by Ray C. Hunt
As noted earlier, one of the by-products of guerrilla life was that I became aquainted with several Filipino politicians who were either well known in the 1940s or rose to prominence after World War II. One of the latter, whom I happened to meet in 1944, was Ferdinand Marcos, later to become a famous and embattled president of the Philippines. One day he showed up at my headquarters barefooted and unarmed, accompanied by a Filipino writer, F.M. Verano, who sometimes assumed the alias “Lieutenant Winters” and acted as a liaison man between Manuel Roxas and my organization. Marcos was then a twenty-seven-year-old lawyer who already had an interesting past. Years before the war a political adversary of his father had once put a dummy in a coffin and draped it with a sign indicating that it ought to be Marcos’s father. Outraged at the insult, the son hired the family chauffeur to shoot the offender. At the last moment the chauffeur could not go through with the act, so young Marcos grabbed a rifle and shot his father’s foe himself. He was then tried for murder and convicted, but the case was appealed to a higher court. While it was still pending, young Marcos was admitted to the bar. A second trial was ordered, and in it he defended himself so skillfully that he was acquitted.
Shortly before the Philippine presidential election of 1965 a “campaign biography” of Marcos appeared in which it was claimed that Marcos had performed with exceptional valor during the defense of Bataan, that he was nearly tortured to death by the Japanese in Fort Santiago, that after his release he devoted months to an unsuccessful effort to band together all the guerrillas on all the Philippine islands, that he formed his own northern Luzon guerrilla band, the Maharlika (Free Men or Noble Ones), that late in the war he helped Volckmann clear all the bandit irregulars out of north Luzon, and that he played a key role in the reestablishment of civil government on Luzon in May 1945. For these heroic deeds Marcos came out of the war the most decorated man in Philippine history.31
For a long time I assumed offhand that most of this was true, maybe all of it. The principal reason was that I had little occasion to think about Marcos at all. To me, he would have been no more than one more barefoot Filipino had not Verano told me that he had once killed a foe of his father. Then, incongruously, twenty years later this man had become president of the Philippines. In fact, when the latter event took place I had to do some research to assure myself that the new ruler of the islands was the same Marcos I had once met during the war.
When Marcos eventually became the center of furious controversies at home and abroad, books and articles began to appear claiming that his wartime heroism had been grossly exaggerated and that many, perhaps most, of his medals had been manufactured after the war to commemorate exploits that had never taken place.32 This evolution came to a climax shortly before the Philippine election of February 7, 1986, when many accounts appeared alleging that most of Marcos’s war record was fraudulent. The stories were based on hundreds of pages of documents found in the U.S. National Archives by an American scholar, Dr. Alfred McCoy.33
I was drawn into this whole controversy because two of the documents bore my signature. They called for the arrest of all unauthorized guerrilla organizers in Pangasinan, and one of them mentioned Marcos specifically. Within a few days newspaper and television journalists descended on me from all points of the compass. I was interviewed repeatedly and my responses circulated broadly. It soon became evident that, for whatever reason, perhaps mere unaccustomed excitement, I had not chosen my words with sufficient care. I was widely quoted as having said that Marcos had never led any guerrilla organization of significance, and that I had either arrested him or had ordered his arrest for unauthorized solicitation of funds and for efforts to recruit guerrillas.
The best I can do now, after the event, is try to sort out the truths from the half-truths, and both from the falsities. At the risk of boring readers I must emphasize that the events in question took place more than forty years ago, that they did not then seem to be of much importance, and that it was a time of great stress and tumult. Consequently, my memory of the precise details is inexact. I do not recall that either Verano or Manuel Roxas, both of whom I knew fairly well, ever said anything to me about Marcos being a guerrilla. I know he did not command an armed guerrilla organization in Pangasinan province, but it is possible that he did organize guerrillas elsewhere. I do not recall ever ordering his arrest, and I believe the document purporting to show this is a forgery.34 Of course, it is conceivable that some of my subordinates might have arrested him for a brief time without telling me about it, or that I might have been so informed but forgot about it merely because I attached little importance to it and had other matters on my mind.35 To repeat yet again: in 1944 Ferdinand Marcos was not a famous man, and we had had so much trouble with so many would-be guerrillas that one more of the species was not likely to linger in my memory.
To be sure, General Willoughby attests that Marcos did command his own guerrilla unit and that it numbered over 8,000 men, 3,800 of whom were supposedly in Pangasinan.36 Perhaps so, but it was and is always difficult to say with any precision how many people there are in any irregular outfit or resistance movement. If one counts only those who are actively engaged on a full-time basis, the number is almost always small. If one counts those who normally follow some civilian pursuit but regularly provide aid, information, and support, the number is considerably larger. If one counts all those who are basically sympathetic and who occasionally perform some service useful to the movement, the number is much larger. With “paper guerrillas” estimates are the merest guesses; and my own surmise (not unimpeachable knowledge) is that most of Marcos’s followers were “paper guerrillas,” particularly in Pangasinan.37 In 1944-45 a “paper guerrilla” was a person who possessed a piece of paper identifying him as a member of a guerrilla organization, even though he did not have a gun. Some such people really wanted to be guerrillas. Others were former collaborators with the Japanese who wanted to cover their tracks. Others were fence-sitters who now judged that the Allies were going to win the war. Still others were out for personal gain of some kind. It did take some courage to become even a “paper guerrilla,” and a bit more to organize a unit of such people, since anyone whose name was on such a list was likely to get short shrift if he was ever captured by the Japanese, though in 1944-45 this was a steadily diminishing risk. Whatever their intentions, and whatever the risks involved, “paper guerrillas” did little good and much harm. Sometimes they collected intelligence of some value, but this was vastly overbalanced by their interference with the recruiting efforts of genuine guerrillas, and by the disrepute they, as conspicuous johnny-come-latelys, brought down on the heads of genuine guerrillas whom they outnumbered by at least two to one near the war’s end.
Wherever the truth lies between the claims of Marcos’s admirers and adversaries, I tried to reestablish contact with him in 1982 when he paid a visit to the United States. I wrote him a letter reminding him of the circumstances under which he and I first met. He did not reply. In January 1986, Bob Lapham visited the Philippines. In the course of his stay he had a ninety-minute conversation with President Marcos. He told me afterward that Marcos had inquired about me.38 Interestingly, prior to his meeting with Marcos in the Malacanang Palace, Bob was told by a close associate of Marcos that “bad blood” existed between Marcos and myself. No such feeling ever existed on my part; if it did (or does) on Marcos’s side, the only reason I can imagine is that perhaps back in 1944 one of my men really did arrest the future president of the Philippines.
Chapter Ten
I Get My Own Command
After the Japanese had driven us up to the mountains in extreme eastern Pangasinan and we had then slipped through their lines, we moved steadily back southwestward into Tarlac province once more, a sojourn typical of our harried, nomadic life. Minang had not shared our adventures around Umingan because, earlier, she had gone off northward to look for Maj. Bob Lapham. Now, as we made our way back into Tarlac in June 1944, she rejoined us, bringing with her some spl
endid news and some that was equivocal. The good news was tangible: .45-caliber ammunition with 1943 dates on the casings, American magazines, boxes of matches, and Camel and Chesterfield cigarettes, all decorated with American and Philippine flags and with the signature of General MacArthur beneath the pledge “I shall return.”
Even better was the story behind it. Robert V. Ball, an enlisted man on Mindoro when Corregidor fell, had, like so many, refused to surrender and taken to the bush. He had fallen under the jurisdiction of Col. Wendell Fertig, who had appreciated his talents and commissioned him a captain. In May 1944 he had been dispatched northward from the island of Samar in a small sailboat carrying one radio transmitter. After many tribulations he had managed to land south of Baler Bay on the east coast of Luzon, unannounced and practically under the noses of the Japanese.
My spirits bounded upward. Here at last was the linkup we had needed so badly for so long. Soon we would have a transmitter of our own to pass on to general headquarters in Australia everything we knew about the enemy.
The jubilation was tempered by some other news. Lapham had decided to reorganize his whole command and had sent along with Minang a written directive for me to assume command of Pangasinan province, leaving Tarlac to Hendrickson. I cannot deny that I was pleased to receive what was clearly a promotion. It was recognition of past services and an expression of confidence in me personally, but at the same time it meant leaving Al, whom I had come to regard as a fast friend despite our arguments and misadventures. Al took the news in stride and told me I could take anyone I liked with me as a bodyguard save his own Little Joe. I asked to keep Gregorio Agaton, and Al released him to me promptly. I then mounted a Philippine pony and set off back north once more into the Japanese-infested province we had just fled. I might be the newly minted commander of an entire province, but my retinue could hardly have been more modest: only Greg and Minang, each also on a pony. It was June 21, 1944, twenty-six months after I had tumbled off the road into a ditch on the Bataan Death March.
Much had happened at USAFFE headquarters in Australia during those two years. General MacArthur had never lost faith in the potential of guerrilla operations all over the Philippines. When his initial radio contacts with Praeger and others gave out or appeared about ready to do so, he began to undertake imaginative remedial measures. On December 27, 1942, he sent the Filipino air ace, Capt. Jesus Villamor, by submarine to the Visayan Islands north of Mindanao. Beginning February 18, 1943, Lt. Cmdr. Charles (Chick) Parsons and Capt. Charles Smith were posted to Mindanao. All were charged to contact prominent local people of assured loyalty and to set up regular chains of communication, preferably by radio, with Australia.
Parsons was a particularly inspired choice for a mission of this sort. Sufficiently short and dark to look somewhat like a Filipino, energetic and imaginative, he had lived in the islands for years before the war and had prospered. Early in the war he had been caught by the Japanese and tortured in Fort Santiago, but unlike most who had undergone such an experience he had been freed and had eventually made his way to Australia, where he had volunteered for special duty. No irregular operation can survive on love of freedom alone. It is also essential to have an overall plan, outside encouragement, leadership, discipline, arms, ammunition, supplies, and synchronization of communications. All this Parsons was to supply, by submarine, for the last two years of the war.1
Villamor, Smith, and Parsons were all told to give specific orders to local guerrillas to gather and communicate information, and to forswear military action that would call Japanese attention to them and bring down reprisals on the heads of civilians who aided them, all before American forces could be in a position to afford them any protection. Anyone who has gotten this far in the present narrative is aware of how casually guerrillas everywhere heeded directives like this one. Finally, Dr. Emgidio Cruz, President Quezon’s personal physician in far off Washington, was brought back to Australia. In July 1943 he was smuggled into the Philippines to find out just what was going on, in high places and low. He secured valuable information and made it safely back to Australia.2
Meanwhile a major organizational shakeup was taking place in Australia. Col. Allison Ind’s Philippine Subsection of the Allied Intelligence Bureau, which had tried for ten months to oversee Philippine guerrilla activity, was replaced in May 1943 by a much larger Philippine Regional Section, which reported directly to general MacArthur and was run by Gen. Courtney Whitney, one of his personal confidants. Whitney had been a regular army officer in the Philippines in the 1920s. He had resigned his commission and pursued a civilian career for years, but volunteered his services to the air corps when the war began.
Few men have been so variously estimated as this prominent prewar Manila lawyer and businessman. Many have agreed with one of MacArthur’s biographers, William Manchester, who calls Whitney a consummate flatterer and an odious reactionary who was a disaster as coordinator of guerrilla operations because he was condescending to all Filipinos save those who, like himself, had big investments in the islands. Some of Manchester’s antipathy may have derived from Whitney’s refusal to allow dissemination of propaganda pamphlets composed by Robert Sherwood that reflected conventional American liberal views circa 1943-45.3 Other American writers, some of whom worked closely with Whitney, describe him as a “splendid gentleman” who was keen, perceptive, energetic, rugged, aggressive, fearless, a natural leader, a masterful interrogator, and a fine judge of men who got on well with others.4
Filipino writers have also offered varied assesments both of Whitney and of the broader question of guerrilla operations themselves. Uldarico Baclagon, for instance, acknowledges that MacArthur appreciated the utility of guerrilla activity, but thinks he did not value it enough. He maintains that if irregular operations had been undertaken on a scale comparable to that of the Russians in Europe—i.e., enlisting the whole civilian population—the Japanese would have had to either abandon the archipelago entirely or tie up the bulk of their forces just to secure communications with their operations farther south. Yet Baclagon seems to have doubts about his own analysis, for he notes how many different Filipino peoples live on Luzon, how numerous were the jealousies and rivalries among the many guerrilla bands, and how little overall direction and planning existed throughout the first half of the war.5 It seems to me that he also fails to consider the truly horrible reprisals the Japanese would have visited on all Filipinos had a policy of wholesale resistance been undertaken at a time when American forces in Australia were still unable to offer partisan groups much more than sympathy.
Villamor, the Filipino aviator, thinks the supreme commander would have done more had he not been systematically misled by Whitney and others near him. Villamor claims that the Filipino contribution to irregular activity was always more important than that of Americans but that this has never been properly recognized. One reason was that many Filipinos seemed to think Americans were more intelligent than themselves and so felt more comfortable if Americans were in charge. More important, he says, many around USAFFE headquarters, and Whitney most of all, were unabashed racists who regarded Filipinos as natural inferiors, treated them patronizingly, failed to give them proper support, and then hogged all the credit for Americans. He even asserts that Whitney sabotaged his own (Villamor’s) messages to MacArthur.6
I never knew Whitney, so I cannot pass judgment on his character or alleged lack of egalitarian spirit. Likewise, since I was never at MacArthur’s headquarters in Australia, I cannot know for certain whether more could have been done to aid us or whether everything reasonable was done. I can judge only by the official record and by what happened where I was. On these bases, it is clear that Whitney got things going promptly. Even before settling into his new job on May 24, 1943, he managed to find some radio transmitters in England that could be carried on a man’s back (when the best American transmitters weighed a ton), and began to order them by the dozens, then by the hundreds. He persuaded some five hundred men of Filipi
no extraction from U.S. military units on the west coast and in Hawaii to volunteer for special service, then brought them to Australia, gave them crash courses in such subjects as radio operation and maintenance, weather and plane observation, and sabotage, and sent them into the Philippines. Whitney and his aides devised codes for secret communication, flooded the Philippines with American newspapers and magazines, put the “I shall return” message onto millions of packages of cigarettes, gum, candy bars, matches, and toothpaste, and shipped these into the islands on submarines provided by the navy. Ball’s landing near Baler Bay was the first of many such expeditions, though it was undertaken primarily to establish a communication linkage with Southwest Pacific Area command (SWPA) in Australia. It was also the only one made by sailboat. Guns, ammunition, clothing, other supplies, and the men trained for special services followed soon after by submarine.
At the sight of such commodities, and particularly the message they bore, guerrillas and Filipino civilians alike burst into tears of joy, for at last the aid so long hoped for and expected was coming.7 Panlilio says she and others in Marking’s guerrillas were devastated when they learned that Bernard Anderson, with whom they enjoyed good relations, had burned most of his U.S. magazines, newspapers, and other propaganda lest Filipinos caught with even a scrap of it be tortured and killed by the Japanese.8 My people were overjoyed like the rest, but my troubles were different from those Anderson envisioned. Some of the papers and magazines we received fell into the hands of “paper” guerrillas, really bandits, who used them to recruit followers. A few who persisted after being warned had to be killed.