Philippines Sunday Express/1972/09/24/Why: Arms Shipments to NPA, bombings, kidnappings, terrorism, propaganda



By PRIMITIVO MIJARES of the Express staff

Concerete signs that the MAMAO (Military Arm of the Maoists) or the NPA was determined to overthrow the government by force surfaced when the cargo ship, the "M/V Karagatan," unloaded arms and supplies for the NPA at Digoyo Point in Palanan, Isabela on July 5, 1972.

The "Karagatan" incident confirmed intelligence reports that the local subversion movement had been getting material support from a foreign power and that it was this kind of support that has sustained the NPA in its fight against the armed forces of the state.

The "Karagatan" incident, in the assessment of the AFP, "unveiled the most ambitious and daring logistics build-up program launched by the CPP-NPA."

State troopers, after a pitched battle with NPA regulars, seized from NPA encampments assorted weapons which were classified as "sophisticated," to wit:

More than 900 M-14 rifles, six rocket launchers, 560 rockets, 160,000 rounds of M-14 ammunition, two Browning automatic rifles, five M-1 rifles, one telephone switchboard, seven telephone sets and numerous M-14 magazines and pouches.

The AFP haul in Palanan, Isabela, was something for the government, but how about those arms and supplies for the NPA which had been landed at certain points of the Philippine coastline which is much longer than that of the United States?

Intelligence reports had stated that "there were previous landings in Divinisa, in Bicobian and possibly in another point in the eastern coast of Luzon. x x x x x . . . . there are 5,000 firearms caches in the area of Navotas, Caloocan and Tondo and some rockets."

According to the AFP, the "exact number of these high-powered weapons remaining in enemy hands is not known although it is estimated that at least 250 M-14 rifles, 24 rocket launchers and 500 rocket shells are still with Victor Corpus in Isabela."

"Based on the number of firearms and supplies captured in subsequent encounters between AFP and NPA elements in Isabela," the AFP added, "a sizeable quantity of these weapons are still in their possession. As such the New People's Army is now better equipped, thus making it a more dangerous adversary to contend with."

After the "Karagatan" incident, there were no less than 20 encounters between government forces and NPA elements in Isabela alone. In those encounters, 15 government troopers were killed and five were wounded, while on the NPA side 11 were slain, 22 surrendered or were captured and six were apprehended with an undetermined number wounded.

The NPA launched intensified urban guerilla warfare in the second half of August. Terrorists blasted the Nawasa's main water pipe at the Quezon City-San Juan, Rizal boundary that inconvenienced thousands of residents in San Juan and Manila for days.

Terrorists also bombed the Philippine Long Distance Telephone and Philipping Sugar Industry buildings in Quezon City as well as the Social Welfare and Philamlife buildings in Manila.

A time bomb was also discovered at the ground floor of the department of foreign affairs last August 30. If the bomb did not explode, it was due to a faulty timing device.

Then on September 5, the Joe's Department Store at Calle Carriedo, right in the heart of Manila, was bombed resulting in the death of a woman and the wounding of scores of innocent and unsuspecting persons.

The latest terror bombing took place at the Constitutional Convention at the Quezon City Hall where scores were wounded.

Circumstances surrounding these incidents strongly indicated that they were the handiwork of the NPA. Documents captured in NPA lairs in barrio Tarimsing, Cordon, Isabela, revealed NPA plans to intensify their training of armed city partisans in the manufacture and use of explosives for sabotage operations.

The bombs utilized in these incidents could have been prepared and used only by those who have had extensive training on explosives.

The targets in these bombing incidents matched most of those listed in captured subversive documents.

On August 19 a PC Metrocom car was ambushed at Marikina, Rizal. Recovered at the scene of the encounter was an M-14 rifle similar to those recovered in Digoyo, Palanan, Isabela.

Various crime syndicates engaged in carnapping, kidnapping for ransom, holdups, smuggling and other forms of lawlessness have linked up with the subversives, boosting their coffers.

These lawless elements have also sold firearms, ammunition and other badly needed supplies to the NPA. Thus, the AFP estimated that there are about 89,000 loose firearms scattered throughout the country today, broken down as follows:

Greater Manila – 11,900; Northern and Central Luzon – 9,500; Southern Tagalog and the Bicol Region – 7,200; Visayas – 24,100; Mindanao-Sulu – 39,400.

On the attempt of subversives to terrorize the metropolitan area, Defense Secretary Juan Ponce Enrile reported that more sabotage and liquidation NPA teams have been fielded to carry out terroristic activities in accordance with their September-October Plan.

The plan, as learned from captured NPA documents, called for the assassination of members of Congress, the Judiciary, the Constitutional Convention, and the "enemies of the people."

Enrile also said that two Huk commanders and a leader of a 15-man sabotage team had infiltrated the Greater Manila area.

The current Communist strength is estimated to be at least 1,000 armed fulltime guerillas, 6,000 combat support forces who are farmers by day and guerillas by night, and about 1,000 support forces consisting of financiers, couriers and lookouts.

In addition, the Communists have a mass bass of about 100,000 representing residents of the areas where they move freely.

The membership target of the Maoists is 10,000 before the end of 1972. This project was contained in a document entitled Mga Balak Pangorganisasyon at Edukasyon sa 1972 which was captured by state troopers in a raid at Barrio Moraza, Botolan, Zambales last April 25.

A day before that raid, government forces seized a communist document entitled Balak Ng Pagparami Ng Maraming Ulit sa Kasapian ng Pulang Mandirigma at Pagpalakas Ng Bagong Hukbong Bayan at Barrio Guillingan, Benito Soliven, Isabela.

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It contains the details of an intensified recruitment program.

"From all indications," an AFP assessment report stated, "the CPP and the MAMAOS (Military Arm of the Maoists) have gone all-out in this recruitment and expansion program. How successful have they been so far? In 1967, the local communist movement had an estimated strength of 287 regulars, 1,800 combat support elements and a mass base of 20,000. In 1971 it had an estimated strength of 751 regulars, 7,300 combat support elements and a mass base of 95,000. By 31 July 1972, the total estimated strength had increased to about 1,232 regulars, 10,300 supporters and a mass base of 100,000. x x x x From 1967 to date, these figures correspondingly increased to 500% for the regulars, 600% for the supporters, and 500% for the mass base. The Maoist faction, which is now the dominant faction by virtue of its nationwide organization and preponderance of numbers, has an estimated strength of 1,030 regulars, 6,800 supporters and a mass base of 66,500 as of 31 July 1972.

"Another very revealing development is the presence today of NPA/MAMAO regulars and support personnel in the Visayas and Mindanao. In 1968, the only active operational areas of the Communists were in Tarlac and Pampanga with isolated expansion areas in Isabela, Nueva Vizcaya, Nueva Ecija, Zambales and Laguna. In 1970, Camarines Sur and Samar were added. By 1972, Isabela, Zambales, and Camarines Sur have become active operational areas, and various new expansional areas in Cagayan, the Mountain Provinces and in the Visayas and Mindanao have been established. These clearly demonstrate the capability of the Communist Party of the Philippines to recruit new members despite the government's sustained anti-dissident campaigns and civic-action operations."

An AFP assessment of the Communist method on agitation and propaganda follows:

"Strikes, rallies and demonstrations are the primary vehicles for Communist agitation. In these activities, they exploit varied issues such as imperialism, fascism and feudalism, compartmentalized justice, low wages, unemployment, high prices and even the distribution of relief goods which will enable them to gain the sympathy of the masses.

"The violent demonstrations in the past were invariably instigated by a small but highly trained group of agitators.

"For propaganda purposes, the Maoist Faction publishes Ang Bayan while the Traditional Faction puts out Ang Komunista. The Socialist Party of the Philippines (SPP), a front organization, publishes Ang Sosyalista. Wittingly or unwittingly, some legitimate publications, to include college newspapers, published articles that mount the propaganda of the communists."

On the Kabataang Makabayan which the Tarlac court of first instance called as a "subversive organization" within the purview of Republic Act 1700, the AFP said:

"The phenomenal capacity of the Communists to create front organizations and conduct what they term as 'united front' tactics can best be illustrated in the tremendous growth of the Kabataang Makabayan (KM) which was founded by Jose Ma. Sison. From a fledgling organization with only 13 chapters and 200 registered members in 1965, the KM has made remarkable strides in organization and recruitment. By January 1972, it had organized about 275 chapters with an estimated nationwide membership of about 15,000. As of today, it has more than 300 chapters.

"The training of KM members is very rigid and highly selective. While all of the members of the KM are given mass education and indoctrination along Communist-Socialist thinking, the most dedicated and talented are selected for specialization in Communist ideology and training in guerilla warfare. A considerable number of KM members are known to have already joined the ranks of the New People's Army."

"x x x Judge Simeon Ferrer, in denying bail to KM Chairman Nilo Tayag on Sept. 10, 1970, ruled that "The Kabataang Makabayan is a subversive organization seeking to overthrow the existing government by force of arms and to establish in this country a Communist totalitarian regime.'"

The "sighting" by AFP intelligence of top Red leaders in the Greater Manila area at the height of the terror bombings had confirmed AFP estimates that the NPA would escalate its urban guerilla warfare at this time of the year.





And the fact that the Chairman of the Maoist Communist Party of the Philippines had talked shop with leaders of a faction of the political Opposition (a report which has not been successfully denied) showed that, in the words of President Marcos, the subversives were up to "something big."

The President met the Communist menace at about this time last year head on by availing of the emergency power granted him by the Constitution: the suspension of the privilege of the writ of habeas corpus.

A "highly militant" bloc of "concerned citizens" fought the President in the Supreme Court over the suspension of the "writ." The high court sustained Mr. Marcos.

The condition of the public order has aggravated today in the face of an escalating communist insurgency. The Greater Manila area, now the target of sabotage and terrorism, is virtually on a war footing. It is a bastion awaiting invading hordes, although vanguards of these invading hordes are already within the walls of the bastion.

The deleterious effects of the escalating Communist campaign of terror and sabotage on the national economy has been underscored by the country's captains of industry, business, trade, commerce and agriculture.

A plummeting national economy brought about by a worsening public order has convinced these genuinely concerned citizens that, unless the downward trend is arrested on time, the nation may never make any recovery at all.

Thus, they have called on President Marcos in Malacañang to impress upon him the gravity of the situation, and to urge that drastic action be taken to stamp out the malignant cancer that afflicts the mainstream of Philippine society.

Fear was written in their faces. It was fear, not just over their personal safety, but over the deteriorating economy brought about by sabotage and terror activities of the Maoist-oriented New People's Army in their rural sanctuaries and in the metropolitan area.

In effect the officials of the Chamber of Agriculture and Natural Resources and of the Philippine Chamber of Industries, as well as the American Chamber of Commerce, confirmed a report rendered by Executive Secretary Alejandro D. Melchor that, due to Communist guerilla warfare, the programmed 7.5 gross national product (GNP) for this year cannot be reached. Worse, Melchor pointed out, the GNP would go down to just three percent as compared to last year's 6.5 percent.

The Melchor report stressed that, more than the destruction caused by the floods, the fear being sown by the Communist campaign of terror and sabotage, is slowing down, if not causing the outright paralyzation of industry, of the factories, and of the farms, and heightened tension and anxiety that certain government functions are being benumbed, while schools have a tendency to suspend classes at the slightest threat of a "bombing."

Thus, the gains achieved by the economy during the last several years are being nullified by the depredations of the Maoist NPAs.

But such is the pattern of Communist subversion all over the world. Among other things, the Reds would make a shamble out of the national economy so that in the ensuing hardships they could entice the suffering masses to support any substitute cause they espouse.

The Communists timed their depredations in the country's premier metropolis in such a way that when the series of explosions rocked the city, the people were still numb, if now weak, from the nightmare of the last deluge – like following up a natural disaster with a man-made calamity this time.

That the Communists seek to overthrow the government through force and violence is no longer debatable. For the means in achieving it is stated in black and white in the Partido Komunista ng Filipinas in its 1930 Constitution, to wit:

"The prime object of the PKP in the desire to take control of the government is to overthrow that form of government since conflict cannot be avoided between the capitalists and the masses."

Thirty-eight years later, the means to topple the government were stressed in more blunt terms in the "Programme of Action of the Reestablished Communist Party of the Philippines" in these words:

"There is only one road which the working class under the leadership of the Communist Party of the Philippines must take. It is the road of armed revolution . . . All Filipino Communists are ready to sacrifice their lives for the worthy cause . . ."

In a current assessment of the Communist outbursts, the AFP said:

"The Communists are expected to conduct urban guerilla acti- on a much more extensive vities scale. Urban centers will, therefore, continue to be scenes of mass agitation and civil disturbances."



"The AFP assessment, taken in the light of the spate terror of bombings in the Greater Manila area, is a virtual warning that the Communist insurgents whom battle-trained troopers have been fighting in the rural areas have now spilled to the cities, thereby bringing the critical situation beyond the realm of police action.

But the government is not really helpless in the face of the existing emergency. The Constitution provides the machinery for dealing with insurrection or rebellion. The country's captains of agriculture, commerce and industry, of both public and private sector, Filipinos as well as aliens, believe on drastic steps being taken. We may reasonably expect the government to act reasonably.