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Monday, January 02, 2006
20 years after EDSA I: The communist movement in Mindanao
By Edwin G. Espejo
THE year 1986--it was the year of living dangerously in all fronts for the communist movement in Mindanao.
Just a year before 20 years ago (1985), deposed strongman Ferdinand E. Marcos announced live before American television that he is calling for a snap election to prove that he is still very much in command despite rumors of his failing health.
Two years back before Marcos made his announcement, former senator Benigno Aquino Jr. was assassinated at the tarmac of the old Manila International Airport.
That singular announcement would prove to be the turning point in the country's tumultuous history after martial law was declared in 1972.
In the countryside throughout the archipelago, the burgeoning communist movement who enjoyed unprecedented increase in membership and influence, expectedly met the announcement with a nonchalant shrug of the shoulder.
After all, the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and its armed wing, the New People's Army (NPA) had never participated in any electoral exercise since it was re-established in 1968.
But in Mindanao, the debate took a backstage as scores of communist cadres were discreetly and hastily summoned to party headquarters deep into the jungles of their respective guerilla fronts in early 1985.
It appeared, a handful of party members believed that the arrests of cadres in the urban centers, coupled with numerous setbacks in the battlefield, could only have happened with the "aid of traitors" in the party.
The CPP leadership in Mindanao was wrecked with suspicions that the ranks of the rebel movement was infiltrated with government spies.
Near decimation
Isolated from its central leadership, the CPP hierarchy in Mindanao took it upon itself to conduct an investigation into the veracity of reports that scores of government deep penetration agents (DPA) had infiltrated virtually all levels of the party structure.
What followed was one of the darkest periods of the communist movement in the country.
By the time the vicious and in some cases violent anti-DPA campaign, now infamously called as "Kampanyang Ahos" or "Kahos," was put to a stop, hundreds of communist cadres were either killed or forced to lay low--disillusioned and filled with bitterness if not hatred against fellow revolutionaries.
According to the military, more than a thousand members of the CPP and NPA were executed in the bloody campaign that lasted almost five years.
Looking back, the Mindanao spokesman of the National Democratic Front (NDF), Jorge Madlos alias Ka Oris, said it was one of the lowest ebbs of the underground movement.
Ka Oris, however, said that the military has greatly exaggerated the figure of the victims of Kahos.
Nevertheless, according to party records, more than 600 full time cadres, mass leaders and supporters perished in that disastrous campaign.
The CPP Central Committee later admitted it was one of the serious tactical errors of the party.
Ka Oris said they have since indemnified the innocent victims and continued to ask for apology for the great harm and damage the infamous purging have done.
"Many times over, we have apologized and I wouldn't hesitate to ask for apology to those whom we have not reached out yet," he said in an exclusive interview on the occasion of the 38th founding anniversary of the CPP.
As an act of recrimination, the CPP leadership declared all victims of the Ahos campaign as "martyrs of the revolution."
Ka Oris, however, regrets why some still refused to accept their "sincerest apologies."
"The military and some sector in the society are still using the issue against us," he rued.
Adventurism
Summing up the harrowing experience that almost dealt the death knell to the communist movement in Mindanao, Ka Oris said, the setbacks during and that ensued the purging were products of "rightist opportunism and military adventurism" within the party leadership in Mindanao.
"We grew impatient and wanted a quick victory then. The emphasis was on military buildup. We left behind the task of building organs of political power in the countryside," Ka Oris explains.
Unfortunately, such military adventurism took place at the time when the party was suffering a rapid decline in "all aspects" as Ka Oris said.
From large and wide tactical offensives, its military wing, the NPA, was forced into defensive positions.
There was a significant drop in intensity and scale in the tactical offensives.
The mass base of the communist movement rapidly declined from 1986 onwards.
Its armed regulars were cut into less than half of its peak numbers prior to EDSA I. Party membership also dropped dramatically.
With Marcos already gone, the underground left, which fought the steadiest and hardest during the dark years of martial rule, ironically found itself isolated from the mainstream of political power. It only has itself to blame.
The CPP boycotted the 1986 snap presidential election, which led to its isolation from the masses who backed a military-led revolt that culminated into a popular uprising in February of that year.
Those setbacks, however, would pale in comparison to the bitter split and ideological debate that hounded the CPP in the late 80's and early part of the 1990's.
It would not be until the mid-90s when the CPP finally arrested its downward spiral.
On December 2005, NDF-Mindanao invited a handful of journalist to a press conference in a rebel stronghold in Surigao del Sur.
Two decades since
Reminded that it has been 20 years since the Ahos campaign and the disastrous 1986 boycott policy, Ka Oris said, "The revolution is now on the right track."
The armed struggle, he said, is now on the verge of entering the second phase of its strategic defensive phase.
But he also hasten to add that "in many parts (of Mindanao), we have yet to attain the pre-EDSA level."
Ka Oris declined to reveal the exact number of their armed regulars.
But AFP Southern Command chief Lieutenant General Edliberto Adan placed the number of NPA forces throughout Mindanao at 2,000 fully armed regulars.
At their height, underground sources said the armed strength of the NPAs was between 12,000 to 15,000, almost half of them were found in Mindanao.
Ka Oris, however, said the NPAs are now more well-rounded and are more focused on "mass building."
"Our tactical offensives are commensurate and consistent with the scope and depth of our mass base and subjective forces. With ever deepening and ever expanding mass base, the military should expect more tactical offensive from us this year," Ka Oris said.
Although they are capable of conducting company-size tactical offensives, the NPAs, broken into oversized squads, are largely in defensive mode, only engaging the AFP in armed encounters "when most necessary and when the situation calls for it."
In a statement read before 2,000 supporters and members of the local media in Mindanao, Ka Oris said that they launched more than 190 tactical offensives in Mindanao alone last year, more than three fourths of the figure during the last
quarter of 2005.
"We have steadily rebuilt our forces in 38 guerilla fronts in Mindanao," he said.
Today, the CPP and its urban cadres are trying to build a broad united front in the hope of "hastening the downfall of the Arroyo administration."
"The CPP is willing to assist in the formation of a transition government but we could not be part of it," Ka Oris said.
The CPP-NPA through the NDF, he qualified, will be more than willing to talk peace with that said transition government.
When asked when the "revolution" would finally succeed, Ka Oris told a lady journalist that he has come into terms of the possibility that he may not live long enough to see victory.
Now 57 years old and suffering from a serious renal infection that requires round the clock medication, Ka Oris waxed nostalgia saying of the hundreds of cadres from Mindanao who joined the underground in the early 70's, there are "probably less than 10 left to carry on."
As the country celebrates the 20th anniversary of EDSA I, Ka Oris said it is "a good venue and occasion to remind people in government that they are just products of the struggle of the people.
"It is a venue to the people to remind themselves that the struggle is not won yet and to continue to fulfill the aspiration of EDSA."
(January 2, 2006 issue)
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