think you're conflating "Huks" with CPP or the Communist political leadership more generally. I think if you took your average Huk trigger-man in the barrios, they were not openly participating in the political process even if some of their leaders were. What I've been trying to say is that even if there were elements in the Communist leadership pursuing the political track as late as 1950, organized and directed violence against the Philippine state had begun far earlier, 1948 at the latest and I would argue as early as 1946.


Hi Charter 6:

Going to the mountains in self defense and to flee oppression appears to be an act embedded in the subconscious of Filipinos. It all started during the early years of Spanish colonization.

Mt Arayat has special significance for this. In Pampanga province, it is also a mystical mountain. It has also been the haunt of syncretic Philippine religions that blend pre-Hispanic animism with folk Catholicism.

Going up Mt. Arayat was therefore a natural reflex for the Huks.

The Huk membership in Central Luzon consisted primarily of members of the peasant associations that had been forming there since the beginning of the 20th century. In the 1930s, they constituted the core of the Socialist Party of the Philippines.

It was the Socialist Party of the Philippines that merged with the Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas in the 1930s, as part of the Popular Front strategy then enacted by the Third Internationale.

Nonetheless, all this was Greek to the peasant members who constituted the backbone of the Socialist Party of the Philippines.

Membership in the Hukbalahap taught several peasants military skills. Up until War 2's eve, civilian guards of landowners were used to pushing around the peasants.

The landlords fled their haciendas during World War 2, and a good number collaborated with the Japanese. After the war, they tried to collect back rents.

Old habits die hard. They used their armed guards. This is how separate clashes without direction from the PKP leadership started.

Peasant leaders, who were Huk commanders and socialists at heart, repeatedly tried to broker peace agreements. To which the national government was predisposed to.

Hence, the registration of the Huks.

Trying to defend one's self with guns when the other side also has guns does not automatically constitute an act of war or rebellion. The Philippine Criminal Code--which freshmen in any college of law in my country illustrate this clearly in its definition of the crime.

Dona Aurora was on her way to Baler when ambushed and killed by the Huks.
This was her hometown and this was in Quezon province, which in the past was called Tayabas province.

There is no town named Baler in Nueva Ejica, which is a few kilometers north of Pampanga. It had Huks, but was a peripheral area. I wish Philippine newspapers of that time were now archived in the National Library of the Philippines.

Unfortunately, they are not. Because if they were, I would have asked you to check them out.

Having a glittering war record is no guarantee that one remains faithful to the Huk cause all the time. Many guerrilla leaders became warlords in the years immediately following World War 2's end in the Philippines.

If you think Kerkvliet is a Huk sympathizer, fine with me. BUT the late Jesus Lava , former PKP Politburo Charman, wrote a critique of his work. Unfortunately, it is in Filipino.

He was a Marxist intellectual BTW, and earned his medical degree from the University of the Philippines, the most prestigious in my country.

Nothing wrong with the SSI papers. But using other sources, including Philippine-written ones, would give you a better perspective.

And among these would be Jose Ma. Sison's Rectify Errors and Rebuild the Party as well as his Philippine Society and Revolution.

I suggest you also read William Pomeroy's, The Forest. Neither of us may agree with his politics. But it is a well-written account.

Cheers and I now end my debate with you.