THE PHILIPPINES: Out of the Jungle

High in the Sierra Madre range of Luzon, one bright, moonlit night last week, a small man walked across the white sand of a dried river bed and held out his hand to a young Manila newsman, and to Manuel Manahan, chief of President Ramon Magsaysay’s Complaints & Action Commission. After six years in the hills, Communist Luis Taruc, El Supremo of the Huk guerrillas, was keeping a rendezvous. In good English he said: “Let’s get straight to the point.”

The point was this: “The people have spoken and have overwhelmingly elected President Magsaysay. It is for us to accept their verdict . . . The civil war conditions in our country must now cease and justice must reign supreme … I am a Filipino first and last.” Taruc and his eight young Tommy-gun-toting bodyguards melted back into the jungle, and the next day every paper in Manila ran his appeal.

No one thought that Taruc had ceased to be a Communist or had seen the light about democracy; rather, Communist strategy now was to abandon guerrilla warfare in favor of political infiltration. Taruc’s field commanders got down to cases with a team of army negotiators at Mount Banahaw, 40 miles south of Manila. They offered to deposit their arms in mountain hideouts guarded by their own men, and to surrender the arms after they were convinced of the government’s sincerity. In return, they asked a general amnesty and presidential clemency for Huks convicted of crimes. Army Chief of Staff Major General Jesus Vargas snorted: “Impossible!”

New President Magsaysay gave the Huks four more days to come to terms or face attack. He appealed personally to the Huks, offering “a chance for a new life. There is still time. Otherwise, meet the full force and power of our arms.”