to Pedro Baguisa, SIKAP’s president between 1976 and 1982, apart from in
Luzon there were also provincial chapters in Cebu, Negros, Silliman University, Samar
and Sultan Kudarat.10
The KBP and SIKAP cooperated in the formation of a third organization

in 1977. This was Bagong Sibol (New Growth), which was open to children
between the ages of six and fifteen. Each of the “parent” organizations
provided three delegates to form a committee, chaired by one of the SIKAP
delegates, to assist the organization in the first year of its existence. The aim
of reaching 10,000 members was set and this would be achieved before
the year was out. The constitution of the new organization stated the belief
“that the welfare and future of the young can only be enhanced if they
themselves participate in the quest for equality, development and peace,”
and put forward the slogan Kabataang para sa Kapantayan, Kaunlaran at
Kapayapaan (Youth for Equality, Progress and Freedom). The month after
the founding congress, three Bagong Sibol members, accompanied by a
SIKAP leader, attended the International Children’s Festival in Moscow.
We saw above that Marcos’s land reform, in leading to the stratification of
the peasantry, also affected the perceptions of the PKP’s rural membership.
Therefore, in late 1975 a preparatory committee was given the task of forming
a mass organization of agricultural workers, i.e., those landless peasants who
had not benefited from land refonn and who were now becoming increasingly
proletarianized by the development of capitalism in the countryside. The
founding conference of the Aniban ng mga Manggagawa sa Agrikultura
(AMA, Union of Agricultural Workers) took place in January 1976. Such was
the growth of the new organization that a year later its first national congress
in Bulacan was attended by a claimed 14,000 rural workers drawn from
provinces from Cebu to Northern Luzon. The president of AMA, Romulo de
Guzman, stated at the congress that the organization’s most urgent objective
was to achieve greater representation and participation in the planning and
implementation of socioeconomic reforms. Marcos appeared to welcome
this when, in a speech read to the congress on his behalf, he declared:
“The farmers are our frontline soldiers in our fight against hunger. Hence, I
am confident to succeed in any reform measure I undertake whenever the
laborers join in the vision and the struggle.”13
In early 1978 the Union de Impresores de Filipinas, the PKP-led printers’
union, took the initiative in establishing another women’s organization,
this time aimed at women in the trade union movement. Commencing
C h a p te r i 6 : M a r c o s R e fu s e s t o P la y 339
with fifty members, seven months later the Samahan ng Kababaihang

Manggagawang Pilipino (SKMP, or Union of Philippine Working Women)
claimed a membership of 1,000 as it prepared for its first congress. The
organization held education seminars for working women on such subjects
as the history of the Philippine labor movement, the theory and practice of
trade unionism, union administration, political economy ( “with the emphasis
on surplus value”), the present national and international labor situation, and
practical labor relations. Through press releases, leaflets, radio interviews,
rallies, and other mass actions, it conducted activity on social, cultural,
and political affairs. The aims of the organization were stated as being the
development of an understanding of “the right concept of unionism” and
promotion of peace, independence, equality, and national development. A
further aim was to “move and support progressive reforms being undertaken
by the government; and to suggest/recommend laws which will benefit
working women." More specifically, the SKMP sought the removal of US
military bases from Philippine soil, the introduction of laws to improve the
protection of working women, improved wages for both male and female
workers, and the Filipinization or nationalization of strategic industries
controlled by foreign investors.14
According to Pomeroy, at least sixteen such mass organizations linked
to the PKP were formed during this period.15 As will be evident from
the foregoing, in part their aims were to push for a more thoroughgoing
implementation of Marcos’s reforms, and in this manner to impart a more
consistently anti-imperialist character to the government itself. At the PKP’s
Seventh Congress in 1977, however, the indications were that these aims
were not being met.
The political settlement meant that the party’s congress in July 1977
was able to be held openly. Moreover, the preparations were more
thorough and democratic than had previously been the case. “For the
first time,” recalls Magallona, “the Party Congress documents were widely
disseminated. We had the broadest discussion because we were able to

translate the documents, mimeograph and distribute them.”16
The result of the congress was a 122-page document entitled For
an Independent and Democratic Philippines consisting of a detailed
and comprehensive political resolution and a revised program. The
latter followed the same lines as that adopted at the 1973 congress, but
now appeared in a more detailed form, as many of the demands were
specifically aimed at the Marcos government. Both documents achieved
an impressive level of sophistication, once again revealing as mistaken the
claim by Nemenzo that the PKP “adopted hook, line and sinker the Soviet
analysis and only substantiated this with Philippine examples.”17 Rather
than “tailing” Marcos or adopting a subservient or sycophantic tone toward
his government, the political resolution constituted a sober assessment of
his regime and a detailed analysis of the forces influencing it.
The more progressive foreign policy pursued by Marcos was explained
not in terms of Marcos’s own characteristics but by virtue of the shift in the
balance of world forces. The chief expression of this new balance of forces
was détente, the process in which developed capitalist states seemingly
settled for peaceful coexistence with the socialist countries and the Cold
War underwent a rapid thaw.
Although not yet fully understood in the Philippines, détente has helped
to a great extent in creating a more favorable political atmosphere in the
country. Because of détente, for example, the anti-communist propaganda
assiduously nurtured by American imperialism through the decades is
gradually being eroded. Instead, the truth about socialist life continues to
filter into the consciousness of Filipinos.
. . . The greatest impact of détente is on Philippine foreign policy.
Détente has not only made it possible but also imperative for the Marcos
administration to establish diplomatic relations with socialist states as
well as with militant countries of the Third World. This could not have
happened ten or twenty years ago when American Cold War propaganda
was riding high in this country . . .
. . . This change must not be underestimated. The Party must exert
every effort allowed by its present state of oiganization to support
this progressive foreign-policy trend. It is our task to contribute to the
C hapter i 6: M a r c o s R e f u s e s to P la y 341
strengthening of this trend that holds the prospect of ranging the

Philippines with other anti-imperialist forces in the world.18
The role of Marcos in striking a more independent stance than his

predecessors was recognized. He had called for a comprehensive re
examination of the US military presence, and in the current negotiations
over the military agreements had declared that Philippine sovereignty over
the bases was “non-negotiable.” Following the Nairobi meeting of the UN
Conference on Trade and Development, he had announced a policy of
“non-alliance,” which he explained as “a foreign policy of independence
and a domestic policy of self-reliance.”19 The government had announced
its intention to join the Non-Aligned Movement (although in fact Vietnam
opposed the Philippines’ admission at the movement’s Lima conference
due to the presence of US bases on its soil). Consistently, the Philippines
now voted “for all the measures aimed at strengthening the NIEO [New
International Economic Order] movement ” The previous year, Manila had
hosted a ministerial conference of the Group of 77 (the poor countries
within the UN) at which Marcos had submitted a key proposal for the
creation of a commodity fund for developing countries which, despite US
opposition, was adopted.
It was acknowledged, however, that while there were shifts in a
progressive direction at the level of policy pronouncement, in practice
imperialism was achieving its aims with regard to the neocolonial
restructuring of the Philippine economy. Thus, the Maoist characterization
of imperialism as a “paper tiger” was erroneous. While the martial law
regime had opened areas of flexibility and independence in Philippine
politics and foreign policy, the “basic character of Philippine society as a
neocolonial enclave of the world imperialist system” was unchanged and,
moreover, “the trend towards political independence has not yet taken
an irreversible course. All indications, in fact, point to renewed efforts
on the part of imperialist forces to halt and contain the trend of national
independence and social progress to ensure their hegemony in this part of
the world.”20 Thus,
34* A M o v e m e n t D iv id e d
it is clear that imperialism remains the number one enemy of the

Filipino people. The main contradiction at the present stage of national
development is between the narrow interest for profit and domination
by the imperialist countries led by the United States and the patriotic
and democratic aspirations of the broad ranks of the Filipino masses for
political and economic independence, peace, progress and equality. It is
primarily on this basis that the class alignment and the relation of forces in
the Philippine society must be correctly assessed.21
On the domestic front, although the colonial influence was still dominant
in education and the media, it was recognized that the government had
made attempts, albeit limited, to minimize this. The creation of new political
structures— the barangays and the sangguniang bayan— was seen as having
“the potential of developing into real instruments of people’s power. If they
do, by virtue of the organized strength of the masses themselves, then
democracy will have genuine substance, not only the hollow shell or form
as was the case before martial law.”22 With regard to the US military bases,
the political resolution noted that while the Marcos government wished
to assert Philippine sovereignty over them, it stopped short of demanding
their complete withdrawal. The government’s main weakness in this regard
was seen as its “failure to communicate with the broad masses of the
people as to the necessity of removal of US military bases, and mobilize
their support behind this position.”23
The congress observed that the martial law regime, while embarking
on an objectively progressive direction in some areas, had taken a
“contradictory position” in others, particularly the economy. Its heavy
dependence on foreign capital and loans, like its labor policies, favored the
transnational corporations— to the extent that such policies were
incompatible with the requirements of the New International Economic

Order. The officially sanctioned domination by the World Bank, Asian
Development Bank and the International Monetary Fund is a glaring
departure from the general movement for economic independence
in the Third World. It contradicts the official claim of the martial law
administration that self-reliance is the key to independence.24
C h a p te r i 6: M a r c o s R e fu s e s to P la y 343
The advantages of the central planning approach adopted by the

government had been rendered null and void by the fact that the main
beneficiary was foreign monopoly capital which, despite the expansion
of the public sector, remained the dominant sector of the economy.
While the expansion of the public sector had given rise to hopes that the
Philippines was moving toward a mixed economy, a “closer examination,
however, would reveal that this trend is not being consciously pursued
as a component of economic independence but as a form of pragmatic
adjustment to objective problems as well as a response to the pressures of
foreign monopoly capital.”25The congress therefore concluded that:
the government’s role in the economy has no definite rationale. It varies

from crisis to crisis and shows vulnerability to monopoly designs and
pressures. Progressive developments in the oil industry and sugar export
trade contrast sharply with wasteful investments in tourism projects
and existing policies of government financing institutions. This in turn
reflects the continued dominance of monopoly forces in state planning
as well as the weakness of the nationalist forces in pushing for economic
independence.26
Against these developments, the PKP counterposed the perspective of

nationalist industrialization in which, if only due to the inability of the local
bourgeoisie to provide the requisite levels of investment, the state sector
would be required to assume a leading role. Unlike the documents of the
1973 congress, however, the political resolution and program adopted in
1977 stopped short of projecting the noncapitalist path of development
and, indeed, the program’s prescription for the state sector could be
described as social-democratic in that it recommended public ownership
in utilities, infrastructure and energy, and joint ventures between the public
and private sectors in other industries.27 Magallona explains that pursuit of
the noncapitalist path “lost emphasis” at this congress, and that “at the end
of the 1970s the martial law regime became much more controversial. . .
There was a deterioration in the prospects for the noncapitalist path, and
I think there was much more emphasis on the democratic platform.”28
Therefore, the party contented itself by repeating the long-term aim of
socialism used at the end of the 1973 program and using the following
“coded” formulation to outline the possibilities during the anti-imperialist
stage.
The strength and role of the state sector in any economy . . . are dependent
on the relation of political forces. If the masses are united, organized and
supported by the progressive intellectuals and capitalists, if they have a
decisive influence on how the powers of government are wielded, then
the state sector will consistently pursue an anti-imperialist direction and
create new conditions for real democratization of wealth and popular
participation in economic planning and development.
If, on the other hand, the masses and their allies are weak, and
the forces of monopoly capital are strong, the state sector will play a
subordinate role which is often limited to facilitating the profit-making
activities of the wealthy few. The government will not have the political
will to consistently gear the economy towards nationalist industrialization,
real independence, social justice, and popular participation in the planning
and implementation of economic programs.29
On the labor front, the party welcomed the fact that the labor force
had grown by two million due to the agrarian reform measures and the
encouragement of small- and medium-sized businesses, but noted that
the conditions of the working class had deteriorated. While government
statistics showed a decline in the level of unemployment, “Party research
reveals that unemployment and underemployment taken together actually
ran between 30-45 percent.”30 There was a steady erosion of real wages due
to inflation and inadequate increases in the minimum wage; moreover, 80
percent of workers (the unorganized) received less than the legal minimum.
Official figures showed that in Manila 61.8 percent of families were below
the “adequate food threshold,” just over 28 percent were at starvation level,
while 83 percent fell below the “adequate total threshold” (a combination
of food, housing, clothing indices, etc.).31
The party concluded that labor had benefited least of all from the
government’s reform programs, due to the “inherently anti-labor bias” of
labor legislation and the capitalist orientation of the economy. Although
strikes in “non-vital” industries were in theory now permitted, disputes were
C h apter i 6: M a r c o s R e fu s e s to P la y 345
so strictly regulated that the “right” was virtually meaningless. The new
system of arbitration under the auspices of the National Labor Relations
Committee was a recipe for bureaucratization and delay and the annual
average of 15,000 cases was indicative not of the growth of workers’
confidence but of an increase in management abuses which would have
been checked in the past by strike action. Increasingly, the CIA-influenced
Asian-American Free Labor Institute (AAFLI), organizations supported by the
Christian Democrats of West Germany such as the Friedrich Eburt Stiftung
and foreign missionaries were influencing the larger trade union federations;
the Trade Union Congress of the Philippines in particular was closely allied
with the AAFU and was discrediting itself in the eyes of workers.
The PKP’s political resolution paid considerable attention to the
agrarian reform program— the “cornerstone” of Marcos’s “New Society.”
While it was true that this was liquidating the old semifeudal relationships
in the countryside, these were
being transformed into increasingly oppressive capitalist relations. The

operations of large-scale plantations and corporate farms are extending
the wage system to thousands of agricultural workers. The extensive
penetration of capital into the countryside is likewise vividly seen in
the proliferation of rural banks, the widespread reign of cash or money
economy, and the intensive promotion of modem methods of farming
which entail the use of commodities being produced or marketed by
transnational firms—e.g., fertilizer, tractors, pesticides, etc. In this, the
role of foreign monopoly capital is exemplified in the activities of the
World Bank whose loans are heavily financing the whole rural credit
system through the Philippine National Bank, Development Bank of the
Philippines and the national network of rural banks.32
Furthermore, the implementation of the program itself was suffering

from the “weak and vacillating character of the implementing bourgeois
leadership,”33 by the absence of meaningful participation by the peasantry
and the tendency of the bureaucracy to impose policies without
consultation. The shortcomings of the agrarian reform program were seen
to be its limited scope, the slowness of its implementation, and the fact that
tenants of land below the seven-hectare retention limit were not covered
(a condition of retention, said the congress, should be that these lands be

farmed cooperatively, employing the labor of their former tenants). While
the landless had grown in number but were left to fend for themselves, the
peasantry was forced to shoulder an onerous financial burden due to the
fact that transnational corporations were supplying equipment and inputs
at high prices (the congress suggested the creation of state enterprises
to provide these requirements at low cost), and the samahang nayons
were slow to be formed and were plagued by “the absence of concrete
understanding by and meaningful participation of the masses.”34
These problems, said the congress,
only serve to heighten the need to organize and struggle for the complete
and just implementation of agrarian reform. It is necessary to strengthen
and expand the organization of small peasants and workers that will
protect and advance their common class interests. Links with already
existing groups and agencies, both public and private, should be forged.
Now is the time to act because the landlords are organized and peasant
associations with dubious objectives are cropping up. Furthermore, the
Maoists and some Church elements, in collusion with the landlords, are
out to sabotage the agrarian reform program.35*
The question of organizing the masses to exert pressure on the regime

was seen as crucial by the PKP as, while it recognized that Marcos had
adopted reactionary stances in many fields, it was not yet ready to write
him off completely, considering that it was still possible to force him to
adopt a more consistently anti-imperialist position. The party’s view of the
Marcos regime is best expressed by the following passage from the political
resolution.
But why has the government failed to be consistently on the side of the
objective interests of the masses?
The answer lies in the weakness of the forces of the working people
who must apply organized pressure and mobilize mass participation in
order to protect and advance their own interests . . .
'lTiis is a reference to the CPP-NPA’s policy of dissuading agrarian reform beneficiaries

from remitting their amortization payments to the Land Bank. See chapter 12.
C h a p t e r i 6 : M a r c o s R e fu s e s t o P la y 347
The ruling regime is continuously caught in the act of balancing

between the pressures and counter-pressures of the Filipino masses, on
the one hand, and the imperialist, oligarchic and reactionary interests, on
the other. It attempts at some independent course but at the same time it
succumbs to imperialist pressure on specific issues. It sets up the posture
of being independent and self-reliant in politics but cannot extend this to
economics. It wants to make a name in history but it cannot get out of
the imperialist-defined perspective. It cannot see its way clear through an
anti-imperialist position and in the absence of mass pressure, it pursues its
own interests.36
To a certain extent, the PKP’s decision as to whether it should maintain

its position of critical support for the government was influenced by an
evaluation of the alternatives to Marcos. Obviously, as it had not yet been
possible to rally the masses to exert sufficient pressure on Marcos to force
him to act in a more consistently independent manner, it was even less of a
possibility that a more radical anti-imperialist government would arise if he
was deposed. A guide to the character of possible successors was given by
the party’s analysis of the political opposition.
The litmus test which the PKP applied to any domestic grouping
was the way in which it was regarded by the USA. With regard to Marcos
himself, the political resolution noted that the US attitude had swung from
one of cautious support in his first term to growing hostility, especially
once martial law had been declared. What the USA required were puppets
in the “classical mould” to protect its political and economic interests. To
this end, the US administration had been pressuring Marcos to lift martial
law and hold elections, using President Jimmy Carter’s “human rights”
crusade as a battering ram. Many of the opposition groups, on the other
hand, enjoyed US support.
While the church now opposed the martial-law regime, some church
officials arrived at such a position through self-interest, being both “feudal
and pro-imperialist in outlook.”37 The radical Church elements on the other
hand, while “sincere and well-meaning,” had an insufficient understanding
of the nature and role of imperialism and shared the Maoists’ inability to
differentiate between anti-Marcos and anti-imperialist struggles.
On the right were Marcos’s political and economic rivals, some of whom
had formed a loose alliance with the church and the Maoists. Of the few who
were sincerely motivated and genuinely desirous of a return to democracy,
the PKP commented: “If they expand their narrow anti-Marcos political
line into an anti-imperialist one and broaden their call for ‘restoration of
democracy’ to include mass participation in all levels of government, then
they can truly be part of the movement for progressive change.”38 The feudal
landlords, on the other hand, were the “bulwark of reaction.”
The Maoists were seen as clinging to survival through alliances with
feudal landlords, Church elements, and anti-Marcos politicians “with direct
and indirect imperialist support.”39 Even so, many were young and sincere
and it was in the interests of the anti-imperialist movement that they be
“won back and shown the correct path of struggle.”40
The Muslim secessionists in the south were regarded with considerable
understanding by the PKP. The party frowned on the movement’s links
with Libya but recognized that the operations of the TNCs had been one of
the direct causes of the large-scale armed confrontation that had occurred
during the martial-law period; neither was Marcos totally blameless, for his
pre-martial law record on this issue had been largely negative, although
his government was now responding positively by promoting Muslim
culture and granting a semblance of autonomy. The PKP disagreed with the
demand for secession, calling instead for Muslim autonomy in those areas
where they were in the majority and for the development of Christian-
Muslim unity in the struggle for national and popular democracy.
Given this analysis of the opposition to Marcos, the PKP decided that
the best way to develop the anti-imperialist movement was to continue
to attempt to influence those of Marcos’s policies which were deemed
progressive and, in so doing, to attempt to impart a greater measure of
consistency to his anti-imperialist positions.
C h a p t e r i 6 : M a r c o s R e fu s e s t o P la y 349
3
The extent of Marcos’s own commitment to genuine national
independence was judged by his position on the US military bases, and
from the earliest days of the political settlement the PKP sought to influence
him on this issue. In May 1975 the central committee sent him an open letter
in which, in view of the forthcoming negotiations with the USA (which
would last four years!) the party “thought it appropriate to inform you of
our stand regarding this matter, in the hope that it will help you in some
way in making the very important decisions close at hand.”41 The party’s
ow n position was for total abrogation of the Mutual Defense Treaty and the
Military Assistance Pact, but it was recognized that acceptance of this by
the regime “might involve certain risks that the country may not yet be able
to cope with in the present situation.” If, therefore, immediate abrogation
could not be realized, “initial phases” could be implemented, including joint
command, protection of the rights of Filipino base employees, prohibition
of nuclear weapons, the termination of the US military advisory group, and
the payment of appropriate rent. If it took decisive steps, the government
might v eil be subjected to “tremendous US pressure and harassment
in the form of tightening of credit, adverse propaganda in the Western
press, and support of subversive forces seeking to overthrow it.” However,
the Philippines could obtain loans from Arab countries, and the socialist
countries would provide moral support.”Most of all, the force of the people
united behind your progressive efforts will deter any attempt at sabotage.”
During this period, Marcos provided scope for some optimism on
this issue— at least by his public pronouncements. During a speech on
Independence Day, 1976, he defined the four fundamental aspects of
struggle for national independence as “the struggle to attain a dignified
place in the family of nations; the struggle to maintain national peace
and security; the struggle to attain full economic independence; and
the struggle to attain social, political and social progress.”42 Earlier, in a
speech to the AFP command and general staff college, he had identified
the need to “create our own independent image as a nation that makes
its own decisions and assumes the primary responsibility for its growth
and progress.” Until recently, he said, the Filipino people had been “mere
adjuncts in a Cold War coalition” but the Philippines would now “cease to
be mere pawns in conflicts involving the Great Powers” and “shall refuse to
be drawn into the quarrels of the great.”43
In a letter to Marcos, the PKP observed that these comments
have placed in a much sharper focus the fact that those military bases
constitute the most glaring blight to our national independence . . . The
real reason for the maintenance of US military bases in the Philippines
as well as other parts of Asia is to safeguard the security of foreign
investments, particularly US investments, from the assertion of economic
independence on the part of Third World countries.44
There was thus a contradiction, the party pointed out, between Marcos’s
stated desire for economic independence and the continued presence of
the bases. Moreover, they isolated the Philippines from the Third World and
had resulted in the country being denied observer status at the Ministerial
Meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement in Lima the previous year. Due
to the anticipated repercussions of a demand for immediate withdrawal,
the PKP suggested an extension of the bases agreement of short duration
with new conditions “that will progressively remove US presence from
those bases, until complete removal is . . . achieved in the shortest time
possible.”45
In the referendum held in December 1977 to decide whether Marcos
should continue as both president and prime minister, the PKP urged
voters to use the “remarks” column on the voting papers to insert a number
of demands, one being the immediate withdrawal of the US bases.46 As
the negotiations dragged on, tension grew between the martial-law regime
and the USA, with the latter intervening in the elections to the Interim
Batasang Pambansa in 1978. It was at this stage that, responding to a US
suggestion that the Philippines should share the “burden” of maintaining
the bases, Marcos’s Defense Secretary Juan Ponce Enrile snapped that
the USA needed them more than did the Philippines.47 Earlier in the
C h apter i 6: M a r c o s R e f u s e s to P lay 351
year, a visit by US Vice-President Walter Mondale was seen as aiming to

strengthen the US bargaining position in the negotiations, leading thirty-
four trade union organizations influenced by the PKP to demand “that the
government BE FIRM IN PURSUING AND STRUGGLING FOR NATIONAL
SOVEREIGNTY. The Filipino people wholeheartedly stand behind the
present administration in all its efforts to stop foreign meddling in our
national affairs, to uphold national dignity and to struggle for complete
political and economic independence."48
The bases negotiations were finally completed in 1979. While Marcos
obtained some “concessions”— notably that the bases would henceforth
be recognized as Philippine property— these fell well short of the PKP’s
hopes. The politburo issued a statement49 in which it charged that the
amendments merely reflected “the adjustments in the strategic interests
of US imperialism in the region,” consistent with the Nixon Doctrine of
“Asianizing” US imperialism’s regional security system. The statement
deplored the fact that the Philippine people were kept in the dark regarding
their government’s position, let alone consulted over the proposals, and
that the transaction was on the basis of secret agreements between the
two governments. The party now called for a “united stand of all patriotic
and anti-imperialist forces— including those in active military service— ”
to remove the US military presence, suggesting that genuine Philippine
control of the installations and weaponry should be achieved by the AFP
taking them over by 1984 (at which time the agreements were due for their
first comprehensive review). In order for the Marcos government to adopt
such a position, there would be required
the most intense struggle . . . waged by a broad united front of anti

imperialist forces in the form of education campaigns among the vast ranks
of the people, in the form of agitation and propaganda and varied forms
of mass mobilization and actions. This massive drive should involve the
military personnel as well as all levels of civilian government personnel.
In the same statement, the PKP also sent a message to the CPP by
condemning the “Chinese collusion with US imperialism, specifically with
respect to the continued presence of US military bases in the Philippines.”
As with the US bases, so with the other issues on which Marcos initially
adopted a progressive stand. The PKP found that he would issue fine-
sounding declarations of his intention to forge an independent path or to
lift the people from their impoverishment, only to retreat in the face of US
pressure, while martial-law conditions prevented the kind of mobilization
of popular forces that would have been necessary to effectively counter
such pressure.
The PKP made use of every possible opportunity to argue for the
lifting of martial law. However, rather than issuing blunt demands that
would be ignored, the party chose to put forward reasoned arguments
which at least held out the possibility of being acknowledged. Thus, three
days before the plebiscite called in October 1976 to determine whether
martial law should continue, Felicísimo Macapagal wrote to Marcos to
indicate that the PKP viewed the event as an opportunity for stocktaking.*
He acknowledged that the government had “in some respects veered away
from the influence of imperialism and responded to the interest of the
people.”51 The PKP leader listed what the party considered to be positive
and negative aspects of Marcos’s administration, examples of the latter
being its heavy dependence on foreign “aid” and capital, the capitalist
orientation of the land reform program, and the “resurgence of widespread
corruption in many government offices and the unrestricted profiteering of
many companies amidst growing inflation and greater impoverishment of
the workers.” Macapagal openly stated that the PKP would “make or break
alliance with any political group or government or will support or oppose
any government program” as dictated by the interests of the Filipino
working people. While the government had launched some positive
measures, “it has also set in motion certain countervailing measures that
Pedro Baguisa recalls that “some comrades, including the Lavas, wanted to support
martial law, but in the central committee most level-headed comrades argued that
supporting this kind of regime would lead history to condemn us . . . Our line was
critical support, so we would tirelessly condemn the regime’s violations of human rights
and civil liberties.””
C h apter i 6: M arco s R e f u s e s to P lay 353
tend to offset the projected gains from these reforms.” This, said Macapagal,
w as a direct result of the absence of mass participation in the formulation
and implementation of the reforms.
In this light, the PKP feels that it is about time that Martial Law be lifted
in order to pave the way for greater mass involvement in governmental
affairs. As it is, the masses cannot organize fully, despite their enthusiasm
for reforms, because of the climate of fear generated by Martial Law.
Macapagal then proposed the following specific measures:
• safeguarding of the rights to strike and organize

• development of an independent economy, free from the
domination of foreign capitalists
• extension of agrarian reform to all agricultural lands, with the
plantations being organized into cooperatives
• workers and peasants to be represented at all levels of government,
proportionate to their number
• positions in the barangay and sangguniang bayan to be made
elective
The tone adopted by Macapagal in this letter was maintained when

he sent Marcos copies of the documents adopted by the PKP’s seventh
congress, pointing out that “we have at times outlined the role of your
Administration in a critical light. You must know that this is done with all
honesty of purpose and in the objective interest of the Filipino working
masses.”52
The referendum on December 17, 1977, was called to determine
whether Marcos should continue as both president and prime minister
after the convening of the Interim Batasang Pambansa (National Assembly)
in 1978. While the PKP recommended a “Yes” vote, it saw the whole
exercise as an opportunity for public discussion of the government’s
programs. In a party statement, Macapagal gave the now familiar analysis
of the contradictory trends within the government, quoting passages from
the political resolution of the seventh congress and pointing out that the
masses still did not understand the role of imperialism; added to this was
the emergence of groups representing sections of the economic elite,
whose political platforms are based not on a clearly-drawn anti-imperialist

line but on a simplistic basis of being for or against Marcos. This explains
why the anti-Marcos camp drawls] membership from the extreme right
and ultra-left while the purely pro-Marcos group tends to rally elements
from the right and apologists for the status quo.
Given this reality, the only correct position is to expose the hand
of imperialism in the negative programs of the martial-law administration
and to mobilize the people behind the progressive trends toward national
independence and social progress. This can only be done through mass
education, mass organization and mass struggle.53
The party suggested the insertion of several demands on the “remarks”

sheet of the ballot paper, including the lifting of martial law; restoration
of the right to strike; the extension of agrarian reform; strict control of
transnational corporations and the nationalization of key industries;
immediate withdrawal of the US bases; and the strengthening of relations
with the socialist countries, the Third World, and the Non-Aligned
Movement.
In late 1977 and early 1978, relations between the USA and the Marcos
regime soured as the former began to bring pressure to bear on Marcos
regarding the “succession” question, suggesting that an election be called
to determine this. Marcos was quite willing to hold elections— and these
were called for the Interim Batasang Pambansa in April 1978— but he
had no intention of relinquishing office himself. Quite apart from this, the
USA saw the election period as an opportunity to exert pressure on the
Philippine government in the ongoing negotiations on the bases and for a
new economic treaty.
The PKP on the other hand saw in this situation “good openings for
specific forms of propaganda and agitation along anti-imperialist themes
Central to the party’s tactics in this period was its understanding of Marcos’s
position. This saw
C h apter i 6: M a r c o s R e f u s e s to P lay 355
opportunism or pragmatism as the main formula in foreign policy,

whereby utmost benefits are expected from whichever side can offer
the best bargain that might objectively contribute to the viability of the
political leadership of President Marcos . . . Hence, the developments in
the Marcos Administration that take on a [pro-] imperialist character [do]
not have the character of a world view or a comprehensive position. It is
more useful for the Party therefore to take a close watch of specific events
that can be exploited by our correct tactical policies on anti-imperialism
in order to broaden the understanding of the Party’s anti-imperialist line
among the masses.
An example of such a specific event was the collapse of the US

preferential sugar market and the successful lobbying by Hawaiian
and Texan planters for tariff protection, in addition to which the Carter
administration had slapped a further surcharge on sugar imports. This
opened up the possibility of pushing Marcos into closer relations with the
socialist countries. Furthermore, it was believed in government circles that
the USA had been behind attempts on Marcos’s life. Even less open to
doubt was the fact that the USA was “coddling” and giving direct assistance
to those well-heeled opponents of Marcos known as “steak commandos”
who had sought refuge in the USA, and openly supporting “Ninoy” Aquino
(at the time still imprisoned in the Philippines). The US media, in the
meantime, was stepping up its attacks on Marcos, his wife and the “crony
capitalists.” All of this could also push Marcos further toward the socialist
camp, and so the PKP counselled against discounting the possibility that
Marcos’s “posture of opportunism” toward the socialist countries could
develop into a “posture of principle” as a result of struggle. During the
election period, the party therefore committed itself to an attempt to open
“various united-front links with the Marcos Administration on the basis of
an anti-imperialist line . . . The Party should not hesitate in projecting these
united-front links in terms of publicity calculated to the exacerbation of the
contradictions between the Marcos Administration and the US.”55
In other words, the party sought to provoke further US pressure
against Marcos in the hope that this would push him closer to the socialist
countries. It was fully realized, however, that Marcos could succumb to
US pressure, and thus the party stressed the need to strongly counter
such tendencies, warning at the same time of “the danger of opportunism
in [our] own ranks, which becomes more real as the united front tactics
develop in practice.”
During the election campaign, Marcos’s Kilusang Bagong Lipunan
(KBL, or New Society Movement, the party he had formed after the
declaration of martial law) at first campaigned on the basis of its past
performance, but halfway through it shifted emphasis to the issue of foreign
interference, accusing the opposition party in Metro Manila of receiving
foreign support. Marcos himself charged that both the USA and Japan,
anxious to protect their political and economic interests, were meddling
in the political affairs of the Philippines; he cited the several occasions on
which the US government had attempted to intercede on behalf of “Ninoy”
Aquino as an example of this.
In a twelve-page paper signed by Macapagal,56 the PKP pointed out
that this was the first time in the postwar history of the country that a
government had “initiated a discussion on American intervention and
exposed foreign machinations to subvert the political independence of
the country.” Thus, the electoral exercise was considered “a major advance
for the Philippine anti-imperialist movement . . The party pointed
out, moreover, that this was but the latest development arising from the
“intensifying contradictions” between the Marcos regime and the US
government. In the month of January alone, Marcos had a bitter exchange
with US assistant secretary of state Pat Derian on the issue of human rights;
his finance secretary had revealed that the US side in the negotiations on
a new economic treaty were seeking the return of parity rights; defense
secretary Enrile had indicated that the USA needed the military bases more
than did the host country; and Marcos had approved amendments to the
Patent Law aimed at ensuring the transfer of technology by foreign investors
and to tackle abuses by TNCs, especially transfer pricing and outrageous
profits in the drugs industry.
The PKP document also made the point that Marcos’s opportunism
(referred to on this occasion more politely as a “pragmatic, centrist
C h apter i 6: M a r c o s R e fu s e s to P lay 3 57
position”) was in actual fact a step forward compared to the “sheer

puppetry” of previous administrations. It was this very pragmatism, the
party explained, that, due to its unpredictability, had led the imperialists to
conclude that Marcos must be destabilized in order to “hasten the resolution
o f the succession in their favor.” The document quoted a Japanese
businessman as typical: “This uncertainty, together with the present global
crisis, makes it difficult to formulate any long-range programs in a five-year
perspective, such as improvement and perfection of facilities, consolidation
of personnel-employees, and market forecasts.”
Thus, the elections had led to “massive support” by imperialist forces
to the anti-Marcos camp, with “over a hundred foreign correspondents,
mostly American journalists and CIA paid hacks”57 reporting all opposition
statements. The united-front tactics pursued by the PKP bore fruit, as this
period saw the youth arm of the government, led by Marcos’s own daughter
Imee, taking part in anti-imperialist marches and demonstrations outside
the US Embassy. There was no denying, however, that the elections also
exposed the martial-law regime’s “vulnerable points”— the poverty of the
masses, corruption, and the failure of the reform programs. The opposition,
however, advanced no solutions to these problems and so were merely
out to destabilize the regime to their own advantage. The “noise barrage”
conducted in Metro Manila during this period almost succeeded in doing
so, but the PKP pointed out that this was a tactic imported from Chile.
Indeed, the morning after the “barrage” some US newspapers had run
headlines about a “revolution” in the Philippines and this, the PKP said,
indicated that there had been a plan to bring down the government in the
closing stages of the campaign.
Throughout the campaign, the PKP itself had conducted a “massive
educational campaign on the issue of imperialism and its role in Philippine
society.” Now the elections were over, that task had to be continued,
strengthening the “present trends for national independence” by “the
collective might of the Filipino people.”58
Despite the positive signs, however, the PKP was unable to muster
enough pressure to push Marcos into a more consistent anti-imperialist
position. Even in the run-up to the 1978 elections there was a strong
indication that Marcos was not willing to take such a step anyway. This w as
provided by the decision of the National Security Council (NSC) to deny
the PKP the right to register and therefore participate in the elections. In
February, Macapagal wrote to Marcos to express the party’s “great dismay
and disappointment,” pointing out that the NSC decision appeared to have
been based on a press campaign which had alleged that the PKP had still
not fully abandoned the aim of overthrowing the government. Macapagal
expressed the belief that the decision “confirmed that the roots of national
disunity direcdy traceable to our colonial past are still well entrenched in
our society, as evidenced by the Cold War-type misreading of the motives
and objectives of the PKP as a political party by certain quarters in
government.”59 Even before the NSC decision, there had been difficulties
in registering as an electoral party anyway, as the Commission on Elections
had insisted that in order to register as a national party the head office
would have to be specified. An attempt to find office space, however, met
with resistance from property owners. Magallona recalls:
We examined a lot of possibilities. We could have registered at an

office where we would be a mass organization as far as the owner
was concerned. That could have been done very conveniently. But the
possibilities were, considering the activities that would take place in that
office, that the owner (if the building would most likely know and we
would be booted out. It turned out to be very complicated.60
In this same period, Marcos himself—possibly in order to assure the

Americans that, despite his present differences with Washington, he was
not “soft on communism”— made a mischievous reference to the PKP’s
“surrender en masse” in 1974 in his report Five Years o f the New Society. An
indignant Macapagal reminded him:
We insisted, and your representatives agreed, that our decision to forge a

National Unity Agreement with your government should not be interpreted
as “surrender." Consequently, throughout the year-long negotiations, in the
meetings with your Excellency and in PD 571 granting amnesty to the
C h apter i 6 M ar c o s R e f u s e s to P lay 3 59
PKP and its mass organizations, there was never any reference to any
“surrender . .
In the interest of truth and fairness, therefore, we are registering our
protest over this inaccurate portrayal of the PKP’s decision to enter into
[the] National Unity Agreement with your government.61
Later the same year, an editorial in the Philippine Daily Express lumped
the PKP together with the CPP, prompting a letter from a retired AFP
colonel, Greg R. Perez, which, although ostensibly an attempt to set the
record straight, actually constituted further mischief-making. Perez, who
had participated in the negotiation of the unity agreement, while praising
the PKP for the thoroughness with which it had explained the 1974
settlement to its members and followers, and arguing that the party should
no longer be considered a threat to national security, both described its past
“subversion and violent pursuits” as “bygone adventures” and claimed that,
despite its failure to gain legal status as an electoral party, it had supported
all of Marcos’s KBL candidates.62 Macapagal replied that the PKP valued its
record of struggle despite “massacre, torture and long-term imprisonment,”
and that to term this “the ways of subversion and violent pursuits” was
both a “subversion of historical truth” and “simpleminded.” The PKP, said
Macapagal, had a different interpretation of the term “national security,”
defining this as the interests of the working people. National security,
therefore, was threatened by TNCs and the agencies of US imperialism. For
the record, the PKP leader pointed out that the party had supported only
selected KBL candidates in the recent elections.63
Of course, the political setdement was easily caricatured as “surrender”
or “alliance.” This is precisely what the CPP did, and by the late 1970s it was
joined by those liberal human rights activists and foreign journalists whose
interest in the Philippines grew as Marcos’s relations with Washington
deteriorated and President Carter began to emphasize the Philippine
government’s record in this respect; and, of course, that record became
progressively worse as the NPA began to recover from its earlier reverses,
giving rise to increased abuses by the military. By the end of the decade,
the PKP was coming under considerable pressure regarding its relationship
36o A M o v e m e n t D iv id e d
with Marcos. On the one hand, there appeared to be less and less prospect
of its policy succeeding, while on the other the party was being attacked
for that very policy. According to Magallona, due to the efforts of the
Catholic Church
Marcos became really so unpopular that no one would touch any of

his policies. There, we came under attack, and while we developed our
opposition to be with the human rights movement and the democratic
forces, the political setdement became at that time a bad memory. While
we were working with democratic organizations, some of them were
attacking us for being pro-Marcos. That was a difficult situation.64
Eventually, the party concluded that the potential which had given rise
to the political setdement of 1974 was not going to be realized and, at its
Eighth Congress in 1980, it withdrew its qualified support for Marcos.
N o tes
1. Editorial, “Consolidate Ideological Gains!” Ang Buklod, vol. 1, no. 1, February-

March, 1975.
2. “The Party’s Legalization Drive: Realities and Challenges,” Ang Buklod, vol. 1,
no. 1, February-March 1975.
5. Ibid.
6. Katipunan ng mga Bagong Pilipina, “Feminism and Filipino Rural Women:
Looking Towards the Future,” March 1991.
7. Katipunan ng mga Bagong Pilipina, “KaBaPa’s Indigenous Training System,”
undated.
8. SIKAP, First Annual Report, June 27, 1977.
9. Ibid.
11. SIKAP, First Annual Report.
12. Expressiveek, May 19, 1977.
13- Daily Tribune, January 13, 1977.
14. SKMP, “Brief Report of the Samahan ng Kababaihang Manggagawang Pilipino,”
September 25, 1978.
C h a p t e r i 6 : M a r c o s R e fu s e s t o P la y 36 1
15. William Pomeroy, The Philippines. Colonialism, Collaboration and Resistance!

17. Francisco Nemenzo Jr. in Marxism in the Philippines (Quezon City: University
of the Philippines, Third World Studies Center, 1984), 11. When interviewed
by the author in January 2008, Nemenzo very disarmingly acknowledged:
“Maybe that was self-criticism, because most of those I wrote myself. It was an
uncritical acceptance of the Soviet line.”
18. Quoted in PKP, For an Independent and Democratic Philippines, 1977, 26-27.
19. Ibid., 11-12, 67.
20. Ibid, 78-79.
21. Ibid., 79.
22. Ibid., 30-31.
23. Ibid., 71.
24. Ibid., 27.
25. Ibid., 40.
26. Ibid., 41.
27. See ibid., I ll,
28. Merlin Magallona, interview by the author, March 2009.
29. PKP, For an Independent and Democratic Philippines, 42.
30. Ibid., 44.
31. Ibid., 46.
32. Ibid., 44-45.
33. Ibid., 52.
34. Ibid., 61-62.
35. Ibid., 63.
36. Ibid., 87-88.
37. Ibid., 91.
38. Ibid., 93.
39. Ibid., 94.
40. Ibid., 95.
41. Felicisimo Macapagal, on behalf of the PKP Central Committee, “Open Letter to
President Ferdinand Marcos,” May 15, 1975.
42. PKP Central Committee to President Ferdinand Marcos, June 14, 1976.
43. Ibid.
44. Ibid
45. PKP Central Committee to President Ferdinand Marcos, March 15, 1977.
46. Felicisimo Macapagal, “On the December 17 Referendum,” PKP circular,
December 1977.
36 i A M o v e m e n t D iv id e d
47. Felicísimo Macapagal, “US Imperialism and Philippine Independence: The

Main Issue in the Parliamentary Election,” twelve-page document issued by the
PKP, 1978.
48. “Let Us Fight against American Pressure," circular issued in the name of thirty-
four trade union organizations, mostly from Metro Manila, 1978.
49. PKP, “Statement of the Politburo of the Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas (PKP)
on the New Amendments to the US Bases Agreement,” Central Luzon, 1979.
50. Baguisa interview.
51. Felicísimo Macapagal to President Ferdinand Marcos, October 13, 1976.
52. Felicísimo Macapagal to President Ferdinand Marcos, February 1, 1978.
53- Felicísimo Macapagal, “On the December 17 Referendum.”
54. PKP, “Developments in the Contradictions between the Marcos Administration
and the United States,” internal document, February 5, 1978.
55. Ibid
56. “US Imperialism and Philippine Independence.”
57. Ibid.
58. Ibid.
59. Felicísimo Macapagal to President Ferdinand Marcos, February 19, 1978.
61. Felicísimo Macapagal to President Ferdinand Marcos, March 14,1978.
62. Greg R. Perez, “PKP No Longer a Threat to National Security,” Philippines Daily
Express, September 19, 1978. Pomeroy encountered Perez while in prison,
describing him as “one who studies and assesses the ideology and documentary
files of our movement, and who listens for nuances and contradictions. An
opponent to take seriously, while laughing at jokes.” See William J. Pomeroy,
Bilanggo (Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press, 2009), 117.
63. Felicísimo Macapagal to Philippines Daily Express, September 23, 1978.
C h apter 1 7 :
F r o m C r it ic a l S u p p o r t
to C o n st r u c t iv e O p p o s it io n
In view of the fact that the Marcos regime had clearly not realized its
nationalist potential, the PKP’s eighth congress was held in December 1980,
less than four years after its predecessor. Although the documents agreed
by the congress were once again professionally produced, the actual
arrangements would appear to have been somewhat hasty, as Magallona
recalls that the leadership was criticized for the fact that the discussion
process ieft much to be desired.1
In many respects, the political resolution echoed that adopted at the
seventh congress, although there were important differences. Thus, a
fairly positive assessment of the international situation was tempered by
the recognition that the USA and its allies had revived the Cold War, a
development that saw the USA resorting to “direct military intervention as
an instrument of national policy in order to maintain access to, if not control
of, strategic areas as well as to prevent the forces of socialism and liberation
from advancing and consolidating their gains.” Furthermore, the election of
Ronald Reagan to the US presidency would see a return to the aim of “strategic
superiority” over the USSR.2 The rise of Japan as not just an economic, but
also a military, power gave rise to concern. On the other hand, the progress
363
of the developing countries in their quest for a New International Economic

Order was painfully slow due to the links of dependency which many such
countries maintained with the imperialist powers.
With regard to the impact on the Philippines of the measures taken
by the imperialist countries in adjusting to crisis, there was no ambiguity
in the PKP’s analysis. Since the declaration of martial law, the economy
had been restructured in favor of foreign capital, while the “transnational
economic stranglehold leads to political developments which strengthen
the repressive character of the state and aligns it even further with the
forces of imperialism.”3 Not only had the regime’s economic policies failed
to alleviate unemployment, social inequality and poverty, but, “far from
helping solve the crisis and defending our national interests against colonial
onslaughts, [they! are only aggravating the crisis still further and weakening
the cause of economic independence and national self-reliance.”4 The
resolution recounted the role of the World Bank-IMF Group in these
developments, with the consequent disastrous impact on the Philippine
business community and the country’s descent into debt slavery. In a clear
break with the recent past, the document continued:
The notable exceptions to the group of Filipino business losers are the
partners and sub-contractors of TNCs. These consist mainly of the well-
publicized economic cronies of President Marcos and the not-so-well
publicized Filipino-Chinese business groups. Based on the available
data, most of the joint ventures set up by the TNCs under martial law
have these local and emergent business groups as partners, apparently
as a consequence of the TNCs’ calculations that the best way to conduct
business is to deal with the friends of the regime.5
The political role of imperialism was underscored in the political

resolution by the incorporation of a new section pointing out that there was
no inconsistency between the extension of new loans by the USA and those
lending agencies under its influence and President Carter’s “human rights”
campaign: the loans simply consolidated imperialism’s economic control
of the Philippines, while allowing the USA to apply political pressure on
issues such as the military bases, and the drive for “political normalization”
C h a p t e r 1 7 : F rom C r it ic a l S u p p o r t to C o n s t r u c t iv e O p p o s it io n 365
was aimed at establishing a political succession which would ensure that

this economic control was not endangered in the future. Thus, links had
been forged with opposition forces. In fact, the USA had “become the
headquarters of some anti-martial law groups which are actively lobbying
in the State Department and US Congress and which are even raising funds
and arms to topple the Marcos regime.” In this, the USA was attempting to
learn from past mistakes such as in Nicaragua and Iran, where it had failed
to groom alternative governments.6
The party noted that in foreign policy the Marcos government had
since the late 1970s tended once more to shadow the USA. “The advance
and retreat of the present regime’s foreign policy inevitably result from
its attempt to adjust to the new balance of forces in the world, on the
one hand, and its vulnerability to imperialist pressure, on the other.” The
Marcos regime’s professed adherence to nonalignment, said the PKP, was
“merely an exercise in rhetoric,”7 as this had not been accompanied by any
serious attempt to remove the US military bases. Earlier in the year, Marcos
had even called for a strong US military presence in order to preserve
the “balance of forces” in Southeast Asia. Bowing to US pressure, Marcos
had refused to allow Soviet warships to dock in the Philippines and the
country’s team had been pulled out of the Moscow Olympics, supporting
Carter’s boycott, called in response to the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan.
Not only had the World Bank programs led to crisis and the extension
and even intensification of poverty, but the “entire bureaucracy is still full
of undesirables and corruption reaches the highest levels o f administration.
The spoils system predominates in the national as well as local government.
The new Parliament, the Interim Batasang Pambansa, is beginning to
look like a second edition of the old Congress.”8 This was much stronger
language than had been used at the seventh congress in 1977. Furthermore,
while the party had previously taken the view that martial law might
legitimately be used to suppress reactionary opposition while progressive
reforms were implemented, the failure to deliver meaningful reform nieant
that the prolongation of martial law, or the retention of its essential features,
amounted to nothing more than “selfish moves on the part of the Marcoses
to simply perpetuate themselves in power.”9 The political survival of the
regime, said the party, was mainly due to the low level of oiganization by
the masses, the divided nature of the opposition, and Marcos’s control of
the media and the military.
The hopes which the party had once expressed for the barangays and
samahang nayons as potential vehicles for popular participation had not
been realized, as these had been hijacked by the economic elite in each
locality, acting as a transmission belt for the policies of national government
rather than providing a forum for the upward transmission of ideas and
suggestions. The principle of election had been ignored in many areas,
with officials being appointed.
Against these developments, the PKP posed the perspective of a
program of nationalist industrialization consisting of the following elements:
• the nationalization and/or Filipinization of “vital and strategic industries”

• control of the TNCs
• the “intensification of the anti-monopoly struggle through cooperatives
and other people’s organizations”
• an expansion of economic ties with other developing countries and
the socialist bloc.
The role of the state sector was delineated more carefully than in
previous congress documents and was characterized by a more cautious
approach. At one stage, for example, the document spoke of the
“eventual nationalization or government ownership and control of the key
industries.”10 Again, mass pressure was called for in order to ensure that the
government was compelled to “redirect” the state sector’s “assistance away
from the TNCs and towards Filipino entrepreneurs.”11
It is likely that the PKP softened its approach to state ownership for
a number of reasons. First, as we shall see, the congress issued a very
clear call for the broadening and increased unity of the anti-imperialist
forces, and it obviously wished to win the national bourgeoisie to such
a position— something which would have been much more difficult if
the party had projected the state sector primarily as the basis for a future
socialist economy. Second, it is possible that, given the tighter “stranglehold”
C h a p t e r 17 : F ro m C r it ic a l S u pp o r t to C o n s t r u c t iv e O p p o s it io n 36 7
in which the Philippines was now gripped by the TNCs and the World
Bank-IMF Group, the party took the view that the national-democratic
stage of the revolution would take a lengthy period to complete, let alone
the socialist stage. Finally, as Magallona admitted a decade later, the party
had realized that the whole issue of state ownership had becom e more
sensitive than hitherto, due to the corrupt uses to which it was being put
by Marcos and his cronies.12
Therefore, rather than demanding that the state sector be assigned the
leading role in the economy, the political resolution reiterated the view
put forward at the 1977 congress that its role would be determined by the
balance of forces. It was implied that the state sector was viewed as a force
for assisting Filipino capitalists as much as anything else. Although it was
also implied that a program of nationalist industrialization was still possible
under the Marcos regime, Magallona explains that the party’s program for
economic independence was “more an advocacy of the objective needs of
the country.” Even so, the party felt that there still existed some possibilities
under Marcos, based on the party’s observation that tension was mounting
between the TNCs and the Marcos cronies and the fact that in 1979 Marcos
had announced his eleven ambitious industrial projects.13 (See chapter 15.)
The document made it clear that the adoption of a program of
nationalist industrialization would be contingent upon a number of factors.
Most fundamentally, anti-imperialism would need to become part of the
consciousness of the broadest possible range of class forces, including the
petty bourgeoisie and the “patriotically-inclined segments of the national
bourgeoisie.” With this end in mind, the PKP set itself the task of “the
building up of the widest unity of patriotic and democratic forces, eventually
raising it to such a political level as to influence the correlation of internal
forces in favor of the anti-imperialist movement and the working people.”14
Also, support would be required from other developing countries and the
socialist bloc, from the former in the form of “preferential trade agreements,
soft-term loans, raw-material cartels, joint enterprises, etc.,” while the latter
could provide the “real transfer of technology, the building of heavy industry,
and the provision of a steady, alternative market for traditional and non-
traditional exports.”15 Indeed, the intensification of diplomatic activity which
was taking place between the Philippines and the socialist countries was
one of the factors which led the party to the view that there still remained
some possibility of progress while Marcos was still in power.16
At this congress, the PKP effectively broke free from its political
settlement with Marcos. But it did this without actually declaring as much.
Instead, it reiterated the statement it had made at the time of the settlement
in 1974— that the party “will make or break alliance with any political
group or government or will support or oppose any government program”
as dictated by the interests of the Filipino people. The political resolution
pointed out that the PKP had been true to its word, supporting the positive
reforms of the Marcos regime while criticizing the continuation of martial
law, the restrictions of civil liberties, and the limitations of the reforms and
the manner of their implementation. “The PKP,” the document declared,
“has become increasingly critical of government policies and actuations
that have led to the failure of the reforms, the growth of corruption and the
increased dependence of the country on foreign monopoly capital.”17
As with the previous Filipino administrations the PKP never hesitated to

demonstrate its support for any government measures, no matter how
limited, that tend to boost the country’s political independence just as
it is always prepared to denounce and expose, as it is doing now, those
measures that perpetuate the country’s dependence on foreign powers.18
The clear implication in the document, therefore, was that while the
PKP would continue to oppose the Marcos government if its present course
was maintained, its support would once again be forthcoming if an anti
imperialist position was adopted. Thus, the door was left open. In the
meantime, however, the PKP indicated that it was not prepared to place all
its eggs in this particular basket. “Today, the PKP is ready to work with any
and all groups in all aspects of the struggle against imperialism and for the
removal of all barriers to the realization of a democratic political life which
is essential to national independence and social progress.”19
The party took the view that radical transformation of Philippine society
could not be achieved either by “a narrow group of government technocrats
or a small group of armed revolutionaries,” or by “anarchism and terrorism,
C h a p t e r 17 : F rom C r it ic a l S u pp o r t to C o n s t r u c t iv e O pp o s it io n 369
which only sow fear and confusion among the masses.” Instead, the masses
needed to be mobilized behind the cause of anti-imperialism.
Along this line, the (PKP] seeks frank and constructive dialogue with all
anti-imperialist groups and elements honestly seeking meaningful changes
in society—workers, peasants, landless rural poor, Christians, Muslims,
social democrats, national democrats, intellectuals, women, youth, students,
Filipino industrialists. It lays bare its historical record and its present political
position in order to seek common ground with all progressive forces.20
This increased emphasis on the need for a much higher degree of unity
o f the anti-imperialist forces was so strong that it could be said to constitute
a new, major theme in the political resolution of the eighth congress.
Evidence that the party, having weighed the objective situation and
balance of forces, was taking a more cautious approach and viewing the
liberation process as more protracted than had hitherto been the case, was
to be found in the manner in which the congress viewed the big domestic
capitalists. Whereas previously these had been dismissed as “compradors”
and usually consigned to the enemy camp, now it was noted that, although
they had “extensive interlocking interests with foreign capitalists,” some
had “come into conflict with their foreign partners, especially in the areas
of technology control and foreign trading.”21
In a similar vein, the political resolution also adopted a more
conciliatory line with some of the opposition groups. For example, although
referring to radical Church elements as “a motley group who tend to be
eclectic and even anarchistic in their ideas and actions,” and pointing out
that one such group supported the CPP, some of its members even joining
the NPA, other groups were characterized more positively. One such had
established its own party, the Nagkakaisang Partido Demokratiko Sosyalista
ng Pilipinas (NPDSP, or United Social Democratic Party of the Philippines),
was reported to have armed bands and links with the supporters of Aquino
and Raul Manglapus and, while proclaiming an anti-imperialist and anti
bureaucrat capitalist position, also professed to be anticommunist. Even
so, the PKP viewed many of its members as “sincere mass organizers and
anti-imperialists.” Yet other church radicals were affiliated to no political
organization. “Independent-minded and not dogmatic, they tend to be

more advanced in their analysis of the ills of Philippine society compared
to many of the Maoists who are easily taken in by sheer revolutionary
phrase-mongering.” Generally, the political resolution concluded,
many of the moderate and radical elements in the Church are genuine
activists who are moved by the suffering of their countrymen. Some
have even done a splendid job in taking up the cause of the oppressed
minorities. While it cannot be denied that some Church elements are being
used by the Central Intelligence Agency and other imperialist institutions,
majority of the Church activists, moderates as well as radicals, have the
potentials of becoming staunch anti-imperialist fighters provided they will
have a better exposure to the true nature of imperialism and what is the
right path to take in combating it.22
The party went on to note that within the ranks of the CPP, discussion
was taking place regarding the correctness of some of that party’s basic
principles, i.e., the Maoist analysis of Philippine society and the strategy of
“protracted people’s war.” The fact that these issues were being discussed,
said the political resolution, indicated that both members and leaders of
the CPP could “still be won back to the correct path of struggle.” Then
again, while “Maoist mouthpieces” still slandered the PKP, such attacks had
abated since the early 1970s. These developments led the PKP to state its
willingness to “conduct a frank discussion with the sincere elements of
the CPP on issues that will lead to the strengthening of the anti-imperialist
movement in the country.”23
Even among the ranks of the traditional politicians, the PKP noted that
a number had “strongly come out against the imperialist stranglehold on
the economy,” and that “some basic issues” were being raised in position
papers and caucuses. As an example, UNIDO, the recently formed
opposition grouping led by Salvador Laurel, had “an alternative program
of government which contains anti-imperialist and other progressive
measures, which certainly deserves the support of the masses.”24
It was apparent, however, that the effectiveness of this anti-imperialist
alliance would be impaired by the very real problems encountered in
the two classes which were viewed as the bedrock of the movement—
C h a p t e r 1 7 : F ro m C r it ic a l S u p p o r t to C o n s t r u c t iv e O p p o s it io n 371
the working class and the peasantry. While stopping short of stating the
dilemma quite so dramatically as this, the political resolution certainly did
not romanticize these classes, either. There were a number of problems. The
ban on strikes had only been partially lifted and government employees
were still prohibited from joining trade unions. Furthermore, Marcos had
raised minimum wage levels by presidential decree several times in the
previous three years.
By so doing, the President has practically assumed the role of a national

negotiator for the workers so far as economic benefits are concerned. This
practice has negatively affected the unionization work among unorganized
workers, who tend to rely on increases in wages and allowances decreed
by the government rather than struggle for such benefits through their
collective effort.25
Even more fundamentally, less than ten percent of the eight million wage
workers were “effectively unionized” in that they were covered by collective
bargaining agreements,26 and even these were dispersed among hundreds
of competing federations. In a self-critical tone, the document attributed this
low union density and dispersion to “the failure of progressive organizations
to conduct a comprehensive and systematic program of educating and
organizing workers . . .n27 Other factors responsible for the poor state of
health enjoyed by the labor movement included the encouragement of
“business unionism” since the suppression of the Congress of Labour
Organisations in the early 1950s, regional differences arising from “ethno-
linguistic” variations, and the uneven development of the economy.
Although the political resolution noted a growth in militancy despite the
continued existence of maniai law, the presence of the problems mentioned
above constituted a major stumbling block to progressive change, especially
as the working class was viewed as being “the most potent force for change,
particularly in the struggle for economic and social liberation,” haVing the
“primary role in the anti-imperialist struggle.”28 If, as the PKP prescribed,
a broad anti-imperialist alliance was necessary in order to open the way
to economic independence, that alliance would obviously suffer from the
fundamental problems besetting the working class.
In the rural areas, the situation was even more serious, with less than
five percent of the peasantry and landless poor being organized.29 Land
reform, projected by Marcos as the cornerstone of his “New Society,” had
been successful “only in enhancing capitalist growth.”30 Paradoxically,
those most opposed to land reform were the small landowners, for the
larger landlords were better able to adapt to the situation, moving into
rural banking and agribusiness. The party therefore shifted its position and
urged that the retention limit should not be lowered beneath seven hectares
(subject to the landlord entering a cooperative arrangement with his former
tenants), as the small owners “must become part of the united front against
imperialism and monopoly capital”; it was therefore “important not to
alienate them, but to bring them back to the revolutionary movement.”31 In
the meantime, it was noted that many among the rural masses were
confused about the real roots of their continuing poverty and some have
even accepted it as natural. Only a few understand the commanding role
of agribusiness TNCs in the countryside and how these international
leeches are siphoning off the wealth produced by the land. Many are still
unprepared to accept and help execute cooperative solutions to what are
essentially problems affecting all.32
Thus, in 1980 the sobering truth was that the majority of Filipino
workers had yet to attain trade union consciousness, while the rural masses
remained entangled in the traditional conservatism of the countryside.
While such a truth augured ill for the kind of revolutionary program still
being doggedly pursued by the CPP, it also raised questions about the
more realistic perspective advanced by the PKP.
The PKP’s hopes that Marcos would find it within himself to challenge
transnational capital on anything more than tactical grounds were not
realized.
C h apter 17 : F ro m C r it ic a l S u p p o r t to C o n s t r u c t iv e O pp o s it io n 373
As w e saw in chapter 15, for example, the eleven industrial projects

m ooted by him came to practically naught. Three months after the projects
w ere announced, Industry Minister Roberto Ongpin had attended a meeting
of the Philippines’ creditors (the “Consultative Group”) and, at the request of
the World Bank, “clarified” the thinking behind the projects by announcing
that as far as possible they would be foreign-owned. The Bank continued to
apply pressure, arguing that plans for the steel mill and the petrochemical
com p lex should not proceed— as, of course, these would provide precisely
the kind of backward linkages which would achieve a measure of economic
independence for the Philippines and therefore jeopardize imperialist
control of the economy. Further “clarification” was to come in January 1981,
w hen the Ministry of Industry’s liaison to the World Bank for the structural
adjustment loan explained that all that had been agreed was that feasibility
studies would be undertaken— despite the fact that earlier reports had
indicated that these had already been conducted.33
Similarly, the regime’s announcement that martial law would be lifted
by the end of January 1981 was not seen by the PKP as an occasion for
rejoicing.
To declare the lifting of martial law and at the same time empower the
President/Prime Minister under the Public Order Act (PD 1737) to order
preventative detention, to restrict the “movement and other activities of
persons and entities with a view of preventing them from acting in a manner
prejudicial to the national security," to close “subversive publications or
other media of mass communications,” to control admissions to educational
institutions “whose operations are found prejudicial to the national security”
and to take any measure “to prevent any damage to the viability of the
economic system"—is not to terminate martial law but to perpetuate i t . . .
The proposals, declared the party, represented a continuation of the

martial law conditions which had “obstructed the people’s path in their
struggle for national liberation from imperialist control,” and thus the mass
organizations were called upon to “campaign relentlessly for a genuine
restoration of civil liberties and the repeal of all laws and decrees preventing
the realization of a democratic political life.”34
From this point on, the PKP viewed Marcos as a victim of his own
failure to challenge imperialism and thereby win popular support. Thus,
he was forced to bow to the demands of the USA and the international
financial institutions and follow the path of “political normalization.” In
line with this, a plebiscite in April 1981 rubber-stamped constitutional
amendments providing for the creation of an executive committee, laying
the groundwork for the restoration of the two-party electoral system, and
allowing Marcos to legitimize his continued rule through a presidential
election two months later. The whole exercise, said the PKP, illustrated
the fact that it was “the tragic fate of the Philippines that the direction
of her political and economic life is shaped and determined not by the
independent and collective will of the people but by imperialism and
the local forces subservient to it.” Given the absence of Marcos’s will to
confront imperialism, and the consequent absence of popular support,
the rules of “political normalization” were “manipulated to suit the narrow
requirements of political survival, within the framework set up by foreign
monopoly capital.” Featured in this framework was a very short campaign
period and a system of accreditation favoring “only the well-financed
parties subservient to imperialism.” The PKP therefore urged that
all progressive forces should unite in a campaign to expose not only the
anti-democratic nature of the forthcoming presidential election but also
and above all the “invisible” role of imperialism in the polls. The anti
democratic amendments in the Constitution which are now being put into
operation should be exposed and opposed, especially the setting up of
the Executive Committee whose members may not even be elected by the
people but who may be chosen on the basis of closeness to the World
Bank.
The party also called for a campaign for the right of the masses to set up
their own political parties, with provision for full and active participation in
political life. Furthermore, a constitutional convention should be called in
order to frame “a fundamental law embodying the patriotic and democratic
aspirations of the Filipino people as well as nationalist safeguards against
the demands of foreign monopoly capital over the national patrimony, and
C h a p t e r 17 : F ro m C r it ic a l S u pp o r t to C o n s t r u c t iv e O p p o s it io n 375
providing for the accreditation of political parties representing the interest

o f the working masses.”35
However, the PKP’s new emphasis on the unity of the anti-imperialist
forces, a high degree of which would have been necessary to achieve
the above demands, did not yet bear fruit. Magallona relates that many
individuals within the CPP-NDF were approached after the eighth
congress. “Some said ‘We didn’t know about your policy.’ We told them:
*We distributed this and mailed it to some of your people.’ But there was
n o immediate response. It was not until the late 1980s that we made some
progress in that direction.”36
As the 1980s unfolded, the PKP became more and more critical of the
Marcos regime, while at the same time avoiding the error of the CPP, which
projected a line which was effectively “anti-Marcos above all" (rather like
the PKP’s wartime line, much-criticized by Sison, of “anti-Japanese above
all"). Instead, in all of its statements the PKP was at pains to point out that
the root of the Philippines’ problems lay in the country’s relationship with
imperialism. For example, a central committee statement released in August
1982 portrayed Marcos as a “beleaguered President” as the USA and the
World Bank-IMF Group increased the pressure on him to step down, the
weakness of his position revealed by the fact that, although he was by this
time alleging that “foreigners” were plotting against him, he failed to name
those responsible. Although US state department officials were alleged to
have released a confidential memo by a US consul in Cebu regarding the
worsening economic and political situation in Mindanao to an anti-Marcos
group in the USA, Marcos failed to even issue a note of protest. At the
same time, it was known that US Ambassador Michael Armacost and other
embassy officials were consulting with Marcos’s opponents. By this stage,
a full year before the assassination of Benigno Aquino Jr., the economy
was in dire straits. Both inflation and unemployment exceeded 20 percent,
and the first half of 1982 had witnessed a budget deficit of P10 billion and
a trade deficit of $500 million, while the foreign debt had reached $16
billion. Marcos’s only hope, said the PKP, lay in persuading the World Bank
and the IMF to restructure old loans, but such a process would be made
conditional on “more stringent measures and tax laws” and “policies which
will further aggravate unemployment and the crisis of the local industries”
The crisis facing the Marcos regime was, said the statement, “directly
traceable to its blind and unquestioning adherence to the World B an k-
IMF-imposed program of labor-intensive, export-oriented industrialization
that is so dependent on transnational corporations.” Interestingly, on this
occasion the PKP did not, as it had done in similar statements in the past,
call upon Marcos to allow the mobilization of the anti-imperialist forces,
possibly an indication that the party had effectively written him off for such
purposes. Instead, it accepted that Marcos could not “hang onto power
indefinitely,” but warned:
Whatever is the outcome of the US-directed campaign for a new president

who can once again give the Filipino people fresh hopes and illusions, it
is clear that the basic ills of Philippine society will not disappear unless the
pro-imperialist socio-economic program is dismantled. Whoever succeeds
President Marcos has to contend with this reality.37
This theme was continued in a central committee statement issued

in June of the following year. Interestingly, this began as a discussion of
individual liberty, an issue to which the party had not in the past assigned
a high priority; but its approach differed from that adopted by most of
the human rights organizations (many of which were led by the church)
in that it related the issue to imperialist control and, in so doing, exposed
the hypocrisy of the US calls for respect of human rights. Of particular
concern was the fact that Presidential Proclamation 2045, which had lifted
martial law, had provided for the continued suspension of the writ of
habeas corpus for all detained for “the crime of insurrection or rebellion,
subversion, conspiracy or proposal to commit such crimes, and for all other
crimes and offences committed by them in furtherance or on the occasion
thereto, or in connection therewith.” Also, the Public Order Decree left
it entirely to the judgement of the president whether there existed “a
grave emergency or a threat or imminence thereof,” in which case Marcos
could issue orders for preventative detention, the closure of publications,
etc. Furthermore, the power given to the presidency had led to “secret
legislation,” for although PD 1834 (imposing “penalties of unprecedented
C h a p t e r 17 : F ro m C r it ic a l S u ppo rt to C o n s t r u c t iv e O p p o s it io n 377
harshness on political crimes”) and PD 1835 (which enacted a revised Anti-

Subversion Law) were both executed in January 1981 with the intention
that they take immediate effect, they had not come to public notice until
May 1983. These developments indicated, said the PKP, that a “deep crisis
o f individual freedom now infects the whole political system.”
Moreover, practices whereby victims were branded as “subversive”
merely to justify repression, and labor leaders and journalists were “invited”
to attend interrogation by the military authorities, were not merely the
result of abuse of power but had “become an integral feature of a system
of national oppression, operating in the service of foreign monopoly
capitalism in order to prevent fundamental changes in the interest of the
broad majority of the people.” It was a fact, admitted by US politicians and
generals in numerous congressional hearings, said the PKP, that US military
assistance to the Philippines was intended to provide the Philippine
armed forces with the means to safeguard US interests. “Its objective is to
deceptively hide the American instrument of suppressing our movement
for national independence by means of a Filipino clothing.” And, in fact,
despite the US clamor for human rights, the amendments to the Military
Bases Agreement had provided for an increase in such military assistance.
By this means, the Filipino people were encouraged to blame Filipino
leaders, and not US imperialism, for human rights abuses.
For its part, the PKP avoided a nonclass, “moral” approach to human
rights, pointing out that the movement for independence needed freedom
to organize, access to information, and a free press. “National independence
is a movement against politically repressive laws. As political repression is
an instrument of imperialist control, the struggle for national independence
is a struggle for individual freedom.”38
When, just over a week after this statement was released, Marcos bowed
to the dictates of the IMF and devalued the peso to the rate of eleven to
the US dollar, the PKP pointed out that, although the measure was imposed
on the government as a condition for further loans, the devaluation
would itself make further loans inevitable as the World Bank projects in
the country involved “heavy importation of raw materials, consultants and
technology." The party drew attention to the fact that every devaluation
since 1962 had been demanded by the IMF and that now, as previously,
the beneficiaries would be the TNCs in the manufacturing sector, due to
the enhanced exchange power of their dollar holdings. In passing, it was
noted that, quite apart from pressure from the World Bank-IMF Group,
most of Marcos’s eleven industrial projects had fallen by the wayside due
to the higher cost of imports arising from the devaluation. The program for
economic independence and national sovereignty adopted at the eighth
congress had now taken on, said the party, “added relevance and urgency
in the light of the present economic crisis.”39
It was now perfectly clear that there was no way out for Marcos.
On all major questions, he was bowing to the wishes of the World
Bank-IMF Group and, in that the policies of those institutions tended to
worsen rather than improve the economic situation of the Philippines, the
regime found itself politically isolated. The USA’s campaign for an orderly
political succession moved into a higher gear with the planned return
to the Philippines in August 1983 of its preferred candidate, Benigno S.
Aquino Jr. Aquino’s candidacy ended, however, as he disembarked from
the aircraft at Manila.
The mass demonstrations, largely organized by the church and
the bourgeois opposition, which followed the assassination, increased
Marcos’s isolation. Unlike the CPP which now portrayed Aquino as a
principled martyr in an attempt to ingratiate itself with the burgeoning
protest movement, the PKP assessed developments rather more soberly. A
statement issued a month after the assassination observed that, frustrated
by the regime’s failure to introduce meaningful democratic reforms,
many people, justified or not, regarded the fallen opposition leader as

a bearer of hope for urgent political changes . . . In the context of the
country’s fundamental problems . . . the people are inclined to seize every
opportunity for an alternative political leadership, in their desire to escape
from the oppressive political practices and economic policies.
C h a p t e r 17 : F rom C r it ic a l S u p p o r t to C o n s t r u c t iv e O p p o s it io n 379
At the same time, however, popular reaction to the event was also “a
tremendous upsurge of mass protest against the present dispensation for
its repressive measures against democratic practices, abuse of power, and
manipulation of the electoral process to perpetuate its rule."
The PKP expressed the view that the government could still regain
the confidence of the people by conducting an honest investigation of
the assassination and by belatedly introducing an array of democratic
measures— the restoration of the writ of habeas corpus and the curtailment
of presidential powers, the removal of the restriction on the accreditation
of political parties, the release of all political prisoners, strengthened
legal protection for mass organizations, the removal of the restrictions
on workers’ rights, the suspension of increased tuition fees in all schools
and the shifting of expenditure from military to educational purposes, the
provision of interest-free amortization payments for family-sized farms,
the halting of further expansion of corporate farming and the creation of
cooperatives for landless rural workers, the improvement of squatters’ sites
and a halt to the eviction of squatters, the introduction of price controls
and the reduction of water and power rates.
The central committee concluded by underlining the fact that there
was no substitute for the masses organizing themselves in order to “bring
about decisive political action to realize these minimum demands.”40
Almost immediately, the government demonstrated that it had little
interest in regaining popular confidence by such means, for in October
the peso was devalued yet again (to a rate of fourteen to the US dollar).
This was accompanied by further IMF impositions, including tight credit,
an upward flotation of interest rates, cuts in government expenditure, and
extra taxes. Commented the PKP:
The regime is aware that the devaluation will have a negative impact on
the economic life of the nation and will add fuel to the growing political
unrest, and yet it could not do anything but succumb to the pressures
of the World Bank-IMF Group. The devaluation shows how weak the
government is and who really are the policy-makers in this country.
The Marcos regime is now reaping the bitter fruits of its own pro
imperialist orientation. The more it subscribes or is forced to follow the
IMF economic recipe, the more it becomes isolated from the people as a
result of the deepening economic crisis.
It was in such circumstances, said the party, that the regime resorted
to the “mailed fist.” While the government was guilty of a “virtual surrender
to foreign dictation,” however, it was “not enough to merely demand an
end to the Marcos regime without instituting fundamental changes in the
economic and political life of the nation.” The party reiterated some of the
democratic demands it had put forward a month earlier, while emphasizing
that the
most urgent task of the organized working masses, however, is to expose

the role of imperialism in the present crisis and to stress the necessity of a
broad anti-imperialist unity in the present democratic movement.
The present crisis calls for a broad anti-imperialist unity of all patriotic
and democratic professionals, military men, women and students with the
working masses.41
One of the difficulties encountered in attempting to forge such unity—

the perception by other left groups and the opposition that the PKP was a
pro-Marcos party— was briefly discussed at a meeting of the PKP’s united
front commission in January 1984. It was the view of Edilberto Hao that
some of Jose Lava’s writings may have contributed to this perception, and
as a result he wrote a long memo to Lava, drawing attention to the fact
that his articles for World Marxist Review and the Moscow publication New
Times sometimes departed from the PKP’s official position.
Hao questioned why Lava should have given a positive review to
two books by Marcos (which had, moreover, been published a year and
two years earlier) at a time “when the more reactionary concessions of
Marcos to imperialism have become more pronounced,” thereby making
the PKP “vulnerable to charges of being pro-Marcos, and you personally
of being an apologist for Marcos.” Lava had, wrote Hao, “always pinned
too much hope on Marcos’ ‘nationalism,’ as may be gleaned from your
earlier articles on the national situation.” Not only were Lava’s assessments
of Marcos far more positive than those of the party, but Hao also found
himself unable to “understand the undue haste with which you brushed
C h a p t e r 1 7 : F rom C r it ic a l S u pp o r t to C o n s t r u c t iv e O p p o s it io n 381
off the Marcos regime s responsibility for the Aquino assassination, and for
your immediate conclusion about CIA operatives having done it, which
analysis was met with polite sarcasm among some people you met here in
your recent homecoming.”42
A further example of difficulties encountered on the unity front can
be found in the pages of the Philippine Collegian during this period. To
commemorate the centenary of Marx’s death, a series of seminars was
held at the University of the Philippines on the theme “Marxism in the
Philippines.” One of the key speakers was former leading PKP member
Francisco Nemenzo Jr. and, “in the hope that he would com e out with
a fair assessment,” the PKP provided him with documents. In the event,
however, Nemenzo claimed that the PKP lacked a Marxist ideology. When
this was reported in the Philippine Collegian, PKP general secretary
Felicisimo Macapagal wrote to point out that Nemenzo had been head of
the party’s education department and the “fact that he did not concentrate
on his job is the best proof that he himself is not a real Marxist, which was
precisely one among many reasons . . . why he was expelled from the
Party in 1972.”43 Of course, neither Nemenzo’s contribution nor the retort
by Macapagal did anything to foster unity and in fact the exchange merely
illustrated that broad unity at the grassroots level of the movement, which
may have acted as a restraining influence, was almost entirely absent.
Much more constructive was a document issued by the PKP in
March 1984 entitled “A Suggested Program towards National Unity and
Reconciliation.” This was a contribution to the discussion which, since the
onset of the political and economic crisis gripping the Philippines, had
commenced concerning the kind of political program that might command
broad support. The party made clear that the document had in mind “the
urgent need for broadening the patriotic, democratic movement for national
liberation against imperialist domination and exploitation.” Furthermore,
our critical situation demands the highest type of patriotism, statesmanship,

critical intelligence, maturity, understanding, spirit of accommodation in
dealing with minor conflicting interests, and subordination of individual
to national interests, coupled with feasible alternative solutions, however
difficult they may be. There is no time for petty rivalries, name-calling,
fault-finding, personal insults, sectarianism, narrow-mindedness, and

know-it-all arrogance.
The document put forward a number of immediate demands, which the

PKP saw as commencing the process of national unity and reconciliation.
These consisted of the political and economic demands expressed in the
party’s statements of September and October 1983, along with an amnesty
for those still engaged in rebellion, strict measures against hoarding and
profiteering, a more “vigorous and systematic campaign against graft and
corruption,” the declaration of a unilateral moratorium on debt repayments
during which the debts should be renegotiated, and the mobilization o f
the people to oppose any imposition by the lending agencies or creditors
detrimental to the national interest or the living standards of low-income
families.
In the longer term, the PKP suggested the convening of a constituent
assembly, with delegates from all classes and strata of society, to prepare
for constitutional reform. The Philippines should strive to be self-reliant
as a nation; as this would involve sacrifices by high- and middle-income
groups, such sacrifices should be minimized by a system of regional self-
reliance among the countries of Southeast Asia (whether members of
ASEAN or not) and a series of measures aimed at collective self-reliance
among Third World countries striving for the New International Economic
Order. A program of nationalist industrialization should be accompanied by
regulation of the TNCs, the aim being to “loosen and eventually eliminate
their stranglehold over the strategic sectors of our national economy.”
Land reform should be revamped in “scope, design and implementing
mechanism.” The rights of workers to organize, bargain collectively, and to
strike should be guaranteed while incomes, prices, and profits should be
regulated “to enable the working people’s standards of living and quality
of life to be raised gradually, even while allowing reasonable profits for
private enterprises.” The program suggested improvements in the fields
of education and culture, health care, and the guarantee o f full cultural
autonomy for Muslims and other ethnic communities. Finally, the document
called for a foreign policy based on nonalignment, the establishment of
C h a p t e r 17 : F rom C r it ic a l S u p p o r t to C o n s t r u c t iv e O p p o s it io n 383
diplomatic relations with all countries, disarmament and the adoption of a

“definite schedule" for the phasing out of the US military bases.44
The PKP utilized this program during the campaign for the parliamentary
elections of May 1984, in which it withheld endorsement from all parties
but supported selected candidates “displaying nationalist or anti-imperialist
inclinations” and “conducted an educational campaign for the broadest
possible anti-imperialist national democratic front.”45 In a preelection
statement, the party pointed out that it “would be foolish for anyone to
go to the election precinct on May 14 thinking that if the candidates of his
choice win and assume their seats in the Batasan, the root causes of the
present crisis would disappear or its harsh consequences would lessen.”
Imperialist forces were active in both the administration and opposition
camps, “manipulating the forthcoming election with funds, agents and
all forms of political influences,” and it was therefore expected that the
result would “merely serve to stabilize the position of imperialist forces
and further advance their interests.” The Filipino people had, however, not
yet achieved the level of political consciousness required to bring about
national liberation from imperialist domination and thus every means—
including the forthcoming election— should be used to reach the people.
PKP would consider the results of the forthcoming election to be some

success if the people would emerge more politically conscious of the
concrete interests, aims, allies and other manifestations of imperialism and
if they would be more aware of the necessity for the unity of the broadest
sectors of the masses as a requisite for a broad-based democracy and for
liberation from imperialist domination.46
This approach, differing from that of the CPP, which called for a
boycott, was based on the view that, although the power of the 200-member
Assembly was limited while Marcos retained supreme authority, “success
for the opposition in the election would be a major step toward dismantling
the president’s powers.”47 Of the 183 elected seats in the Assembly, 62 were
won by opposition candidates, although the party acknowledged that their
success was due less to their own attributes and more to the “growing
contempt” for Marcos’s party.48
384 A M ovem en t D iv id e d
By the mid-1980s, the base of Marcos’s political support among the

elite had narrowed considerably, for while the tight credit of the 1980s
drew the “crony capitalists” closer to him, the “noncrony” supporters of
export-orientation joined the opposition. Then, in 1984, the World B an k -
IMF Group and the Philippines’ creditor-banks opened an attack on the
cronies, singling out Eduardo Cojuangco and Roberto Benedicto for
particular attention.49 There were two major reasons for this attack. First,
Marcos was becoming increasingly defiant as opposition to his regime
mounted, and by attacking the “crony capitalists,” the USA was seeking
to undermine the one remaining pillar of Marcos’s political base. Second,
some of the “cronies” were becoming so powerful economically that they
had begun to encroach on territory that the TNCs regarded as their own.
Eduardo Cojuangco, for example, now enjoyed a monopoly position in the
coconut industry, having taken over milling companies previously owned
by TNCs, including Procter & Gamble.
The pragmatic approach adopted by Marcos, attempting to walk a line
between nationalism and the interests of imperialism, led in the end to his
political isolation. When the attack against his “cronies” commenced, the
writing was on the wall. The only way in which he could have fought free
of the web of neocolonial arrangements in which the multilateral financial
institutions had ensnared the Philippines would have been to move into a
much closer relationship with the Soviet Union and other socialist countries,
with the latter serving as major destinations for Philippine exports and
sources of the capital goods required for nationalist industrialization. That,
it seems, would have been a step too far for Marcos and by 1985 it would,
anyway, be too late, as Mikhail Gorbachev, elected as general secretary of
the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in that year, would turn his back
on many of his party’s international commitments, in effect confirming the
lengthy sentence of imperialism’s economic prisoner in Southeast Asia.
In his analysis of the national situation following the 1984 elections,
the PKP’s general secretary expressed the party’s reservations concerning
C hapter 17 : F rom C ritical S upport to C onstructive O pposition 385
the nature of many members of the opposition, pointing out that leaders
of the national bourgeoisie and the moderate church had brought to the
anti-Marcos movement much greater resources, funding, and international
contacts and that, despite the adoption of some anti-imperialist slogans,
iheir main aim appeared to be to replace Marcos with a more “acceptable”
leader.
Strategically and objectively, the main bulk of the opposition and US

imperialism are united in the desire to frustrate any capability on the part
of Marcos and his cronies to continue in power, to preserve the illusion
that the root of the crisis is Marcos and not the neocolonial system, and
keep the people hoping for solutions to their miseries through the election
of a new demagogue and not through the complex process of struggling
against imperialist exploitation.
In view of the imperialist influence over mass media in the Philippines,
including the so-called “alternative press” of the opposition, the people
have generally lx.*en affected by the simplified version that the present
economic and political crisis was a result of the Aquino assassination, and
that the way to overcome this is by replacing Marcos with another leader
who can regain the confidence of foreign capital and the World Bank-IMF
group. Imperialism having up to now succeeded in deflecting the blame
for the crisis away from itself.
There was, said Macapagal, a number of key questions on which the

interests of imperialism and the bourgeois opposition to Marcos coincided.
One such question was that of the privatization of the state sector of the
economy. The program drawn up by the World Bank and the IMF saw
privatization as a means of reducing the government’s budgetary deficit,
while the bourgeois opposition would benefit from the privatization of
those government corporations which were profitable or rehabilitated.
Similarly, Marcos was so politically discredited that the Filipino people
would take a jaundiced view of any apparent agreement concluded by
him. It was therefore in the interest of imperialism that negotiations with
the World Bank-IMF Group and on key issues such as the Military Bases
Agreement should be concluded by “an attractive new face,” and here the
USA could “count on the services of the anti-Marcos oppositionists.”
Moreover, continued Macapagal, the anti-Marcos opposition was

divided. With the announcement that a presidential election would
be held in 1987, even the leaders of the boycott movement expressed
a keen interest, forming a “Convenors’ Group” to groom a replacement
for Marcos in the event that his health did not hold out until 1987. This
led to immediate problems, however, “because nobody would give in to
anybody else’s personal ambition.” On the other hand, the parliamentary
opposition, still angry at the boycotters, formed the National Unification
Committee (NUC) along with opposition groups outside of parliament. The
boycotters themselves joined with the “Church-sponsored ‘cause-oriented
groups’ (particularly those led by relatives of the slain Benigno Aquino
Jr.)” and declared “that they would not be bound by the restrictions o f
the NUC, and have formed the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN),
or ‘new patriotic alliance’. . Furthermore, it was the view of Macapagal
that the role of groups identified with the CPP-NPA-NDF active within the
anti-Marcos umbrella was merely to confer a measure of anti-imperialist
credibility upon the opposition, which could hardly afford to be too openly
pro-American.50
The political parties forming the NUC in 1984 proposed that this body
should organize a convention at which a presidential candidate would be
chosen. The word “Unification,” however, turned out to be something of
a jnisnom er as the egos and ambitions of some NUC members made it
appear that a presidential candidate would be selected only with great
difficulty. The Convenors’ Group, meanwhile, formed by former senator
Lorenzo Tañada, Benguet Consolidated president Jaime Ongpin, and
Corazon Aquino, met at Aquino’s house on December 26, 1984, where
a statement was agreed and signed. This document, amounting to the
group’s public platform, seemed to disprove the PKP assessment and was
sharply nationalist in tone, asserting that “the object of socio-economic
development is human development and no one will be excluded from
active participation in the life of the nation because of one’s beliefs.” The
development of the “fullness of our nationhood” and the “supremacy of
national interest" meant that
C hapter 17 : F rom C ritical S upport to C onstructive O pposition 387
in no ease should national interest be sacrificed to foreign interests and

that the Filipino must be the sole determinant of the nation’s political,
economic and cultural life and the principal beneficiary of the national
patrimony.
Thus, the freedom of the nation from any form of economic, cultural
and political domination or interference by the government of any foreign
power or by any international organisation or group will be safeguarded.
A self-determined and self-reliant course of economic, cultural, social,
technological, and political development will be pursued in order to
enhance higher income for all, an expanding domestic market, appropriate
basic industries, effective technology . . . All economic and financial
agreements will be periodically and openly reviewed to the end that
the welfare of our people will not be sacrificed to satisfy economic and
financial interests whether they be governmental entities or transnational
corporations.
Quite clearly, this signalled the kind of break with the World Bank-
IMF model of export-oriented “development” for which the PKP had been
calling. And there was more. The CPP would be legalized and a negotiated
end to the insurgency would be sought. A program of effective land reform
would be pursued. Free trade unionism, including the right to strike,
would be “vigorously protected.” There would be equitable ownership of
the principal means of production and “[s]ocial structures that perpetuate
the oppression of the poor and the dispossessed will be eliminated.” The
Philippines would seek to ensure that ASEAN and Southeast Asia in general
became “a zone of freedom and peace, free of all nuclear weapons and
free from the domination of all foreign powers. As a consequence, foreign
military bases on Philippine territory must be removed.”51
Among the statement’s signatories were former senator Jose Diokno
(according to Goodno, the moving spirit behind the document),52 Raul
Manglapus, Ambrosio Padilla, Ramon Mitra, Jovito Salonga, Rafael Salas,
Aquilino Pimentel Jr., Teofisto Guingona, and Agapito “Butz” Aquino (the
late Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino’s brother). Refusing to sign were Salvador
Laurel and Eva Estrada Kalaw of UNIDO. Laurel, of course, had presidential
ambitions of his own.
Attempts were being made— by Cory Aquino and Cecilia Mufioz

Palma, a member of the Marcos parliament and of the NUC— to effect
a compromise between the Convenors’ Group and the NUC when, in
November 1985, Marcos announced a “snap” election. Already, by this
time, a Cory for President Movement had been formed. Aquino’s public
position at this time was that she would run for president if one million
signatures were collected, urging her to do so. This was accomplished in
November, and in the same month she received the endorsement of both
the Convenors’ Group and the newly formed Lakas ng Bayan (Strength
of the People, or Laban) coalition. On December 3, Aquino announced
her candidacy and, in so doing, dropped one of the demands of the
Convenors’ Group, stating that she would postpone a decision on the US
bases until the expiry of the current agreement in 1991. Laurel, at this stage,
still stood aloof. Jose Concepcion, a wealthy businessman and chairman
of the National Citizens’ Movement for Free Elections (NAMFREL), asked
Archbishop Sin to intervene. Sin met Aquino on December 10, convincing
her to run on the UNIDO ticket, and then persuaded Laurel to run for
vice president, telling him bluntly that he would not win if he ran against
Aquino.53
With Corazon Aquino adopted as the opposition candidate, the
progressive Convenors’ Group statement in her pocket, did nationalists
have cause to celebrate? Further disappointment was, unfortunately, about
to descend upon them.
N o tes

2. PKP, Documents of the Eighth Congress o f the Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas, 5.
3. Ibid., 12.
4. Ibid., 13.
5. Ibid., 16.
6. Ibid., 42.
7. Ibid, 34.
8. Ibid., 43, emphasis added.
C h a p t e r 17 : F rom C ritical S upport to C onstructive O pposition 389
9- Ibid.
10. Ibid., 20, emphasis added.
11. Ibid., 21.
12. Ma g al Iona interview.
13. Ibid.
14. PKP, Documents of the Eighth Congress, 20.
15. Ibid., 21-22.
16. Magallona interview.
17. PKP, Documents of the Eighth Congress, 50.
18. Ibid., 51.
19. Ibid.
20. Ibid., 49.
21. Ibid., 39.
22. Ibid., 46.
23. Ibid., 47.
24. Ibid., 48.
25. Ibid., 26.
26. Ibid., 49.
27. Ibid., 27.
28. Ibid., 28.
29. Ibid., 49.
30. Ibid, 31.
31. Ibid., 32.
32. Ibid., 33.
33. Robin Broad, Unequal Alliance 1979-1986: The World Bank, the International
Monetary Fund, and the Philippines (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University
Press, 1988), 109-10.
34. PKP Central Committee, “Only the Power of the People Can Lift Martial Law,”
undated, but obviously January 1981.
35. PKP Central Committee, “Presidential Election for Whom?” May 1981.
36. Magallona interview.
37. PKP Central Committee, “US Imperialism and the Politics of the Marcos
Succession,” August 1982.
38. PKP Central Committee, “The State of Freedom and the Struggle for National
Independence and Progress,” June 14, 1983.
39. PKP Central Committee, “From Instability to Disaster: Implications of the
Devaluation of the Peso,” July 10, 1983-
40. PKP Central Committee, “The Aquino Assassination: Implications and
Immediate Tasks," September 15, 1983.
41. PKP Central Committee, “In the Present Crisis, Mobilize for Economic
Sovereignty and Popular Democracy,” October 1983.
42. Edilberto Hao to Jose Lava, “Comments on Some of Your Articles on the
National Situation,” undated, but 1984.
43- Felicisimo Macapagal to Editor, Philippine Collegian, October 2, 1983. The
author has seen a copy of the original of this letter but is unsure whether it
was actually published.
44. PKP Central Committee, “A Suggested Program towards National Unity and
Reconciliation,” March 1984.
45. William Pomeroy, “The Crisis of Neocolonialism in the Philippines (1972-
1984),” PKP Courier, no. 2, 1985, 15.
46. PKP Politburo, “Electoral Statement No. 1: The Fundamental Issue in the
Election,” March 20, 1984.
47. William Pomeroy, “The Crisis of Neocolonialism,” 15.
48. Felicisimo Macapagal, “Alignment of Political Forces,” PKP Courier, no. 2, 1985,
1.
49. Robin Broad, Unequal Alliance, 1979-1986: The World Bank, the International
Monetary Fund, and the Philippines (Quezon City: Ateneo de Manila University
Press, 1988), 229.
50. Macapagal, “Alignment of Political Forces."
51. “The Convenors’ Statement," reprinted in Daniel B. Schirmer and Stephen
Rosskamm Shalom, The Philippines Reader: A History o f Colonialism,
Neocolonialism, Dictatorship and Resistance (Quezon City: KEN Incorporated,
1987), 306-8.
Books, 1991), 87.
53. Ibid., 90.
PART SIX
T h e mainstream opposition and the Catholic Church were preparing to
d o electo ral battle with Marcos. Throughout Philippine history, however, the
o u tc o m e s of landmark events have rarely been decided by solely domestic
fo rce s, let alone the people, and this one would be no different. Before we
are in a position to fully comprehend the “snap” election of February 1986
an d th e “people power" exercise that followed, we must therefore make a
b rief detour in order to consider developments in the Armed Forces of the
Philippines (AFP) and Washington.
391
C h apter 1 8 : O u t s id e I n flu en c es
Since the appointment of Fabian Ver as chief of staff in 1981, dissent

had becom e rife in the AFP due to the festering corruption, perceived
incom petence, the retention of a large number of generals beyond their
due retirement dates (thereby blocking promotion opportunities), and
declining morale due to lack of effective progress in the prosecution of the
w ar against the NPA.
What later became known as the Reform the Armed Forces Movement
(RAM) began life in 1983 with the establishment of a clandestine study group
of intelligence officers at the Philippine Constabulary (PC) headquarters at
Camp Crame, where a founding member was intelligence analyst Victor
Batac. The following year, Batac’s staff at the PC’s intelligence unit were
lectured by Nilo Tayag, the former general secretary of the CPP who, upon
his release from prison in 1981, had, having already renounced Maoism,
entered the Marcos camp. According to Coronel, Tayag now believed that
the system could be subverted from within, which was dubbed his “termite”
theory. Having convinced Marcos that his own “Filipino ideology” should
be systematically propagated, Tayag was given free rein to do precisely
that in government offices and military bases. “His logic,” says Coronel,
“was simple: the only way to defeat the communist ideology is to confront
it with another ideology and build a committed cadre corps to counter the
communists.”1
393
Following Ver’s appointment as chief of staff, Defense Secretary Juan

Ponce Enrile had been advised of alleged plots to assassinate him— by, it
was assumed, Ver. It was also rumored that Enrile saw Ver as trespassing
on his own territory within the government, and that he had fallen out
with both Ver and the First Lady. As soon as the assassination rumors
surfaced, Enrile’s chief security officer recruited 300 soldiers for the defense
secretary’s security unit and commenced stockpiling weapons; eventually,
one thousand assault rifles and machine guns were amassed.2 The chief
security officer in question was Lt. Col. Gregorio “Gringo” Honasan, later to
become the most colorful military rebel during the Aquino administration.
It may be of significance that Honasan’s father had himself been a military
intelligence officer whose career had suffered as a result of his involvement
in an attempt to secure the reelection of the nationalist President Garcia;
an uncle was former intelligence officer (and later congressman) Bonifacio
Gillego, who claims that his conversion to the nationalist cause was aided
by his interrogation of leading PKP members William and Celia Pomeroy
in the 1950s.3
From the PC’s intelligence unit and the defense ministry, the
fledgling movement reached out to commanders of active service units,
constructing a national network. To a laige extent, this network was built
upon the foundation of the group loyalty established at the Philippine
Military Academy (PMA), especially among members of the class of 1971.
Interestingly, the methods of organizing officers were akin to those of
communists, with leading cadres traveling
around military camps throughout the country, conscientizing officers

about the state of the nation and the Armed Forces. Like communist
cadres, these officers organized an open movement with a reform agenda
that was attractive to a wide section of the AFP officer corps and to a
public that was becoming increasingly cynical about the military.4
In February 1985, calling itself Concerned Officers of the AFP, the

embryonic RAM issued a Preliminary Statement o f Aspirations in which
it condemned a system “which rewards boot-licking incompetence and
C hapter i 8: O utside I nfluences 395
banishes independent-minded professionals and achievers.”5 The following

m onth, the group went public, unveiling protest banners at the PMA’s
graduation parade. February’s document was now refined into a Statement
o f Aspirations, which spoke of the need to cleanse the AFP of “undesirables,”
ensure the maintenance of high standards of discipline, enforce the merit
system for promotions, and to reorient training and education in order to
p ro d u ce “professional soldiers imbued with a high standard of discipline
and social awareness that extends beyond the realm of academic exercise
and reaches out to day-to-day practice.” The statement concluded: “These
aspirations necessitate intellectual capability to internalize theory and
co n cep ts of the Constitution and the Filipino ideology; the current situation;
and, the internal as well as the external problems facing the AFP and the
country.”6
The group, now calling itself R.E.F.O.R.M. (Restore Ethics,
Fairmindedness, Order, Righteousness and Morale), soon to be shortened
to RAM, issued its next major statement in May 1985. This spoke of the
“inspiring pace” of the movement’s expansion which, in turn, had led
to som e concern, as the core leaders in other regions needed to be
educated in order that a uniform stance and direction might be adopted.
The document therefore called for the enhancement of “our ideological
capability,” employing a quotation from Marcos’s The Filipino Ideology:
Internalization of the democratic revolution starts at the base of the

nation— with the common people— inspiring and compelling those in the
upper ranks to do likewise, so that a symbiotic relationship, as it were,
occurs among the various levels of society making the task of nation-
building truly a national concern.
Thus, change must be led from below— and if anyone thought that the
expression of such a sentiment was mutinous or revolutionary, they had
better realize that such was the sentiment of the President himself! “This
exhortation,” the statement continued, “is what inspired each and every
member of the Movement to assume the vanguard role in the reformation
of the AFP and to influence the entirety of the AFP officer corps.” With
mounting boldness, the document claimed that both the AFP and the
government had become isolated from the people and was now “right o f
center.” The aim of the reform movement was therefore to move the AFP
“to the center of the political spectrum to jusdy perform its role as arbiter
and active participant in the Democratic Revolution . . The movement
stressed that “all these reforms are' aimed at serving the best interests o f
our people” and that “we realize our limitations . . . We alone, could not
provide the salvation of our country’s woes.”7
Anxious to proclaim the innocence of their intentions, RAM leaders
met with Acting Chief of Staff Fidel Ramos on April 2 0 ,1 9 8 5 , in order to put
forward its reform demands and Ramos, in return, promised action. In turn,
Ramos and Enrile discussed RAM with Marcos, Enrile issuing an assurance
that the group “does not intend to undermine society, government or
presidency.”8 Soon, however, this was no longer the case, for plans for
a coup began to be laid shortly after RAM went public. Coronel records
that the coup was first suggested to Enrile in August 1985 and that later in
that year he was “deeply involved in the conspiracy.” Originally, the coup
was to have taken place in December, but Marcos’s announcement of the
“snap” election caused its postponement. The original plan entailed the
announcement by Enrile of the formation of a government by a national
reconciliation council containing himself, Ramos, Corazon Aquino, and
various technocrats and businessmen. When, during the election campaign,
Aquino’s brother Jose “Peping” Cojuangco was approached regarding her
participation in such a government, he rejected RAM’s advances.9
Many of those who have commented on the events of February 1986,

(including, ironically, the CPP— at least prior to the “snap revolution”)—
put forward the view that the USA supported Marcos right up to the last
moment. While this may have been true of Reagan, opinion within US
ruling circles was divided on Marcos, and had been so for some time.
C h a p t e r i 8: O u t s id e I n f l u e n c e s 39 7
Geoige D. Moffett III of the Christian Science Monitor hit the nail on the
head w hen, a few days before the “snap revolution,” he pointed out that
even before the Aquino assassination “mid-level policy analysts at the State
and Defence Departments and in the intelligence communities . . . became
concerned about the durability of the Marcos regime.”10 Mark Malloch
Brown, then a British journalist who worked for Aquino’s campaign team,
also asserts that by the end of 1985 a number of state department officials
had decided that Marcos’s “time as president should end, and that it was
essential to prepare for the transfer of power . . In fact, the USA’s
pressure on Marcos to put in place the machinery for a transition to his
successor had commenced well before the Aquino assassination, although
it is true that this pressure was stepped up after Aquino’s death. And, in
the words of a senior state department official, the main consideration was
“not whether he’s corrupt or not. The question is whether he has political
control of the country.”12
The campaign of US officials in the anti-Marcos camp took the form
first of exaggerated claims regarding the danger posed by the NPA,
creating the impression that the CPP-NPA-NDF would be in a position to
take power if Marcos was deposed before an orderly succession had been
arranged; at the same time, links were established with both RAM and the
civilian opposition, with funds being channelled to the latter; and, finally,
when the “snap revolution” occurred assistance was given to both these
groups even before Reagan had broken with Marcos.
Alarmist presentations of the NPA threat had, of course, been used to
justify the imposition of martial law by Marcos in 1972. Now, they were to
be used in an attempt to topple him. An early salvo in this campaign came
in mid-1984 when James Nach of the US Embassy’s political section sent a
seventy-six-page cable to Washington tracing the development of the CPP-
NPA and concluding: “There is little optimism that the Marcos Government
is capable of turning the situation around. Without new directions from
the top, the prospects are for continued deterioration with the eventual
outcome— ultimate defeat and a communist takeover of the Philippines— a
very possible scenario." A year later, this analysis received “confirmation”
from Pacific commander-in-chief Admiral William J. Crowe, to which he

added the hardly startling revelation that the AFP was both corrupt and
demoralized.13 In October of the same year assistant defense secretary
Richard Armitage appeared before congress calling for reform in the AFP
in view of its failure to effectively combat the NPA. He went on to say that
he was aware of “a solid cadre of competent, patriotic officers in the AFP
who have the determination to institute the necessary reform.”14 This is
of great interest because Armitage’s statement predates RAM’s first public
appearance by several months, lending credence to claims by Seagrave,
Pimentel, and others that RAM received encouragement from the Pentagon
and the CIA from the very earliest stages of its existence.15
A month after Armitage’s statement, Washington’s national security
council issued a study directive which argued that US policies should
be linked to the “high priority changes” identified by the NSC— electoral
reform, adherence to the IMF program, a curtailing of the role of the public
sector and of the crony capitalists, and reform of the AFP. The directive
stopped short of calling for the immediate ousting of Marcos, seeing him as
“part of the problem,” although
also necessarily part of the solution. We need to be able to work with him
and to try to influence him through a well-orchestrated policy of incentives
and disincentives to set the stage for peaceful and eventual transition to a
successor government whenever that takes place. Marcos, for his part, will
try to use us to remain in power indefinitely.
Denying that the intention was to either remove Marcos or to

destabilize his government, the directive proclaimed: “Rather, we are urging
revitalization of democratic institutions, dismantling ‘crony’ monopoly
capitalism and allowing the economy to respond to free market forces,
and restoring professional, apolitical leadership to the Philippine military
to deal with the growing communist insurgency.” Of vital importance, in
view of the turn which events would eventually take in the Philippines,
was the directive’s urging that “we cannot take the lead in reforming the
Philippine political system; the Filipinos must do this themselves. Our
C h a p t e r 18 : O u t s id e I n f l u e n c e s 399
influence is most effective when it is exercised in support of efforts that

have already developed within the Philippines.”16
It is of some note that the directive does not specify by whom these
“efforts" should be made in order to qualify for US “influence” and
“support," thus leaving open the question of whether assistance should be
given to the opposition (whether legal or otherwise). As we will see, such
assistance took the form of direct encouragement to the military rebels and,
for the legal opposition, considerable “support" combined with “influence”
aimed at toning down its political program.
At the same time, Washington was expanding the number of personnel
working on— and in— the Philippines. At the defense department’s
intelligence agency, a new group was created to concentrate exclusively
on the Philippines, while the CIA doubled the number of analysts focusing
on the Philippines. The State Department, meanwhile, beefed up its Bureau
of Intelligence and Research (BIR), with Philippine expert Marjorie Niehaw
being transferred from the Congressional Research Service. According to
Bonner, both Niehaw and Morton Abramowitz, the head of BIR, took the
view that “the longer Marcos was in power, the worse it would be for the
United States,” although they could wield “only limited influence.”17
In August 1985 (this is according to Bonner; Seagrave places the event
in October)18 a sixty-strong conference took place at Washington’s National
War College in an attempt to get to grips with the Philippine problem.
Opened by none other than Edward Lansdale, creator of President
Magsaysay, the conference was attended by experts representing the
CIA, the state department, the national security council and the defense
department’s intelligence agency. Also attending were William H. Overholt,
a vice president of Bankers Trust, and Stanford professor Claude Buss, both
of whom had experience in the Philippines. Bonner says for two days the
conference debated the various ways in which Marcos might be handled,
with some suggesting the launching of a covert operation to oust him
(an option then being given consideration by the Pentagon) while others
counselled against this by pointing out that Marcos and Ver controlled the
armed forces.19 Seagrave has it that the conference deliberations
4oo AM o vem en t D i v id e d
all boiled down to two elementary questions. Should the United States
keep its military bases in the Philippines and risk becoming involved
in “another Vietnam” or create alternative bases in Guam and the Yap
islands? If the US bases were going to remain in the Philippines, how
could control of the Filipino armed forces be shifted from General Ver and
his loyalists to the Reform the Armed Forces Movement?20
In May 1985, apparently acting on the advice contained in the national

security council directive, CIA Director William Casey traveled to Manila to
urge upon Marcos the importance of holding a presidential election. When
this bore no fruit, Senator Paul Laxalt, a personal friend of Reagan, was
despatched to the Philippines. Bearing a handwritten letter from Reagan,
Laxalt’s job, says Bonner, was simple:
to convince Ferdinand Marcos that it wasn’t just the bureaucracy that was
talking to him about reforms, that his good friend Ronald Reagan was
also concerned, also wanted the economic, political, and military reforms.
Laxalt carried Reagan’s imprimatur.
. . . In response, Marcos wrote his own letter in longhand, a much
longer one. It was filled with the same fantasies that he fed all Americans:
The insurgency wasn’t growing; he was in control; yes, he’d break up the
monopolies; it wasn’t true there was no political freedom; martial law had
been necessary in 1972; Filipinos were better off materially than they had
been when Marcos became president.21
According to Bonner, Laxalt was actually impressed by Marcos and

reported back positively, thereby effectively granting Marcos more time and
converting the mission into a “disaster for the State Department.”22 A more
balanced way of describing the episode, however, would be to say that
the White House, faced with a choice between the “fantasies” contained in
Marcos’s handwritten reply and those manufactured by the state department
and others, decided to give Marcos the benefit of the doubt.
One example of the misleading information being fed to the politicians
in Washington is provided by a report made to the senate select committee
on intelligence in November 1985. This claimed that US interests were
“imperilled by a rapidly growing Communist insurgency that threatens the
C hapter 18 : O utside I nfluences 401
20-y ear rule of Ferdinand Marcos . .." The report estimated that the NPA had
3 0 ,0 0 0 armed regular and irregular soldiers, that the insurgents controlled
o r w ere contesting control in areas inhabited by at least 10 million people
in sixty fronts and that they maintained the military initiative. “Some level
o f NPA activity now exists in almost all of the country’s 73 provinces,”
the report continued, while the CPP had grown to 30,000 members. “In
the first five months of 1985, the NPA captured more [arms] than in all
o f 1984 . . .” and the CPP-led insurgency “has already become a far more
formidable force than the Huks ever were.”23 Similarly, a few months earlier
a report compiled by the CIA, the defense intelligence agency and the state
department claimed that if the growth of the NPA continued at the current
rate it would be in a position to take power within three and five years.24
As we saw in chapter 13 of the current work, however, such claims were
overblown.
Earlier in 1985, Senator John Kerry of Massachussetts had visited the
Philippines, returning with the same alarmist message. In the report he gave
to the senate in August, Kerry stated that one US official (a “specialist on
the insurgency”) to whom he had spoken agreed with assistant secretary of
state Armitage that the NPA “could be as strong as the government militarily
within three to five years but thought it might happen even sooner.”
Interestingly, Kerry reported that Enrile (who might have been expected
to inflate the threat posed by the insurgency) took the view that the NPA
w as manageable without any major organizational or policy changes within
the AFP and that the latter would only become alarmed if the NPA started
using artillery.25
Such reports usually had a dual function of firstly inflating the
estimates of NPA strength and secondly of stressing the need for reform
within the AFP. Kerry’s report went further than most in indicating that the
US Embassy had been able to conduct “realistic discussions” with Ramos
and Enrile (both denied that military abuse of the population was a serious
problem ).26 Both, he said, were supportive of military reform, leading
Schirmer and Shalom to interpret his report as suggesting “US connections
with these two military leaders.”27 It is now clear that Washington (with the
40i A M o v e m e n t D iv id e d
apparent exception of the White House) was keeping its options open,
and in stressing the strength of the NPA and the poor state of the AFP was
laying the basis for eventual support for RAM, should a coup be considered
necessary. Most observers now concede that the USA had contacts with
RAM from its earliest days and, indeed, the fact that 1985 witnessed a
substantial increase in the number of US military advisors assigned to the
AFP28 may— at least in part— have been as a result of a decision to foster
such links.
The end of the Marcos era was in sight.
N otes
1. Sheila S. Coronel, “RAM: From Reform to Revolution,” in Philippine Center

for Investigative Journalism, Kudeta: The Challenge to Philippine Democracy
(Makati: Bookmark, 1990), 55.
2. Ibid., 56.
3. The author witnessed then congressman Gillego make this claim to the
Pomeroys after addressing a public meeting in London in the late 1980s.
4. Coronel, “RAM,” 51.
5. Concerned Officers of the Philippines, “Preliminary Statement of Aspirations,”
reproduced in PCIJ, Kudeta, 167-68.
6. Concerned Officers of the Philippines, “Statement of Aspirations,” reproduced
in PCIJ, Kudeta, 170-72.
7. R.E.F.O.R.M., “Greater Tasks Ahead, Development of the REFORM AFP
Movement,” reproduced in PCIJ, Kudeta, 173-80.
8. Marites Danguilan-Vitug, “Young Philippine Officers Press for Reform in the
Military,” reprinted in Daniel B. Schirmer and Stephen Rosskamm Shalom, The
Philippines Reader: A History o f Colonialism, Neocolonialism, Dictatorship and
Resistance (Quezon City: KEN Incorporated, 1987), 313-14.
9. Coronel, “RAM,” 66, 67.
10. Christian Science Monitor, February 18,1986.
11. Mark Malloch Brown, “Aquino, Marcos and the White House,” Granta 18, 160.
12. Raymond Bonner, Waltzing with a Dictator (New York: New York Times
Books, 1987), 355.
13. Ibid., 356, 357.
14. Schirmer and Shalom, The Philippines Reader, 277-78.
C h a p t e r 1 8: O u t s id e I n f l u e n c e s 403
15. See Sterling Seagrave, The Marcos Dynasty (New York: Harper & Row, 1988),
394, Benjamin Pimentel Jr.. The United States: Savior or Intruder?” in PCIJ,
Kudeta, 146.
16. Reprinted in Schirmer and Shalom, ’¡he Philippines Reader, 322-23.
17. Bonner, Waltzing, 374.
18. Seagrave, The Marcos Dynasty, 394.
19. Bonner, Waltzing, 374-75.
20. Seagrave, The Marcos Dynasty, 394.
22. Ibid., 383.
23- Staff Report to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, “The Philippines:
A Situation Report,” November 1, 1985, quoted in Schirmer and Shalom, The
Philippines Reader, 315-18.
24. Far Eastern Economic Review, October 31, 1985. The special national
intelligence estimate in question was completed in July 1985.
25. Congressional Record, US Senate, 99th Congress, August 1, 1985, reprinted in
Schirmer and Shalom, 7he Philippines Reader, 328.
26. Ibid., 328, 329.
27. Ibid., 278.
28. Ibid.
C h a p te r 1 9 : Com m unists
in a Time o f “People P o w e r”
The Marcos regime was toppled in February 1986 by the convergence

of three forces— the elite opposition and its allies in the Catholic Church,
the reform movement in the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), and
those elements in the US state department and the intelligence community
which had viewed Marcos as being dispensable since the early 1980s.
During the course of her election campaign, Corazon Aquino,
standard-bearer for the mainstream opposition and the Catholic Church,
promised action on labor rights, housing, health, education, the rights of
women and the Muslims and cultural minorities. But of the “big” issues
there were pledges only on land reform and the insurgency. On the
former, she promised in passing that “although sugar land is not covered
by the land reform law, I shall sit down with my family to explore how
the twin goals of maximum productivity and dispersal of ownership and
benefits can be exemplified for the rest of the nation in Hacienda Luisita
[the massive property in Tarlac owned by her family, the Tarlac branch of
the Cojuangcos].”1 This revealed a rather curious approach to the issue,
indicating that she considered ownership of Luisita to be a matter for
her family rather than a subject for future legislation. With regard to the
insurgency, Aquino undertook to declare an immediate ceasefire, release all
404
C h a p t e r 19 : C o m m u n ist s in a T im e of “ P eo p le Po w er ” 405
political prisoners, and enter negotiations for peace; the pledge to legalize
the CPP appeared to have been dropped. Gone, too, was the notion
o f nationalist industrialization; instead, she announced that she would
“stimulate investments primarily in labor-intensive, rural-based, and small-
and medium-scale agricultural enterprises," and that she would “postpone
capital-intensive, urban-based industrial projects.”2
Thus the Aquino candidacy evolved in a moderate direction, carefully
distancing itself from the radical demands put forward by even the more
nationalist of the traditional politicians. In Ofreneo’s view, her candidacy
w as, in fact, “launched precisely to unite the moderate forces so they could
d o more effective battle against the seemingly impregnable Marcos rule
and prevent the leftward lurch of the country."3 But, as we shall see, the
rightward drift of Aquino’s candidacy was not exactly unaided.
Complementing the USA’s alarmist estimates and predictions on the
strength of the NPA (which also gave the impression that Marcos was
losing control) and its links with RAM was its intervention with the civilian
opposition. Of some note is the fact that William Overholt, the banker
w ho had participated in the two-day conference at Washington’s national
w ar college in 1985, now emerged as an advisor to Aquino’s campaign
policy committee,4 reporting to the US Embassy on his activities. At the
recommendation of no less than Michael Armacost, former US Ambassador
to Manila and now third-ranking officer in the state department, the US
public relations firm of D. H. Sawyer & Associates was hired for Aquino’s
campaign— waiving a fee which, according to Bonner’s estimate, would
have been in the area of $250,000. (The Marcos campaign also used a US
firm: Black, Manafort, Stone and Kelly.) Some months after the February
“snap revolution,” Armacost would freely admit that the US government had
provided funds to the opposition, stating that “Radio Veritas enjoyed our
financial support and that of the Asia Foundation, among others.”5 (Radio
Veritas, the Catholic Church’s broadcasting arm, would play a crucial role in
the February events, while the Asia Foundation had a history as a conduit
for CIA funds.)6 Meanwhile, according to Goodno, the National Endowment
for Democracy, “a government-funded organization that channels money
to private (generally conservative) organizations abroad, had quiedy

sent an estimated $3 million to the Philippines to fight communism and
cultivate political leaders.”7 Some of this money went to fund NAMFREL,
the electoral organization first established by the CIA in the 1950s and now
revived. Publicly, NAMFREL would deny receiving US funding, claiming
that an offer had been made but rejected. Bonner, however, says that the
organization actually initiated at least one request for finance. Much of the
overseas funding was coursed through NAMFREL’s member-organizations,
such as the Bishops’ Businessmen’s Conference for Human Development.
Some $300,000 from US Agency for International Development found its
way to NAMFREL via these organizations. In all, NAMFREL is thought to
have received just under $1 million from US sources. Japan acted as a
source of further funds. According to Bonner, some of NAMFREL’s funding
went not on electoral activity but to support RAM.8
US assistance for the Aquino campaign was not confined to funding
but extended to policy direction. We have already seen that the US banker
Overholt sat as advisor to Aquino’s campaign policy committee. But
rather more direct intervention took place on November 6, 1985, when
Philip Kaplan, the US Embassy’s charge, hosted a breakfast for Richard
Holbrooke, former assistant secretary of state for the region, and a group
of Filipino opposition leaders including Aquino, Concepcion, and two of
Laurel’s supporters. Constantino tells us that a “classified State Department
summary of the meeting reveals that its purpose was to give the Filipino
opposition its marching orders.” Kaplan “emphasized the need for the
opposition to get its act together.” The USA was opposed to “their position
favoring legalization of the communist party . . and both Kaplan and
Holbrooke “underlined the importance of avoiding being portrayed as anti
bases and soft on communism as US support for free and fair elections
would only be forthcoming if the bases were kept out of the campaign.”9
Here, then, is a possible explanation for Aquino’s change of tack on the
bases when, just under a month later, she announced her candidacy.
Thus, having cultivated links with RAM and the moderate civilian
opposition the USA placed its stamp on the government which would
C h a p t e r 19 : C o m m u n ists in a Tim e o f “ P e o p le P o w e r ” 407
su cceed Marcos. Just days before the “snap" election, Renato Constantino
neatly summed up the situation in his newspaper column with the words:
“My fearless forecast: another American victory."10
Neither the PKP nor the CPP participated directly in the election
campaign or the subsequent “people power” exercise. The latter
campaigned for an outright boycott, while the former issued a call to
“Participate in the Election to Expose Imperialist Deception.”
The PKP’s position was based on a perception that the election
had been prompted by the USA in pursuit of its own interests. As far as
the party was concerned, therefore, the “snap” election was seen as an
opportunity to campaign for anti-imperialist unity. The election, the PKP
stated in a resolution adopted at an enlarged politburo meeting, should be
viewed in the context of the deep crisis gripping the country. The economy
was completely controlled by foreign capital, but the next five years
were crucial to the USA, as the Military Bases Agreement would expire in
1991.11 The extent to which the party dismissed the election as essentially
meaningless can be gauged by an article and editorial published in the first
edition of Philippine Currents, a new party-influenced monthly magazine
launched in January 1986. The journal took the editorial view that “in the
present situation a presidential election is a falsity, dictated as it is by the
Reagan administration and the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which
are the leaders of foreign capital dominating this country.” Thus, the actual
outcome was meaningless: “The Marcos or Aquino government may come
and go but the IMF and US colonialists will go on forever unless the people
gather enough collective political will to take us away from the electoral
zarzuela.”12
An article by Ofreneo in the same issue characterized the electoral
contest as a “close and fierce battle between two factions of the country’s
political elite,” but went on to comment that an Aquino victory could prove
“more problematic as she might indeed turn into a ‘new Magsaysay’ w ho

will give fresh hopes to the Filipino people and who might get substantial
support from the Americans in rehabilitating the ailing economy and
checking the insurgency problem.”
At the same time, the PKP issued a statement entitled “A Call for Unity
and an End to Violence," obviously aimed at defusing the tensions existing
between itself, the CPP, and their respective mass organizations. Of the
presidential candidates, this statement noted in passing:
Instead of clarifying issues in the right perspective and offering a real

solution to the problems that make the Filipino people suffer, they pretend
to he deaf. They are busy polishing their images and issuing statements
intended to gain foreign support. Instead of promoting positive programs
and concrete objectives which will save our country from crisis and lead
to our progress, the recipe being offered focuses only on personalistic
propaganda, confusing speculations, and nonsensical promises.
Of the US interests, the statement said:
In the snap election which they themselves proposed, they are openly
intervening, thus sharpening the disunity among the people, and even
among the progressive people.
This matter is alarming, portentous of things to come. If we follow an
antagonistic direction, and each group which loses a member will exact
revenge, violence will escalate. 'Hus will just favor the divide-and-rule
tactics of imperialism . . .
Due to this, a sincere effort to promote understanding among all
patriotic, progressive and democratic forces is necessary. LET US UNITE!
NO PHYSICAL ATTACKS. NO ASSASSINATIONS! NO KILLINGS within
progressive groups that are not yet united.
. . . the unjust and intentional killing of a potential ally, who belongs
to a different group which nevertheless aims and struggles just the same
for national democracy and social emancipation, cannot be justified.
This statement ended with a call for a popular front against imperialism,
pointing out that the main contradiction was between US imperialism and
the Filipino people, all other contradictions being secondary to this. “Let
C hapter 19 : C o m m u n ist s in a T im e of “ P eo p le Po w er ” 409
u s range our forces against the true enemy of national democracy and
social emancipation."’3 The tone here was conciliatory. Such was not the
case, however, in the statement adopted by the enlarged politburo meeting
mentioned above, which stated that the activities of some left or left-of-
center organizations were serving imperialism as they “sow dissension
and resist unity of left forces.” Terrorism, the statement continued, was
rampant— by both government forces “and those who take the posture of
[a] revolutionary movement."14
A month before the election, the PKP issued a Prim er on the Snap
Election in which it continued to emphasize the anti-imperialist theme,
pointing out that in neocolonial countries like the Philippines elections
“have been mere instruments wielded by the imperialist power to entrench
and further perpetuate its domination of our political, economic and
cultural life.” On the other hand, elections
can also be used by the broad masses of the people in their struggle
for freedom and social progress. Given a strong and militant unity of all
patriotic forces of society, elections may be employed in choosing the
proper representatives of the masses to sit in government.
In this light, the PKP considers elections generally as weapons in a
parliamentary struggle. They can be a means by which the masses can
be mobilized against a common enemy; and also a means by which the
demands of the people may be realized.
The “snap” election, however, was “being held for US interests and not
ours.” In the exercise, all parties had clear aims: the USA sought to legitimize
its control, whoever the winner, while Marcos wished to perpetuate his rule
and the opposition aimed to attain political power without changing the
relationship with imperialism. The masses, therefore, “will gain absolutely
nothing.” The party therefore put forward an “alternative program of
government” consisting of
• the Filipinization or nationalization of key industries

• the expansion of the public sector
• strict regulation of foreign capital
4i o A M o v e m e n t D iv id e d
• agrarian reform, with cooperatives as the main vehicle

• a reexamination of debt policies
• the further development of trade and other relations with socialist
countries
• the adoption of nonalignment as a fundamental principle of
foreign policy
• the termination of all military agreements with the USA
• guarantees for the freedom to organize and participate in political
life without discrimination based on ideology
• a living wage for all working people and full restoration of the
right to strike.
The PKP called for the widest dissemination of its analysis of the
election, characterizing the latter as “imperialist deception,” the writing of
chain letters, the use of graffiti and the mass media and, finally, attending
the polls in order to write in anti-imperialist slogans and key demands on
the voting papers.15
The CPP went somewhat further than the PKP and, by virtue of a
decision by its executive committee, decided on a complete boycott of the
“snap” election, characterizing this as a “noisy and empty political battle”
among competing factions of the economic and political elite. The largest
mass organization influenced by the CPP— BAYAN— also adopted a boycott
policy. Initially divided on the issue, BAYAN called a congress and declared
that it would support Aquino only if she adopted a range of anti-imperialist
policies. With her refusal to do so, BAYAN campaigned for a boycott,
whereupon several of the organization's leaders who were not influenced
by the CPP simply took leave of absence in order to campaign for Aquino.
As the eventual position adopted by BAYAN obviously reflected that of the
CPP, it is worth examining the former in some detail.
C h apter i 9: C o m m u n ist s in a T im e of “ P e o p le P o w er ” 4 11
In a policy statement entitled “Persevere in Correct Struggles, Boycott

the Sham Snap Election,” BAYAN argued that although the defeat of
Marcos formed a part of the popular struggle “for genuine freedom and
democracy," and that an honest election would indeed lead to his defeat,
participation in the election was not justified due to a number of factors.
First, the election would not be fair, and (here BAYAN and the CPP got
it hopelessly wrong) as the USA “badly needs the tested fascist hand of
Marcos to continually protect its strategic interests . . . the US cannot
afford to dislodge the well-entrenched Marcos clique at a time when it
must intensify its ‘counter-insurgency’ program in the country . . Second,
the document pointed out that the opposition platform “does not even
reflect the people’s aspiration for social changes which will deliver them
from poverty and oppression . . . ” Like the PKP, BAYAN had put forward
a list of nationalist demands, attempting to negotiate their inclusion in the
opposition platform. These were
• the removal of all US installations

• the abrogation of “all unequal treaties and agreements, laws and
decrees that impair the nation’s sovereignty”
• a dramatic change in debt policy
• the nationalization of all basic and strategic industries
• genuine land reform “in accordance with the principle of land to
the tillers”
• the dismantling of all private monopolies, whether foreign or
Filipino
• repudiation of the 1973 Constitution and antipopular laws and
decrees
• “the establishment of a democratic coalition government that is
truly representative of all sectors and classes of Philippine society”
Of the CPP executive committee decision, Ricardo Reyes, who had been elected to
the CPP Politburo at the recently concluded central committee plenum, says that the
assumption was that the alliance between the USA and Marcos remained “fairly solid,"
but it was also perceived that “at the helm of the opposition, participating in this exercise,
was a section of the big bourgeoisie and the landlords who were anti-Marcos, so the
party would be at the losing end afterward.”16
• the release of all political prisoners

• the investigation of human rights violations, with prosecution of
the guilty parties
• promotion of the rights to self-determination of the Bangsa Moro
and Cordillera peoples
• recognition of all political groups “which have been struggling
against the US-backed Marcos dictatorship.”
As the opposition had refused to adopt these policies, BAYAN viewed

the election as “a total exercise in futility.”
As significant numbers of CPP cadres, members, and supporters
ignored the boycott line, it might be said that the party was reaping the
harvest of its anti-Marcos emphasis. Sison, who disagreed with the boycott
decision (indeed, he more than any other had been responsible for the
party’s primarily anti-Marcos focus), now suggested that the legal party-
influenced organizations conduct only a “minimal” boycott campaign,
and that opposition candidates should be allowed to campaign for votes
from the CPP-NPA’s “organized mass base.”17 The penultimate sentence in
BAYAN’s policy statement had read: “If we have to go against the tide in
this particular struggle, so be it. But the course of history shall eventually
vindicate our principled position.” To a certain extent, in that the events of
February 1986 resulted in the return of rule by the traditional elite and the
strengthening of foreign domination, that vindication might be said to have
been achieved (although, of course, the CPP-BAYAN position had been
based on a presumption that Marcos could not lose).
Sison’s attempt to dilute this “principled decision” was, like the
self-critical reassessment the party would issue later, little more than a
damage-limitation exercise. The final sentence in the BAYAN statement
provided a clue to the rationale for the boycott decision: “Freedom and
democracy are won not through sham electoral contests but through actual
battles between the mighty force of a united people and the forces of
oppression.”18 This is not inconsistent with the explanation an antiboycott
source gave Weekley, i.e., that the leadership felt that participation in the
C h apter i 9: C o m m u n ist s in a T im e of “ P e o p le Po w er ” 4 13
parliamentary exercise would be a diversion from the “imperatives of the

Strategic Counter Offensive,” at a time when the situation was “developing
towards an insurrectionary moment.”19
Two days after the ballot, Aquino declared herself the winner. That
sam e day, twenty-nine Commission on Elections computer operators
walked out, claiming that the results thus far posted differed from their
own calculations.* It was not until a week later, however, on February 15,
that the Batasang Pambansa declared Marcos the winner, with 10,807,197
votes to Aquino’s 9,291,716. NAMFREL, based on 69 percent of the vote,
gave the election to Aquino by a margin of 7.5 million to 6.8 million.
Aquino responded, at a rally of a claimed 500,000 supporters (Macaraya
claims that “over a million" attended this rally, an estimate which, as
w e shall see, was improbably high)21 in Rizal Park, by announcing a
campaign of civil disobedience, a boycott of goods and services provided
by “crony” companies, and a one-day strike called for February 26. Of
critical importance was the fact that the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of
the Philippines (although attended by only a third of the bishops) now
issued a statement entitled “Now Is the Time to Speak Up,” saying that “in
our considered judgement, the polls were unparalleled in the fraudulence
of their conduct . . .” Read from pulpits across the length and breadth
of the archipelago, the statement continued: “If such a government does
not of itself freely correct the evil it has inflicted on the people, then it is
our serious moral obligation to make it do so.”22 According to Douglas J.
Elwood, a US priest in Manila at the time, this “probably more than any
other single factor, not only helped to trigger the February uprising but
contributed decisively to its nonviolent character.”23
According to Manila Times columnist Tony Lopez, who witnessed the event, foreign
correspondents were given notice of the walkout, which was led by the wife of a RAM
major, the day before. He also says that a recount by NAMFREL after Aquino had taken
office revealed that Marcos had won by 8(H),(XX) votes.20
At this stage, Ronald Reagan despatched veteran diplomat Philip

Habib to Manila. According to Bonner, Habib’s mission led to further
demoralization at the US Embassy as it was clear that the president
distrusted its officers and that it was being alleged that “it was the Carter
administration running the Reagan administration’s Philippine policy.”24
According to Brown, Habib took with him a set of instructions calling for
Aquino to concede defeat.25 That Habib did not proceed with this was due
to the heightened media profile which was by then being given to the
allegations of electoral fraud, and Habib arrived at the view that further
support for Marcos would not serve US interests. This assessment appears
to have been arrived at as a result of discussions with US residents and
veteran observers— the American Chamber of Commerce, the New Yorker
correspondent Robert Shaplen, Guy Parker of the Rand Corporation (of
which, until his death, Douglas MacArthur had been a director), and
Claude Buss.26 Even before Habib’s return, however, Reagan, having
originally claimed that there had been electoral fraud by both camps, was
forced by the reaction to this to issue a further statement conceding that
the “widespread fraud and violence” had been “perpetrated largely by the
ruling party.”27
According to Seagrave, while in Manila Habib also met secretly with
Ramos and Enrile. He claims:
There was a hidden agenda. It had been debated by the country team at
the US Embassy and in Washington for many months—whether or not to
give the green light to RAM’s coup plot. The indications are that a very
preliminary American signal was given to Enrile and RAM on Thursday,
February 20, two days before Habib left.28
It was on that day that RAM decided to go ahead with its assault on
Malacanang in the early hours of Sunday, February 23. On that Thursday,
Ver began repositioning his forces around the capital and, although Habib
was still negotiating, Seagrave says that “someone at the CIA station
(nobody is sure who) gave RAM the nod.”29
C h apter 19 : C o m m u n ist s in a T im e of “ P e o p l e Po w er ” 4 15
Opinion is divided on whether official US agencies were in fact

instrumental in the RAM rebellion. Mark Malloch Brown claims that
there is no “basis in fact” to the assumption that Habib gave Enrile and
Ramos the go-ahead.30 Pimentel, on the other hand, reports that a RAM
colonel approached a CIA officer in Manila in an attempt to procure heavy
weapons, and although these were not forthcoming it was thought that
the rebels met with US intelligence officers, including Manilas CIA station
chief. The same source quotes one US intelligence operative, however, as
saying: “The ingredients were there to let the locals do it themselves. The
US didn’t have to dirty its hands, the Filipinos had all the right instincts.”31
Bonner points out that all the evidence either way is circumstantial, and
that the strongest argument against the possibility of US involvement is
that support of Marcos was still official policy of the US government. We
have seen, though— and Bonner makes it abundantly clear in his own
work— that there was a clear division in Washington, and that Reagan
himself constituted the largest obstacle to the ditching of Marcos. This is
not so very different from Seagrave’s contention that the “RAM plot was
actively encouraged by US intelligence officers, but it was almost stymied
by President Reagan’s stubborn conviction that Ferdinand Marcos must
remain in power.”32 Bonner goes on to state that CIA participation would
have meant that William Casey, its director, was working without the
approval of the President. “That,” Bonner boldly states, “he would not have
done.”33
Bonner exhibits a surprising degree of naivete with such an argument,
for if the history of the previous fifteen years had demonstrated anything,
it was that the US intelligence services sometimes acted as a law unto
themselves. Similarly, Brown misses the point when he argues against
the possibility of authorization of the military rebellion emanating from
Habib. Although the timing of events (the rebellion commenced just two
hours after the diplomat’s departure) may well have given the impression
that Habib had given the green light, such a possibility is unlikely in the
extreme given that Habib was the personal emissary of Reagan, who at
this stage still supported Marcos. In fact, if the timing of Habib’s mission
suggests anything it is that the nod for the rebellion probably came from
one of the dissident factions in the CIA or the state department. Knowing
that Habib would be returning with an unfavorable report on Marcos’s
chances, knowing that the Catholic Church was supporting the campaign
of civil disobedience, it may well have been felt that a revolt by RAM
would tip the balance— if not in Manila, then certainly in Washington. It
should never be forgotten that Marcos conceded defeat not when RAM o r
“people power” made it impossible for him to remain in power (although
this was probably true in strictly political terms), but when Washington
indicated that it had withdrawn its support.
After the election, the PKP had continued to remain aloof from the
process which was unfolding. An editorial in the second issue of Philippine
Currents, written while Habib was still in the country, speculated that
the US envoy was in fact seeking further concessions from Marcos—
possibly the réintroduction of parity rights for US investors— in return
for US support in the face of Aquino’s civil disobedience campaign. “The
American perception is,” said the journal, “which side can offer the highest
bid in the service of US interests at the cost of national sovereignty.”34 The
USA, therefore, was still viewed as the sole arbiter. In the same issue, an
article by Ofreneo cast doubt on the claims of victory for Aquino being
advanced by NAMFREL (which, as the PKP had earlier pointed out, had
been accredited as a result of US pressure on Marcos).
It seems that the opposition strategy is to show Aquino leading Marcos by

a wide margin through a quick count by NAMFREL of the results coming
from the urban areas and other pro-Aquino regions. Then, if the results
from the provinces are overwhelmingly pro-Marcos and the electoral trend
is reversed in favor of Marcos towards the end of the counting, it will be
easy to cry foul and denounce KBL cheating, real or not.35
In neither the editorial nor the Ofreneo article was there any suggestion
that the civil disobedience campaign called by Aquino should be supported.
C h a p te r i 9: C o m m u n is ts in a T im e o f “ P e o p le P o w e r ” 4 17
In RAM’s planned assault on Malacanang Palace on February 23,

th e intention was that General Ver would be killed and Marcos forced
to resign.36 The day prior to the planned assault, however, Ver arrested
three of the plotters and began to move stealthily against troops whose
loyalty was in question. It was as a result of this that Enrile and the RAM
leaders moved to Camp Aguinaldo, the Army headquarters on EDSA, and
Ramos, having received a call from Enrile to tell him that the game was up,
established a second base across the street at Camp Crame, the Philippine
Constabulary headquarters. At this stage, the military rebels numbered just
a few hundred. Left to itself, the military rebellion would thus have been
doomed to failure which, in turn, would have sealed the fate of the civilian
opposition. But support was to hand.
From this point onward, as even Bonner concedes, “there was no
doubt whom (the USA] wanted to win.”37 The church-run, US-subsidized
Radio Veritas* took to the air, with Cardinal Sin calling upon the faithful to
defend the rebellion; the station became, according to Ofreneo, “the center
of communication and mobilization during the crucial first two days of the
rebellion.”38 Throughout the rebellion, the rebels were supplied information
on the positions of the Marcos forces by US officials, while Clark Air Base
permitted rebel helicopters to refuel and stay overnight.39
Despite the call by Radio Veritas, however, initially only a few
thousand people responded, leading Goodno to describe the beginning of
“people power” as “a rather pathetic sight that first night.”40 Unaccountably
(or perhaps merely displaying the incompetence for which he was so
thoroughly resented), Ver had agreed a ceasefire with Enrile on that very
night, despite the fact that by this stage the military rebels were so few.
Thereafter, any armed clash between rebels and loyalists would only be
possible at the risk of extensive civilian casualties.
A moving force behind the establishment of Radio Veritas was, in fact, the US Jesuit and
longtime Philippine resident Fr. James B. Reuter.
On the second day, the number of demonstrators began to increase.

Goodno, plugging into the mythology, speaks of “thousands upon
thousands of Filipinos” who “flocked to EDSA, thereby creating w hat
Ramos called a revolution of the people.”41 Ellwood more cautiously
says that by that second morning “some 40,000” had gathered at EDSA,
of which 7,000 were nuns and 5,000 priests and seminarians.42 While it
cannot be disputed that many thousands did eventually participate in
the “people power” exercise, Constantino rather lightheartedly (although
in some detail) demonstrated that some of the claims for the number o f
participants in the various events were wildly exaggerated. Enlisting the
assistance of his granddaughter, a student of architecture, Constantino
showed that, even making no allowance for physical obstacles, the
capacity of Luneta (Rizal Park) is between 584,563 and 733,957 and that
even if participants were tightly packed, having room only to breathe,
the capacity would increase to only 1,648,000— “a very far cry from the
five to six million that has been accepted as fact by most elements of the
victorious opposition.” Furthermore, the number of participants at EDSA
during the peak twenty-four hours (on the basis of a six-hour stint per
person) would have been between two and two-and-a-half million.43
With Aquino’s call for civil disobedience after the election, there
seemed at first to have been a minor change of tack within one of the
CPP-influenced organizations; for in his study of trade union responses
to the events of February 1986, Macaraya notes that Aquino’s call was
supported by the traditionally pro-Marcos Trade Union Congress of the
Philippines (TUCP), the left-leaning TUPAS, and the CPP-influenced
Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU, or May First Movement).44 While the TUCP
and TUPAS claimed to have called upon their members to participate,
however, the KMU admitted that it took no initiative and that its members
participated of their own accord.45 Several years after the event, Sison
would claim that it was “untrue as claimed by certain elements that
BAYAN was not in the people’s uprising of February 22 to 25”46 and that
“BAYAN was the largest of the antifascist organizations at the core of the
people’s uprising . . .”‘7 He continues: “There can be no denying that more
C h a p t e r i 9: C o m m u n is t s in a T im e o f “ P e o p l e P o w e r ” 4 19
than 90 percent of the people who surrounded Malacaftang Palace and

the Malacafiang Park came from the member-organizations of BAYAN,
especially the Kilusang Mayo Uno, League of Filipino Students, KADENA
and so on.”48
At the very least, Sison is misleading here. It might well be true that
a large number of individual members of BAYAN and its constituent
organizations took part in “people power.” The fact remains that
they would have done so as individuals and not as either directed or
encouraged by any policy announcement or call by BAYAN or any other
CPP-influenced organization. Indeed, we have already seen that the
KMU, specifically singled out for mention by Sison, admitted to Macaraya
that this was the case. It is also significant in this respect that the CPP’s
politburo itself admitted in its self-citical assessment of the boycott policy
that
when the aroused and militant people moved spontaneously but

resolutely to oust the haled regime last February 22-25, the Party was
not there to lead them. In urge measure the Party and its forces were on
the sidelines, unable to lead or influence the hundreds of thousands of
people who moved with a ( lazing speed and decisiveness to overthrow
the regime.49
It is also worth pointing oui the BAYAN membership during this

period was of a more heterogeneous nature than would later be the case,
and thus it should not be assumed that individual members who took part
in the February events were necessanly either members of, or influenced
by, the CPP. At the time of the rebellion, BAYAN had reached its peak, its
ranks swelled by forces which were merely anti-Marcos, and thus more
likely to have participated in “people power.” After February, it was these
very forces which drifted away from BAYAN, leading to a dwindling of
provincial chapters and concentration of leadership and control in the
hands of the CPP.V)
Feeling that the military resources did not exist to successfully defend
two rebel bases, Enrile led his forces across EDSA, joining Ramos at Camp
Crame. That afternoon, loyalist marines in tanks and armored personnel
carriers advanced on Crame but were halted by the demonstrating

civilians a kilometer short of their destination. After dark, the marines
were ordered to withdraw. That same evening, however, the opposition
forces were dealt a blow when armed men destroyed the Radio Veritas
transmitter.
Meanwhile, at the home of secretary of state Shultz in Maryland,
Habib was briefing Shultz, Defense Secretary Weinberger, Deputy CIA
Director Gates, National Security Adviser John Poindexter, Chairman o f
the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Crowe and Armacost on the findings o f
his mission to Manila. Marcos, Habib stated, “has had it.” With regard to
Aquino’s position on Clark and Subic: “I talked to her about the bases.
She is going to respect the treaty.”51 It is more than a possibility that
concern for the US bases was the major factor in the thinking of the pro-
Aquino forces in Washington. Six months later, for example, the Aquino
government would disclose that Marcos had written to leaders of the
Non-Aligned Movement in India, Yugoslavia, and Egypt to indicate that
the Military Bases Agreement would not be renewed after 1991, thereby
clearing the way for Philippine membership of the movement, first applied
for in 1975 but blocked by Vietnam due to the presence of the bases.52
That afternoon, Habib was in Washington, joining forces with Shultz in
an attempt to persuade Reagan that the time had com e to ditch Marcos.
Eventually they succeeded, and the White House announced that any
attack on the military rebels would lead to a cessation of US military aid.53
On the morning of Monday, February 24, pro-Marcos forces occupied
Camp Aguinaldo and trained artillery on their opponents across the street,
although at 9 a.m. Marcos went on television to say that troops would use
only small arms against the military rebels and civilians. Rebel helicopters
then struck at Villamor airbase, also firing six rockets at Malacafiang. That
same day, having intercepted a radio message giving orders to attack
the rebels, the White House called for a “peaceful transition to a new
government.” Efforts were made to contact Marcos, offering him asylum
in the USA.54 Marcos’s troops were ordered to withdraw from Aguinaldo.
The RAM forces, meanwhile, made up for the loss of Radio Veritas by
C h a p t e r 19: C o m m u n ists in a Tim e o f “ P e o p le P o w e r” 4 21
peacefully taking control of the Channel 4 television station while Marcos

w as on the air, the rebel Col. Mariano Santiago calling upon the group
loyalty of the defending officer, a fellow PMA alumnus.”
As events moved to their inevitable conclusion, a pathetic Marcos
telephoned Enrile to propose that the election result be set aside and
a military government be established by Enrile with Marcos acting as
honorary president until the expiry of his term in 1987. Enrile refused.
Increasingly isolated and desperate, Marcos vowed on Monday night to
fight to “the last drop of our blood."56
But it was all over. The following day, Aquino and Marcos were
sworn in at rival ceremonies, but hours later Marcos was advised over the
telephone by Reagan’s friend Senator Paul Laxalt to “cut and cut cleanly.”
That night, Marcos and his family, accompanied by Eduardo Cojuangco,
w ere taken by US helicopter (in what Marcos would later describe as a
“kidnap”) to Clark, and thence to Hawaii.
The Marcos era was over and the Americans, although not quite in the
m anner predicted by Constantino, had scored another victory.
N o tes
1. Daniel B. Schirmer and Stephen Rosskamm Shalom, eds., The Philippines

Reader. A History o f Colonialism, Neocolonialism, Dictatorship and Resistance
(Quezon City: KEN Incorporated, 1987), 339.
2. Ibid.
3. Rene Ofreneo, “The ‘Snap’ Revolution: What Now?" in 'The February Revolution:
Three Views (Quezon City: Karrel, Inc., 1987), 19.
4. Raymond Bonner, Waltzing with a Dictator (New York: New York Times
Books, 1987), 397.
5. Renato Constantino, “The Guiding Hand,” Malaya, July 30, 1986, reprinted in
Renato Constantino and the Aquino Watch (Quezon City: Karrel Inc., 1987),
10-12. This column drew upon an article by Walden Bello appearing in the July
1986 issue of AfricAsia.
6. Following the discovery of the Asia Foundation’s CIA links by Ramparts
magazine, the CIA on June 22, 1966, acknowledged in a memorandum to the
303 Committee (an interdepartmental body established in December 1955 to

review and authorize covert operations) that the foundation was “a Central
Intelligence Agency proprietary . . . established in 1954 to undertake cultural
and educational activities on behalf of the United States Government in ways
not open to official U.S. agencies.” 'ilie memorandum expressed the view that
the foundation’s “vulnerability to press attack can be reduced and its viability
as an instrument of US foreign policy in Asia can be assured by relieving it
of its total dependence upon covert funding support from this Agency." (See
www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/frus/johnsonlb/x/9062.htm.) The CIA terminated its
funding the following year, recommending that the Asia Foundation continue in
existence “as a private institution, partially supported by overt U.S. Government
grants” (memorandum from the CIA to the 303 Committee, April 12, 1967; see
www.state.gov/r/pa/ho/frus/johnsonlb/x/9098.htm).
Books, 1991), 88.
8. Bonner, Waltzing, 408-9.
9. Renato Constantino, “Footnote to Recent History,” Malaya, March 26, 1986;
reprinted in Renato Constantino and the Aquino Watch, 9-10.
10. Renato Constantino, “Insight,” WEForum, February 4,1986; reprinted in Renato
Constantino and the Aquino Watch, 2-3.
11. PKP politburo, “Build a Mass Political Movement for National Sovereignty,
Economic Independence and Broad Democracy!” 1985.
12. Philippine Currents, vol. 1, no. 1, January 1986.
13. Felicisimo Macapagal for the PKP central committee, “A Call for Unity and an
End to Violence,” December 30, 1985.
14. PKP politburo, “Build a Mass Political Movement.”
15. PKP, Primer on the Snap Election, January 1986.
16. Ricardo Reyes, interview by the author, June 2010.
17. Katherine Weekley, The Communist Party of the Philippines 1968-1993•*A Story
of Its Theory and Practice (Quezon City: University of the Philippines Press,
2001), 137.
18. BAYAN, “Persevere in Correct Struggles, Boycott the Sham Election," reprinted
in Schirmer and Shalom, The Philippines Reader, 344-46.
19. Weekley, The Communist Party of the Philippines 1968-1993, 137.
20. Tony Lopez, “My Edsa 1 Story (Part 2),” March 3, 2010, lopezbiznewsasia.
blogspot.com.
21. Bach M. Macaraya, Workers’ Participation in the Philippine People Power
Revolution (Manila: Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, 1988), 49.
C hapter i 9: C o m m u n ist s in a T im e of “ P eo p le Po w er ” 423
22. Quoted in Douglas J. Elwood, Philippine Revolution, 1986: A Model o f Non

violent Change (Quezon City. New Day Publishers, 1986), 4.
23. Ibid., 5.
25. Mark Malloch Brown, “Aquino, Marcos and the White House,” Granta 18, 166.
27. Ibid., 431.
28. Sterling Seagrave, Ihe Marcos Dynasty (New York: Harper & Row, 1988), 407.
29. Ibid, 410.
30. Brown, “Aquino, Marcos and the White House,” 167.
31. Benjamin Pimentel Jr., “The United States: Savior or Intruder?” in Philippine
Center for Investigative Journalism, Kudeta. The Challenge to Philippine
Democracy (Makati: Bookmark, 1990), 146.
32. Seagrave, Ihe Marcos Dynasty, 398.
34. Philippine Currents, February 1986, vol. 1, no. 2.
35. Ibid
36. Goodno, Ihe Philippines: Land of Broken Promises, 98.
38. Ofreneo, “The ‘Snap’ Revolution,” 20.
39. Ibid., 21.
40. Goodno, The Philippines: Land of Broken Promises, 99.
41. Ibid.
42. Elwood, Philippine Revolution, 1986, 8.
43- Renato Constantino, “Political Arithmetic,” Malaya, April 30, 1986; reprinted in
Renato Constantino and the Aquino Watch, 21-24.
44. Macaraya, Workers ' Participation, 50.
45. Ibid., 51.
46. Jose María Sison with Rainer Weming, The Philippine Revolution: 7he Leader’s
Vfett'CNew York: Crane Russak, 1989), 118.
47. Ibid, 119.
48. Ibid., 122.
49. CPP central committee, “Party ConductsAssessment, SaysBoycott Policy
Was Wrong,”Ang Bayan, May 1986;reprinted inSchirmer and Shalom, The
Philippines Reader, 383-86.
52. PKP Information, no. 1, September 12, 1988.

54. Ibid., 439.
55. Elwood, Philippine Revolution, 1986, 9- Sison (77be Leader’s View, 122) credits
the Quezon City chapter of BAYAN with the “storming” of Channel, although
Goodno (7he Philippines: Land o f Broken Promises, 101), like Elwood, has it
that the station was seized by RAM forces.
PART SEVEN
This study has attempted to view Philippine communism between the
late 1950s and 1986 dialectically, looking at the PKP and the CPP not in
isolation but in their relationship to each other and to the cause of Filipino
nationalism, placing them in the context of the concrete economic and
political situation of the Philippines during this period. In turn, Marcos and
the Philippine economy can only be understood by relating one to the
other and placing them in the context of the stage of development reached
by transnational capital and the demands this placed on the Philippines.
The present cannot be comprehended without an understanding of
w hat preceded it. And to understand the past— even the fairly recent past,
as is the case here— there is no substitute for collecting the various items
o f evidence, sifting through them and attempting to assemble them into a
coherent whole, for no single strand of history, be it an individual life or
the activity of a political party, can be fully understood in isolation.
It is time to attempt a summary.
425
C h a pter 2 0 :
T h e A b o r t ed P rocess
Even though it was unable to match the size of the CPP,1 it is perhaps
surprising that, having suffered a crushing defeat in the Huk Rebellion, the
PKP was able to rebuild, survive the two splits of the late 1960s and early
1970s, and emerge intact from the long Marcos period.
Sison’s charge that, in adopting the “single-file" method of organization,
Jesus Lava was liquidating the party, does not withstand serious scrutiny.
The government had, for the time being, effectively shattered the party
already by its defeat of the HMB. The vast majority of its leaders were either
dead or in prison, and the party itself was illegal. Democratic centralism
implies the existence of leading organs that are able to function as such
and lower organs with the capacity to contribute to democratic debate and
thereby influence the policy-making process. None of these conditions
existed in 1957-58. The name of the PKP remained but as a functioning
party the organization had effectively ceased to exist. In one sense, then, the
party had already been— almost— “liquidated.” It was in these circumstances
that the tendency of Jesus and Francisco “Paco" Lava Jr. (the third and fourth
Lavas to hold the post of general secretary) to involve members of their
own family in the affairs of the party came to the fore, and while this must
be viewed in context and has, as we have seen, been defended on security
grounds, it cannot be denied that this was an unhealthy practice— even
42 7
more so in the context of the Philippines, where it is common for political

dynasties to conflate the interests of society with those of their own families.’
However, the relative ease (albeit in decidedly dramatic circumstances) with
which the Lavas’ leadership of the party was effectively ended in 1970
demonstrated that the problem was not insurmountable.
Gradually, the PKP revived, constructing mass organizations in several
sectors (a model it would retain for decades), and attempting to build the
broadest possible nationalist movement. The party’s alliance with President
Diosdado Macapagal’s government (albeit via Lapiang Manggagawa as its
proxy), may be considered, in retrospect, as a dry run for the party’s later
political setdement with Ferdinand Marcos. Extending Macapagal critical
support while he was in nationalist mode, the LM withdrew from the
arrangement as he once more succumbed to US pressure, having in the
meantime built support for its own pursuit of the “Unfinished Revolution.”
This compares favorably to the failure of the original Lapiang Manggagawa
in 1923-19244 to adopt a similar tactic with regard to Manuel Quezon,
whose differences with the hard-nosed Governor Leonard Wood were then
at their sharpest, and when the cause of independence might have been
advanced by a more forthright involvement by the left.
Quite obviously, the PKP made a major mistake in assigning so many
leading positions to Jose Maria Sison— he was editor of Progressive Review,
chairman of Kabataang Makabayan, and general secretary of the Movement
for the Advancement of Nationalism. Underlying this, however, was the
questionable practice of assigning leading roles to new members on
the basis of their apparent intellectual ability and enthusiasm. Francisco
Nemenzo Jr., recruited to the PKP in Britain by William Pomeroy, had no
previous experience or membership of left-wing organizations apart from
a brief period in the Communist Party of Great Britain during which, he
jokingly recalls, he “stuffed envelopes in King Street.”5 But it is also true
that, as members employed by state institutions could not for obvious
In his autobiography, Jesus Lava would write of his regret that the Maoists “became
antagonistic to the Lavas,”2 thereby conflating his family with the PKP. II was peri laps no
accident that Dalisay used the subtitle A Filipino Family for his account of the Lavas.'
C hapter 20: T he Abo rted P rocess 429
reasons be publicly exposed, there were few at this stage available to fill
th e more public leading positions.
For a few years following the CPP breakaway, the PKP appeared to
be stumbling and unsure of itself as the Maoist party gained strength, an
uncertainty witnessed by the Political Transmission of July 1971, which
called for a firmer line against the Maoists and warned that the CPP
could “emerge as the real vanguard of the revolutionary movement.” This
assertion is alarming because if, as the PKP claimed, the CPP was led by
petty-bourgeois pseudo-revolutionaries whose ultraleftism played into the
hands of reacUon, how would it be possible for such a party to “emerge as
the real vanguard of the revolutionary movement”? One could argue that
the author of the document had merely been guilty of loose terminology,
but such a fault is rare in communist party general secretaries. One
conclusion would be that the shift in tactics was born of desperation
and that the CPP had— by fair means or foul— captured the initiative to
such an extent that the PKP leaders feared that their own party would
be marginalized unless appropriate action was taken. It is also possible,
however, that this bout of desperation was largely due to the fact that
at this stage the party was without an up-to-date analysis and a clear
program, so that it found itself from time to time buffeted off-course by
CPP-induced “storms.”
A further indication of problems during this period lay in the fact
that Nemenzo, editing Ang Komunista, was able to depart from the party
line. Thus, it seemed that the PKP was having difficulty holding its units
accountable in conditions of illegality. In addition, the party’s position
on armed struggle must have appeared confusing to some members, for
while it was in the main following a path of legal struggle, the existence
of armed propaganda units in Central Luzon sent a different signal, so if
an armed unit appeared in Manila, bombing selected targets, who was to
say that this was not a result of party policy? This was, after all, the sort
of activity called for by some of the contributions to Ang Komunista. It
was in these circumstances that the Marxist-Leninist Group was able to
arise. Obviously, the whole question of violence required clarification,
4 30 A M ovement D ivided
and this was supplied by the documents entitled “On Violence” and “On
Revolution,” and at the party’s 1973 congress.
The PKP’s sixth congress put forward the first comprehensive Marxist
analysis of the Philippine economy and society of the period, stressing
the role of foreign capital and its representatives in restructuring the
economy along capitalist lines, rejecting the “semifeudal” analysis and
pointing out that it was, in fact, the aim of neocolonialism to do away
with feudalism and semifeudalism. However, even though martial law
would objectively serve the interests of foreign capital, the PKP erred
(in this view) in assigning the latter the role of motivating force in its
imposition. Nevertheless, at this congress the party identified imperialism
as the main enemy and called for “the struggle of all anti-imperialist and
patriotic forces” against imperialism, collaborationist members of the big
bourgeoisie, and the strong feudal remnants, and putting forward the
perspective of noncapitalist development.
Should the PKP, with the memory of Lapiang Manggagawa’s brief
alliance with Macapagal fresh in its memory, have been more wary in the
approach to its political settlement with Marcos? Was it a mistake to enter
into it? It is impossible to understand the political setdement without relating
it to the circumstances pertaining at the time. The world in the mid-1970s
was a different place to that of the early 1960s. A wave of anti-imperialism
was sweeping the globe. The Vietnamese people were nearing the end of
their long struggle against first French colonialism, then US imperialism. In
April 1974, just months before the conclusion of the political settlement,
the revolution in Portugal, to which the liberation movements in Angola,
Guinea-Bissau, and Mozambique had made a significant contribution,
would signal the end of that country’s colonial presence in Africa. In 1973,
the nonaligned nations had put forward their demand for a basically anti
imperialist New International Economic Order. The Third World was on the
march. Furthermore, Marcos craved greatness, and he would have been
aware that this would never be conferred on America’s “boy.” Given the
circumstances at the time, it was not particularly far-fetched to believe that
it was possible for Marcos to evolve into an effective anti-imperialist. It is
C hapter 20: T he A bo rted P rocess 431
also necessary to understand the difficult choices facing those w ho seek a

path that will eliminate mass poverty in a country such as the Philippines
by the process of genuine economic development. If it is agreed that
foreign economic domination is the largest single obstacle on that path, all
else becomes secondary.
We have seen, however, that the political settlement was far from being
an enthusiastic embracing of the whole “New Society” package. The PKP
offered critical support, and that support was confined to those reforms and
positions it deemed progressive. The party was not slow to criticize Marcos’s
shortcomings. In the conditions of martial law, however, it encountered
problems in attempting to mobilize its members and supporters to exert the
kind of pressure that would have been necessary to shift Marcos to a firmer
and more consistent anti-imperialist position— and this was one of the
reasons the PKP called for the lifting of martial law. It was also the case that,
emerging from a lengthy period of illegality, some members simply did not
know how to operate legally, a problem also encountered in the late 1930s.
Even so, the PKP embarked upon an ambitious program of developing mass
organizations, although these were less broad, perhaps, than those formed
in the 1960s, being more obviously under party leadership.
Marcos, hemmed in by a combination of the changed economic
circumstances of the Philippines, the World Bank-IMF dominance of
econom ic policy making, and his own cupidity, failed to perform the role
the PKP had in mind for him. (It may be worthy of note, however, that as
late as February 1986 Marcos, thinking he had won the “snap” election, told
Nilo Tayag of his plans to form a Ministry of Ideology and overhaul the
school textbooks, giving them a more nationalist orientation.)6 Even then,
however, the party did not become “anti-Marcos above all” but held to the
analysis it had conducted, seeking to rally forces around its anti-imperialist
line. Given the strength and consistency of that line, it was only logical that
the PKP should have adopted a position on the “snap” election of February
1986 that stopped just short of a call for a boycott, estimating that the poll
was “being held for US interests and not ours,” and that the masses would
“gain absolutely nothing.”
One of the reasons the PKP’s anti-imperialist drive was not as effective
as it might have been, however, was that the party was still largely confined
to the capital region and Central Luzon. A field for further research might
consist of an examination of the extent to which PKP rural members during
these years were bound to Central Luzon by ties to the land, some as land
reform beneficiaries. It is not suggested that it would have been necessary
for rural PKP members to permanently migrate in order to build the ranks
of the party in other regions, but the seasonal requirements of planting
and harvesting may have ruled out periods away from home measured in
months. Then again, even after the political settlement the conditions under
martial law may not have been considered congenial for such activity, and
the presence of the CPP-NPA would have barred the PKP from some areas.
Even so, it is perhaps surprising that there seems to have been little attempt
during the Marcos years for the party’s mass organizations to seek unity of
action with other legal organizations in, for example, the labor and peasant
sectors elsewhere in the country.
Apart from when dealing with the Marcos government or issuing
statements, the PKP seems to have acted through the mass organizations
under its leadership, with the party itself taking a backseat. It would not
be until the Aquino years that members would attend rallies behind a PKP
banner. There may have been several reasons for this— the conviction
that anti-imperialist unity was more important than promotion of the
party, or perhaps an acknowledgement of the prevalent anticommunist
culture within the society. Either way, this could explain why the mass
organizations grew at a faster rate than the party itself.
Ironically, the two splits suffered by the party, in 1967 and 1972-73,
seem to have had a beneficial effect (leaving aside for a moment the
decidedly negative effect on the nationalist movement as a whole) on
the PKP in the longer term. Forced to confront its own weaknesses and
the confusion within its ranks, the party conducted a fresh analysis of
Philippine society upon which it based its strategy, emerging ideologically
stronger and more confident. From 1973 onward, in the most trying of
circumstances, it never wavered in explaining to all who would listen that
C h apter 20: T h e A b o r t e d P r o c e ss 43 3
the roots of many of the problems plaguing the Philippines could be traced
to the country’s relationship with foreign capital and its various agencies.
And while it might be tempting, in view of the constraints upon Marcos
outlined in chapter 15, to conclude that the PKP was pursuing a lost cause
in attempting to push him into adopting a more consistently independent
course, the very existence of those constraints (the influence of foreign
capital in the economy, the operations of the World Bank, etc.) actually
underlined the correctness of the PKP’s basic analysis.
It could be argued, in fact, that the PKP gave up on Marcos prematurely,
perhaps being rather too influenced by those anti-Marcos forces which,
at least publicly, based their opposition on the issue of human rights. It
was not until 1979, after all, that Marcos came forward with his ambitious
proposal for eleven major industrial projects. Had the objections of the
World Bank been overridden or ignored and the projects implemented with
the state playing a leading role, the Philippine economy would have taken
a significant step along the road to real independence and development.
It must be realized that such a dramatic proposal had never before been
made by a Philippine president. Had Marcos been persuaded to push
ahead with industrialization at that stage, this would have had a serious
impact on relations with the World Bank— to the extent that the structural
adjustment loan locking the Philippines further into “export orientation”
would have been off the agenda. It was at that stage, therefore, that “critical
support” was needed more than ever. But this is hindsight.
In Forcing the Pace, this author asked the extent to which the PKP might
be considered a “surrogate of Moscow” rather than a legitimate Philippine
party, concluding that advanced Filipino workers had come to Marxism
based on their own experience, and that the international dimension in the
process of the party’s formation had come later, as a result of such prior
domestic developments. The CPP, on the other hand, rather than developing
434 A M ovement D ivid ed
organically from within Philippine society was initially a Chinese project,

and the role of Maoism and the Communist Party of China was paramount.
Moreover, the party’s strategy was based upon the writings of Mao Zedong,
which, while they may have been relevant to the circumstances of China,
were demonstrably less appropriate for the Philippines.
The membership of the new Maoist party was, to begin with, largely
petty bourgeois, and the numbers of such members would soon be
expanded as a result of the party’s activity in the student sector, while its
work in the countryside would bring in significant numbers of peasant
members. The membership profile of the CPP therefore came to bear more
than a passing resemblance to that of the PKP in the 1940s and early 1950s,
i.e., overwhelmingly peasant, but led by “generic intellectuals.” In Forcing
the Pace, the author argues:
With the effective isolation of the working class within the party, the
PKP leadership could be considered to be an alliance of middle-class
and peasant elements. The former, certainly in the person of Jose Lava,
was characterized by an almost romantic attachment to the language and
forms imported from the international communist movement. When such
a tendency found itself in the leadership of a party and an army that were
both peasant in composition, the Jose Lava characteristics of impatience
and haughty disdain for those who could not be “made” to fulfill their
historical roles (i.e., the workers] would combine with the “burning desire”
of the Filipino peasant to “put an end to ail evil once and for all through
a coup.”7
These characteristics partly explain the PKP’s periodic attempts to

“force the pace” of history, and this same tendency can be observed at
various times throughout the history of the CPP. As with the PKP, the class
composition of the party and its leadership almost certainly has a direct
bearing on this. The First Quarter Storm was, of course, a student revolt
with neither coherent program nor significant support from the working
class and peasant sectors, but it is in the Plaza Miranda bombing (if we
accept the evidence that this was planned and executed by the CPP) that
we see the clearest sign of a desire to “force the pace” of history, for the
C h a p t e r 20: T h e A b o r t e d P r o c e ss 43 5
alleged purpose of the atrocity was, on the assumption that Marcos would
be blamed, to deepen the rift between the Liberal and Nacionalista parties
and further erode support for Marcos. As with most terrorist acts, the
masses had no part to play.
Aside from the Chinese/Maoist influence, there was of course Sison’s
need to justify his split from the PKP with his claims of the impossibility of
working with “the Lavas,” and his distortion of PKP history. It is therefore
not surprising that the initial attempts at securing support bore the
mark of opportunism, as in the approach to Luis Taruc for membership
of the Socialist Party of the Philippines and the attempt to link up with
Sumulong in order to provide the fledgling party with an army. The desire
to work for the presidential campaign of Sergio Osmefta Jr. (whether
realized or not) must also be described as opportunist, for while he was
anti-Marcos he would certainly not have qualified for the description of
“anti-imperialist.” But, of course, it would soon become apparent that the
CPP itself was far more anti-Marcos than it was anti-imperialist, despite
occasional lip service to the latter. Then there was the party’s use, which
seems to have extended far beyond facilitating the first meeting between
Dante and Sison, of “Ninoy” Aquino, who in 1967 had claimed to be a CIA
agent.
As we have seen, not only was the People’s Program fo r a Democratic
Revolution modelled on an Indonesian document, which was itself based on
an analysis of conditions in prerevolutionary China, but the party program
also contained not a single mention of the trade union movement and no
programmatic demands for the working class. Sison’s whole approach was
based upon Mao’s On New Democracy, with socialism pushed down the
agenda; and while it is possible to argue that this was due primarily to the
“semifeudal” characterization of the mode of production, this “analysis” was
itself lifted from Mao.
A further influence was that of the Catholic religion and while, as argued
in chapter 11, an alliance with radical Christians would have been a valid
exercise in broadening support for anti-imperialism, what occurred was
rather more— and less— than that, as priests and former priests moved into
leadership positions within the party and the NPA and were in a position
to influence policy. The effects would have been twofold— a tendency to
revolutionary romanticism and voluntarism on the one hand, while on the
other anti-Marcosism was reinforced at the expense of anti-imperialism,
with the result that a great deal of support would simply evaporate once
Marcos was no longer there.
Given the somewhat forced nature of the CPP’s creation, it is perhaps

impressive that it managed to gather as much support as it did, although it
shouldjbe clear from this study that it did so by, while never acknowledging
as much, moving away from some Maoist dicta that were supposed to give
it direction (“political power comes from the barrel of a gun,” for example)
while simply applying other Maoist policies in circumstances far different
from those for which they had been formulated.
We have seen that “protracted people’s war” came with a heavy price in
terms of the inevitable deaths in battle and elsewhere, the forced evacuations
of the civilian population, the militarization (and to a certain extent, the
brutalization) of Philippine society. While this undoubtedly created many
“grievance guerrillas,” it produced substantially less ideological converts,
and eventually led to the carnage entailed in the anti-DPA campaigns,
which produced not grievance guerrillas but anticommunist vigilantes. The
excesses of the anti-DPA campaigns were, it can be argued, more likely
to occur where “protracted people’s war” was waged in inappropriate
circumstances— and it is the contention of this work that the circumstances
were, indeed, inappropriate. For although it had been concluded by the
mid-1970s that the geographical nature of the Philippines did not lend itself
to “liberated areas,” the rural activity subsequently conducted by the CPP-
NPA seemed to contradict this conclusion. For Specific Characteristics did
not signal a complete break from pursuit of the strategy formulated by Mao
Zedong for China.
C hapter 20: T he Aborted P rocess 437
While Our Urgent Tasks led to a shift of emphasis onto political

and organizational work in the countryside, the fruits of this work were
extremely vulnerable, because the demands around which the peasants
were organized were, as we have seen, the reduction of land rent,
combating usury and, in certain circumstances, land reform. These were
the very issues utilized by the Communist Party of China, the central
committee of which issued a directive in November 1945 (i.e., after the
defeat of Japan) that there should be movements for the reduction of rent
and interest in all newly lilxfrated areas in 1946.* In May 1948, Mao advised
as follows:
It is necessary to give over-all consideration to the tactical problem of rural

work in the new Liberated Areas. In these areas we must make full use
of the experience gained in the period of the War of Resistance Against
Japan; for a considerable period after their liberation we should apply
the social policy of reducing rent and interest and properly adjusting the
supplies of seed and food grains and the financial policy of reasonable
distribution of burdens . . . After one, two or even three years, when the
Kuomintang reactionaries have been wiped out in extensive base areas,
when conditions have become stable, when the masses have awakened
and organized themselves and when the war has moved far away, we can
enter the stage of land reform—the distribution of movable property and
land as in northern China.9
It will be apparent from this that in China land rent and interest
rates were reduced in the liberated areas. This made sense in the vast
expanses of China, in areas the Kuomintang (nowadays transliterated as
“Guomindang”) was unlikely to recapture. It is also apparent, then, that
the CPP, under Sison’s guidance, was still attempting to apply the Chinese
“model” to the Philippines, but was doing so in a haphazard fashion. The
Chinese communists had been able to rally huge numbers to their cause
during the course of the long and bitter resistance to the Japanese forces,
which had invaded Manchuria as early as 1931. (Following the defeat of
the Japanese, the national united front splintered, with Chiang Kai-shek’s
Guomindang attacking the communists.)
The CPP, on the other hand, had found that by simply launching
guerrilla warfare in an area, it ended up isolating itself, and that it needed
to first win the allegiance of the peasantry and organize it. In the absence
of a foreign invader, it adopted the Chinese communists’ recipe for newly
liberated areas. In so doing, of course, it was demonstrating that power,
rather than issuing from the barrel of a gun, lay in the organization of the
masses.10 But while the reduction of land rent and interest may have been
appropriate in the liberated areas of China during the course of a civil war,
this cannot be said of the Philippines, which, the CPP had just concluded,
could not by its very nature be host to liberated areas. And why? Because
in the circumstances of the Philippines in the 1970s and 1980s, territory lost
by the government forces could be reclaimed,* in which case the power o f
the landlords and the usurers would be restored, and the beneficiaries of
the ground-rent and interest-rate reductions punished, perhaps severely.
And what worked for the NPA in Sison’s Specific Characteristics could also
work for the AFP, which could easily switch resources from one guerrilla
front to another and, when operations against the Moro National Liberation
Front were scaled down, transfer troops from Mindanao.
This approach obviously arose from an attempt to apply Mao’s tactics
without taking due account of the very different circumstances. The only
other possibility, not necessarily mutually exclusive with this, is that,
despite all of Sison’s criticism of the PKP and the CPP’s “insurrectionists”
for their “quick military victory line,” the CPP had just such a victory
in prospect. Why would beneficiaries of the Marcos land reform be
encouraged to withhold amortization payments to the Land Bank, thereby
risking repossession, unless victory was thought to be around the corner?
Similarly, how could Chapman have been given the impression that “the
Manila government’s writ no longer ran” in Punta Dumalag unless it was
thought that victory was in prospect? This possibility is strengthened by the
fact that, as we have seen, various statements were issued in these years
to the effect that, the “advanced substage of the strategic defensive” having
“That,” a former CPP cadre told the author, “is exactly what happened."11
C hapter 20: T he Aborted P rocess 4 39
been entered in 1981, the course of the revolution was proceeding more
swiftly than anticipated.
It is difficult to escape the conclusion that, as there was no possibility
of achieving “liberated areas,” and as the CPP-NPA could only mobilize
the peasantry’s support by means of achievements that might swiftly be
swept away, the “protracted people’s war” model was inappropriate for the
circumstances of the Philippines. Indeed, the very concept was lifted from
Mao, as was the three-stage strategy.
Since the Sino-Japanese war is a protracted one and final victory will
belong to China, it can reasonably be assumed that this protracted war will
pass through three stages The first stage covers the period of the enemy’s
strategic offensive and our strategic defensive. The second stage will be
the period of the enemy’s strategic consolidation and our preparation for
the counteroffensive. The third stage will be the period of our strategic
counteroffensive and the enemy's strategic retreat.
This is Mao, writing in On Protracted War. He then clarifies: “The

second stage may be termed one of strategic stalemate.”12 Not only is he
writing about the war against a foreign invader (as opposed to a domestic
revolution), but there is in this work no indication that Mao intended that
the concept of protracted war and its three-stage corollary should have
universal application.
In the urban areas, meanwhile, although the level of legal mass

struggles had risen considerably by the mid-1980s, an article in the August
1984 issue of Ang Bayan is sobering in this regard.
In many ways, today’s generation of mass activists have surpassed the

level achieved by their predecessors during the storm of 1970-72. Specially
in terms of discipline, depth of experience, grasp of the Party’s basic line
and tactics, tempering and perseverance. But still, the phenomenal storm
of revolutionary initiative and creativity unleashed by the mass activists

and their organizations in that historical upheaval remains unequalled up
to now.
This is an admission of some significance, for if the armed struggle

was meant to inspire the masses to ever-greater heights of activity, what
conclusion are we forced to draw if, by the CPP’s own admission, that
mass activity had not equaled the levels of 1970-72, a time when the NPA’s
armed struggle was still in its infancy? A more challenging question would
be: What would the level of mass activity have been if Sison had never
split from the PKP in the first place and Marcos had been deprived of the
NPA’s activity as an excuse to declare martial law?* Rather than stimulating
and inspiring mass activity, it is worth remembering that it was the CPP
split and the armed struggle line that divided the nationalist movement and
drove away allies who had linked up with the left within the Movement for
the Advancement for Nationalism. Thus, the ambitious organizational plans
of MAN were never fulfilled as a result of the adoption of armed struggle.
Before the split, broad anti-imperialist unity was developing; after the split
alliances concluded or attempted by the CPP tended to be anti-Marcos
rather than anti-imperialist.
On the eve of Marcos’s fall, therefore, the CPP-NPA was pursuing
an inappropriate strategy in the countryside, and rationalizing its urban
activity in order to conform to the Maoist model and the CPP program.
The Maoist straitjacket was bursting at the seams, reflecting the need for a
congress at which the program adopted in January 1969 might be amended
and updated. But there was no congress, and so it is hardly surprising that
“centralized leadership and decentralized operations” led to the emergence
of what were, in effect, alternative models in Davao and Manila-Rizal that
were at the time tolerated but would later be castigated by the founding
chairman of the CPP.
There is a sense in which it could be argued that the CPP-NPA had,
sixteen years after its formation, learned from one of the mistakes of the
A similar, even more intriguing, “what iP question could be posed concerning Mao’s
break with the rest of the international communist movement.
C h a p t e r 20: T h e A b o r t e d P ro c e ss 441
PKP-led Huks— that isolation from the urban centers spelled political
isolation also. But to rationalize its urban strategy as support for the armed
struggle meant that the CPP was ignoring the other lessons of that period.
The PKP had also made this mistake, making willingness to take armed
assignments a criterion for membership and encouraging the legal mass
organizations to both establish armed groups in the cities and provide
political and material support for the armed struggle in the countryside.
Then, the result had been the banning of the PKP-led trade union center,
and now, by openly linking its urban political activity to the armed struggle,
the CPP practically invited the repression of the urban mass movement. In
a sense, CPP cadres could hardly be held responsible for their inability to
learn from the previous mistakes of the PKP, because for many of them
their only knowledge of the earlier period would have been that provided
in the writings of Sison, which distorted PKP history in order to serve the
needs of the new Maoist orthodoxy, and Sison’s feud with the Lavas.
It must be said that if the CPP seriously believed that its call for boycott
of the 1986 election would be successful, it was in a position to know
better. It could have looked to the experience of its call to boycott the
1984 elections for the Batasang Pambansa. This also failed, for as Goodno
points out: “The left could mobilise the most active and reliable core of
the opposition, but by far the largest number of anti-Marcos activists saw
the election as a chance to express their sentiments and did not want to
boycott it.”13 He recalls that, during the boycott rallies of 1984,
political activists, labour leaders and peasant organizers would speak

about economic injustice, US imperialism, human rights violations,
militarism and elite domination. Many of those who were standing in the
sun listening to them would agree with what they had to say, but would
still vote for the opposition because they simply wanted to use whatever
means were at hand to bring about a change.14
One would have thought, therefore, that it would have been perfectly
obvious that if this was indeed the sentiment of a sizeable proportion of
those who agreed with the left on the major issues, its determination to
register its views at the polling station would be even more pronounced
when Marcos himself was seeking reelection— and even more so if they
had been influenced by the CPP’s anti-Marcos focus. This of course proved
to be the case. Even at boycott rallies, it was clear that the policy would
fail, for according to Macaraya KMU members participating in such events
sponsored by their own organization “invariably distributed leaflets urging
the people to vote for Corazon Aquino.”15
As several observers of the February events are anxious to stress,
the 1986 “revolution” was anything but revolutionary. Conrado de Quiros
makes the distinction between a class-based revolution and Marcos’s ouster
by pointing out that “while ‘people’s power’ postulates a system of relations
between specific classes and the structure of authority emanating from it,
‘people power’ opens itself to all classes and, at least at face value, to all
kinds of authority.”
The very constitution of “people power"—priests and nuns, businessmen

and professionals, students, workers, military officials and sympathetic
foreign observers—is certainly catholic, if not incongruous. From the
standpoint of “people’s power,” this represents not only sectoral but class
differences as well, with the peasantry and the comprador bourgeoisie
occupying the opposite ends of this “coalition.”16
Ellwood concurs with this, stating: “Far from being a class war, it
was what we might call a ‘classless revolution . . .’”17 What this type of
analysis leaves out of consideration, however, is that while workers who
participated in “people power” may not have done so with conscious
class aims, the same could probably not be said of many businessmen or,
indeed, members of the church hierarchy. As Ofreneo points out, far from
challenging the neocolonial status quo, “‘people power’ installed the Aquino
political coalition as the ruling power and provided a grand occasion for
the renewal of the people’s faith in two major pillars of Philippine society:
the military and the Church.”18
C h a p t e r 20: T h e A b o r t e d P r o c e ss 443
Given all of this, one is forced to the conclusion that the CPP was half
right in its original abstentionist policy. However, it was, of course, led to
this policy by the mistaken analysis of the relationship between Marcos
and the USA, leading to the equally mistaken conclusion that the USA
would ensure that the “US-Marcos dictatorship” remained in power. The
PKP, on the other hand, saw the electoral exercise as being solely for the
benefit of imperialist interests; a victory for either candidate would serve
the interests of neither the people in general nor nationalists in particular,
and so the party used the occasion in an attempt to foster greater anti
imperialist awareness and unity. This is not to suggest that the PKP policy
met any greater degree of success than that of the CPP, for Pomeroy admits
that “Only the loyal PKP supporters . . . heeded the call” to spoil the ballot
papers by writing in nationalist slogans.19
What alternatives were open to the CPP? As its programmatic demands
had been rejected, it had ruled out support for Aquino. A leading legal
activist interviewed in late 1995 says, however, that support for Aquino
was the alternative, although this was subject to “shades of interpretation.”
While those in the underground opposed to the boycott favored a de facto
alliance, their counterparts in the legal organizations argued for a formal,
albeit tactical, alliance. Sison’s position, says this source, was that the
movement should take advantage of the crisis to “further erode the political
support of the Marcos dictatorship.” In reality, says the activist, participation
by the movement would have made no difference to the post-EDSA
regime, the elite nature of which differed little from that of the regimes
preceding Marcos. Even if there had been a pact with Aquino, the left,
which would not have been given key positions, would have been unable
to affect the character of the regime, as even bourgeois oppositionists like
Rene Saguisag and Joker Arroyo were ousted from their cabinet positions
after coup threats were issued by the military right.20
This being the case, it can be argued that the logical alternative
would have been for the CPP to adopt the same approach as the PKP—
preferably in tandem with it— in ensuring that the major demands of the
nationalist movement, and the role of imperialism in the election, were
placed before the public. While this would not have altered the immediate
course of events, it would have ensured that the anti-imperialist viewpoint
was digested by many more Filipinos. A nationalist mass consciousness
was surely the key factor to be developed, often slowly and painstakingly,
sometimes more rapidly in crisis conditions, if the Philippines was ever
to embark upon the road of genuine development. Given the striking
similarity of the minimum demands put forward by both the PKP and the
CPP, and of the electoral tactics pursued by the two parties, it is curious
that there appears to have been no attempt by either to liaise with the
other. If there was a major obstacle to such tactical unity at this stage (it
would, briefly, become a reality later in the decade), it was probably not the
twenty years of mutual enmity that characterized the relationship between
the parties but the fact that even now (illustrated by Sison’s position noted
in the previous paragraph) the CPP was more anti-Marcos than it was anti
imperialist.
Writing a few days after the fall of Marcos, Constantino lamented:
It must be recalled that prior to the announcement of the snap election,

there was a burgeoning debate on the roots of the present crisis.
Establishment and alternative media, government and opposition
intellectuals as well as academic and sectoral groups discussed extensively
the role played by American and other external forces and institutions in
our national life. A new perception regarding American aims and policies
and how these affected the Philippines’ economic, political and cultural
life was developing. It seemed that at last the Filipinos were becoming
aware of their neocolonial status.
This process was aborted by the electoral exercise, by the protagonists,
and by the events that transpired in the last few days.21
That dawning awareness, that process had, moreover, just made its first
real appearance since the events of 1967-1969 had divided the postwar
nationalist movement and thrown it off course.
C h a p t e r 20: T h e A b o r t e d P r o c e ss 445
N o tes
1. By the time of its ninth congress in December 1986, the PKP had 6,000
members, whereas, according to Filemon “Popoy” Lagman, the high point of
the CPP’s membership came in 1985, when it had 35,000 members (Edilberto
Hao to Ken Fuller, June 12, 2009; Filemon Lagman, interview by the author,
January 1996). Although by 1986 the PKP had members in Cebu and a
smattering elsewhere, the bulk of the membership was still concentrated in
Metro Manila and Central Luzon.
2. Jesus Lava, Memoirs of a Communist (Pasig City: Anvil Publishing Inc., 2002),
323.
3. Jose Y. Dalisay, 7he Lavas: A Filipino Family (Pasig City: Anvil Publishing Inc.,
1999).
4. Ken Fuller, Forcing the Pace: Ihe Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas, From
Foundation to Armed Struggle (Quezon City: UP Press, 2007), 55-56.
5. Francisco Nemenzo Jr., interview by the author, January 2008. The head office
of the CPGB was at 16 King Street in London’s Covent Garden.
6. Nilo Tayag, interview by the author, March 2009.
7. Fuller, Forcing the Pace, 342-43.
8. See Mao Zedong, “Policy for Work in Liberated Areas for 1946,” in Selected
Works of Mao Tse-Tung, vol. 4 (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1969), 76.
9. Mao Zedong, “Tactical Problems of Rural Work in the New Liberated Areas,” in
Selected Works, 251-52.
10. Agnes Smedley wrote little on the political differences within the Communist
Party of China, but in Battle Hymn of China she found it difficult to believe
that a town and valley she had visited could have been overrun by the
Japanese had it not been weakened within by antipopular elements within the
Kuomintang. “Men,” she concluded, possibly without realizing that she was
about to contradict one of Mao’s key dicta, “cannot triumph by guns alone.”
Smedley, Battle Hymn of China (London: Victor Gollancz Ltd., Left Book Club
edition, 1944), 260.
11. Former CPP cadre in discussion with the author, September 2009.
12. Mao Zedong, “On Protracted War,” in Selected Works of Mao Tse-tung, vol. 2
(Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1967), 137.
13. James Goodno, The Philippines: Land ofBroken Promises (London: Zed Books,
1991), 84-85.
14. Ibid., 85.
15. Bach M. Macaraya, Workers' Participation in the Philippine People Power

Revolution (Manila: Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, 1988), 48.
16. Conrado de Quiros, “‘People Power’ and the Paradigm of Salvation,” in The
February Revolution: Three Views (Quezon City: Karrel, Inc., 1987) 13-14.
17. Douglas J. Elwood, Philippine Revolution, 1986: A Model ofNon-violent Change
(Quezon City: New Day Publishers, 1986), 14.
18. Rene Ofreneo, “The ‘Snap’ Revolution,” in The February Revolution.
20. Carol Araullo, interview by the author, November 1995.
21. Renato Constantino, “The Abortion,” Malaya, March 3, 1986; reprinted in
Renato Constantino and the Aquino Watch (Quezon City: Karrel Inc., 1987),
6-7.
B ib l io g r a p h y
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Hao, Edilberto, to Jose Lava. “Comments on some of your articles on the national
situation," undated, 1984.
--------- to Ken Fuller, December 15, 2008.
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Macapagal, Felicisimo, on behalf of the PKP Central Committee, “Open Letter to
President Ferdinand Marcos,” May 15, 1975.
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--------- to President Ferdinand Marcos, February 1, 1978.
--------- to President Ferdinand Marcos, February 19, 1978.
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Nemenzo, Francisco Jr., to Ken Fuller, September 21, 2008.
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PKP Central Committee to President Ferdinand Marcos, June 14, 1976.
PKP Central Committee to President Ferdinand Marcos, March 15, 1977.
Pomeroy, William, to Benedict J. Kerkvliet, November 23/December 15, 1974.
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I nterviews
The following interviews were conducted by the author.

Carol Araullo, November 1995.
Pedro Baguisa, January 2008.
Ed de la Torre, June 1989.
Former CPP cadres, September 2009.
Romeo Dizon, January 1990.
Vivencio Jose, January 2008.
Filemon Lagman, January 1996.
Jesus Lava, January 1996.
Merlin Magallona, January 1990, July 2008, March 2009.
Francisco Nemenzo Jr., January 2008.
Rene Ofreneo, July 2008.
Ricardo Reyes, June 2010.
Pastor Tabinas, March 2009.
Nilo Tayag, March 2009
Perfecto Tera Jr., May, 1989.
Various former PKP activists, cadres, and leaders, November 1989-January
1990.
Typescripts of the following interviews are among the papers of William

Pomeroy.The interviewers are unknown.
Jesus Lava, November 1976
Jesus Lava, June 1977
Jesus Lava, May 1979
Jesus Lava, undated
Felicisimo Macapagal, undated
Felicisimo Macapagal, September 28, 1976.
N ewspapers , P eriodicals
Asiaweek
Ang Bayan
Ang Buklod
Bulletin Today
Christian Science Monitor
Daily Express
Debate
Expressweek
Far Eastern Economic Review
Guardian (London)
Information Bulletin (Prague)
Ang Komunista
The Labor Monthly
Manila Daily Bulletin
Manila Times
Midiveek
National Midweek Magazine
Ang Organisador
Peking Review
Philippine Currents
The Philippines Free Press
The Philippine Star
PKP Information
Political Affairs (USA)
Political Review
Progressive Review
Socialism, Theory and Practice (Moscow)
Struggle
TimesJournal
World Marxist Review
I ndex
Abaya, Hernando J., 28 202, 275, 282, 307, 308, 313, 314,
Abinales, Patricio N.f 206, 296n22, 315, 316, 329, 355, 356, 375, 378,
298n50 381, 385, 386, 397, 435; CPP view
Abramowitz, Morton, 399 of, before and after assassination,
Agoncillo, Teodoro, 28 309-12; and formation of NPA,
Aguilar, Mila, 313 89-96
Aidit, D.N., 58, 75n Aquino, Corazon Cojuangco, 312, 313,
Akabata, 57 314, 320, 360, 386, 388, 394, 396,
AKSIUN, 19, 106 397, 404, 405, 406, 407, 410, 413,
Alejandrino, Casto, 9 414, 416, 418, 420, 421, 432, 442,
Alibasbas, Commander, 87, 89 443
Allen, James, 185 Araneta, Antonio S., 28
Amante, Felix, 48 Armacost, Michael, 375, 405, 420
Andrea (ship), 264 Armitage, Richard, 398, 401
Ang Bayan, vii, 83, 115, 202, 211, 212, Arroyo, Joker, 320, 443
214, 234, 258, 260, 264, 270, 272, Ascher, William, 332
273, 274, 275,282, 283, 284, 285, Asia Foundation, 405, 421-22n6
288, 289, 290,308, 309, 311, 316, Asian-American Free Labor Institute,
318, 320, 321,322, 439 345
Ang Buklod, 128, 129, 131, 134, 192 Asian Development Bank, 143, 145,
Ang Komunista, 98, 115, 116, 117, 118, 178, 209, 342
122, 124, 125, 127, 138, 155, 169, Association of Major Religious
170, 429 Superiors of Women in the
Ang Organisador, 137 Philippines, 308
Aniban ng mga Manggagawa sa Association of South-East Asian
Agrikultura, 338 Nations (ASEAN), 382, 387
Anti-Subversion Law, 16, 22n, 25, 26, Azama, Maj. Rodney S., 297n30
48, 68, 152, 173, 187, 377
Aquino, Agapito “Butz,” 315, 320, 387 Bagong Alyansang Makabayan
Aquino, Benigno “Ninoy,” xi, xii, 73, (BAYAN), xii, 307, 320-22, 386,
97, 113, 117, 128, 174, 193, 194, 410-12, 418, 419, 424n55
461
Bagong Sibol, 338 93, 95, 99n20, 100n38, 105n, 109,

Baguisa, Pedro, vii, 105, 184, 185, 337, 112, 266n, 273n, 310n, 435
354n Buss, Claude, 399, 414
Baking, Angel, 68, 84n4, 103
Bakri, Ilyas, 58 Camara, Archbishop Helder, 225
Balagtas, Francisco (Jose Lava), 107 Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament
Balweg, Conrado, 234 (UK), 60
BANDILA, 320 Carter, Jimmy, 347, 355, 359, 364, 365,
Bankers’ Trust, 399 414
Barrera, Jesus G., 26 Casey, William, 400, 415
Basic Christian Communities, 251-52 Castro, Fidel, 240-41
Basic Rules of the New People’s Army, Castro, Pedro, 43, 81
96, 272, 276n4 Catholic Church, 154, 194,199, 223,
Batac, Victor, 393 224, 229, 250, 251, 253, 360, 391,
Bautista, Fred, 110 404, 405, 416
Bautista, Gen., 45 Cavanagh, John, 330
Beatles, 105n Cellophil Resources Corp., 260, 261
Bell Trade Act, 4, 144 Central Intelligence Agency (CLA), 14,
Benedicto, Roberto, 384 48, 49, 59n, 6ln, 92, 93, 107, 113,
Benguet Consolidated, 386 114, 121n32, 128, 148n, 149, 151,
Bernstein, Eduard, 138 168, 172, 173, 178, 197, 251, 345,
Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, 44, 357, 370, 381, 398, 399, 400, 401,
48n, 103, 106, 108, 111 405, 406, 414, 415, 416, 420, 421-
Blanco, Fr. Jose, 113 22n6, 435; and “Ninoy” Aquino,
Blum, Heike, 250 94-96
Bonifacio, Andres, 25 Chapman, William, 249, 251, 271, 279,
Bonner, Raymond, 399, 400, 405, 406, 280, 281, 285, 286, 287, 289, 290,
414, 415, 417 291, 301n, 309n, 320-21, 438
Briones, Alejandro, 186, 187 Charles I, 227
Broad, Robin, 330-34 Chavez, Hugo, 214n
Brown, Mark Malloch, 397, 415 Chen Po-ta, 55, 60, 66n64
Brutents, K.N., 216-17 Chen Yi, 56
Bukang Liwayway, 337 Chiang Kai-shek, 169, 437
Bukluran sa Ikauunlad ng Sosyalistang Chico dam project, 261
Isip at Gawa (BISIG), 323nll Christian Science Monitor, 397
Bulletin Today, 186, 187 Christians for National Liberation
Burnham, Forbes, 195 (CNL), 233, 248, 249
Buscayno, Bernabe (Commander Chu Teh, 65n41
Dante), xi, 11, 87, 89-90, 91, 92, Cid, Cipriano, 14, 15, 16, 22n, 23
In d ex 463
Civil Liberties Union, 157 Storm, 108-9; and formation of

Citizens’ Assemblies, 175, 176, 177 NPA, 86-98; foundation of, 67-69;
Claver, Bishop Francisco, 252, 291 and liberation theology, 223-26,
Cojuangco, Jose “Peping," 94, 110, 396 229-35, 239-41, 248-50, 252-53;
Cojuangco, Eduardo “Danding," 90, and mode of production, 201-3,
206, 302, 329, 384, 421 208-14, 218, 220, 222n43; PKP’s
Commission on Elections (Comelec), early view of, 111-19; program
176, 308, 311,358,413 of, 69-83; and united front work,
Committee on Anti-Filipino Activities, 300-322
12 Communist Party of the Soviet Union,
Communist International (Comintern), 37, 55, 57, llln , 143, 184,384
1, 2, 3, 51, 52, 215, 234, 302 Communist Party of the USA (CPUSA),
Communist Party of China (CPC), 1 ,3
x, 49, 58, 61, 72, 75, 80, 121, Concepcion, Jose, 388
218, 232, 263, 434, 437, 445nlO; Concerned Officers of the AFP, 394
development of Maoism within, Congreso de Obrero de Filipinas, 1
50-57 Congress of Labor Organizations, 3
Communist Party of Great Britain, 428 Constantino, Renato, 172, 175n, 194,
Communist Party of Indonesia (PKI), 210, 328, 330, 406, 407, 418, 421,
12, 18, 25, 58, 59, 60n 444
Communist Party of the Philippines Convenors’ Group, 386, 388
(CPP), ix, x, xi, xii, 7, 48, 61, 101, Cordillera People’s Liberation Army,
103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 124, 125, 261
126, 142n, 145, 150, 155, 156, 157, Coronel, Sheila S., 393, 396
158, 161, 184n, 188, 199, 200, 285, Cory for President Movement, 388
286, 288, 289, 290, 291, 346, 351, Cromwell, Oliver, 228
359, 369, 370, 372, 375, 378, 383, Crowe, Admiral William J., 398, 420
386, 387, 393, 396, 397, 401, 405, Cruz, J.V., 20
407, 425, 427, 429, 432, 433, 434, Cruz, Lazaro, 6l
435, 436, 437, 438, 439, 440, 441, Cuenco, Miguel, 26
442, 443, 444, 445nl; and 1986 Cunanan, Benjamin (Commander
election, 410-13, 418-19; and anti- Hizon), 11
DPA campaigns, 293-96, 297n22, Czechoslovak Union of Socialist Youth,
298n50; and armed struggle 337
(1975-1984), 264-75; and armed
struggle in Mindanao, 279-84; and Daily Express, 187, 188, 359
arms from China, 263-64, and first Dalisay, Jose Y., 196n9, 428n
period of armed struggle (1969- Del Monte, 208
1975), 257-63; and First Quarter Democratic Alliance, 4, 12, 26, 80, 81
Democratic Bloc, 294, 323nll Free Legal Assistance Group, 308, 320
Diokno, Jose W., 32, 166, 320, 387 Free Philippines, 26
Disini, Herminio, 251, 260 Frente Nacional de Libertacäo de
Diwa, Commander (Mariano de Angola, 56
Guzman), 105n, 115,123, 124, 186 Frianeza, Jorge, 81
Dizon, Romeo, 10, 12, 13, 41, 46, 68, Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, 345
87, 88, 90, 109, 111, 124, 185,190, Frunze, Mario (Francisco Nemenzo Jr.),
196n9 125, 126
Dobb, Maurice, 104
Dole, 21, 208 Garcia, Arthur, 90, 93, 97
Dulag, Macliing, 261 Garcia, Carlos P., 14, 94, 309n, 394
Garcia, Robert Francis, 292, 293, 296
Educational Development Decree, 177 Geiger, Daniel, 250
Elwood, Douglas J., 413, 424n55 General Order No. 5, 177
Emergency Employment Gillego, Bonifacio, 394, 402n3
Administration, 20 Goodno, James, 109, 239, 248, 252,
Engels, Friedrich, 215, 235; on religion, 253, 387, 405, 417, 418, 441
236-39 Gorbachev, Mikhail, 384
Enrile, Juan Ponce, 94, 95, 171, 350, Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution,
356, 394, 396, 401, 414, 415, 417, 51, 55, 57, 59, 62, 75, 118, 232
419, 421 Green Revolution, 209
Export Incentives Act, 1970, 165 Group of 77,178, 341
Expressweek, 337 Guerrero, Amado, 40, 41, 69, 80, 87,
Evangelista, Aurora, 125 232, 266n. See also Sison, Jo6e
Evangelista, Crisanto, 191n Maria
Guerrero, Leonardo, 87
Federation of Free Farmers (FFF), 224, (iuingona, Teofisto, 387
230 Gutierrez, Max, 67
Federation of Free Workers (FFW), 14,
224 Habib, Philip, 414, 415, 416, 420
Fernandez, Lucas, 280 Hardie Report, 145, 203
Ferrer, Jaime, 6ln Hardie, Robert, 203
Ferrer, Ricardo D., 210, 211, 216, 217 Hao, Edilberto, vii, 380
Filipino Ideology, The, 395 Hassan, Muhammad Abdul, 58
Finin, Gerard A., 259, 260 Hechanova, Louie G., 226, 233
Five Years of the New Society, 358 Henares, Hilarion, 334
Fortich, Bishop Antonio, 287 Hernandez, Amado V., 26, 67, 68
Fortuna, Julius, 96, 303 He Who Rides the Tiger, 49
Freddie, Commander, 87 Hill, Christopher, 227, 228
In d ex 465
Hobsbawm, Eric, 298n50 106 , 178

Holbrooke, Richard, 406
Honasan, Gregorio “Gringo," 394 Kabataang Makabayan (KM), 19, 28,
Hotapea, 58 29, 30, 31, 43, 45, 46, 47, 48, 61,
Hukbong Bayan Laban sa Hapon 64n25, 74, 92, 97, 106, 108, 111,
(Hukbalahap), 3, 4, 7, 25, 86, 96, 112,113,114,116, 313
122 KADENA, 419
Hukbong Mapagpalaya ng Bayan Kalaw, Eva Estrada, 387
(HMB), 5, 11, 14, 23, 39, 43, 82, 88, Kalipunang Pambansa ng mga
91, 105n, 111, 112, 122, 123, 188, Magbubukid sa Pilipinas (KPMP),
284, 290, 427 1
Humphrey, Hubert, 162, 163 Kaplan, Gabe, 61
Hyde, Douglas, 49 Kaplan, Philip, 406
Karagatan (ship), 263-64
Ileto, Reynaldo C., 226n Katipunan ng mga Bagong Pilipina
Indian Express, 163 (KaBaPa), 336, 338
Interim Batasang Pambansa, 177, 304, Katipunang Manggagawang Pilipino
309, 350, 353, 354, 365 (KMP), 14
International Children’s Festival, 338 Kerry, John, 401
International Monetary Fund (IMF), 60n, Kilusang Bagong Lipunan (KBL), 356,
143, 145, 151, 165, 169/195, 205, 359, 416
207, 301, 327, 328, 331, 332, 333, Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU), 200, 308,
342, 364, 367, 375, 376, 377, 378, 317n, 320, 418, 419, 442
379, 380, 384, 385, 387, 398, 407, Kimura, Matsataka, 22
431 King Ranch, 209
Investment Incentives Law, 1967, 165 Kintanar, Col. Galileo C., 252
Irish Republican Army, 287 Kintanar, Romulo, 280, 295
Kolko, Gabriel, 94, 179
Jalandoni, Luis, 226, 249 Kongreso ng Mamamayang Pilipino
January 25th Manifesto, 19-20, 23, 24, 30 (Kompil), 47, 315
Jenmin Jihpao, 56 Kroef, Justus van der, 262, 263
Johnson, Lyndon B., 30n, 43, 162, 163, Kuomintang (Guomindang), 51, 52, 77,
179 437, 445nl0
Jones, Gregg R., 61, 69, 87, 88, 90, 92, Kosygin, Alexei, 43
108, 248, 252, 260, 261, 263, 264, Khrushchev, Nikita, 66n64
270, 271, 279, 282, 285, 303, 304,
305, 313, 315, 321 Labor Code, 177
Jopson, Edgar, 263n, 280, 304 Labrador, Servando, 289, 290
Jose, Vivencio, vii, 46, 58, 61, 64n28, Lachica, Eduardo, 68, 77, 86, 87, 88, 91,
92, 97, 98, 105n, 284, 285 Le Monde group, 305, 323nl2
Lacsina, Ignacio, 11,12, 13, 14, 15,16, Lenin and Imperialism Today, 104
17, 20, 21, 23, 43, 44,103, 104,106Lenin, V.I., xi, 50, 125, 133,138,
Lagman, Filemon “Popoy,” viii, 201, 192, 215, 223, 235, 238, 248; on
273n, 285, 286, 294, 304, 306n, religion, 241-47
323n6, 445nl Leon, Fortunato de, 24
Lakasdiwa, 113, 114 Uberai Party, 17, 20, 21, 34n32, 81, 91,
Lakas ng Bayan (Laban), 388 105,109, 114, 117, 171, 172, 303,
Land Bank, 175n, 271, 346n, 438 435
Lansang, Jose A., 24 Licaros, Gregorio, 331, 333
Lansdale, Edward, 399 Lichauco, Alejandro, 104, 112, 165, 166
Lapiang Manggagawa (1920s), 1 Li Li-san, 51
Lapiang Manggagawa (LM, 1960s), 13, Liu Shaoqi, 52, 55
15, 16, 17, 18-23, 29, 31, 34n32, Lopez, Fernando, 30
43, 48, 105, 428, 430 Lopez, Salvador P., 25
Lapus, Jose David, 106 Lopez, Tony, 4l3n
Laurel, Jose B., 166 Lukas, Karel, 337
Laurel, Jose P., 82, 166 Lumauig, Gualberto, 259
Laurel, Salvador, 308, 370, 387, 388,
406 Macapagal, Diosdado, 17, 18, 19, 20,
Laurel, Sotero H., 30, 109 23, 25, 105, 162, 167,169, 207,
Laurel-Langley Agreement, 19, 148 428, 430
Lava, Francisco “Paco,” 11, 12, 13, 40, Macapagal, Felicisimo, 41, 86, 111, 115,
42, 47, 101; removed as general 121, 131, 186, 187, 190, 352-53,
secretary, 110-11, 112, 427, 428n 356, 358, 359, 385-86
Lava, Horacio, 13 Macaraya, Bach M., 413, 418, 419, 442
Lava, Jesus, viii, 9,10, 11, 12,13, 23, Maclang, Federico, 131, 136, 185
39, 40, 63n21, 68, 86, 120n31, 182, Magàllona, Merlin, 13, 15n, 42, 63n21,
184, 188, 196-97n9, 427 112, 123, 129, 134, 184, 187, 329,
Lava, Jose, 4, 5, 81, 84n4, 103, 107, 110, 339, 343, 358, 360, 363, 367, 375
120n32, 380, 434 Magno, Alex, 75n
Lava, Vicente, 3, 4 Magsaysay, Ramon, 24, 6ln, 94, 166,
Lava, Vicente, Jr., 12, 113 194, 207, 399, 408
Laxalt, Paul, 400, 421 Malay, Armando, Jr., 203, 269, 312
Laya, Jaime, 333 Malayang Pagkakaisa ng Kabataang
League of Filipino Students, 308, 419 Pilipino (MPKP), 45, 92, 104, 106,
Left-Wing Communism, An Infantile 107, 111, 112,113, 114
Disorder, 50 Malayang Samahang Magsasaka
Le Monde (newspaper), 56 (MASAKA), 13, 19, 23, 31, 32, 44,
In d ex 467
45, 46, 68, 85n4, 104, 106, 107, 430, 431, 432, 433, 435, 436, 438,
110, 111, 188 440, 442, 443, 444; and declaration
Manarang, Cesareo, 87 of martial law, 171-80; economic
Manglapus, Raul, 114, 170, 369, 387 restrictions upon, 327-34; failure
Manila-Rizal Committee/Region (of to realize nationalist potential,
CPP), 74n, 267, 285, 303, 304, 33V-60; first term of, 162-66;
323n6, 440 nationalist stance of, 167-71;
Manila Times, 20, 61, 115, 162, 164, ouster of, by “people power," 404-
320, 4l3n 21; PKP’s political settlement with,
Manley, Michael, 195 182-93
Maoism, x, xi, 28, 37, 42, 49, 58, 60, 78, Marcos, Imee, 357
80, 116, 118, 183, 199, 214, 218, Marcos, Imelda, l6l
229, 231, 232, 235, 240, 249, 393, Marighella, Carlos, 129, 135n
434; development of, in China, Maring, Commander (Romulo de
50-57 Guzman), 123, 338
Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-tung), 37, 42, Marx, Karl, 205, 215, 235, 241, 249,
50, 51, 53, 55, 57, 60, 68, 71, 75, 268n, 381
80, 83, 142, 143, 230, 232, 248, Marxist-Leninist Group (MLG), 127-37,
434, 436 138, 140n30, I40n37, 141, 429
MacArthur, Douglas, 322, 414 Marxist-Leninist Party of the
Maravilla, Jorge (William Pomeroy), Netherlands, 57
107, 127 McGehee, Ralph, 59n
Marcos, Ferdinand, ix, x, xi, xii, 1, 21, McKenna, Thomas M., 250, 287
30, 47n, 62, 72, 73, 77, 79, 90, 91, McNutt, Paul, 81
93, 94, 95, 97, 99n31, 102, 106, Military Assistance Pact, 19, 29, 349
107, 108, 109, 110, 112, 113,114, Military Bases Agreement, 19, 29, 377,
115,117, 119, 127, 128, 130,131, 385, 407, 420
135,148, 150, 157, 158, 194,196, Mijares, Primitivo, 186, 187
197n9, 200, 201, 205, 207, 208, Milton, John, 227
224, 225, 250, 251, 253, 260, 261, Mindanao-Sulu Pastoral Conference,
263, 269, 275, 286, 287, 288, 289, 253
290, 297n30, 300, 301, 305, 306, Mitra, Ramon, 387
307, 308, 309, 310, 311, 312, 314, Moffett, George D. Ill, 397
315, 316, 321, 322, 325, 335, 336, Mondiguing, Alipip, 259
337, 338, 363, 364, 365, 366, 367, Monkees, 105n, 115
368, 371, 372, 374, 375, 376, 377, Morales, Horacio, 305
378, 379, 380, 383, 384, 385, 386, Moro National Liberation Front, 250,
388, 391, 393, 395, 396, 397, 398, 287, 292, 438
399, 400, 401, 402, 425, 427, 428, Movement of Attorneys for
Brotherhood, Integrity, Nationalism (NAFLU), 12

and Independence (MABINI), 320 Nationalist Citizens’ Party, 15
Movement for a Democratic Philippines National Labor Relations Committee,
(MDP), 101, 106, 107, 108, 111, 345
120nll, 233 National Movement for Free Elections
Movement for the Advancement of (NAMFREL), 6ln
Nationalism (MAN), 31-33, 40n, 44, National Secretariat of Social Action,
45, 49, 63n21, 74, 104, 105,107, Justice and Peace, 253
112, 168, 169, 440 National Students League, 113
Movimento Popular de Libertadio de National Unification Committee, 386
Angola, 56 National Union of Students of the
Munroe, Trevor, 204 Philippines (NUSP), 113, 115
Mutual Defense Treaty, 29, 349 NATO, 142
Myint, H., 209 Navarro, Frank, 239-40
Nazareno, Rex, 87
Nach, James, 397 Nemenzo, Francisco “Dodong,”Jr.,
Nacionalista Party, 2, 5, 20, 21, 32n32, vii, 10, 13, 15n, 21, 22n, 24, 28,
81,90, 114, 117, 172, 435 31, 34n24, 35n58, 39, 40, 41, 42,
Nagkakaisang Partido Demokratiko 43, 45, 58, 59, 60, 62, 63nll, 69,
Sosyalistang Pilipinas, 369 82, 83, 104, 106, 108n, 110, 111,
National Alliance for Justice, Freedom 115, 119n8, 120nll, 138, I40n30,
and Democracy, 305 I40n37, 155, 188, 190, 234, 289,
National Anti-Parity Council, 19 340, 36lnl7, 381, 428, 429; and
National Association of Trade Unions the Marxist-Leninist Group, 123-37
(NATU), 12, 14, 15, 22n, 32, 103, Nepomuceno, Juanita L., 25
104, 106 New International Economic Order
National Bureau of Investigation, 113 (NIEO), 178, 184, 341, 342, 364,
National Citizens’ Movement for Free 382, 430
Elections (NAMFREL), 388, 406, New People’s Army (NPA), xi, xii,
413, 416 11, 80, 94, 96, 97, 100n52,105n,
National Democratic Front (NDF), 96, 106, 112, 115, 119, 122, 123, 126,
226, 233, 234, 252, 281, 295, 305, 130, 184, 199, 200, 223, 250, 252,
309, 310, 312, 321, 323nl2, 375, 253, 283, 284, 346n, 359, 369,
386, 397; formation of, 300-302 386, 393, 397, 398, 401, 402, 405,
National Economic Development 412, 432, 436, 438, 439, 440; and
Authority, 176, 328 anti-DPA campaigns, 292-96;
National Endowment for Democracy, armed struggle, 1969-1975, 257-63;
405 armed struggle, 1976-1984, 264-
National Federation of Labor Unions 82; and arms from China, 263-64;
In d e x 469
early activity of, 97-98; extent of 266-69, 280, 303, 306, 322, 437
members’ political commitment Overholt, William H., 399, 405, 406
and understanding, 284-87;
formation of, 86-93; negative Padilla, Ambrosio, 387
results of its “protracted people’s Palestine Liberation Organization, 192,
war," 291-92; numerical strength 290
of, 287-91, 297n30; and Plaza Palma, Cecilia Muftoz, 388
Miranda bombing, 109-10, 171, Pambansang Kaisahan ng Magbubukid
264; priests joining, 233-34, 239 (PKM), 23
New Society, 171-80, 182, 187, 190, Pambansang Kilusan ng Paggawa
191, 322, 335, 337, 345, 358, 373, (KILUSAN), 15, 103, 106
431 Pagkakaisa ng Manggagawang Pilipino
New Times, 380 (PMP), 308
New Yorker, 414 Paraiso, Simplicio, 67
Niehaw, Marjorie, 399 Parker, Guy, 414
Nixon, Richard M., 142, 173, 174, 351 Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas (PKP),
Non-Aligned Movement, 178, 341, 350, be, x, xi, xii, xiii, 34n24, 35n58, 58,
354, 420 60, 61, 63n21, 65n56, 67, 68, 69,
non-capitalist development, xi, 72, 156, 74, 77, 78, 86, 87, 88, 89, 92, 98,
185, 199, 201, 215-20 101, 102, 120nll, 161, 168, 169,
170, 171, 174, 179, 201, 269, 306,
Oca, Roberto, 34n32 307, 319n, 322, 325, 334, 387, 394,
Ocampo, Felicísimo C, 25 411, 416, 425, 427-33, 434, 435,
Ocampo, Saturnino, 28 438, 440, 441, 443, 444, 445nl;
Ofreneo, Rene, 184, 207, 208, 405, 416, 1930-1957, 1-6; 1957-1967, 9-33;
417, 442 and the 1986 election, 407-10;
Olalia, Felixberto, 12, 44, 67, 68 activity 1981-1985, 372-86; and
Olalia, Rolando, 320 US bases, 349-51; eighth congress
On Coalition Government, 53, 60, 71n (1980) of, 363-72; its activity
Ongpin, Jaime, 321, 386 immediately following the political
Ongpin, Roberto, 373 settlement, 335-39; its growing
On New Democracy, 51, 52, 53, 111, disenchantment with Marcos,
214, 301n, 435 352-60; its political settlement
Ople, Bias, 168, 251 with Marcos, 182-96, 197n9; its
Ortega, Bruno, 234 struggle against the CPP, 111-19;
Ortega, Cirilo, 234 Jose Maria Sison’s break with,
Osmeña, Sergio, 4 39-49; and the Marxist-Leninist
Osmeña, Sergio, Jr., 97, 167, 174, 435 Group, 122-38, 140n27; problems
Our Urgent Tasks, xi, 100n52, 218, 260, of, following the CPP split, 103-8;
removal of Francisco Lava Jr. as Pimentel, Benjamin, Jr., 109n, 263, 304,
general secretary, 110-11; seventh 398, 415
congress (1977) of, 339-48; Sison’s Pinochet, Augusto, 56
criticisms of, 80-83, 84n4; sixth Political Transmission, 13, 115, 117, 118,
congress (1973) of, 141-58 128, 429
Partido Obrero, 1 Pomeroy, Celia Mariano, vii, viii, 83,
Pascual, Danilo, 129, 136 84n4, llln , 120-21n32, 394
Peace Corps, 151 Pomeroy, William, vii, viii, 26, 28, 44, 45,
Pelobello, Vicente, 234 47, 63nll, 68, 82, 83, 84n4, 86, 88,
Peng Dehuai, 54 97, 107, llln , 120-21 n32, 127, 166,
People’s Movement for Independence, 172, 173, 184, 185,188, 193, 339,
Nationalities and Democracy, 308 362n62, 394, 402n3, 428, 443
People’s National Congress (Guyana), Praeger, 49
195 Presidential Decree No. 27, 174
People’s Opposition to the Presidential Presidential Decree No. 86, 175
Plebiscite-Election (PEOPLE), 308 Presidential Decree No. 1834, 376
People’s Progressive Party (Guyana), Presidential Decree No. 1835, 377
195 Presidential Proclamation No. 2045, 376
People’s Revolutionary Congress, 175 Procter & Gamble, 384
People’s World, 42 Programfor a People’s Democratic
Perez, Col. Greg R, 134, 359, 362n62 Revolution, 69-80, 9 5 ,142n, 201,
Philippine Association of Free Labor 203, 232, 248, 262, 267, 435
Unions (PAFLU), 14, 15, 32 Progressive Review, 14, 17, 20, 24-28, 29,
Philippine Civic Action Group, 162 42, 44, 47, 60, 66n6l, 83, 104, 169,
Philippine Collegian, 63, 108n, 112, 381 428
Philippine Currents, 407, 416 Protestants Opposed to the Presidential
Philippine Democratic Socialist Party Election, 308
(PDSP), 234 Public Order Act, 373
Philippine Military Academy (PMA), 90, Puno, Reynato S., 26
394, 395, 421
Philippine Sunday Express, 186 Quezon, Manuel, 2, 3, 10
Philippines Free Press, 163 Quimpo, Nathan Gilbert, 99n20
Philippine Trade &Development, 209 Quirino, Elpidio, 5, 19, 81, 194
Philippine Trade Union Council, 14 Quirino-Foster Agreement, 19
Philippine Trial Lawyers Association, Quiros, Conrado de, 442
308
Philippine Women’s Society, 336 Radio Veritas, 405, 417, 420
Pilger, John, 59-60n Rainsborough, Col. Thomas, 227
Pimentel, Aquilino, Jr., 387 Ramos, Fidel V., 140n27, 188, 396, 401,
Ind ex 471
414, 415, 417, 418, 419 286

Rand Corporation, 414 Samahan ng Kababaihang
Rectify Errors and Rebuild the Party, 80 Manggagawang Pilipino (SKMP),
Recto, Claro M., 14, 15, 64n31 339
Reagan, Ronald, 363, 396, 397, 400, Samahan ng mga Progresibong
407, 414, 415, 420, 421 Kababaihang Pilipino (SPKP), 336
R E FO R M., 395 Samahan sa lkauunlad ng Kabataang
Reform the Armed Forces Movement Pilipino (SIKAP), 336-38
(RAM\ 393-96, 397, 398, 402, 405, Santiago, Col. Mariano, 421
406, 4l3n, 414, 415, 4l6, 417, 420, Santos, Alejo S., 309
424n55 Santos, Pedro Abad, 3
Retail Trade Nationalization Law, 19 Savimbi, Jonas, 56
Reuter, Fr. James B., 417 Shalom, Stephen Rosskamm, 401
Revolutionary School of Mao Tse-tung Shaplen, Robert, 414
Thought, 80, 83 Schirmer, Daniel B. 401
Reyes, J.B L., 320 Seagrave, Sterling, 94, 398, 399, 414,
Reyes, Ricardo, 41 In 415
Rivera, Temario C.. 213 Serrano, Isagani, 305, 306
Roberto, Holden, 56 Shultz, George P., 420
Rocamora, Joel, 294, 295, 309 Sin, Cardinal Jaime, 253, 417
Roces, Joaquin “Chino,” 61-62 Singson, Luis, 119
Rockefeller, David, 164 Sison, Jose Maria, ix, x, xi, 7, 10, 11, 13,
Rodolfo, Agustin, 25 14, 15n, 17, 18, 21, 22, 24, 25, 28,
Rodriguez, Simeon, 67, 68, 84n4, 103 29, 30, 31, 32, 34n24, 51, 58, 59,
Roxas, Manuel, 4, 5, 81, 194 60, 61, 62, 63nll, 63n21, 64n25,
Ruiz, Nick, 233 64n28, 65n56, 72n, 74, 75n, 76,
Rusk, Dean, 163 84n4, 90, 97, 98, 99n20, 101, 103,
Russell, Lord Bertrand, 44, 111 104, 105, 106, 108, 109, 110, 111,
Russian Revolution, 1, 37, 51 112, 113, 123, 126, 131, 136, 138,
Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, 155, 197, 202, 209, 210, 221nl4,
37, 246n 232, 240, 250, 258, 263, 264, 265,
Rutten, Rosanne, 250, 255n67, 284 266, 271, 281, 289, 290, 291, 292,
293, 294, 295, 297n29, 301n,
Saguisag, Rene, 443 303, 306n, 31 On, 315, 320, 322,
Salas, Rafael, 387 375, 412, 418, 419, 427, 428, 435,
Salas, Rodolfo, 69, 88, 89, 315 437, 438, 440, 441, 443, 444; and
Salonga, Jovito, 30, 120n25, 163, 387 fonnation of the CPP, 67-69; and
Samahang Demokratikong Kabataan formation of the NPA, 88-89; his
(SDK), 45-46, 106, 113, 114, 116, criticisms of the PKP, 80-83; and
47i A M o v e m e n t D iv id e d
“Ninoy” Aquino, 91-96; reasons for 97, 98, 100n38, 310n, 393, 431
his split from the PKP, 46-49; rise Teodoro, Luis V., 28
to prominence of, 11-12; and the Tera, Perfecto, Jr., vii, 31, 32, 45, 46
SDK, 45-46; split from the PKP of, Thesesfor the Study and Propagation
39-45 of the Party's General Line in the
Sison, Juliet de Lima, 83 Period of Transition, 53
Sluka, Jeffery A., 287 Tiamzon, Benito, 295
Smedley, Agnes, 64-65n4l, 445nl0 TimesJournal, 187
Smith, Joseph, 6ln Today's Revolution: Democracy. 168,
Socialist Party, 3 170, 180, 182, 184
Socialist Party of the Philippines (SPP), Torre, Edicio de la, vii, 223-26, 229-33,
43, 46, 104, 105, 116, 435 239, 240, 241, 249
South-East Asia Treaty Organization Torres, Ruben, 108n, I40n27, 158n2
(SEATO), 30n, 142, 154, 178 Trade Union Congress of the
Specific Characteristics of Our People s Philippines, 345, 418
War, xi, xii, 265-66, 292, 436, 438 Trade Unions of the Philippines and
Stalin, Josef, 66n64, 239n Allied Services (TUPAS), 418
Student Cultural Association of the Tubianosa, Ibarra, 264
Philippines, 11-12
Suharto, Mohammed, 58, 59-60n UN Conference on Trade and
Sukarno, Ahmed, 18, 60, 94 Development, 341
Sumat, Cecilio, 90 Unichem, 329
Sumulong, Commander (Faustino del Union de Impresores de Filipinas
Mundo), 69, 86-89, 90, 91, 97, 98, (UIF), 15, 103, 110, 338
105n, 122, 435 UNITA (Angola), 56
Sun Yat-sen, 71n United Democratic Opposition Party
Szymanski, Albert, 219-20 (UNIDO), 308, 311, 370, 387, 388
United Fruit Company, 21
Tabinas, Pastor, 129, 130n, 135, 136, United States Army Forces in the Far
I40n37 East, 3
Taftada, Lorenzo, 15, 29, 30, 63n21, United States Information Service, 20
320,386 University of the Philippines, 11, 25,
Tanedo, Vicente M., 187 28, 35n58, 42, 83, 124, 162, 178,
Taruc, Luis, 44, 49, 68, 80, 86, 89, 94, 308, 381
96, 435 US Agency for International
Taruc, Pedro, 11, 12, 86, 87-88 Development, 406
Taruc, Peregrino, 12 US National Security Council, 64n31,
Task Force Detainees, 308 398, 399, 400
Tayag, Nilo, vii, 42, 88, 90, 92, 93, 96,
Valencia, Ernesto M., 213
Valencia, Teodoro F., 186
Valerio, Nilo, 234
Ver, Gen. Fabian, 306, 393, 400, 417
Vera, Benjamin de, 280
Villanueva, Governor (acting), 119
Wang Ming, 52, 53

Weekley, Katherine, 32n24, 89, 105,
119n8, 280, 293, 303, 304, 305,
306, 307, 309, 316, 323n6, 323nll,
412
Weinberger, Caspar, 420
Wilson, James, 86
Wood, Leonard, 2, 428
Workers’ Party of Jamaica, 195
World Federation of Trade Unions, 104
Worid Marxist Review, 103n, 121 n33,
197, 380
Yap, Jose, 92
Yorac, llaydee, 106,
Youngblood, Robert L., 251
Young Christian Socialists of the
Philippines, 115
Young Communist League, 104, 116
Yulo Group, 209
T he A uthor
Ken Fuller is a former trade union official from London. He has

published many articles on the Caribbean and the Philippines. His trade
union history of London busworkers, Radical Aristocrats, was published
by Lawrence & Wishart (London, 1985) and republished in 2011 by Ishi
Press (New York). In 2003, he moved to the Philippines, from where he
contributes articles on Philippine affairs to publications in London and
writes a weekly column for Manila’s Daily Tribune. His Forcing the Pace:
The Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas, From Foundation to Arm ed Struggle,
was published by the UP Press in 2007.
475
he P h i l i p p i n e s
In Forcing the Pace (UP Press, 2007, a National Book Award finalist in
2008), Ken Fuller followed the progress of the Partido Komunista ng
Pilipinas (PKP) from its foundation in 1930 to the defeat of the Huk
Rebellion in the mid-1950s. InA Movement D ivided, he continues the story
until the fall of Ferdinand Marcos in 1986.
The author traces the PKP’s painstaking attempts to rebuild, its conclusion
of a political settlement with Marcos in 1974, and the development of the
increasingly anti-imperialist stance which informed its approach to Marcos.
The three congresses held by the PKP during this period are considered in
detail, as are the two splits which occurred—that leading to the formation
of the Communist Part) of the Philippines (CPP) in 1968, and the
“Marxist-Leninist Group” split in 1972.
The current volume considers the CPP’s “semifeudal” characterization of

the mode of production, its approaches to religion and alliances, and its
“protracted peoples’ war.” The book differs from most other studies on this
subject, discussing the growth of Maoism in China and the manner of its
introduction to the Philippines, and arguing that it is impossible to achieve
an accurate view of the CPP’s impact unless it is considered alongside the
PKP and the developments in which that party was involved when the split
occurred.
Cover Design: Tony D. Igcalinos

Front Cover Photos
Top: G en. See. Felicisimo Macapagal
speaking at the P K P ’s 9th Congress. Cabiao
Coliseum , Cabiao, Nueva Kcija (P K P archives)
Bottom : M embers o f the New People’s Arm)

A Movement Divided - Philippine Communism, 1957-1986

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822 03960 9375

© 2011 by Ken Fuller

The National Library of the Philippines CIP Data

1. Communist Party of the Philippines— History.

JQ1419.A53 324.2599075 2011 P220110610

Book Design by Nicole Victoria

Chapter 2: The Development of Maoism in China

Chapter 3: Party and Program 67

Chapter 4: The New People’s Army 86

Part Three 101

Chapter 5: Party against Party 103

Chapter 6: The Marxist-Leninist Group 122

Chapter 7: The Sixth PKP Congress 141

Chapter 8: Marcos and the “New Society" 161

Chapter 9: Political Settlement 182

Part Four 199

Chapter 10: “More a Mode of Expression . . . ” 201

Chapter 11: The Armalite and the Crucifix 223

Chapter 12: From the Barrel of a Gun - 1 257

Chapter 13: From the Barrel of a Gun - II 279

Chapter 14: Alliances 300

Part Five 325

Chapter 15: An Economic Prisoner of the “Free World” 327

Chapter 16: Marcos Refuses to Play 335

Chapter 17: From Critical Support to

Part Six 391

Chapter 18: Outside Influences 393

Chapter 19: Communists in a Time of “People Power” 404

Part Seven 425

Chapter 20: The Aborted Process 427

“Popoy" Lagman, 47, was assassinated on February 6, 2001; Jesus Lava,

The work that follows continues the study of Philippine communism

“Dialectical thought,” explains a Marxist textbook published in the

circumstances, particularly tenable in the long term. Moreover, the strategy

A summary (and, in some cases, further development) of the major

AAFU Asian-American Free Labor Institute

EFF Extended fund facility

NAMFREL National Citizens’ Movement for Free Elections

SPKP Samahan ng mga Progresibong Kababaihang Pilipino

The work that follows traces the development of Philippine communism

Jose Maria Sison rose to prominence through the student movement,

1961, SCAUP rallied thousands to a demonstration against the witch-hunting

In 1963, Jesus Lava issued Political Transmission 19. It was this

The advent of Lapiang Manggagawa should somehow assure effective

The Lapiang Manggagawa can be an effective ally of the national

Of the links with Macapagal, the journal commented:

It is heartening to observe that President Macapagal has made a coalition

Despite Macapagal’s apparently progressive labor policies,

the workers would certainly be happier if the cooperation between the

(KM, or Nationalist Youth), the LM organized a demonstration of workers

Instead of joining the jockeying of presidential aspirants to be the

On January 25, 1965, a further demonstration was called upon the

threats of alien-inspired repression and witch-hunting," a strategy for full

administration.” But now the government was lukewarm toward land

From all indications, the bold, progressive and revolutionary Liberal

Of the promised “organizational drives all over the country,” however,

has suffered through four years of existence, apparendy because of

Here, Sison appeared to be arguing for the construction of a Marxist-

The Malayang Samahang Magsasaka (MASAKA, or Free Union of

A nation where civil liberties become weaker or are overtly suppressed,

Such a viewpoint would have been acceptable to the PKP as it

Essentially, Maoism was a reflection of the character of p re