NPA Rebellion in the Philippines 1970-1999

The Philippine communist insurgency of the 1990s was rooted in the nation's history of peasant rebellion. Rural revolts-- isolated and unsuccessful--were common during the early part of the twentieth century and before. Discontent among peasants over land tenancy and growing population pressures inspired increasing violence in the 1930s, especially in Central Luzon where isolated peasant rebellions gave way to better organized, sometimes revolutionary movements. After World War II, tensions between peasants and the government-backed landlords grew, leading to the Huk rebellion. Formerly anti-Japanese guerrillas, the Huk (see Glossary) fighters were associated with the Communist Party of the Philippines (Partido Kommunista ng Pilipinas--PKP), which had been established in 1930. The rebellion waned during the early 1950s, but Huk supporters and the remnants of the Huk army later played important roles in the founding of the NPA in the late 1960s.

The CPP guerrilla movement, the NPA, was a successor to the PKP-Huk actions. Jose Maria Sison and a handful of young revolutionaries founded the CPP--Marxist Leninist, now usually referred to as the CPP, in Central Luzon on December 26, 1968. It soon became the core communist political organization, leaving just a small remnant of the original PKP. The NPA was formed the following March with sixty former Huk fighters. The new party has been a result of an internal schism in the parent PKP, created by ideological differences and by personal animosity between Sison and PKP leaders. The CPP pursued a Maoist-inspired program unlike the Soviet-sponsored PKP. The PKP eventually renounced armed insurrection and, in 1990, was an inconsequential, quasi-legal political party with about 5,000 members. The outlawed CPP, meanwhile, aggressively pursued its guerrilla war, and in 1990 fielded some 18,000 to 23,000 full-time insurgents.

The CPP's ideology was taken largely from Chinese communism and adapted to circumstances in the Philippines. CPP chairman Sison's writings, which drew heavily on Mao Zedong's philosophy, provided the theoretical basis for the movement. Chief among them was Philippine Society and Revolution, published in 1970 under the pseudonym Amado Guerrero and often referred to as the CPP's bible. Sison characterized the Philippines as a semifeudal, semicolonial society "ruthlessly exploited" by United States imperialists, the "comprador big bourgeoisie," landlords, and bureaucratic capitalists. Armed revolution was viewed as the only way to overthrow the "United States-Marcos regime" (later the "United States-Aquino regime"), free the people from their oppression, and institute a people's democratic revolution. This proletarian revolution to overthrow the exploiting classes was to be propelled by an alliance between peasants and workers.

Sison's works outlined several important strategic maxims. The revolution had to be flexible, adapt itself to local situations, and employ self-criticism. CPP strategy emphasized political over military struggle. The key was to create a broad national alliance, establish front groups, and employ coalitions to broaden support for the CPP's revolutionary struggle. On the military front, the party adopted the Maoist principle of protracted people's war, attempting to establish a strong rural base and encircle the cities from the countryside. Finally, the CPP's chairman emphasized that the revolution must exploit the country's fractured geography by spreading throughout the mountainous island nation.

Sison's dictums were evident in the party's early development. On the theory that the Huks were defeated because their uprising was localized, the CPP emphasized expansion to other regions of Luzon, and to other islands. After several devastating routs by concentrated AFP attacks, in 1974 the NPA abandoned its early attempts to form Chinese-style base areas. From the CPP's birthplace in Central Luzon, guerrilla cadres established operations in remote areas of Northern Luzon, the Bicol Peninsula, Samar Island, and on the southern island of Mindanao. In each of these impoverished areas, the NPA undertook to support local residents in disputes with the central government, local military and civilian officials, and landlords. In most areas, the communists were able to take advantage of peasant unrest over land issues by embracing the theme of land reform.

Government initiatives did little to check the slow, steady growth of the NPA in the 1970s. Sison and NPA chief Bernabe Buscayno, alias Commander Dante, were arrested, and more than a dozen CPP and NPA leaders were captured or killed during 1976 and 1977. The government also mounted major anti-insurgency campaigns in Northern Luzon and elsewhere. Still, the communists continued to broaden their base of popular support, expand the geographical reach of the movement, and escalate their attacks on military and government targets. Several factors helped the communists gain support: the NPA's decentralized organization, which granted local commanders wide autonomy; Philippine geography, which prevented easy access to remote rebel-dominated areas; the armed forces' preoccupation with the Moro insurgency; and the continued appeal of the insurgents' pledges to solve specific grievances against the government and provide a better life for discontented Filipinos.

In 1983 Philippine officials estimated that the communists exercised substantial control over 2 to 3 percent of the nation's villages and that the NPA fielded some 6,000 full-time guerrillas. The insurgency grew rapidly after that year, largely as a result of growing political turmoil and increasing discontent with the Marcos government. By 1986, when Aquino came to power, approximately 22,500 NPA fighters were operating throughout nearly all the country's provinces. Equally important, some 20 percent of the Philippines' 40,000 villages were influenced by the communists. Although they admitted that they were not yet in a position to bring down the government, CPP leaders calculated that they were in the final phase of the "strategic defensive" and would soon be able to fight the government to a draw and take the offensive.

The overthrow of Marcos, however, threw the communist movement into disarray. The former president's unpopularity was the party's best recruiting theme. Strategic errors added to the communists' woes. The CPP's call for a boycott of the 1986 presidential election was overwhelmingly rejected by Filipinos and by many of the communists' local political organs. Party leaders later confessed that the strategy was a major blunder that left the insurgents with no role in the change of government. The CPP's chairman, Rodolfo Salas, resigned in 1986 in the midst of an unprecedented strategic debate within the communist ranks. Many party cadres called for a conciliatory policy toward the new and popular Aquino government, and for open political participation. Initially the CPP adopted a policy of "critical collaboration" with the Aquino administration, but after the lapse of the sixty-day cease-fire in February 1987, the NPA resumed all-out armed attacks. In 1987, after intense and prolonged debate, the party's executive committee confirmed the primacy of the armed struggle and renewed the CPP's commitment to a protracted people's war.

A series of setbacks challenged the communists through the end of the 1980s. The advent of a popular president especially hurt CPP support among the Philippine middle class, students, labor, and other mostly urban segments of society. Recruiting suffered, as did domestic financial support for the guerrillas. Villages in areas largely controlled by the NPA failed to support CPP-backed candidates in the May 1987 congressional elections. The government also succeeded in capturing a number of top CPP and NPA leaders, particularly in 1987 and 1988. Among them were Rodolfo Salas, the former party chairman, and Romulo Kintanar, the NPA chief. Kintanar, however, escaped from prison only months after his 1988 arrest. One result of the repeated roundups of key leaders was a series of bloody internal party purges during 1987 and 1988; rebels suspected of being government informers were executed or expelled. Philippine military leaders publicized widely the mass graves of suspected penetration agents. Popular support for the insurgents waned, and rebel morale was devastated. Mindanao, long an NPA stronghold, was especially hard hit by the loss of up to one-half of insurgent cadres.

By the end of the 1980s, NPA strength had begun to decline. According to government figures, full-time guerrilla strength was 24,000 to 26,000 in 1988, the year that Aquino said would be seen as the turning point in the government's counterinsurgency effort. The NPA was then operating in sixty of the nation's seventy-three provinces and claimed a following of some 500,000 Filipinos. By 1991, the government estimated that insurgent strength had fallen to 18,000 to 23,000 guerrillas. Still, the military believed that the rebels exercised considerable control over more than 18 percent of the Philippines' roughly 42,000 villages, and around 30,000 Filipinos were thought to be CPP members. (Other estimates of rebel strength and influence varied widely; one unofficial source placed NPA strength at 34,000.)

References

How to Stop a War; Philippines - A Country Study.

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