Filipino Rebels Try New Strategy With Killing of American Colonel

The recent killing of an American colonel reflects a shift of strategy on the part of Filipino Communists, who are trying to reverse setbacks suffered since President Corazon Aquino came to power three years ago.

The Communist Party of the Philippines is reverting to a rural base after the failure of its campaign of terrorism in the cities. It also has become more selective in its recruiting since military infiltrators were discovered in its ranks.

The rebels now are focusing on the issue of American influence, especially the presence of six U.S. military installations, in a bid for support in the cities, where anti-American sentiment is strongest. They have offered to participate in peace talks if the government will agree to close the U.S. bases.

The Communists took responsibility for the April 21 assassination of Col. James N. Rowe of the Joint U.S. Military Advisory Group. A rebel statement said the colonel was slain because of American interference here.

Army as Reporter

Assessing the rebels’ strength is difficult, since they are most active in remote areas where communications are poor. Much of the news of rebel actions comes through the 163,000-member Armed Forces of the Philippines.

“Today at the national level, the insurgents appear to be on the defensive and attempting to regroup,” Rear Adm. Timothy W. Wright, acting U.S. deputy assistant secretary of defense, told a U.S. congressional committee recently.

“In the provinces, however, where the struggle is primarily waged, the picture is less clear because much of the insurgents’ grass roots program is not conducted on the military battlefield.”

But there is a public perception, especially in Manila, that the insurgency has lost ground since Ferdinand Marcos’ authoritarian administration was overturned by a popular uprising in February, 1986.

Rebel propaganda portrays Aquino as being no different from Marcos, but most Filipinos still support her and do not blame her personally for the shortcomings of her government.

“Without going into statistics, there is a feeling in the population that the insurgency is in disarray,” military Chief of Staff Gen. Renato de Villa said in an interview with the Philippines Free Press magazine. “I think the most important development is the realization that is spreading that the insurgent alternative is not that palatable.”

Battles More Numerous

That perception has arisen even though the fighting reportedly escalated in 1988. Military reports put the number of clashes last year at 3,525, after 3,118 battles in 1987.

The fighting reportedly has been stepped up in the southern districts of Luzon, the main island, and the Davao and Misamis Oriental provinces of Mindanao.

According to the military, more than 3,900 people--guerrillas, government troops and civilians--were killed last year in “insurgency-related incidents,” 1.63% more than in 1987.

The military also acknowledged guerrilla influence in nearly 8,000 of the 41,000 villages and urban wards. The rebels operate in about 65 of the 73 provinces.

The military also said that guerrilla strength declined by 8.4% last year, to about 23,000 fighters. Western sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said this may represent simply a refinement of the military’s estimate, which was too high in the final years under Marcos.

De Villa said that captured rebel documents indicate demoralization in the ranks, due to a 21% increase in battlefield deaths during the first three months of this year. Military officials believe Rowe was killed, in part, to boost rebel morale.

Casualty Rate Unverified

Wright noted the favorable military reports but said there was no way to verify them, “nor are they conclusive of a significant or lasting setback” to the rebels.

Clearly, however, the party has suffered reverses. In the last year, eight members of its central committee, including Secretary Gen. Rafael Baylosis and more than 30 regional and provincial officers, have been arrested.

Western sources close to the military say that government informants penetrated the Communists’ senior ranks during the final years of the Marcos Administration, when party membership was expanding rapidly.

Despite rebel attempts to win foreign support, both Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze and Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping have assured Aquino that they will not support the insurgents. The rebels say that most of their weapons come from raids on government forces.

The perception that the insurgency is waning may stem partly from a falling off of rebel and left-wing activity in the capital in the months after Marcos’ ouster and the rise of Aquino.

Followed Mao’s Advice

Since the party was founded in 1968, it had followed the strategy of China’s Chairman Mao Tse-tung in building a base of support in the impoverished countryside.

The overthrow of Marcos and the rise of Aquino afforded the party new opportunities to expand into Manila. The rebels acknowledge a tactical error in boycotting the February, 1986, election contest between Marcos and Aquino, which took place two weeks before the uprising.

President Aquino freed hundreds of political prisoners, including party founder Jose Maria Sison, who now lives in the Netherlands. She offered peace talks and negotiated a 60-day cease-fire in December, 1986.

Rebel leaders such as Satur Ocampo and Antonio Zumel, both former journalists, emerged from years underground to appear on television talk shows and public rallies. Both joined the crowd of nearly 100,000 people in the funeral procession for slain labor leader Rolando Olalia, during which Communist flags were displayed.

The rebels also used the cease-fire to infiltrate nearly 3,000 “armed city partisans” into Manila. After the peace talks collapsed and the fighting resumed, guerrillas launched a campaign of assassinations. In 1987, they killed nearly 100 police officers, soldiers and civilian officials in Manila alone.

Slayings Galvanized Police

The rebels acknowledge that their urban strategy failed. The seemingly indiscriminate killing alarmed the urban residents and also prompted some Draconian reactions from the police.

In Bacolod, police listed the names of suspected left-wing sympathizers and warned the rebels that they would liquidate five of them for every police officer who was slain. The street killings ceased.

Manila police organized a network of armed informants and, in a series of sweeping raids, hundreds of civilians were rounded up for questioning.

The police tactics strategy brought protests from civil-liberties groups, but it also prompted slum dwellers to turn in guerrillas.

The rights groups took out paid advertisements in Manila newspapers, urging the rebels to scale down the killings for fear of military reprisals (the army regards civil-liberties advocates as rebel sympathizers).

The military claims the failure of the rebels’ urban strategy led to a shake-up of the party’s Manila branch in which more than 50 members were investigated, either for mistakes or as suspected informants. Some of them were executed, the military reported.

Reassessing Targets

In a recent issue of its official organ Ang Bayan (The Nation), the central committee acknowledged it was reassessing “the nature and style of operations of armed city partisans” and would be more selective in choosing targets.

The rebels apparently are gambling that killing an American colonel will not elicit the same public outrage as their attacks on lowly Filipino policemen.

The rebel offers of peace in return for closure of the six U.S. bases appear to be a bid for support in the cities. Opposition to the bases is substantial among the nationalistic intellectuals and other urban classes.

Aquino has not accepted the offer, and the rebels apparently hope this will make her appear to be an “American puppet” in the eyes of many Filipinos.

In the Countryside

Meanwhile, the rebels have placed a new emphasis on their organization in the countryside. About two-thirds of the 58 million Filipinos live in rural areas that so far have not benefited from economic improvements under Aquino. The Communists hope to expand their system of shadow governments and recruit followers in such areas.

“We are now trying to professionalize leaders, in preparation for building provisional revolutionary governments,” said one rebel official on Negros Island who uses the pseudonym Fidel Castro. “We also need a higher level of training” to combat government counterinsurgency strategy, he said.

Defense Secretary Fidel Ramos said in December that the rebels have captured territory equivalent to 76,500 acres and are distributing tracts of land to poor farmers.

Army’s 2-Stage Plan

The military last September drafted a two-stage, three-year plan for crushing the insurgency. The first stage, which is nearly accomplished, consists of retraining troops, reorganizing command structures and selecting targets.

The second phase, begun this spring, is systematic elimination of rebel forces, first in from the mountains and jungles, then from areas near towns and cities.

The military is training and deploying thousands of civilian militiamen to beef up security in the countryside. The plan called for a militia of 80,000, but the figure was scaled down to about 50,000 because of budget restraints.

Need End to Injustice

Military and civilian officials concede that they cannot succeed unless the government can improve the standard of living, provide essential services and end some social injustices that are still widespread.

“There are disturbing signs that, basically, the situation of our people has not changed,” the Manila Chronicle said in an editorial, “70% still live in abject poverty and there are those who hold power, wealth and influence who have not learned to share resources with the majority. For as long as these symptoms persist, the insurgency will find a fertile and hospitable ground.”