THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF THE PHILIPPINES: ORGANIZING FOR REVOLUTION

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP83B00227R000100020004-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: S
• Document Page Count: 16
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: February 14, 2007
• Sequence Number: 4
• Publication Date: January 1, 1982
• Content Type: REPORT

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Directorate of Secret
Intelligenc_e______
The Communist Party
of the Philippines:
Organizing for Revolution
Secret
EA 82-10012
January 1982
306
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Directorate of I Secret
Intelligence
The Communist Party
of the Philippines:
Organizing for Revolution
A Research Paper
Researchfor this report was completed
on 30 December 1981.
This paper was prepared byl
Malaysia/Singapore/Islands Branch, Office of East
Asian Analysis. It was coordinated with the
Directorate of Operations and the National
Intelligence Officer for East Asia. Comments and
queries are welcome and may be directed to the Chief,
Southeast Asia Division, Office of East Asian
Analysis
Secret
EA 82-10012
January 1982
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The Communist Party
of the Philippines:
Organizing for Revolution
0
Overview The 8,000-strong Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP/ML) has
transformed itself during the past decade from a minor nuisance into a
potentially serious security threat to the Marcos government. It has
recovered from the disarray of the early 1970s, and its military arm is now
active in 43 of the country's 72 provinces. The party leadership believes-
with some justification-that the CPP/ML will be able to challenge the
government by 1984.1
Basic organizational changes and recent insurgent activity suggest that
Mindanao may be the party's major target during the early 1980s. During
the next few years, the party will concentrate on organizing a broad
national front aimed at consolidating Marcos's opponents behind party
efforts. US and other foreign business interests will be subjected to
propaganda, and US companies in Mindanao could be especially vulner-
able to any concentrated Communist drive.
Major problems may still prevent the party from realizing these ambitious
goals:
? Decentralization to ensure survivability has led to a weak central
leadership unable to control regional committees and coordinate any
national program.
? Incipient friction between the party leadership from northern Luzon and
groups from the south, where the party's major expansion is occurring.
? Lack of any external funding, which could constrain the party's expan-
sion and recruitment efforts.
The party could resolve these problems unless the Marcos government
makes a concentrated effort to counter party attempts to attract the long-
neglected rural population.
Secret
EA 82-10012
January 1982
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Figure 1
Regional Party Committees of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP/ML)
Area of most intensive party activity
(does not denote party control)
. ?0
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L--_\
Salabac Strait
PQ
Malaysia
Batan Islands
00
SW Basilan Island
SW ~~
Jot Pala
200
Kilometers
ql' Philippines
J O
Brand
de U.R
aalgta
indo'he"sia i I
s,r J
rte'
Australia ",,j
Pulau Miangas
(Indonesia)
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The Communist Party
of the Philippines:
Organizing for Revolution
Sison and his followers finally bolted from the PKP, CPP/ML in both numbers and geographical distribu-
This core of students was joined in the late 1960s by
the bulk of the declining PKP's military arm, the
Hukbalahap (Huks).2 Led by Bernabe Buscayno
(Commander Dante), the Huks were attracted by
Sison's more activist program. The CPP/ML formed
its own military arm-the New People's Army
(NPA)-around Dante's Huks in 1969.
a generational division, as Sison and other younger The Current Leadership
adherents were unable to advance in the party. Accus- When Sison was captured in 1977, most of the
ing the PKP of losing its dedication to revolution original party leaders were already either dead or in
because of excessive legalism and rampant nepotism, prison. Sison's successors have rapidly expanded the
Party Origins
The CPP/ML was spawned in the 1960s by a doctri-
nal split within the old-line, pro-Soviet Philippine
Communist Party (PKP). The CPP/ML's founder,
Jose Maria Sison, contended that the PKP was too
willing to cooperate with the entrenched Filipino
political elite and overemphasized organizing the ur-
ban workers. This quarrel was further exacerbated by
forming the CPP/ML in
December 1968.11 tion. Party membership, for example, has grown from
The CPP/ML membership today largely reflects
Sison's initial following in the country's leading col-
leges and universities. In 1964, inspired by the exam-
ple of Mao's Cultural Revolution, Sison created the
Nationalist Youth (Kabataang Makabayan), a radi-
cal-left student organization that was in the forefront
of the violent anti-Marcos and anti-US demonstra-
tions that rocked Manila in the late 1960s. The
Nationalist Youth had cadre on campuses throughout
the country, although its center was in elite Manila
universities such as the University of the Philippines
and Ateneo de Manila-schools where the party
continues to find sympathy and new recruits. Most of
the party's present leaders acquired their experience
with the Nationalist Youth or its several allied organi-
zations.
' The PKP was severely hurt by the split, which resulted in the loss
of almost all its military arm, and by the 1972 imposition of martial
law. By the mid-1970s, the PKP had accepted an amnesty from the
government and now has a semilegal status. Confined mostly to the
Manila area, the PKP has a limited following and its members
around 2,000 in 1970 to 8,000 in 1980. Moreover,
since early 1980, the leadership has displayed a
marked aggressiveness and willingness to challenge
government military forces. CCP/ML activities, al-
though uncoordinated to some extent, have become so
worrisome to the Marcos government that troops have
been transferred from the Muslim areas of Mindanao,
where they have fought a decade-long war against
Muslim separatists, to Samar and eastern Mindanao,
where recent party/NPA inroads have been the most
spectacular.
In theory, the party is run by a 15- to 17-man Central
Committee, which sends its directives to the 13
regional party committees for implementation. 25
Philippine tradition of armed peasant protest. The cry for land
reform had attracted many poor farmers to its ranks in the late
1940s, and both Dante and his closest lieutenants were of peasant
origin. Sison's emphasis on the primacy of rural areas in promoting
the revolution thus filled a familiar niche and accounts for the
party's apparent ease in developing rural support during the 1970s.
Combined with student activists, the peasant guerrillas give the
Marxist revolution a Filipino face.
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The Central Committee is a young group. Almost all
committee members are in their early or mid-30s, and
none are over 50. Barring arrest or death, its members
should be active for at least two decades and provide
the continuity of policy and direction the party needs
to "seize state power." A decade-long existence un-
derground has also created a leadership that is both
ruthless and pragmatic. Moreover, because of its
isolation from potential foreign supporters the cur-
rent leadership is extremely self-reliant.
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Most of the Central Committee members have first- inner circle, the five-man Politburo, and the Central
hand military experience. Some, like NPA chief Committee. All are from the central Luzon area and
Juanito Rivera, have assassinated government offi- personify the Ta alo Ilocano dominance of the party
cials. This has blurred distinctions between civil and leadership.
military roles among party leaders and facilitated
party control of the insurgency
The party is directed by a triumvirate-Central Com-
mittee Chairman Rodolfo Salas, Military Commis-
sion head Juanito Rivera, and Secretary General
ereas a tree are apparently
25
competent, t e ac of a single unchallengeable leader
probably has hurt efforts by the leadership to
its control over the regional party committees.
25
Rafael Baylosis. All are members of both the party's 25X1 25X1
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The Provincial Base
The party believes the path to power is through a
rural-based insurgency, and it has concentrated its
efforts in the provinces for more than a decade. The
CPP/ML is now active in 43 of the country's 72
provinces, and in August 1980 it called for establish-
ing more rural guerrilla bases. Urban organizing in
the form of urban branches for each regional party
committee occurs but is a low priority in party
strategy
Besides dogma, the major impetus for the move to the
provinces was the 1972 declaration of martial law.
Before, the party was based mainly in Manila and to
the north in an area of central Luzon traditionally
controled by the Huks. Government counterinsur-
gency measures following martial law forced the party
leadership to abandon these areas. Since then, the
party has expanded basically east and south. Manila
and central Luzon have been relegated to the back-
ground, although they are the key to political success
in the Philippines
The move to the provinces has strengthened the
regional committees at the expense of the Central
Committee. The constant turnover caused by numer-
ous arrests of key cadre members in the early 1970s
and disruptions forced by repeated movement to avoid
capture broke down already tenuous intraparty links.
As a result, the regional party committees-the pivot-
al units in the party structure linking local members
with the party leadership-became virtually inde-
pendent by the mid-1970s
The party's national leadership is trying unsuccessful-
ly to minimize regional autonomy. It has little to offer
regional party committees, which are financially and
organizationally self-sufficient. An attempt in 1978 to
use force failed. In that year the Central Committee
launched a party rectification campaign after a seri-
ous internal dispute with the Manila-Rizal regional
party committee. The Manila group, led by Central
Committee member Filemon Lagman, challenged the
party's anti-Soviet posture and its emphasis on a
rural-based revolution. In turn, the party leadership
charged Lagman and his associates with "rightist
opportunism," demoted and later murdered him, and
dissolved the regional committee. The leadership was
unable, however, to expand the impact of the rectifi-
cation campaign beyond Manila-Rizal. No other re-
gional leaders were challenged and the campaign
ceased
Another outgrowth of the party's rural expansion is
the change in the membership structure. With the
party's shift toward the rural southern areas of the
country, more non-Tagalog/Ilocano speakers are be-
ing recruited. This trend may eventually end the
Tagalog/Ilocano domination of the party and produce
a stronger grassroots structure.
The party has also become more sophisticated about
recruiting at the local level after a disastrous expe-
rience in the mid-1970s in the Bicol-the long penin-
sula southeast of Manila. The Tagalog/Ilocano orga-
nizers sent by the party apparently were too arrogant
for the local population and the mobilization effort
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suited in a serious defeat, with survivors fleeing to the
failed. Possessing only limited popular support, few
local recruits, and even fewer weapons, the Bicol
organizing committee then tried to stand against a
major government military sweep in 1975. This re-
nearby island of Samar
Learning from its mistakes in the Bicol, the party has
doubled to 13. Party resurgence is best demonstrated
The number of regional party committees has almost
succeeded in greatly expanding its provincial base.
by its performance on Samar. From less than a dozen
shocking the Marcos government in mid-1977 by
controls as many as 1,500 guerrillas. It succeeded in
members in 1972, the Samar regional party now
temporarily seizing two towns in the roadless north-
The party has nonetheless paid for its move to the
provinces. The virtual autonomy of the regional party
committees makes a coordinated nationwide effort
very difficult. The national leadership must devote too
much time and effort strengthening its position vis-a-
vis the regional committees. Thus, although decen-
tralization has allowed the party to take advantage of
local opportunities to expand, it has also prevented the
party from realizing its potential as a political force
with national appeal and impact.
Financing the Revolution
domestic sources]
Reliance on domestic financing, while ensuring na-
tional party independence, has its drawbacks. Because
funds are generated locally and most of the money 25
remains at the regional level, the national party
leadership is resource short. Financially independent
regional party committees can, therefore, safely ig-
nore any national leadership directive they dislike
without fear of serious reprisals.
Party funds are-by their method of collection-tied
to control of specific areas. If government operations
force the local party to relinquish that control, the loss
will have a definite impact. Furthermore, regional
committee reliance on locally generated funding
makes any nationwide campaign difficult to imple-
ized at the national level, the CPP/ML will find it
difficult to unite its regional enclaves
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The party wisely appears to be seeking supplemental
funding that is not tied to control of specific areas.
One new source appears to be the national front
movement, which party cadres are now trying to
infiltrate and control. If successful, the front would
give the party money collected from a variety of
national rather than regional groups. Moreover, be-
cause the Central Committee directly controls the
party's efforts to create a Communist-dominated na-
tional front, this source of funds would be held by the
national leadership and thus provide some leverage
with recalcitrant regional party committees
Taking the Nationalist Line
Party interest in developing a broad anti-Marcos
national front is longstanding. The second party ple-
num in September 1970 recognized the need to
establish a mass base of support by linking with
nonparty groups also opposed to the Marcos govern-
ment. By late 1971, a preparatory commission was
established under Central Committee auspices to
initiate the program. Party cadre members were In the current period of increasing domestic political
instructed to contact sympathizers among Christian polarization, the party views the Natdems as its best
activists, Muslim secessionists, students, and even vehicle for capturing the anti-Marcos movement.
anti-Marcos rightwing nationalist groups. Martial law More moderate political figures are either courted or,
disrupted these efforts, which had achieved limited if unresponsive, attacked. For example, the leading
progress only among Christian activists. Senior party Marcos opponent-exiled former senator Benigno
officials involved in front work were arrested and the Aquino-has been characterized in Natdem publica-
party, under constant pressure from the authorities, tions as a "reconciliationist" and "collaborator" under
was unable to pursue the front idea. Instead of "US imperialist" influence.' Some non-Communist
becoming the driving force behind the anti-Marcos groups that do not belong to the front are dismissed in
movement, the party was reduced to trying to attach Natdem publications as CIA creations. Moreover, the
itself to the more popular non-Communist groups= government has inadvertently played into the party's
Sison, dissatisfied with the progress of the armed
struggle, resurrected the national front program in
May 1977. Despite Sison's arrest later in the year, the
preparatory commission remained active, taking ad-
vantage of the somewhat relaxed climate surrounding
the April 1978 parliamentary elections. Since then,
the national front has occupied an increasingly impor-
tant place in party planning.
hands. Its continuing refusal to treat the moderate
opposition with anything less than contempt only
undermines the moderates and further assists the
The party is also using the Natdems to play on
nationalism, a powerful theme in 20th century Philip-
pine history. Often translated into anti-American
and/or anti-Japanese sentiment, nationalism allows
those dissatisfied with Marcos to believe that the
Philippines can blame foreigners for its problems.
Where Filipinos might not respond to a Communist
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appeal, nationalism could prove to be a more effective
lure. Thus the party, through the Natdems, seeks to
lead a united front against the US-Marcos dictator-
ship rather than call for revolution. The country's
worsening economy and the policy reforms that the
World Bank and the IMF want Manila to introduce
fan nationalist fires, especially in the economically
depressed southern part of the countr where the
party is most active.
The party's nationalist line is its channel to the
younger generation of political leaders. Although the
party leadership, especially under Sison, dealt with
the country's old-line political leaders, it realizes the
best prospects for influencing nonparty groups lie in
the long term. Indeed several moderate opposition
politicians have stated that they are becoming irrele-
vant as their younger colleagues are attracted to more
radical solutions. Natdem acceptability among anti-
Marcos opponents rose appreciably in June 1981,
when the moderates joined the Front in boycotting the
presidential election[
The Front provides the party with new recruits. The
party has been able to recruit promising students, for
example, by monitoring their performance and com-
mitment as members of the League of Filipino Stu-
dents and the Youth for Nationalism and Democracy.
Similar front groups exist in the labor movement and
among Christian activists. In more strongly CPP/ML
influenced rural areas, party front groups have been
able to organize substantial portions of the peasantry,
but have been unable to attract more than a handful
of Muslim adherents. Despite increased emphasis on
the national front strategy, Natdem-sponsored dem-
onstrations remain relatively small by Philippine
standards; only 1,500 persons were involved in a
demonstration in Manila last Octobe
1 500 full-time guerrillas, is now
_____________________
lanywhere from 5,000 to 10,000 25
regu ars.
Because so many of the regional party members
command NPA units, party control is virtually total.
At the national level, NPA activities come under the
loose direction of the Central Committee, which
oversees the r ommission headed by Rivera.
A similar organizational structure exists at the re-
gional party committee level and lower. Guerrilla
fronts are subordinate to the regional party commit-
tees and none appear to be organized across regional
committee boundaries. While troops may be moved
from area to area, major commanders apparently are
not. There is no evidence of any multifront operation
involving more than one regional authority. As a
result, the insurgency has a brushfire character
Aside from the opportunities presented by the Nat-
dems, the NPA offers the best field for party recruit-
ment. From the party's perspective, control of the
insurgency is paramount to party success and requires 25
placing and maintaining officials in responsible posi-
tions. The relatively rapid growth of the insurgency
since 1977-in terms of both personnel and geograph-
ic extent-combined with the greater number of
The Military Arm
Over the past decade, the New People's Army has
evolved into a respectable military force that in recent
months has hesitated little in initiating combat with
government forces. Armed strength, originally around
' This paper does not directly address the military aspects of the
NPA insurgency. A forthcoming paper from the Office of East
Asian Analysis will examine recent developments in both the
for dealing with them.
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clashes with the Philippine military, places heavy
demands on the party's still limited manpower pool.
By screening possible recruits through the NPA, the
party can fill the need for competent, dedicated
personnel and maintain its hold on the military arm of
the revolution.
At the same time, the growing number of insurgent
leaders drawn from the southern provinces probably
will weaken the impact and influence of the old Huk
core, who basically represent the Tagalog/Ilocano
dominance of the party. As these Huks are eclipsed in
number by newer recruits, the NPA will move away
from its central Luzon heritage and more accurately
reflect the Philippines' regional diversity. The party
could then become even more regionalized. Converse-
ly, continued introduction of non-Tagalog/Ilocano
speakers could give the party a more national image,
and allow the party to better present itself as a
legitimate protector of rural Filipinos from an Ilo-
cano-dominated military and political regime.
Despite its recent growth, the NPA is still achieving
only limited success. It has been unable to create a
liberated zone, although it has come close in Samar
and may succeed there sometime in the next several
years. With the party leadership entirely in the
country, it needs the secure base a liberated zone
would provide to better coordinate party activities. A
liberated zone would also enhance the party's claim to
be an effective alternative to the Marcos government.
The most serious obstacle to creating a zone is the
government's growing commitment against the insur-
gency.
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An expansion of the party may trigger several incip-
ient problems. As the party incorporates more mem-
bers from its remote rural areas, the dominance of
urbanized, middle class, ex-students may come under
increasing challenge. Peasant-student divisions among
the leadership have been present since the outset, and
while a severe intraparty rift appears to have been
avoided, continued rural ex an i create more
pressure in this area.
Another potential problem is financing. The party's
forced reliance on domestic sources for fundin and
weapons may undercut the nace of exnansior
own internal shortcomings
lthough it
has major internal problems, functioned and
grown without meeting any serious obstacles. Failure
to resolve these problems will at the worst delay the
1984 target for challenging the government. Any
delay could give the Marcos government the time
needed to recoup lost ground, specifically the opportu-
nities squandered in the 1970s, to neutralize the party
when it was weak. However, if the government contin-
ues to offer only ill-managed and ineffective social
programs, or increases its reliance on a military
approach, the party may have time to overcome its
Targeting Mindanao
Mindanao appears to be the most likely area for
success of the Program.
The
rising number ofNPA incidents over the last year
further underscores this impression. Next to the cen-
tral Luzon plains, resource-rich Mindanao is probably
the most attractive area for party operations. Govern-
ment presence is minimal in what is still a frontier.
The domination of most of the island's economic and
political institutions by immigrants from the central
Visayan islands, where many areas are already under
party influence, gives the party a net of family and
other ties that in r e the nrosnec "t successful
penetration
The presence in southwest Mindanao of a well-armed
Muslim guerrilla force is also attractive to the party,
although the Muslim insurgent leaders have refused
to coordinate their efforts in any substantial way with
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the NPA. Some low-level cooperation has been re-
ported. If a working alliance with the Muslims could
be forged, it would open the possibility of an external
supply route (via Sabah, Malaysia) for the first time in
the party's existence. The chance to coordinate mili-
tary operations against government forces too small
and too overextended to deal with both insurgencies at
once offers greater possibilities. This has been the fear
of government security officials for years and the
party may be better able to pursue such a develop-
mentL5.
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