His fellow guerrillas call him Ka Victus--Ka being short for kasama, or comrade, in Tagalog. He is like many of the Filipinos who have joined the New People's Army in the past few years. An activist since his student days, Victus, 36, became disillusioned with the political system after losing an election for town councilor in 1980. Dressed in a yellow T shirt and sporting a mustache and small beard, he speaks earnestly about Philippine Communism. "In central Luzon, many Communists like me are not direct victims of Marcos," Victus acknowledges, "while in Mindanao, many join the party because they have been victims." Disciplined and ideologically committed, Victus is the sort of man the N.P.A. likes to put forward to train raw recruits and promote its movement.
When Victus and his comrades decide to extend their Communist campaign to uncharted territory, they typically select a remote group of villages that have received little largesse from the central government. The first step is to dispatch an advance team to live in the home of a local family. Unlike government soldiers, whose own legacy to the village may be a trail of stolen chickens or worse offenses, the guerrillas try to behave courteously, listen sympathetically and pay their way. A nun or priest often adds a reassuring presence. They begin by organizing teach-ins and drawing out the villagers about their complaints.
As the N.P.A. presence grows, so does its level of activity. Is a local landlord demanding too high a percentage of his tenant farmers' harvest? The offender is ordered to reduce his take. If he refuses, he is executed. Is a village drunk harassing the peasant population? He is warned to reform, and if no improvement is noted he is shot. Is a local official corrupt? He too is killed. All the while, the guerrillas distribute food and help with the farming. For some, this image of the N.P.A. as a band of benign vigilantes takes hold. But for many others, it quickly tarnishes. Some villagers balk because the advance team has already pushed on to the next villages, leaving in its wake a "shadow government" that coerces support and suppresses criticism. Others are shocked when the guerrillas destroy businesses belonging to people who have refused to pay N.P.A. "taxes." Most important, many who may initially welcome the "instant justice" guerrillas apply to abusive individuals change their minds as vengeance turns capricious and arbitrary. Salve Regalario, a guerrilla who surrendered to the military in September 1983, described the interrogation of Elmundo Serrano, a farmer accused of complicity with the military during a raid. "He would not admit he was an informer, so he was beaten. Finally he had so many wounds that I shot him." Regalario later found out that the farmer had not been in the area during the raid and was the victim of a personal grudge held by a party member.
According to a study released in December by the U.S. Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, the N.P.A. is responsible for a steady increase of "human rights abuses" over the past two years, including kidnapings and assassination by gun, ax and club. The Philippine government says that 1,203 civilians and 144 officials were killed in encounters with rebels last year.