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Political Mobilization and Violence in Central Luzon (Philippines)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Otto D. Van Den Muijzenberg
Otto D. Van Den Muijzenberg
Affiliation:
University of Amsterdam
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Extract

Central Luzon is a fertile plain directly to the north of metropolitan Manila. This region, thoroughly colonized and densely populated, has been a centre of agrarian unrest for decades. In the forties and fifties Central Luzon formed the nucleus of a peasant movement which produced the strongest anti-Japanese guerilla-army in the whole Southeast Asia, the Hukbalahap (an abbreviation of Anti-Japanese People's Army) or in short Huks. The strength of this army came primarily from the fact that the struggle against the national enemy could be combined with the pre-war conflict between the peasants and the landowners.The latter, together with the Constabulary, sided for the most part with the Japanese. At the time of the liberation in 1945 most of the local and provincial administration was in the hands of the Huks. However,having quickly regained the top positions, the political elite, who feared having quickly regained the top positions, the political elite, who feared to this. When this elite first refused to allow the radical people's represen-tatives delegated from Central Luzon to take their seats in parliament,and then attempted to recapture political mastery in Central Luzon by means of force, the Huk movement was compelled to adopt an ever more militant attitude.In the process,the leadership of the popular front set up by the Hukbalahap moved more and more towards the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP). The result was no less than a complete incorporation of all guerillas into the CPP in 1950. It had already been decided in 1948 that the policy of a parliamentary and legal conflict which had hitherto been pursued was not adiquate,and that force would have to play a decisive role. The Anti-Japanese People's Army was re-christened the People's Liberation Army(HMB).i

Type
Articles
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 7 , Issue 4 , July 1973 , pp. 691 - 705
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1973

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References

1 Pomeroy, William J., Guerilla and counter-guerilla warfare (New York, 1964), pp. 63–4.Google Scholar

2 Pomeroy, op. cit., pp. 59–72, and Taruc, Luis, He who rides the tiger (New York, Washington and London, 1967),Google Scholar and Saulo, Alfred B., Communism in the Philippines (Manila, 1969), give facts and views from inside.Google Scholar This episode is described from the army's point of view by Valeriano, Napoleon D. and Bohannan, Charles T. R., Counter-guerilla operations: the Philippine experience (New York and Washington, 1962);Google ScholarLieberman, Victor, ‘Why the Hukbalahap movement failed’, Solidarity, Vol. I, 4, 1966, pp. 22–30,Google Scholar and Salmon, Jack D., ‘The Huk rebellion’, Solidarity, Vol. III, 12, 1968, pp. 1–30, give an analysis from outside on the failure of the rising.Google Scholar

3 Since the completion of this text, the following books on the present-day problems affecting Central Luzon have appeared: Guerrero, Amado, Philippine society and revolution (Manila, 1971);Google ScholarLachica, Eduardo, Huk, Philippine agrarian society in revolt (Manila, 1971). These recent works are written respectively by the ideological leader of the Maoist Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP-Marxism-Leninism-Mao Tse-tung Thought), and a journalist of the Philippine Herald.Google Scholar

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13 Data on the present-day Huk-movement have been acquired from careful comparison of newspaper reports and analyses by various journalists and politicians during my stay in the Philippines. This has been augmented by facts and views acquired in interviews with some very well-informed key informants. The interviews with Sumulong took place in Spring and July of 1970. The interviewers were members of the Philippine Congress. See the weekly The Philippines Free Press, 6 June and 25 July 1970. For Sumulong's capture, the same periodical 26 September 1970.Google Scholar

14 Later developments are extensively treated in Lachica, op. cit., Chapters 1, 8 to 11.Google Scholar

15 The figures are respectively borrowed from The challenge of Central Luzon by the Senate Committee for National Defence and Security, May 1967, p. 17; newspapers, specifically the Manila Times; this second figure is certainly too low; The Philippines Free Press, 19 September 1970.Google Scholar

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18 Van Doorn and Hendrix have given a comprehensive analysis of these conditions in their book of this title, op. cit., passim.Google Scholar

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