Communist Insurgency in the Philippines (catch all)

[pinoyme]

charter 6:


You do not get the logic of my point.

When the Huks registered, the assumption was that they were a legal organization. They gave out their names, addresses, and names of immeidate relatives.

In other words, they were giving out to their potential killers all the vital information needed for the job.

The fact that the Huks started going out to Arayat and that they were re-organizing was in reaction to the intensified clashes. They were doing so for self-defense.

As for Quirino, he became President in April 1948. At that time the Philippine treasury was empty. Salaries for government employees and worse the military were not paid on time.

War brutalized the Philippines and the Filipinos. Guns were everywhere. It was also easy to make a quick buck. Much of it by outright stealing and graft.

It is to Quirino's credit that he got the government to function somehow. He also negotiated for US aid. The import controls he put up, a necessary stopgap then, had the unintended consequence of spurring the import substitition policy--which gave short run economic benefits up until the start of the term of President Diosdado Macapagal's father.

Again, the Huks were but one of the numerous problems a post-war and newly-independent Philippines faced. There were several others.

As for the Huk commander who killed Aurora Quezon, he was a renegade leader. The province of Quezon was a marginal base for the Huks. Its strength was basically Pampanga and parts of Bulacan in Central Luzon and parts of Laguna.

It seems you are unfamiliar with Philippine culture and that is why you assume the Huks were as highly disciplined and organized as the Viet Minh.

No, Filipinos are not that way. And that is why Filipinos will never tolerate a Communist-led regime. Too much discipline which goes against the Filipino penchant for inspired improvisation and a more creative approach to problems.

If you are citing US military texts, they are then sadly outdated. Which is dangerous. Because if you will be citing lessons learned from these texts to craft strategies for another COIN campaign elsewhere, you shall be coming to grief.

Again, the top leaders of the Communist underground were out in the open. The incoherent reaction of the Huks to the 1946 to 1950 clashes shows there was no overriding strategic goal.

That goal happened when the decision to launch a revolution in 1950 finally took place. "See you in Malacanang," then became the greeting Huks gave to each other.

And the series of attacks against government units finally began.


Addendum:

Wait, you're saying that the hired guards of the landowners and the PC fighting led to the war? Where do the Huks fit into that equation? I just don't think that's true.

This is a copyediting issue, not an issue of fact.I committed an error most Filipino English writers are prone to.

What I meant was that Huks were clashing with either the PC, civilian guards, or municipal policemen. The last were under the control of mayors.