by Ray C. Hunt
Chapter Seven
Hukbalahaps and Constabulary
Our operations in central Luzon were complicated immensely by the presence of a rival and bitterly hostile guerrilla organization, the Hukbalahaps. Generations before the war Spanish entrepreneurs had gained control of much of the good farmland in the Philippines and turned it into great estates for the commercial production of various commodities, notably sugar. Gradually, and particularly in the twentieth century, many Filipinos had also become large landowners. Actual work on the estates was done by sharecroppers and hired laborers. Like similar people at other times and places, they scratched out a bare living for themselves, and slowly fell hopelessly into debt to their increasingly wealthy landlords.1 Because of this long-standing condition there was much peasant unrest in the Philippines on the eve of the war. It was most intense in central Luzon, particularly in Pampanga province.
Several protest movements had developed in response to this situation, only two of which concern us here. One was the Communist Party. Its Philippine branch was organized in 1930, and outlawed by the Commonwealth government in 1931. Throughout the 1930s the communists tried to exploit peasant grievances, to polarize Philippine politics by gaining control of movements that were anti-American or anti-Commonwealth, and to pose as doughty fighters against whatever they chose to call “fascism.” By the time the war began, the party was dominated by the Lavas, a wealthy family of intellectual Marxists from Manila, whose most famous member, Vincente Lava, was a chemist with a doctorate from Columbia University and an international reputation.2
The other movement that championed peasants against landlords was Christian socialist, founded by Pedro Abad Santos but led by a young peasant named Luis Taruc. At heart Taruc was a religious man who never entirely abandoned his Christian principles during his several political metamorphoses, and who eventually returned to them entirely long after World War II. In 1942 he was convinced that since the majority of Filipinos were Christians they would never turn communist; therefore there was no danger in forming a common front with communists to try to bring about a redistribution of lands and to resist the Japanese conquerors. To further these objectives various “progressives” and “peasant leaders” held a series of meetings early in 1942. From them came a merger of Taruc’s socialists with the communists under a new name, Hukbo ng Bayan Labon sa Hapon (People’s Army to Fight the Japanese), or Hukbalahap for short. The twenty-nine-year-old Taruc was made its leader. Though it took Taruc some time to realize it, what happened to him was what often happens to people who attempt to form a common front with communists. The latter, who have clear, fixed objectives permanently in mind, who have had much experience in intrigue and plotting, and who are unhampered by scruples, quickly reduce their gullible allies to mere tools, use them as long as it is expedient, and then cast them aside. In this case, all the two factions had in common, ultimately, was hostility to the Japanese.3
In the first half of 1942 efforts were made to coordinate the activities of the Huks with resistance being planned by USAFFE officers. These culminated in a meeting on July 7, 1942, between several members of Thorpe’s staff and Taruc and some of his associates. Each side had something of value to offer. The Huks were already well organized and had a considerable following in the villages and barrios of Pampanga province. They had carried out a number of small raids against the Japanese that had gained them credit in the eyes of local Filipinos. And they knew the countryside well. Thorpe and his associates could provide training and professional military skills that the Huks lacked at that time. The Huks offered to amalgamate and make the Americans colonels in the Huk army. What they hoped to get in return, seemingly, was official U.S. Army recognition and eventually pay from the American government for their work as guerrillas. A tentative agreement was reached to collaborate on everything relating to plans and the disposition of military supplies, but nothing came of it. The reason seems to have been that neither party was willing to subordinate itself to the other. Thorpe thought guerrillas would be effective only if they were a strictly military organization with their eyes on a single objective: military victory. This would mean that the Huks would have to abandon their political goals. Understandably, they declined.4
“Progressive” writers have clothed the Huks in regal splendor: they were warm-hearted agricultural reformers, heroic freedom fighters, and crusaders against American imperialists who worked hand-in-glove with fascist oppressors. Everywhere the Huks were friends of the peasants and beloved by them in turn. They were also the best organized and most effective of all the guerrilla bands. Alas! Their yeoman services and sacrifices went unappreciated and unrewarded at the end of the war because a sinister coalition of Filipino collaborators, jealous USAFFE officers, and American big business interests put them down, returned to power the old masters of the peasants, and fixed elections, all in order to continue their prewar exploitation of the Filipino people.5
There is no question that the Huks were shrewd and ruthless, and that they tried to maintain a tight organization. They made the forgery of ID cards a local industry. They also had a clever system for raising troops. A recruiter would work an area where he knew the local population and they knew him. Thus, he could get loyal recruits and keep out Japanese spies. Once a man was recruited, he was required to give a sworn statement that he was anti-Japanese. At any hint of subsequent insubordination his superiors could allow this statement to “fall into the hands” of the enemy. Thus, one who enlisted in the Huks generally stayed enlisted.6
My personal experiences with the Huks were always unpleasant, and my impressions of them were entirely unfavorable. Those I knew “were much better assassins than soldiers.”7 Tightly disciplined and led by fanatics, they murdered some landlords and drove others off to the comparative safety of Manila. They were not above plundering and torturing ordinary Filipinos to get the food and supplies they needed; and they were implacable and treacherous enemies of all other guerrillas. Like their communist partisan counterparts in Europe, they were in the process of developing a new kind of conflict: war and revolution at the same time, the erosion of the power and authority of a foreign invader while simultaneously wearing down and discrediting traditional groups and institutions in their own country. Whether in a dozen European countries or in the Philippines, this translated into a policy of quarrelling with, sometimes fighting with, and always attempting to subvert non-communist guerrillas, while keeping one’s attention fixed on the main objective: to turn their country communist at the end of the war, by any means.8
Admittedly, there was much difference between many of the rank and file Huks and their leaders. The vast majority of Filipino peasants knew nothing about Marxism and simply wanted redress of longstanding grievances and some liberalization of the old landlord system. In the Huk army most ordinary guerrillas, at least early in the war, wanted mostly either to escape the Japanese or to fight the Japanese, or else they thought life inside the organization was better than that outside. Not so their leaders. Most of these men were cold, urban intellectual types who cared nothing for peasant discontents save as vehicles for advancing faster along the Highway of History that must end in the earthly kingdom of Universal Marxism.9
The Huks were convinced that Americans would be more impressed by their power than by their principles, so they tried to secure as many weapons as they could and then use them to weaken other guerrilla units. All attempts to cooperate with them failed, and we eventually waged war against the Huks quite as much as against the Japanese. In fact, up in Nueva Ecija province a situation developed that in less serious circumstances would have been a subject for comic opera. During the occupation the Japanese reorganized the old Philippine Constabulary in an effort to use it against guerrillas. Unknown to them, most members of the Constabulary were themselves secret guerrillas, or so afraid of guerrillas that they might as well have been. Moreover, the governor of Nueva Ecija, though appointed by the Japanese, had a secret understanding with the p
artisans. He supplied them with Philippine Constabulary uniforms and insignia, and they often travelled about with regular Japanese troops seeking out the Huks and fighting pitched battles with them. Eventually these ill-assorted allies drove all the Huks out of the province.10
On a day-to-day basis the Huks had a lot of the same problems we did: they had attracted too many bandits, adventurers, self-seekers, corruptionists, and assorted crazies who undermined their peasant support by such follies as stealing carabao, and destroyed much of their public credit by gratuitous assassinations. One such incident stands out. A fierce woman, Felipa Culala, whom her followers called Dayang-Dayang, organized an irregular unit of her own, fought against the Japanese, and cooperated with the Huks. Unfortunately for her, she also spoke frankly about her intention to get rich from plunder in the process. Even though she was widely regarded as a heroine, Huk general headquarters had her executed.11
Estimates of Huk strength and effectiveness vary widely. U.S. Army Intelligence in Australia during the war figured Huk strength at 10,000 men and 3,000 rifles.12 Other estimates run higher or lower, depending mostly on how “reserves” are defined and counted. There is similar uncertainty about how many casualties they inflicted on the Japanese.13 But whether the Huks killed 30,000 Japanese or only 5,000, the state of our relations with them is indicated by their common designation of us as “USAFFE robbers,” and by various incidents. A typical one occurred once when Bob Lapham decided to make an earnest attempt to effect some kind of working agreement with the Huks against the common enemy. He sent his executive officer, Maj. Harry McKenzie, and his adjutant, Lt. Jeremias Serafica, to arrange a meeting with the Huk leaders. Memories vary about whether Harry rashly charged some Huks, or the Huks set an ambush. Whichever happened, McKenzie was shot in the chest. As he lay on the ground with blood spurting from his wound with each heartbeat, the boy who had shot him moved his rifle to finish him off, then lowered it slowly and remarked, “I’m sorry, sir. I fought on Bataan just as you did,” and walked away.
McKenzie was triply lucky. The bullet did not hit a vital organ, he happened to get medical attention quickly, and the wound did not become infected. So he lived, but he never forgot or forgave. From that time forward open war blazed between the Huks and Lapham’s guerrillas. Whether meetings with Huks were accidental or were arranged with Huk prisoners, they commonly ended in gunfire. Afterward stories circulated that whenever McKenzie engaged captured Huks, or suspected Huks, in conversation, he did so seated at a table with a loaded and cocked .45 in his hand, the barrel resting on the table top in front of him and pointed at the person being addressed. It usually went off before the interrogation was completed. Like so many colorful wartime tales, though, the accuracy of this one is highly questionable. Bob Lapham, who was in virtual daily contact with McKenzie, says he cannot recall any Huk ever getting close to McKenzie again.14
With Huks and USAFFE guerrillas perpetually at swords’ points the Japanese never tried to interfere in disputes between us. Why should they? Every bullet we fired at each other was one fewer fired at them.
Another organization that complicated our lives to some degree was the Philippine Constabulary, though our relations with its members were always far more amicable than with the Huks. In fact, we were eventually able to effect an informal working alliance with the Constabulary after all efforts to cooperate with the Huks had failed. This development was due to our increasing ability to vex the Japanese, and their increasing frustration at being unable to do much about it.
Of course, it was always possible for the Japanese to raise as many as a thousand troops and chase us back into the mountains and jungle, but by the end of 1943 we had become too numerous and well organized to be routed by small enemy patrols, and it was simply not practical for our foes to employ great numbers of men to perpetually comb the countryside in pursuit of isolated handfulls of guerrillas, most of whom, if they could get out of sight for a brief time, would make their next public appearances in fields behind plows and carabao, indistinguishable from several million other Filipino peasants. From a Japanese standpoint, attempting to deal with guerrillas was always frustrating, rather like a cow switching her tail to drive off flies.
In an effort to deal with us guerrillas, who were passing from nuisance to menace, the Japanese organized a new Philippine Constabulary. This body should not be confused with the old prewar Constabulary which, along with the Philippine army and Philippine Scouts, had been closely linked to the American army. The new Constabulary was composed, in part, of civilian volunteers and of men who simply needed jobs to feed their families. The core of it, though, consisted of Filipino prisoners taken after the fall of Bataan and Corregidor. These men were gradually released by the Japanese with the proviso that they join the new Constabulary. Nominally, they were then to perform ordinary police duties. Actually, the Japanese planned to train them to become a new army to help defend the Philippines against a possible future American attack. In this role they would absorb some casualties that would otherwise be Japanese; and their presence would enable the Japanese to pose more convincingly as friendly neighbors helping allies defend their homeland against attack. The commander of the new Constabulary was Gen. Guillermo Francisco, a Filipino officer who had served on Bataan and whom the Japanese put through a de-Americanization program before his “promotion.”15
Though the new Philippine Constabulary eventually came to comprise thirty thousand men, the Japanese never knew quite what to do with their creation. If the Constabulary was to be effective, its members had to be well armed, fed, and paid. Yet the Japanese knew that, at bottom, neither these Filipino “volunteers” nor their commanding officer were trustworthy, so they were loath to arm them effectively.
The result was a series of sad compromises, as compromises so often are. Constabulary morale was always low because the men had been humiliated and oppressed by their conquerors, who now watched them closely in the bargain. To Filipino civilians they looked like puppets at best and traitors at worst. Their masters gave them rifles of all types captured from U.S. forces, and special clothing. Thus armed and supervised, they were supposed to maintain domestic peace and order. Some of them were rough on civilians—abusing people, profiteering, and extorting bribes. With some who acted thus the reason was probably low salary, with others a natural response to the tough training they had received from the Japanese, with still others the common phenomenon of power going easily to one’s head. Whenever Constabularymen did anything unpopular, they excused themselves on the ground that they had no choice but to follow Japanese orders.16 A majority of them, though, just went through the motions of performing their duties, especially when looking for guerrillas. They seldom discovered any of the latter; and if they did, usually managed to do little about it. In many sectors there were tacit understandings that the Constabulary would go easy on Filipino civilians and would not take patrols into areas dominated by guerrillas, in return for which guerrillas would not ambush Constabulary troops. If operations against irregulars did take place in the mountains, the Constabulary forces invariably returned severely depleted, from casualties incurred during guerrilla ambushes, their leaders said, but in truth from extensive defections to the guerrillas. On our side, we had no desire to destroy the Constabulary and see them replaced by regular Japanese troops. On their side, as Chick Parsons predicted in a formal report to General Willoughby as early as June 1943,17 and as the actions of the Constabularymen in the last months of the war proved, about three-quarters of them were just biding their time until the day it would become safe to desert either to guerrillas or to an invading American army. Throughout the war some of the best American intelligence operatives were camouflaged as Constabularymen.
Once it became apparent to us that the Huks would be implacable enemies, we decided to try cooperation with the Constabulary instead, specifically to see if they would allow us to slip some guerrillas into their ranks in order to combat the Huks more effectively. Contact was made
with the commander of the Constabulary for Tarlac province, and a secret rendezvous was arranged. Some of our men brought the commander and one of his lieutenants to the prearranged site by a circuitous route designed to avoid detection by the Japanese. The conference was held in an ordinary Philippine house on stilts. Though this bahay was bigger than most, the room was packed with guerrilla observers. Those of us who were to be directly involved in the negotiations were jammed together around a table like the proverbial sardines.
In substance, the conference proved uneventful. After some discussion an agreement was reached with the Constabulary representatives, we shook hands all around, and the Constabularymen were led away first so the direction of our departure would remain unknown to them.
The fallout from the meeting was another matter, one that causes me to chuckle to this day. Before the conference began, some inspired and generous soul had managed to find some good American whiskey and had passed it around. Most of us had taken a couple of drinks, which may or may not have caused Al and me to get into a sufficiently loud argument that Filipinos grabbed both of us to prevent what they feared would be a fight. A short while later Al had to relieve himself. The house was so jammed he couldn’t get downstairs, so he did the simplest thing: went to a back bedroom that had an open window. Unfortunately, he lost his balance and pitched head first out the window to the ground eight feet below, landing with a thump heard plainly by everyone inside.