Background
During the late 1970s and much of the 1980s, political winds in the Philippines favored the acceleration of the New People’s Army (NPA) and the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP). Beginning in the late 1960s with a tiny number of members and even fewer rifles, the party and the guerrilla army had grown to become political and military forces in the nation then burdened by the Marcos regime and immense economic and political problems associated with that rule. By the mid 1980s the NPA had between twenty and twenty-four thousand members and controlled an estimated 20 percent of the country’s villages and urban neighborhoods. [1]But by the early 1990s, the underground movement’s fortunes had declined sharply. The NPA’s “mass base” had diminished to 3 percent of the country’s villages and neighborhoods, according to figures cited in Rosanne Rutten’s chapter of this book, and the number of armed NPA had dropped to an estimated 10,600. Moreover, serious disagreements within the CPP and NPA sharply divided many members and supporters, while others threw up their hands in disgust over what often seemed to them like petty bickering and name calling. Reverberations of splits within armed movement underground contributed to divisions and splintering within numerous leftist organizations above ground. For instance, two of the nation’s largest peasant and labor organizations—the KMP (Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas) and KMU (Kilusang Mayo Uno)—have broken into pieces for reasons that include deep divisions over each organization’s relationship to the CPP and NPA and to the various factions there. CPAR (Congress for People’s Agrarian Reform), one of the country’s largest and most successful coalitions of organizations pressing for land redistribution and other agrarian changes, was completely dissolved in 1993 due primarily to irresolvable disagreements over strategies, tactics, and other matters provoked to a considerable extent by divisions within the CPP and NPA.
Most of the major disputed matters in the CPP and NPA can be clustered around three issues. [2] The first concerns tactics, strategies, and objectives of leftist politics, particularly those involved in armed struggle. The “reaffirmists,” most notably Jose Maria Sison (also known as Amado Guerrero and Armando Liwanag) and other CPP officials close to him, insist on reaffirming the centrality of protracted armed struggle by guerrilla forces. They criticize attempts by some CPP leaders in the 1980s to establish regular armed forces to fight conventional warfare against government troops, and they chastise those who argue that a sudden mass insurrection can be a short cut to capturing state power. The “rejectionists” include people who adopt several positions, not necessarily in agreement with each other except insofar as they assert that conditions in the country now render protracted guerrilla warfare, at least by itself, no longer appropriate. One prominent position here, to which not all “rejectionists” subscribe, is that “parliamentary” and other “legal” struggle should be emphasized as a supplement to underground, armed struggle. Some go further, saying legal methods should now totally replace violent ones. Entwined with this debate over methods are disputes about how the CPP should relate to mass organizations on the left—should it attempt to control them or to cooperate with them, working in partnership with organizations that retain their own autonomy? These issues are often bound up in debates about goals—the kind of politics, economy, and society being fought for—and about how to balance between settling for reforms that are within reach and insisting on revolutionary change, which lies far beyond the horizon.
A second contentious issue has to do with the relative importance of rural versus urban areas as main arenas for mobilizing support for the CPP and NPA, attacking government forces, and struggling for power. The “reaffirmists” argue that the countryside should remain the primary locus of struggle. Critics argue for greater attention to urban areas, not necessarily to the exclusion of the peasantry and other rural people, but give more emphasis to workers, squatters, and other exploited people in the cities. To some extent, these differences are connected to contending analyses of the nature of Philippine society and economy. “Reaffirmists” insist that the Philippines remains primarily a semi-feudal and semi-colonial rural political economy; hence in order for the revolution to win, it must have the support of the peasantry. “Rejectionists” argue that this analysis is far too simplistic because the country has changed significantly during the last half of this century. This matter is also connected to issues of strategy and tactics because, as Eva-Lotta Hedman points out in her chapter in this book, the countryside is associated with protracted armed struggle, while the urban areas are associated with parliamentary, legal forms of struggle.
The third issue concerns governance and decision making within the CPP and NPA. Broadly speaking, the “reaffirmist” position stresses the principles of “democratic centralism,” with emphasis on “centralism” and top-down discipline. Critics, again holding diverse views, generally put more emphasis on “democracy”; they favor fuller discussion and debate, and would reserve more room for input from local cadre in NPA and CPP policy making. This area of contention often includes criticisms and counter-criticisms about how policies were made and implemented in the past, about leadership styles and personalities, and about hundreds of details concerning who did what, when, and to whom, debates that have become extremely cantankerous.
In this chapter, I want to argue, first, that these are not new issues. Aspects of all
three have been lurking within the CPP and NPA for some time. Moreover, they are
reminiscent of debates in earlier eras of communist party and underground leftist
struggles in the Philippines. Next, I will outline several reasons for the debates and
divisions, again drawing parallels between the recent and earlier ones. I will end by
pondering the future of the “left,” suggesting that it is brighter than many think.
CURRENT DEBATES COMPARED TO PAST ONES: THE 1970S TO EARLY 1980S
WITHIN THE CPP AND NPA
Numerous CPP documents, personal accounts by party members, and academic analyses have been published about present disputes within the underground left, much of it footnoted in the next five chapters, which are themselves substantial contributions to our understanding of the splits and issues. Disputes became apparent after the 1986 presidential election, which the central leadership of the CPP and NPA instructed all followers to boycott. Many party members, guerrillas, and sympathizers with the armed struggle, however, ignored that directive, throwing themselves into the campaign against Ferdinand Marcos and/or for Corazon Aquino. From then into the 1990s, divisions became more vociferous and increasingly public, to the point that charges and counter-charges among contending sides were regularly exchanged in Manila’s daily newspapers. Meanwhile, communist party-dominated states in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union were collapsing, giving Filipino leftists even more reason to reconsider their positions and the future of their movement. In this context we are inclined to think, understandably, that the disagreements within the CPP and NPA are new, particularly since primary materials and analyses about what was happening within the CPP and NPA prior to the 1986 election are scarce. There are, certainly, unique features to the debates and reasons for them. At the same time, what is happening now in the underground left is not unprecedented.
One earlier revealing event about which we do have some knowledge is the 1978 election for the interim Batasang Pambansa (National Assembly). Again, the official position of CPP was boycott on the grounds that the election was a total sham, the Marcos government (which still ruled as a martial law regime) would make sure that only its candidates would win, and parliamentary struggle in general was a waste, sapping scarce resources needed for the armed struggle. But in Metro Manila, leaders and members of the CPP’s Manila-Rizal committee had already plunged into the electoral campaign, helping groups opposed to the Marcos regime to forge alliances and support opposition candidates, among them Benigno Aquino who campaigned from prison, where he had been under military arrest since 1972f. Even after being instructed by the CPP national leadership to desist, cadres in Metro Manila continued to campaign for these candidates.
Analysts disagree about the significance of the 1978 election event for CPP internal politics. In her chapter of this book, Kathleen Weekley says those disagreements were over tactics, not over the strategy of protracted guerrilla warfare. Other analysts, though, argue that the local Manila-Rizal committee of the CPP took exception to the central leaders’ overriding emphasis on rural resistance and their dismissal of urban struggle, and also took exception when the central leaders dismissed the committee’s argument for coalescing with others who opposed Marcos and martial law. [3] An account about Manila-Rizal committee members in the thick of the debate is unclear on this matter but does suggest that they believed the party’s central leaders were too dogmatic in their insistence on armed struggle as the only legitimate political activity to advance the leftist movement. [4] Also at issue was how decisions should be made within the party. Manila-Rizal committee leaders argued that they were in a better position than were the central leaders to judge local circumstances and decide how best to respond.
One can only speculate about what might have popped out of these disputes had some of those 1978 candidates supported by Manila-Rizal cadres actually won the count or had there been a more sustained public demonstration against the fraudulent results than actually occurred, forcing the regime to make concessions. Quite likely the internal debate would have become more heated and focused more clearly on tactics and strategy as well as governance. That is, the difference between 1978 and 1986 may not be determined by measuring how far activists were prepared to take the debate in each case, but may instead have to do with the circumstances in which the debate occurred.
Weekley’s larger main argument is that, apart from that 1978 event, debate did not occur within the CPP and NPA. The structure and political culture of the CPP “discouraged any substantial exchange of ideas beyond the core leadership and encouraged a ... deference to the wisdom of the leadership.” [5] One can readily imagine that those conditions did indeed stifle much discussion and debate, especially between low level cadres and highly ranked ones. Another likely contributing condition was fear of running afoul of top party authorities who could impose stiff punishments, including death. Nevertheless, might there have been more ferment and discord than Weekley allows? Granted, outright confrontational disagreements were unlikely to come to the surface. But that does not preclude the possibility, even likelihood, of considerable dissent beneath it.
Hierarchical organizations and other social situations characterized by considerable power differences do discourage questioning and dissent. Subordinate people typically do hold their tongues and avoid crossing the powers that be. But they might still do things discreetly that are at odds with their superiors, as research in the Philippines and elsewhere shows. [6] In hierarchical institutions, such behavior need not necessarily be aimed at trying to subvert the entire enterprise; the purpose could instead be to alter it. Either way, often the result is a considerable difference between what “leaders” say and what “followers” do.
The splits that have recently surfaced probably have longer histories and are far more complicated than is yet known. We are now seeing contested truths, lessons, and theories among Communist party leaders. Still to be heard from are the underground movement’s average participants and supporters. Some evidence now available does indicate that much was being done and voiced locally that did not square with official policies and programs. A party organizer’s account reveals that cadres in Mindanao frequently discussed and weighed alternative tactics and strategies—for example, strategies that determined how much emphasis to give urban, as opposed to rural, issues and organizing—and other fundamental issues [7] In the early 1980s, the CPP top leadership instructed local activists to survey rural conditions in their areas. The results showed what many activists knew from experience: that 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. [8]
Passages in Weekley’s chapter also suggest that CPP and NPA activists had long disagreed with important aspects of the party’s official stance. Describing reactions of regional and sectoral cadres to the 1991 “Reaffirm” statement by Armando Liwanag [Sison], Weekley writes,
. . . as [they] saw it, the author [Sison] had certainly not made any attempt to adjust the original strategic framework in light of lessons learned on the ground. . . . A common (and strongly made) criticism of the document (from those ‘second-tier’ cadres) was that it was simply unacceptable—and unrealistic—to ‘reaffirm’ the same ‘basic principles’ as had inspired Party leaders more than twenty years ago. Much readjusting, improvising, an filling in of detail had occurred since 1968, as movement activists responded to varied and changing political, economic, and cultural conditions.” [9]
This suggests that lower level cadres were upset precisely because they had held for a considerable time contrary conclusions about the movement, what it should be doing, and how it should act. That they showed their dissent only when top leaders were disagreeing among themselves is not surprising. Subordinate people generally refrain from revealing their thoughts on delicate matters until they think the system is in disarray or their superiors are weakened and vulnerable.
Several studies have indicated that organizers in and around the country experimented with various methods and ideas as they worked to expand the movement. To an extent, this was in keeping with the “principle of self-reliance” that Sison told the dispersed guerrilla bands to follow. [10] But diversity grew to the point that the party’s central leadership was unable to maintain sufficient control. A Communist Party document assessing the movement during the 1980s complains of “ . . . widespread practice among leading Party committees in the regions and territories” during the first half of the decade to exercise “ . . . autonomy in ‘particularizing’ revolutionary strategy and tactics . . . without central guidance.” At the same time, outside the CPP, there flourished “all sorts of theories and lines opposed to Marxism-Leninism and the line of protracted people’s war—such as ... Eurocommunist theories, social-democracy, and various types of insurrectionist lines or urban terrorism.” These “were allowed to gain influence and sow confusion even within the Party.” Moreover, many draft documents on strategies, policies and orientations that had not been finalized were, nevertheless, “going around in various forms” within the CPP, creating more disorder. In addition, the number of party members quadrupled between 1980-1985, yet training, education, and orientation for the new recruits were largely neglected, contributing to growing problems of discipline and diversity in thinking and action within the party. [11]
Party leaders in Mindanao were so encouraged by their successes with unorthodox forms of struggle, especially in urban areas, that they worked up enough confidence to actually propose to the top leaders in the early 1980s that the orthodox strategy be changed. Leaders from Mindanao, argues Patricio Abinales in his chapter of this book, “began lobbying for a modified ruse de guerre which would emphasize what they called a ‘politico-military framework’” that would combine “‘all forms of struggle’ with the final confrontation not to be decided by just the rural guerrilla army’s tempo of development.” They wanted the CPP to do away with its “stubborn partiality to countryside resistance over urban political and armed mobilization.” [12] Tensions grew between these Mindanao leaders and their superiors, particularly as the former continued to proceed with their own plans, foreshadowing the open splits that were to come later in the 1980s.
EARLIER MANIFESTATIONS OF SIMILAR DISAGREEMENTS
The underground left’s situation in the late 1980s-early 1990s resonates with communist party and armed rebellion situations from earlier in this century. The closest parallel is what happened to the Huk rebellion in central Luzon and the country’s first communist party, the PKP (Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas), during the 1950s [13] The Huk rebellion, more formally known as the Hukbong Mapagpalaya ng Bayan or People’s Liberation Army, which was in a sense the predecessor of the New People’s Army (Bagong Hukbo ng Bayan), was at its peak strength in the 1949-1951 period, when it included 11,000-15,000 armed guerrillas. From 1952 to the mid 1950s, its armed strength and popular support dropped significantly. As with the CPP and NPA, an important precipitating reason for its decline was an election, or to be more precise, two elections—1951 for Congress and 1953 for both Congress and the Presidency. Like the CPP’s central leadership in 1985-1986, the majority in the PKP’s political bureau ordered all party and Huk members and supporters to boycott both elections, using much the same argument that the CPP leaders would use in 1985 the elections would be frauds, parliamentary politics were useless, participation would sap resources better spent on the armed struggle, armed struggle was the only meaningful political activity, etc. But, as in 1985-1986, many Huk guerrillas and party members and their supporters ignored the party’s official position. They saw possibilities for making the 1951 and 1953 elections more meaningful, honest, and democratic exercises than had been possible since 1946, when the country became independent of the United States. Elections in 1947 and 1949 still stand out as among the most fraudulent, vicious, and violent in Philippine history. Indeed, the horrors people saw and experienced during those occasions induced many witnesses to join or support the Huk rebellion.
The 1951 and 1953 elections turned out to be much more respectable than the boycotters had predicted, in large part because groups of citizens all around the country, including central Luzon, vigilantly monitored the campaigning, balloting, and the tallying and reporting of votes. The largest coalition for this purpose was NAMFREL, the same acronym as that famous 1986 watchdog organization, though with a slightly different name. [14] As in 1986, a major concern for millions of citizens in the 1951 and 1953 elections had to do with the integrity of the elections themselves. Another similarity to 1986 is that in 1953 a popular, unconventional (for that time) presidential candidate, Ramon Magsaysay, challenged a corrupt incumbent, Elipidio Quirino. And Magsaysay won. His victory was also a victory for “people power”—especially for those tens of thousands of citizens who had thrown themselves into the struggle to make the electoral process legitimate. In central Luzon, both outcomes—the relatively honest election and Magsaysay’s significant victory—also raised the hopes of many rebels, PKP members, and their supporters that peaceful, unarmed struggle for tenancy reform, the right of workers and peasants to organize, and other objectives might be possible now. For many of these people, such reformist objectives, rather than radically revolutionary ones, had been central to their struggle anyway.
This whole situation plus other factors (discussed below) heightened discussion and debates that had been building since late 1951 within the underground Huk and PKP. Members argued whether to press ahead with armed struggle or attempt parliamentary struggle, and discussed how decisions on these matters ought to be made. Should the movement insist on overthrowing the system or settle for more tangible reforms that now, more than at any time since the rebellion began in 1946, seemed within reach? By 1953, debates around principles, strategies, and tactics had deteriorated into bickering and squabbling over petty matters, personality clashes, name calling, and attacks by innuendo, not unlike some of the feuds within the CPP and NPA in the 1990s. Huge numbers of members and supporters quit the rebellion; morale plummeted among those who remained.
Broadly speaking, two factions were apparent by 1954. The official position of the PKP—the one pressed by the party’s Secretary-General, Jesus Lava—was to continue armed struggle as the principle means for waging a protracted revolution in the countryside, though possibly combined with some “legal tactics.” This position rejected surrender and opposed negotiation with the Magsaysay government. The second, a minority position within the top PKP leadership, but probably the majority position among provincial and sub-provincial guerrilla and party leaders, favored negotiation and endorsed peaceful, unarmed methods to achieve reforms meaningful for villagers. This cleavage between those who advocated protracted armed revolution, on the one side, and those who recommended parliamentary struggle and reform politics, on the other, obviously has parallels in the debates of the early 1990s. Gradually a third position emerged during the second half of the 1950s and into the 1960s—one which might be repeated in the second half of the 1990s and beyond the year 2000. Scattered armed groups dotted the landscape, still calling themselves or called by others “Huk,” but not really intent on revolution or even rebellion. Some stole from the rich and gave to the poor; others stole and pillaged from rich and poor alike; some became involved in gambling, prostitution, and other racketeering. Some did all these. A few of the younger recruits into such “Huk” groups were among the first to join the New People’s Army formed in 1969, including Commander Dante (Bernabe Buscayno).
Looking further back, one finds additional debates in and around the PKP which echo those heard in the 1990s. The official position of the party in the 1930s and 1940s on several issues was opposite its official position in the 1950s and the CPP’s in the 1990s for reasons which there is no time to examine here. In other words, since the early years of the country’s communist parties, leaders have frequently disagreed on several key issues and majority positions have flip-flopped on numerous occasions. From this history one can readily imagine the flip-flopping will continue.
The PKP, founded in November 1930, advocated legal, nonviolent methods for pursuing its radical, anti-imperialist objectives. At the first opportunity, in 1931, the PKP ran a slate of candidates for public office. Despite discrimination and harassment during that campaign and, in 1932, the outlawing of the party and banishment, by the government, of its principal spokesperson, Crisanto Evangelista, and other leaders to distant provinces, the official PKP position continued to favor parliamentary struggle. After being legalized again in 1938, the party resumed involvement in electoral politics. Evangelista, for instance, though he foresaw the day when the party might need to take up arms to defend itself and the proletariat it claimed to speak for, argued that such a time had not yet come by the dawn of the 1940. For this and other reasons, the PKP opposed uprisings that occurred in the countryside during the 1930s—Tayug, Tanggulan, Sakdalista, Theodoro Asedilo’s revolt—and condemned the rebels as “anarchists,” “revolutionary adventurers,” and even claimed they were attempting to undermine the PKP. The party’s leaders also opposed peasant groups that burned and destroyed the property of landlords and plantation owners who abused their tenants and workers. This stance favoring legal methods and opposing violence and armed rebellion was not, however, unanimously supported. The position was frequently debated, with some high-ranking leaders arguing against it. [15]
During the Japanese occupation (1942-45), the PKP endorsed guerrilla resistance. Afterward, however, from 1946 to 1948, it opposed and denounced the peasant-based Huk rebellion, then raging in central Luzon. But a minority of the members in the Central Committee and Political Bureau disagreed; some even defied the party’s policy by joining the rebellion. By mid-1948, the minority position became the majority position, and the PKP officially endorsed armed struggle for the first time. By 1950, the party’s top leaders went even further, concluding that conditions were such that “Rather than a long period of military struggle in which the enemy would be slowly bested through superior tactics and maneuver, our military strategic offensive must be relatively short and speedily victorious. It must, in other words, have an insurrectionary character.” Seizure of the state would come by a combination of guerrilla, insurrectionary and even “regular warfare. . . .” [16] This policy is the precursor of the insurrectionary stance held by some CPP and NPA in the early and mid-1980s but opposed and severely criticized by Sison and other top CPP leaders, probably in part because Sison is on record for having denounced the PKP leadership’s 1950 analysis and endorsement of insurrection. [17] By the late 1950s, leaders of a PKP which by that time had grown tiny and emaciated reverted to legal, parliamentary struggle, even cooperating in the 1970s with Marcos and his martial law rule. Meanwhile, Sison and others who had broken away from the PKP denounced their old party’s position and its leaders and embraced instead protracted, guerrilla, rural-based armed struggle—the course which is now vigorously debated and sharply criticized by many inside and outside CPP.
Another contested issue among communist party leaders and others working with them has been the relative importance of workers and urban areas compared to peasants and the countryside. The priority for most PKP leaders in 1930s was the urban proletariat, not rural peasants, although some within the party’s ruling councils strongly disagreed. This emphasis continued through much of the 1940s. Only in the face of the growing rural-based Huk rebellion did the PKP’s official emphasis switch to the countryside, where it remained for years.
Little material is available pertaining to governance concerns or disagreements within the PKP. Whether lower ranking leaders and members criticized the decision-making process cannot be determined, although we know that significant policy positions set by the top leadership of the PKP were ignored, even defied, by other members. Besides those cited earlier, other examples of leadership policies which provoked some defiance were the PKP’s “retreat for defense” policy during the guerrilla war against the Japanese occupation, the party’s call in 1950 for the conversion of guerrilla units into regular army units, and the official position in 1953-54 against surrender and negotiation with the government. In each instance, numerous PKP members, including prominent leaders, disagreed and acted in ways at odds with the national pronouncements. Disciplinary measures against party members who disobeyed could not be made in many cases, especially when the defiance involved numerous members, but could involve demotion, suspension, expulsion, and sometimes death. It is impossible to estimate with much confidence how often rebellious party members were punished, but punishment appears to have been meted out more frequently in 1952-54 and in the early 1970s—periods when the PKP leaders were sharply divided over issues of strategies and tactics. [18]
WHY THE SPLITS?
The central leadership’s decision to boycott the 1986 presidential election is frequently cited as the prime reason for subsequent splits within and on the fringes of the CPP. The implication is that had the CPP leadership decided to encourage participation in the election campaign, the party would have avoided its present predicament.
While it is impossible to know what would have happened if the official policy had been different, I would guess that debates within the CPP and NPA today would not be significantly less divisive than they are now. Disagreements over rural versu urban organizing, over questions about governance within the CPP and NPA, and over questions involving strategic and tactical matters and reforms which may conflict with revolutionary objectives could be even more vexing than they are now because the party would have been divided over the extent to which it should collaborate with the Aquino government. It is possible to glimpse this scenario in conflicts which actually occurred as groups on the left, including some closely associated with the CPP and NPA, argued over how to relate to the Fidel Ramo government following the 1992 election.
In any event, as we know, the official CPP position was to boycott the 1986 election. Weekley, in her chapter of this book, summarizes several reasons for that decision. She contends that the party’s history, culture, and commitment to protracted armed struggle significantly constrained the leaders, making it extremely unlikely for them to come to any other position on the matter, an argument also made by another scholar. [19] She is probably right as far as some leaders are concerned, including a majority of members in the key decision making body at the time, the Executive Committee of the CPP’s Central Committee. But as Weekley documents, the vote within the Executive Committee was close—three for boycott, two against. Thus, not all leaders even at the top level were equally constrained by the party’s past nor did they analyze events the same way. Similarly, many regional and sub-regional leaders debated the matter and came to opposite conclusions; subsequently some defied official policy set by the Executive Committee majority while others abided by it. Such differences in analysis and action regarding elections and other questions on strategies and tactics has long featured in the history of Philippine communist parties. [20]
Returning to the question of cause, no doubt the official boycott stance of the CPP contributed significantly to the blossoming of divisive debates. The majority of party national leaders and numerous leaders at lower levels fundamentally missed the importance of the 1986 election for a huge proportion of the population, including people in areas that the CPP and NPA claimed to control or greatly influence. That mistake coupled with the electoral defeat and consequent collapse of the Marcos regime and the success of a popular uprising in which the CPP, as an organization, exercised no leadership, greatly marginalized the party at a crucial juncture in the country’s history. And all that, in turn, helped to empower many CPP and NPA members to voice doubts they had long harbored about the wisdom of the CPP’s official position on a range of issues.
But there are other reasons for the splits besides the 1986 election miscalculations. Some are specific to the NPA and CPP armed struggle. Abinales’s chapter in this book makes a compelling argument that the CPP and NPA campaign in 1985 in Mindanao against alleged “deep penetrating agents” from the Philippine armed forces divided and injured the party. That crusade quickly got out of hand. Within a few months nearly a thousand party members, NPA guerrillas, and supporters were killed by fellow revolutionaries. Only a few of the dead had been agents. Scared for their lives, thousands of other Mindanao activists quit the movement, reducing the number of party members and NPA guerrillas to a tiny fraction of what it had been before. On a smaller but nevertheless chilling scale, CPP and NPA members were also killing each other in southern and central Luzon [21] After-the-fact recriminations and counter-recriminations about these sordid killings certainly contributed to the splintering of the party and NPA.
Additional reasons for the splintering are more general. One discovers them by examining a number of underground, armed guerrilla movements confronted by conditions similar to those experienced by the CPP and NPA from 1986 to the early 1990s. In this century, the Philippines has been home to numerous other rural guerrilla movements that have each lasted for several years: the anti-American ones at the 1900s-1910s, several Muslim-based ones for autonomy and independence, the anti-Japanese guerrilla movements in 1942-1945, and the Huk rebellion from 1946 to the early 1950s. All have eventually ended or disintegrated into small bands of armed men posing no serious threat to the state. Specific reasons vary and certainly are important. But one common to all is instructive for the CPP and NPA today: significant changes occurred in the political environment that had been crucial for their growth in the first place. This does not mean the system changed to become totally acceptable to the rebels. In most cases it changed only enough to make rebellion no longer sensible for significant number of guerrillas and their supporters. Let me elaborate by describing the Hukbalahap guerrilla movement and the Huk rebellion, cases closest to the NPA and CPP situations chronologically and in other respects.
The Hukbalahap guerrilla movement arose in large measure because of the Japanese military regime’s repressive and rapacious political and economic system. That regime ended when the Hukbalahap, other guerrilla organizations, and the returning United States armed forces drove the Japanese military out of the Philippines. Subsequently, most Hukbalahap guerrillas disbanded, believing they had no more reason to continue fighting.
The Huk rebellion also grew and spread to a considerable extent because another political system—this time a Filipino one backed by the United States—was creating havoc for thousands of people in central Luzon. Government troops and police, mayors and governors, and many private armies employed by large landowners and other wealthy families were hounding, beating, arresting, and killing villagers. They targeted villagers who were or were thought to be Hukbalahap veterans, members of peasant organizations pressing for reforms in tenancy conditions and other matters, activists in the Democratic Alliance political party, or others perceived as “communists,” “revolutionaries,” or some other brand of rebel threatening to the political system which had an extremely low tolerance for criticism and opposition. In this oppressive political environment, which was exacerbated by worsening economic conditions that hurt many rural people in the region, peasant leaders, former Hukbalahap rebels, and many PKP members and leaders (initially, as mentioned earlier, in defiance of official PKP policy) organized the Huk rebellion.
This environment, however, did not last much beyond the early 1950s. Between 1952 and 1955, repression lessened as the military became more disciplined, considerably more discriminating in its use of force and violence, and better able to target actual guerrillas rather than abusing numerous civilians. The military also reined in the private armies. Meanwhile, the government offered amnesty programs to rebels, made serious overtures to engage in peace negotiations with Huk leaders, and began, especially following Magsaysay’s election to the presidency in late 1953, to consider reforms in land tenure arrangements and other social-economic arrangements that had been central to many villagers’ grievances. All this contributed to a political situation that provided much greater scope than had existed since the 1930s for peasants, workers, and other sectors to organize legally, press for reforms, and have reason to hope that change was possible and could bring immediate relief. The more peaceful and legitimate elections of 1951 and 1953 also contributed to the improved political climate. These circumstances, coupled with growing weariness among rebels and their supporters—many of whom had been involved in underground, armed struggle since the formation of the Hukbalahap in 1942—persuaded more and more Huk and PKP guerrillas to quit.
The NPA and CPP flourished from the mid-1970s to mid-1980s. The why’s and how’s are more complicated than for the Huk rebellion. The latter was confined primarily to central Luzon, where underlying economic, political, and social conditions were fairly similar and were made even more so by repression and other adversities that the state and local landed elites inflicted on people in the region. Huk leaders tried to export the rebellion to other parts of the country, but without much success, largely because political, social, and economic conditions elsewhere were not nearly as volatile and because of weaknesses within the Huk and PKP organizations.
The NPA and CPP armed struggle has been far more widespread. At its peak in the mid-1980s, it was prominent on Negros and Samar islands in the Visayas, many areas in the Bicol region, and some parts of southern Luzon. Its strongest areas were northern Luzon and central and eastern Mindanao. [22] areas, though sharing similarities, were also different in important respects. One gets a sense of this from the analyses in this book by Rutten and Abinales. In Negros, according to Rutten, the underground movement grew primarily due to skillful organizational methods that took advantage of political opportunities. Crucial to the latter was the ability of local and outside NPA and CPP organizers to “re-frame” local grievances and ways of seeing the world in order to inspire and motivate people to act collectively so that, through collective action, they might gain some tangible social and economic improvements, and ultimately support and join the armed struggle. [23] In Mindanao, the underground movement’s rapid growth, Abinales argues, came “ . . . not from its cadre’s organizing skills but from the social context of Mindanao itself. The CPP’s lack of experience was more than made up by a readily available mass of ‘warm bodies’ stirred up by the turbulence of the land frontier. The tragic human and social consequences of Mindanao’s transformation and militarization ultimately profited the CPP when it came time to recruit new members... .” [24]
One major condition common to all areas of NPA and CPP was the Marcos regime’s policies, which were more adverse in areas beyond central and southern Luzon [25] Another was deteriorating economic circumstances, which were especially severe in the sugar, coconut, and other agribusiness areas of Mindanao, several Visayas islands (particularly Negros), Bicol, and areas of southern Luzon, in part because of the volatile international markets and in part because of domestic politics within the Philippines. [26] Also prevalent in many NPA and CPP strongholds were militarization, extensive repression, and arbitrary violence by military forces, constabulary, police, and private armies (which officials often tolerated, even endorsed). The relationship between repression and rebellion is complicated, as Rutten’s analysis of Negros indicates. Under certain conditions that existed in many parts of the country, military abuses and related repression were, according to some studies, “ . . . a key factor, if not the most important consideration, for ... the degree of support people give to the NPA.” [27] Bernabe Buscayno, one of the most prominent guerrilla leaders, said after leaving the movement that repression was a “principal recruiter for the NPA.” [28]
Toward the late part of the 1980s and into the 1990s, several of these adverse conditions eased noticeably for large numbers of people in CPP and NPA areas. Repression initially worsened under the Corazon Aquino government but, as Redman’s chapter indicates, had dropped significantly by the 1992 election. The military become more effective in countering insurgency rather than aggravating it. Rutten’s revealing analysis of the situation in Negros after 1987 indicates that the government military actions made the NPA and CPP organizers7 work considerably more difficult and dangerous, costing many lives. At the same time, government forces apparently avoided excessive and indiscriminate use of force. Indeed, she found that the military won over to its side some of the most respected local NPA and CPP organizers. Meanwhile, amnesty programs and widening possibilities in the post-Marcos political years for reforms through peaceful methods and the retaining of advances already won through violent means reduced the hardships which underground rebels and their supporters suffered. Adding to their growing doubts about the viability of armed struggle and possibility of victory and also to their demoralization were the splits and bitter disputes among NPA and CPP leaders locally, regionally, and nationally. In the context of these and other factors, many people quit the underground struggle, often turning to other avenues of political involvement instead. This is the “demobilization” examined in Vincent Boudreau’s chapter of this book.
One can draw reasonable generalizations from the Hukbalahap, the Huk rebellion, and the NPA and CPP cases about how changes in the political environment affect the viability of continued rebellion for a significant proportion of rebels and supporters. These general changes take place: the enemy that was previously rather clear becomes hazy or disappears altogether; reforms which can be won through nonviolent tactics and strategies become more possible and attractive; violent repression by agencies of the state and local elites diminishes drastically; costs of enduring the hardships of underground life remain high while actual achievements decline and the likelihood of attaining more through underground work and rebellion diminishes sharply. In the Huk and the NPA and CPP cases, these new conditions aroused doubt, debate, and infighting, which in turn aggravated demoralization and other internal problems. In sum, the conjuncture of conditions that directly contributed to the movements’ rise in the first place changed sufficiently so that it became impossible for the movements to continue as before. Fundamental shifts, reorientation, and rethinking resulted. For the NPA and CPP, the 1986 election was an important part of those altered conditions, not the entirety.
Another factor that helps to explain current problems within the underground left and the left more broadly is “communism” itself—at least as it has been advocated and represented by the country’s communist parties thus far, both the PKP and CPP. The long term viability of an underground movement led by or claimed to be led by the CPP (or the PKP before it) is highly questionable, I think, except under the most extreme conditions, conditions which assure that the party provides the only palatable alternative or hope. I have in mind two kinds of reasons which help explain flaws in “communism” itself.
The first involves the CPP’s goals and projects—as articulated or intimated in its official statements and documents—for remaking the Philippines, especially by establishing a command economy, collectivizing the means of production and distribution, creating a single-party political system which has little tolerance for opposition groups and dissent, running the CPP in an authoritarian way, and being hostile to religious practices and teachings. Few Filipinos, including those on the left end of the country’s political spectrum, can embrace such plans. Indeed, probably few within the underground do. Certainly in the past, during the 1940s and 1950s, there was a wide gap between the PKP top leadership’s long term goals and the objectives for which many lower ranking party members and Huk guerrillas were fighting. I suspect much the same has been true in the NPA and CPP experience.
Rutten’s chapter notes that NPA organizers in Negros did not talk about the guerrilla army’s connection to CPP because, as one former NPA member told her, “the masses are against communism.” Elderly people, for example, “ . . . fear they will be killed under communism and made into food seasoning.” [29] The reason suggested in Rutten’s chapter for such fears is decades of anti-communist propaganda. Yes, but that propaganda includes some truth as well. I know villagers in central Luzon, including former Huk members and supporters, who are aware of Stalin’s terror against peasants in the Soviet Union and the Khmer Rouge’s slaughter of rural people tales that any Philippine communist party will have immense difficulties overcoming. Another obstacle is that most of “the masses” object to the future that the party has planned for them. Among the reasons for the sharp decline in Negros of support for the NPA during the late 1980s-early 1990s, Rutten finds, is the negative experience hacienda workers had with collectivized production organized by the local NPA. In effect, this experiment with collectivization added another negative connotation to communism as far as those workers were concerned. They were happy with the NPA’s help to get land for their families but objected to making the land communal property and farming it collectively. I can well imagine that most rural Filipinos have similar views. The same can be said regarding democratic processes. Democracy as a practice that at least encourages discussion and the expression of alternative views by members of whatever rank and educational background, a practice which opposes rule by a few who are out of touch with the many, certainly appeals to those within the party who criticize the CPP’s past practice. The general Philippine population, I am quite certain, has even less tolerance for the rigid, top-down political organization to which leaders of the CPP, and the PKP before it, aspired.
My second critique of communist parties concerns the leaders most closely identified with both the PKP and the CPP. In the 1940s and 1950s, those leaders were the Lava brothers, Jose and Jesus. In the 1970s to the present, the principal figure is Sison. These men sacrificed a great deal, devoting the best years of their lives to the movement and championing causes they sincerely believed would bring better lives to the majority of Filipinos. Intelligent, dedicated, and daring, these men inspired others also to give much of themselves for a better country. Despite their significant contributions, however, these leaders and others like them have created notable problems for their organizations.
Their shared personality characteristics include aloofness and arrogance, especially about their theoretical sophistication and intelligence—traits also found among several top PKP leaders in the late 1930s [30] The few former Huk guerrillas and PKP members whom I have met over the years who had some image or knowledge of Jesus or Jose Lava typically saw each as self-centered, removed from the common people, and cold. According to one story about Jesus Lava, for instance, when meat was scarce in the underground, Lava ate what he wanted before others in his group were given a chance because, being a leader and theoretician, he claimed that he needed the protein for his brain power. In contrast to Lava were leaders like Luis Taruc, widely regarded among villagers involved in the Huk rebellion as down-to-earth, affable, and concerned about the welfare of others. Although Taruc in the 1940s through the early 1950s moved in the PKP’s central governing circles, people rarely saw him as a communist. To them, he was a Huk leader, a peasant leader, not a communist. Though people never stated explicitly why they perceived him this way, an underlying message seemed to be that Taruc could not really be a communist because he did not live, talk, and act like one—he was not like Jose or Jesus Lava.
The image Sison conveys resembles more closely that of the Lavas than of Taruc. Sison comes across as stern, distant, and egocentric, not a man of the people nor readily able to communicate with them. He writes and speaks almost entirely in English, not Tagalog or any other Philippine language. He does not use idioms and vocabulary readily accessible or translatable to most Filipino peasants and workers. He claims to be the authoritative voice on Marxist-Leninist-Mao Zedong thought a well as “the leader” of “the Philippine revolution.” [31] That egotistical view of the struggle contrasts sharply, for instance, to how Communist revolutionary leaders in neighboring Viet Nam projected themselves during their revolution and wars for independence. Ho Chi Minh, Sison’s Vietnamese counterpart, was noted for his modesty, consensual and collaborative leadership style, and ability to bridge differences among activists. He also projected a sense of humor, ease with people from all walks of life, and pleasure in communicating in Vietnamese. Even if some of these characteristics are not entirely real, the point remains that they were the ones Ho Chi Minh and others emphasized and wanted people to see, and they are starkly different from how Sison and those close to him portray themselves. The CPP has leaders, even at high levels, whose personalities and styles are much more appealing to a broader range of Filipinos. But Sison and others like him are the ones most conspicuously linked to the party. And that, in my view, has been a handicap for its long term viability.
In the 1990s, the leadership styles and actions of Sison and those close to him figure prominently in criticisms from within and outside the NPA and CPP. Regional and sub-regional guerrilla and party leaders object to the “feudal” and “autocratic” ways of those central leaders. They criticize Sison7s desire for a “one-man monopoly” over party policy, as well as the “insults and despicable treatment” that Sison has heaped on those with whom he disagrees, and other objectionable characteristics of national leaders’ behavior. [32] Officials in the party’s Visayas Commission wrote that the way Sison regards lower level members is like the “Contemptuousness of hacenderos looking down their noses at poor peasants.” [33] This attitude together with other features of their leadership and their view of the party greatly impedes their ability to learn from the experiences of those who fought on the ground in the thick of the armed struggle. Instead, as Metro Manila-Rizal regional committee members wrote, Sison “relies only on his storehouse of knowledge that has been eclipsed by time.” [34] When Sison and his close associates claim to be the CPP’s principal leaders while living in the Netherlands they become even more suspect in the eyes of many CPP cadre and officials. Upset by Sison’s accusations that the NPA and CPP in some regions have been “lazy and cowardly,” an NPA commander in Samar wrote, “these insults and humiliation are too much to bear. . . .” After illustrating the hardships NPA guerrillas have endured, the commander asks rhetorically, “Who are the cowards, the leaders who do not want to return to their country because they are afraid they will die, or we who are on the frontline, in the face of battles where we are wounded and killed?” [35] Critics who grant that Sison once was brilliant in the history of the CPP nevertheless conclude that “ . . . our future is dim if we are to be under his leadership.... Because of his absolutist and conspiratorial leadership style, it is not excessive to say that he is now the party’s principal problem.” [36]
THE LEFT’S FUTURE
A popular view these days is that human civilization has reached the “end of history” because no serious debate remains about how societies should organize their polities and economies. Capitalism, bourgeois democracy, and individualism have triumphed, according to this analysis. The “left”—which generated fundamental challenges to those values—has been pronounced dead or dying not only in eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, but around the globe. Leftist parties and organizations in most of the world, including Asia, are said to have shifted so far “right” as to be scarcely recognizable. [37]
In the Philippines, however, and I imagine in many other countries as well, the left, broadly understood, is neither dead nor dying. Indeed, the Philippine left is in better health now than perhaps at any other time in the twentieth century. Though the CPP and NPA have been breaking down, the “unfinished revolution,” which Reynaldo Ileto has highlighted as a prominent theme in twentieth-century Philippine political discourse, continues to energize people on the leftist portion of Philippine political curve. [38]
This chapter has been discussing the extreme left. It is “extreme” in both methods—armed guerrilla warfare—and goals, although not all those engaged in armed struggle agree on the extreme goals. At the moment, this portion of the left is, indeed, in considerable disarray. The acrimonious struggle between “reaffirmists” and “rejectionists” might lead one to think that this extreme left is about to disappear. As the joke in the Philippines says, “reaffirmists” and “rejectionists” have given rise to the “rejoice-ists”—those who are delighted that the CPP is doing itself in.
But, as this chapter has indicated, the extreme left has been in similar straits before and come back with even more vigor and vitality. The same can happen again. Much depends on those conditions discussed earlier that initially engender underground guerrilla movements based on the country’s poor, exploited, desperate, and angry people. Whether those circumstances return depends to a considerable extent, though of course not entirely, on what the elites, the government, and other powerful interests in the Philippines do. Does the future hold more Manuel Roxases, Elipidio Quirinos, Ferdinand and Imelda Marcoses, Danding Cojuangcos, Juan Ponce Enriles, and short-sighted IMF and World Bank “experts”? I hope not. If it does, there will likely be leftist armed rebellion again—a newer people’s army.
Meanwhile, the rest of the left has been active. It is difficult to identify with much precision what characteristics define “left.” [39] I see at least three main elements. First, those on the left are critical of capitalism. They do not necessarily believe it must be replaced with socialized ownership of production and distribution, though some do hold those goals. The broad agreement on the left is that unmodified, unfettered capitalism is inappropriate for Philippine society and too costly to values which guide the distribution of resources. Some people come to this critical stance through academic learning. Others come from religious orientations. For still others, such criticisms derive from social values concerning just claims to basic needs, which the capitalist market sphere does not recognize, let alone address. [40] Second, people and organizations on the left are particularly concerned with the interests, concerns, and problems of the poor and oppressed in Philippine society. They themselves may be individuals and groups from these sectors of society; or they may instead be from more privileged sectors, yet they want to work with the poor. Third, the broad left presses for a fuller, more genuine democracy than has often been practiced or tolerated by powerful, often anti-democratic interests in the country.
Earlier in the twentieth century, the Philippine left in this broad sense included numerous organizations involving peasants, workers, lawyers, teachers, students, women, minority groups, urban poor, and others. Today these organizations would be called NGOs and POs (people’s organizations). The left lobbied local and national governments, marched, paraded, occupied public buildings, defied police, were arrested, shot at, killed, formed political parties, ran candidates for elected office, and supported sympathetic candidates of other parties.
Since the early 1980s, organizations spanning a range of interests and social sectors have sprouted and blossomed after a decade of near dormancy during the worst of the Marcos martial law regime. Many emerged in the wake of the protest movement sparked by the assassination of Benigno Aquino. They sank deeper roots in the 1985-86 presidential campaign and, as Boudreau argues in this book, they have flourished in the more liberated political climate of the 1990s. Many individuals and organizations in this broad left, Hedman demonstrates, have jumped into election campaigns even while often continuing to debate among themselves the efficacy of electoral politics. Some on the left are primarily concerned with addressing immediate material needs of poor Filipinos; others have more long term objectives. New coalitions among organizations have been created, based on certain shared understandings and objectives, even while groups and individuals involved adopt different stances towards tactics, strategies, and expectations. The broad left in the Philippines is by no means a unified political movement, untroubled or unopposed. But neither is it dead. It is vibrant and will likely remain so for a long time.
Benedict J. Tria Kerkvliet
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