Luis Taruc: Revolutionary or traitor?

TARLAC — Luis Taruc fought the Japanese army as a guerrilla during World War II, and after the war, when he and other lawmakers were barred from taking their seats in Congress, he returned to the mountains with his men and launched an uprising against the newly inaugurated Republic.

On Wednesday night, the Supremo of the Hukbong Magpapalaya sa Bayan (People’s Liberation Army) died at the age of 92 at the St. Luke’s Medical Center in Quezon City.

A month before Bataan fell, Taruc, along with brothers Jose and Jesus Lava, formed the Hukbo ng Bayan Laban sa Hapon (People’s Anti-Japanese Army).

Taruc was named the Hukbalahap commander, with the guerrilla force conceptualized as a "barrio defense corps" that would take up squadron formations.

After the Huks were nearly wiped out by the Japanese at Mt. Arayat in Pampanga, Taruc ordered his men to disperse into small teams of three to five guerrillas.

Some Huks defied his order and maintained squadron formations.

In 1944, Lava and Taruc saw that guerrillas in platoon formations were more successful in fighting the Japanese.

It was then that Taruc was able to convince the Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas leadership to reorganize the Hukbalahap into regular platoons and squadrons.

Turning to other battles after the war, Taruc, a native of San Luis, Pampanga, led some 30,000 guerrillas in fighting the government from 1947 to 1954, controlling most of Central Luzon.

Many poor farmers on northern Luzon and central Panay islands were attracted to the Huks because of their emphasis on land reform, and the group installed shadow governments in at least five provinces.

Taruc and several other reformists were elected to Congress after the war, but they were not allowed to take their seats due to unsupported allegations that they coerced and influenced voters.

Although maintaining guerrilla forces, the PKP took part in the 1946 congressional elections through a broad party front, the Democratic Alliance.

The DA won several seats in Congress, but when its lawmakers blocked efforts by President Manuel Roxas to grant parity rights to Americans, they were expelled from Congress.

In 1950, the PKP declared an "all-out armed struggle" and renamed the Hukbalahap into the Hukbong Magpapalaya sa Bayan.

In the Sierra Madre, Taruc and his men successfully led a series of attacks against government forces.

Taruc was to carry out a "general offensive" in November 1950, but this was aborted when Jose Lava and other members of the PKP-Central Committee/Political Bureau were captured in Manila.

When Taruc learned that the military was out to kill him, he surfaced and entered the government’s amnesty program.

In 1954, after prolonged negotiations with The Manila Times journalist Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino Jr., Taruc surrendered to President Ramon Magsaysay.

Without Taruc, the HMB fighters became mere roving rebel bands without a central command, many of which turned to banditry.

Born in 1913 to a poor farming family in Candaba town in Pampanga, Taruc was introduced to Marxism when he studied at the University of Manila from 1932 to 1934.

He then became passionately involved in the cause of landless peasants in Central Luzon and joined the Pampanga-based Socialist Party of the Philippines (SPP) in 1935.

Before the outbreak of World War II, the SPP merged with the PKP on the intercession of the Communist Party of the United States of America.

The new group retained the name Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas, and on March 29, 1942, formed an armed wing, the Hukbo ng Bayan Laban sa Hapon, which operated in the boundaries of Tarlac, Pampanga, Nueva Ecija and Bulacan at the foot of Mt. Arayat.

President Arroyo praised Taruc in a statement yesterday as "not only a fighter for the poor and the oppressed, but also a champion of peace."

"His memory will always remind us that even at times of ideological strife, there is always a window for rebels and government to pursue a middle ground based on democracy and social justice — for a nation to unite and heal itself," she said.

On the other hand, Pampanga Gov. Mark Lapid paid tribute yesterday to Taruc’s "exemplary contribution to the advancement of social reforms in the country since the late 1940s.

"We, the Capampangans, pay our respect to the late Ka Luis Taruc, an advocate of social justice and one of the great disciples of the Socialist Party of the Philippines," he said in a statement.

"As one of the great Kapampangans, his name will remain in our hearts and consciousness forever. For Ka Luis, our utmost tribute and respect." — Benjie Villa, Ding Cervantes