FORCE TO KOREA (1950-1955)
The Philippine Army had nine of its 10 Battalion Combat Teams (BCTs) and its only artillery battalion fighting guerillas of the Communist-led Hukbalahap or Huks when the 10th BCT was selected as the first Korea bound combat unit on 23 August 1950. Together with other military units such as the Philippine Constabulary (the national police force), the government had some 25,000 men in the field against the Huks.
The BCTs were highly mobile, compact and self-supporting battalion-sized fighting units designed to operate independently of each other in their territories. They were organized specifically as anti-guerilla units and operated alongside other military units such as the Army’s “Scout Rangers,” an elite force that conducted covert operations against the Huks. The BCTs were deactivated in the early 1970s after playing the major role in defeating the Huks. Infantry battalions took their place in the campaigns from 1968 onwards against the communist New People’s Army, the successor to the Huks, and armed Muslim secessionists such as those belonging to Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).
The Huks
The Huks or the Hukbalahap, an acronym for the “Hukbo ng Bayan Laban sa Hapon,” (People’s Liberation Army against Japan), was the armed force of the Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas (PKP) or the Communist Party of the Philippines. It was organized in March 1942 and had an initial strength of five “squadrons” (fighting units of 100 or more men) deployed mostly in the mountainous province of Pampanga, its major stronghold and the heartland of the PKP. Interestingly, the name “Hukbo ng Bayan Laban sa Hapon,” was suggested by one of the military advisers from Communist China seconded to the PKP.
The mobility and hitting power of its squadrons, its superior knowledge of terrain and the support of civilians in North and Central Luzon allowed the Huks to inflict growing losses on the Japanese Army. By war’s end, the Huks had killed more than 5,000 Japanese. More ominous, however, was the Huk’s execution of an estimated 20,000 Filipinos accused of being collaborators, ideological enemies, bandits or personal foes.
Communist China strongly influenced the PKP partly because of the proximity of the Philippines to China. Chinese Communists were smuggled into the Philippines from Mainland China to advise the PKP on the military and non-military aspects of fomenting a people’s revolution. One of these Chinese Communist advisers, a colonel in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), was the Huk’s first instructor in guerrilla warfare. Chinese military advisers brought with them the guerilla tactics tested in their wars against the Japanese and Nationalist Chinese. The Huks were a guerilla army trained in the Chinese Communist way of war. PEFTOK was to use its familiarity with Chinese Communist/Huk tactics to good effect in its many battles in Korea against the “Chinese People’s Volunteers.”
A further example of the close ties between the PKP and the Chinese Communists was the organization of the “Wa Chi,” an all-Chinese guerilla unit that operated as part of the Huks. Established in June 1942 by Chinese members of the PKP, the Wa Chi first operated in the provinces of Bulacan and Laguna. The Wa Chi was the brainchild of one of the PLA military advisers on loan to the PKP.
After World War 2, the Huks launched their rebellion to topple the democratically elected Philippine government. In March 1948, the government of Pres. Manuel Roxas retaliated by outlawing the Huks and branding it as an illegal association organized and maintained to commit acts of sedition and other crimes for the purposes of overthrowing the government. In November of that year, the PKP changed the name Hukbalahap to the “Hukbong Mapagpalaya ng Bayan (HMB),” or the “People’s Liberation Army,” to reflect its new post-war mission.
The HMB had superior knowledge of the jungles and mountains in North and Central Luzon, the main theaters of their guerilla war against the Philippine government. They could also count on the support of a mass base of peasants and farmers alienated from the government by brutal landlord abuses, grinding poverty, bureaucratic neglect and military atrocities, particularly those committed by the Military Police and Civilian Guards.
The HMB launched its attempt to overthrow the Philippine government in March 1950 with simultaneous attacks on government troops and installations in five provinces bordering Manila. Although inflicting less than 40 casualties on government troops, the assault encouraged the HMB to intensify its attacks. One of their spectacular early victories was overrunning Camp Makabulos (a supply depot) in Tarlac in August, a surprise raid that cost the lives of 25 officers and men of the PC against only four Huk fatalities. By the mid-1950s, the Huks' strength had risen to some 13,000 men of whom 9,000 were armed. The Philippine Army estimated their mass base at more than 54,000 persons.
By 1952, the high watermark of their rebellion, the Huks had an active and armed strength of more than 170,000 men and women and a mass base of over two million people. The Huks were finally reduced to impotence as an armed force by 1955 through a combination of battlefield losses and a dwindling mass base. The HMB was finished as a creditable armed threat by the late 1960s.
“Poor as we are . . . “
Elpidio Quirino, Philippine President in 1950, said the Philippines was sending its men to fight in Korea in fulfillment of the country’s obligation as a co-signer of the United Nations’ Charter. There was another reason for committing the Philippines’ limited military power to a foreign war. Korea was less than 1,500 miles away and a communist victory would probably have been a severe blow to the Philippines’ campaign against the Huks.
“Poor as we are, this country is making a great sacrifice in sending you there (Korea), but every peso invested in you is a sound investment for the perpetuation of our liberty and freedom,” said Quirino to Filipinos who attended the farewell rally for the 10th BCT on 2 September 1950.
And the Philippines was poor. The national government was almost bankrupt in 1950, relying heavily on foreign aid and reparations to stay afloat and to rebuild an economy shattered by the Second World War. Damage to industries was estimated at some P600 million while a further P800 million in assets were destroyed during the war. The government was also plagued by massive bureaucratic corruption that, in 1950, siphoned off more than US$1 billion in badly needed foreign aid. Despite these daunting realities, the Philippines committed its meager armed strength to aid Korea, and also offered to send combat troops to Nationalist China to deter a feared Communist Chinese invasion.
Copyright 2000 by Art Villasanta. This web site is being continuously updated.
