Caught in the Crossfires

"What we have here is not total war but total strategy," declared Philippine Chief of Staff Fidel Ramos at a press conference in Davao City, Mindanao, in March. Ramos went on to commend the armed citizen vigilante groups for their strong contribution to the counterinsurgency campaign in Davao City.

A sophisticated counterinsurgency strategy has deep and old roots in the Philippines. Those roots have sprouted, and the leaves and flowers of that strategy are now apparent in the Philippines under President Corazon Aquino. The counterinsurgency theme stands in increasing contradiction to other themes sounded by Aquino early in her presidency, such as the concern for human rights, land reform, and the economic well-being of workers.

Why has this happened? What has transformed the Aquino government from its human rights, seminationalist stance to its militaristic approach, willing to condone the possible murder of civilians in order to rout the guerrilla forces that only a few months before had been potential allies against the right wing? What is the role of the U.S. government in this transformation?

The Aquino government began with a strong emphasis on human rights when it came to power in February 1986. The release of hundreds of political detainees highlighted its reconciliation policy. However, military operations during the first 90 days of the Aquino government resulted in the displacement of 20,000 persons in northern Luzon and in Mindanao.

There are not as many political detentions now as during Marcos' time, but mass arrests and evacuations have increased, according to Task Force Detainee (TFD) documentation. "Massacres, which we define as multiple murders, have been on the rise," said a nun who works for TFD. Two such massacres were the Mendiola Massacre, in which 19 farmers were shot outside the palace by the president's guards, and the Lupao Massacre, in which 17 civilians were killed in their homes by enraged military personnel after members of the insurgent New Peoples Army (NPA) had shot and killed their lieutenant during a fire fight.

Despite the recent presidential equivocation on human rights, the message of Aquino's concern about human rights has reached the troops in the field. I asked a lieutenant colonel in charge of an infantry brigade in Mindanao if anything had changed for him since February 1986. "Oh, yes," he replied. "Before, we never had human rights or the religious sector. Now, we have to worry about human rights and the church. It's very difficult to be a commander now. Think of it from my point of view. My men are on patrol, and they can't just shoot anymore. What if it is a civilian and the human rights group takes them to court?"

Human rights organizations have been operating in the Philippines since 1974. The churches' concern for human rights extended throughout the rule of Marcos, but it was only with Aquino's establishment of a government agency to monitor human rights that the message seems to have penetrated the military.

EARLY ON IN THE Aquino administration, the National Democratic Front (NDF), the umbrella organization of the insurgency, and the government were considering the possibility of conducting formal peace talks. "This seemed like a different government than the Marcos dictatorship. Mrs. Aquino's statement that the root of insurgency is massive poverty was a good beginning," Carolina "Bobby" Malay, chief of staff for the NDF negotiating panel, told me several weeks after the talks had broken down. "Besides, we saw the peace talks as a good opportunity to talk directly to the Filipino people."

"God knows I have done everything in my power to pursue the path of peace," declared Aquino after the right-wing bombing at the Philippine Military Academy in March. "Now we have to protect our democracy from both the extreme Right and Left."

"There is a difference between ceasefire and peace talks," Malay said emphatically. "Peace talks focus on the settlement of the problems which give rise to insurgency. There can never be a durable ceasefire without attending to these problems."

The NDF insisted that if a cease-fire was to be followed by the settlement of basic differences, certain conditions must be met: the Civilian Home Defense Force and other private armies are to be dismantled; civilian authority must be established over the police force (the police had been integrated into the military structure during the Marcos years and, as such, ignored local civilian government); and the military should return to its barracks.

While none of these demands were really carried out, the NDF did sign a preliminary cease-fire agreement in November 1986, which began last December 10 and lasted for 60 days. During the cease-fire the two sides were to hold substantive talks as a basis for a final settlement.

"Both sides knew a comprehensive settlement was not possible," declared Charito Planas, a political exile in the United States during the Marcos era who returned to the Philippines soon after Aquino became president. "Each side used the cease-fire for their own purposes. The NDF was able to talk to people openly about their ideas...in the media. The military used the time for surveillance. Both armies probably used the time for training."

Those of us who monitored press coverage in the United States during the ceasefire noticed a marked change beginning in mid- to late January. Articles began appearing about the intransigence of the NDF panel and about NPA cease-fire violations confirmed only by the Philippine military and not coursed through the ceasefire committees. It seemed the public was being prepared for the breakdown of the talks.

Sen. Jose W. Diokno, a nationalist statesman whose stature and presence as part of the government panel helped to keep the talks together as long as possible, suggested from his deathbed an agenda of "Food, freedom, jobs and justice" to overcome the stalemate that had developed. His daughter Maris represented him in the talks when cancer kept him in bed during the last days of the negotiations.

Elements in the military did their best to throw the negotiations off course. A potential member of the negotiating panel, Rodolfo Salas, was arrested and held without bail. In November, Rolando Olalia, a labor leader and head of a new progressive political party, and his driver were brutally murdered. Evidence pointed to military elements. The NDF pressed the Aquino government to demonstrate that it had control of the military.

In January the National Peasants Union (KMP) marched to Malacanang Palace to present its demands for land reform to President Aquino after her land reform minister, Heherson Alvarez, shunned the farmers. The unarmed farmers were shot at, and 19 were killed. The majority of the members of the Presidential Committee for Human Rights resigned in protest as did Maris Diokno.

The final breakdown of the talks revolved around the government's insistence that the discussion be limited to the 1986 constitution which was overwhelmingly ratified by the Philippine electorate in early February. The NDF claimed that it had entered the negotiations as a revolutionary group with its own agenda.

In some provinces where the church took an active role in the peace talks and cease-fire process, there was considerable interaction among the military, the NPA, and the citizens. In Agusan del Sur, Mindanao, one local priest told stories of NPA members who came down from the hills in groups of 10 to 15 each day. They wore hats with the words "Give peace a chance" in front and "NPA" on the back. When the cease-fire ended, some of the soldiers said it would be very difficult to shoot at the friends they had made.

THE FILIPINO PEOPLE ARE clearly yearning for peace. No one, including the local military in the field and the NPA, has a great appetite for war. A ranking colonel in Mindanao told me, "We have to do the dirty work here in the field. They send us out militarily against people who have economic problems."

The alleged founder of the Communist Party of the Philippines, Jose Maria Sison, who was released from prison when Aquino came to power, has said that if the government instituted a solid land reform program, there would be no reason for the NPA fighters to stay in the hills. More than 60 percent of the Philippine population is still rurally based, and the great majority of farmers still do not own or control their own land. The bulk of the NPA fighters come from the rural peasant population.

Why have peasants been so supportive of the NPA? When the NPA works in an area, some aspect of land reform is launched immediately. The simplest form of struggle is to hide a portion of the harvest to keep rent down. When the peasants are organized well enough, they confront the landlord to get lower rent or to have the landlord share the land with them. Better wages for day workers are negotiated. If the small landlords are cooperative, something usually can be worked out. It is only the despotic landlords whose land is actually confiscated.

Professor Ave Padilla, a Philippine anthropologist who has studied land reform in areas where the NPA has a strong base, concludes, "Insurgency is the solution, not the problem. Land reform programs by the government are launched only when there is an insurgency,"

In Negros Occidental, the sugar-growing province of the Philippines, the disparity between rich and poor has been most glaring. Since sugar prices in the international market have dropped drastically, many sugar planters themselves are in deep economic trouble. Some cannot afford to plant anymore. The workers have been laid off. Children of workers are not sent to school anymore, and many of them suffer from severe malnutrition.

In late February, a year after Aquino came to power, Bishop Antonio Fortich, the Roman Catholic bishop of Bacolod in Negros, told our delegation of American human rights lawyers, "It is high time our lady president is more serious about land reform. The blood is running. The peasants do not want a plastic solution to a real problem." Academics, human rights groups, church leaders, and even the military agree that the insurgency is rooted in the desperate economic conditions of the rural and urban poor.

CARDINAL JAIME SIN, ARCHBISHOP of Manila, played a key role in the ouster of Marcos, in the protection of former Defense Minister Juan Ponce Enrile and Gen. Ramos, and in the coming to power of Cory Aquino. For more than a year, Sin has played an advisory role to Aquino and has been publicly vocal on certain issues. On a TV talk show in January, he provided justification for Aquino's move toward a military solution by proclaiming, "You can't really talk with communists."

The church is again being mobilized to "take sides," this time by the military. Selected priests are invited by the Military Civil Relations officer to join the New Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) in their fight because "the February Revolution and the events that followed has [sic] proven to one and all that truly, the AFP is on the side of God, democracy and the people....What has happened in Cambodia and to the boat people of Vietnam may befall our own countrymen if we do not put our act together, so to speak, and join hands in preserving our rich Catholic heritage and freedom under a democratic way of life."

In the evangelical Protestant world in Manila, many church leaders have been extremely busy setting up anti-communism seminars so that local pastors can conduct the same seminars within their own congregations. "We became concerned," said one evangelical leader, "when the communists took over the media during the cease-fire. We knew we had to become more aggressive."

Cardinal Sin and others in the hierarchy were also shaken during the cease-fire when it became apparent that some of the priests and sisters were members or supporters of the National Democratic Front. He has made it very clear that religious must not take part in politics. The problem, of course, is that last February, Sin encouraged all people of faith to join the political struggle. It is awkward now for Sin to retreat from that call when it has become clear that some of the faithful have already chosen different political options.

I talked to a former Franciscan nun who joined the underground a few years ago. "I wanted to serve the poor," she said. "I am from a poor family myself. Our order became very involved, but when some sisters saw what an option for the poor would really mean, they pulled back. It finally came to a crisis for me. I was asked by the Superior to go abroad to study. I chose to go with our people to the hills." This sister has spent the past few years setting up alternative schools in NPA areas both for children and for adults. "It was the right decision, but it hasn't been easy. I am one of the oldest people in the hills. These NPA die young."

There are, of course, options for Christians besides cheering former Defense Minister Enrile and American capitalism or joining the NPA. U.S. policies in the region, however, make these options difficult to develop.

IN ADDITION TO BUSINESS and bank investments and trade considerations, the U.S. military bases are the compelling reason for strong U.S. interest in retaining a government in Manila which is sympathetic to American interests and pliable to American wishes.

U.S. policy-makers point to the Philippines as a positive example of U.S. influence. Their interpretation is that they helped to get Marcos out of the country with a minimum amount of bloodshed, supported Aquino, albeit late in the game, and now have good relations with a government that is basically complying with economic policies and military counterinsurgency strategies, while giving an appearance of independence.

In fact, for 20 years while Marcos and his friends plundered the country personally, and allowed foreign banks and corporations to plunder it institutionally, the U.S. government supplied military, economic, and political support to keep him in power. But more serious than the U.S. government support for the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos in the past is the present level of intervention in the counterinsurgency effort.

According to a February Newsweek article, Ronald Reagan authorized $10 million for use by the Central Intelligence Agency in the Philippines to launch covert political activities. This presidential "finding" also authorizes flights over Philippine territory if necessary to gather intelligence. And the CIA will add 12 agents to its 115-member station in Manila to execute the operation.

I witnessed the growing violence that escalated soon after the end of the 60-day cease-fire period on February 8. One day after the cease-fire, in the town of Lupao in Nueva Ecija, Central Luzon, the government military conducted an operation in a sitio (small outlying settlement connected to the town proper) after receiving a tip-off that NPA members were there. They surprised the NPA, and a fire fight ensued in which a government lieutenant was killed. The NPA fled, and government troops killed 17 civilians and wounded others, looting and burning their homes.

The first story to reach the press, based on government military reports, said that most of the casualties were NPA and that the civilians were caught in the crossfire. The mayor of Lupao, a new appointee under the Aquino government, as well as the parish priest and even the governor of the province disagreed with the military reports because of the conflicting testimony of the Lupao residents themselves. The media soon picked up the residents' version, and national Philippine human rights organizations organized fact-finding missions to the area.

The aftermath of the Lupao Massacre reminded me of similar fact-finding missions during the Marcos era. The difference in Lupao, however, was that some local institutions were now used for the people instead of against them. The media and the local civilian government officials had played an advocacy role. It is not clear how long this semi-democratic situation will last, as Cory Aquino continues to be pressured from the military, the United States, and conservative elements in her country to pursue the counterinsurgency campaign.

One month after visiting Lupao in Central Luzon, I spent a few weeks in Mindanao. Davao City is a fascinating and terrifying study in the "total strategy" of counterinsurgency, which includes support of the media, acquiescence of the church hierarchy and the middle-class professionals, cooperation of the local civilian government structures and business people, as well as direct initiatives by the military.

For months a local radio announcer, Jun Pala, has threatened religious orders, individual priests and sisters, government figures, and human rights and social development agencies on the air, calling them agents of Satan and communists. Unless whole communities proclaim that they hate communists, he says, the Alsa Masa (armed citizen vigilante groups) will eradicate them all. Though the local and national broadcast ethics committees have issued cease and desist orders, Pala is protected by military authorities in Davao and in Manila.

The Alsa Masa (which means the "Rising of the Masses") began in Agdao, a community organized by the NPA city units in the early 1980s. Informers, exploitative police, and others were executed by sparrow units of the NPA. In the space of a few months, some communities that had sported "Mabuhay [Long live] NPA" signs painted on every available space switched to signs such as "Mabuhay Alsa Masa" painted on rice sacks hung along the side of the road.

There are several factors in this apparent conversion. First, the government military had successfully planted intelligence agents several years before in various parts of Mindanao, including Davao City. This was discovered in 1985, and steps were taken to root out the agents. That process caused a lot of suspicion, confusion, and mistrust within the ranks, which greatly weakened the NPA movement in Davao City.

A memo written in December 1986 by Col. Calida, head of the Davao Metropolitan District Command of the Philippine Constabulary, states that "the truth is that the [Alsa Masa] movement is being utilized by the military as a vehicle in campaigning to win the hearts and minds of the populace....If the movement is successful, the credit will go to the military and civilian authorities who obviously have a tacit approval of its activities."

Col. Calida in his memo acknowledges that there may be problems. "It is a fact that some of the [Alsa Masa] members have criminal and other derogatory records. Being in depressed areas and considered to be living below the poverty line, we cannot expect that they should strictly adhere to the moral values in the same way as those who belong to the middle and upper class of our society."

The constant barrage of anti-communist propaganda on the radio, coupled with the citizen vigilante groups who pinpoint "subversives" in the local communities, has virtually paralyzed the peace and justice work in poor urban communities and among social development agencies. "I have never been so frightened before in my life," said one longtime Davao activist, who has confronted the military many times in the past.

This application of low-intensity conflict strategy in Davao City has proved "successful," at- least in round one. Unlike in the Lupao Massacre in Central Luzon, the local government officials and church leaders in Davao City have not resisted the military under Aquino. The result has been fear and paralysis among the general population.

After Marcos left the scene, the factions within the military became stronger. The discussion among activists became more lively. National entrepreneurs had more business options with the disappearance of Marcos' cronies. The church hierarchy, which had played a pivotal role in the removal of Marcos, took a lower public profile. Cardinal Sin ordered priests and nuns to withdraw from political involvement.

With the changing configurations and uncertainty in all sectors of society about roles to play in the new political climate, a power vacuum of sorts was created. Quick to exploit the situation was the CIA. While the transformation of Cory Aquino from a human rights, people's power heroine to the commander in chief of a counterinsurgency drive is part of the saga in the Philippines, the role of the U.S. government in that transformation is the real story.

As during the Marcos era, the question for Christians looking at the situation continues to be "What is happening to the people?" The vision of Isaiah 65:20-21 is still the measuring stick: "Never again will there be...an infant that lives but a few days....They will build houses and dwell in them; they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit."

Dorothy Friesen was the director of Synapses, a grassroots interfaith network in Chicago, and a Sojourners contributing editor at the time this article appeared. She is a former church and development worker in the Philippines who had spent seven weeks there on a fact-finding trip prior to writing this article.