Communist Insurgency in the Philippines (catch all)

[Dayuhan]

It seems I am verbose today. Nothing very unusual.

For example,Col.Lademora,whom I just mentioned?He settled in Caraga because he was employed to"acquire"land for the Guthrie Palm Oil plantation in Agusan del Sur Province.Entire vilages were burned out but by and large these were isolated events.

He had interesting ways of "acquiring" land... learned, not coincidentally, in Cotabato. I lived in Agusan Sur from 79 to 81, and at that time the NPA presence was minimal. NGPI was the lever the NPA needed to break into the area; the people displaced by that project were their initial targets for organizing. I went back in 82 and it was a whole new ball game, an amazingly rapid change.

On the term"Caraga."You wouldn't have heard it because in those years the Regional Administrative System hadn't been created.Caraga Region (Region XIII) was created in 1995.The term historically can be found in the 18th Century annals of the Jesuits who tried prostelysing.It is usually spelled"Karaga."It was a Spanish bastardisation of the word"Kalaga,"or"Kalagan" (both were used interchangably).The Kalagan were a Bisaya Tribe indigenous to the area.The reason the name is used in Davao Oriental Province"us because a band of Kalagan had settled there.The first concrete history of the Kalagan was recorded by the Spaniard. Francisco de Castro in 1538.Ironically,at that time there were no Muslims at all on Mainland Mindanao and the Maguindanowan and Maranaw (Maranao) hadn't even entered existence (both are merely Islamicise[d offshoots of the Iranun Tribe).So you see,there is an incredible amount of propaganda and manipulation taking place even within the Philippines.

Yes, and as I said above, the distortions take place on both sides.

The term "Caraga" is a historical relic of rather dubious origin - as said above, Spanish records are far from reliable - long expired, revived for political reasons.

Not quite correct to say there were no Muslims on mainland Mindanao in 1538... Kabungsawan's arrival is generally dated to 1511. Really pretty irrelevant, though. In 1500 there were neither Muslims nor Christians, just a scattering of tribes, with numerous relationships among them. Some were Christianized, others were Islamicized. Others remained unconverted, and were called Lumad. The friction among them didn't reach the level of large-scale violence until sponsored migration drastically altered the demographic pattern and the balance of power.

I just saw you mentioned Col.Lademora,guess I should read your post in its entirety before composing a response hahaha.He was never involved in any drive for autonomy or independence and in fact isn't even a Cebuano.He's an Ilonggo who settled in San Franz (Agusan del Sur) because of his relationship with Conjuangco,and also because Marcos urged him to.The UN wanted him tried for War Crimes and Marcos had enough headaches.At the time there were no phones in the interior,only a gravel track where National Hiway now sits so that the isolation was a factor.

The Maneros,though I don't know them personally (actually Col.Lademora was their handler for awhile so maybe in a 6th Degree of Separation type way I can say I know him) also never bothered with autonomy or independence.

I remember those days well. In 1979 San Fran was a one-street town with a really striking resemblance to a set for a Western movie. Swap stagecoaches for battered jeeps, horses for 125cc Honda dirt bikes, winchesters for M16s, and you'd have it. Disorder on a similar scale as well... landgrapping, claim-jumping miners, corrupt politicians and hired gunmen, the works, despite a severe lack of strong silent heroes riding over the horizon to liberate the little guys, though the NPA tried to fill that role!

Way too many stories to tell, including one or two involving Lademora and his guys... shouldn't get started though.

I didn't mean to suggest that Lademora or the Maneros had an independence agenda, only to cite them as examples of the kind of essentially personalistic leaders/groups with a nominal political agenda that features so prominently in Mindanao micropolitics.

Is Lademora still alive? He must be well up in years by now. He was no spring chicken when I met him, and that was... 82 or 83, I guess.

Luce was another one who was almost entirely apolitical.He simply wanted to be able to live without people trying to steal his land.Those people happened to be Muslims so it wasn't even ethnically driven,at least in the beginning.

One might wonder how a guy from Panay (I know some say he was Tiruray, some say lots of stuff) managed to acquire land in Cotabato in the first place. Back to acronyms, you do of course know what ILAGA was taken to mean in those days...