Luis Taruc

Early life and career

Luis Mangalus Taruc was born of peasant stock in the barrio of Santa Monica, township of San Luis, Pampanga on 21 June 1913. studying medicine and law, but no longer able to afford the expenses, He was influenced by Pedro Abad Santos, a Marxist, whom Luis regarded as a true socialist. In June 1935, he married Feliciana Bernabe, and his son Romeo was born in March 1936.Before the end of 1935, he joined Santos as a full-time organizer of the Socialist Party of the Philippines, which numbered a few hundred members and several thousand sympathizers. His wife died in Dec. 1938, suffering from goiter and anemia. He then married Enna Cura on 4 June 1939. Luis would serve time in prison three times before the war, in his struggle for the militant workers' and peasants' unions. Enna died of sepsis and diabetes on 8 March 1946. Luis later married Gregoria Calma (Liza). She was killed by government soldiers on 11 April 1952.

World War II

On November 7, 1938, the Philippine Socialist Party and the Communist Party of the Philippines merged, forming a united front "to fight against fascism and war", though each party retained its own organizations until 1941.

He led a large people's army against the Japanese invaders, and their "puppet constabulary", as Supremo Luis Taruc, or "Lu-Lu" ("the racing one"), then "Alipato" ("the flying spark that spreads a fire"). According to Luis, "There was a period when we had an American officer officially collaborating with our work." Taruc credited his prominence through his "identification with the simple, sincere, and courageous peasants." However, Luis noted, "...most of the time, the American authorities were suspicious of this unconventional army whose politics they suspected." Yet, the Hukbalahap under Taruc did become an effective armed guerrilla force.

Post-war years

Taruc was elected to the Philippine House of Representatives in 1946 as a member of the Democratic Alliance

Taruc went underground in late 1946, following failed negotiations with President Roxas, and the Huks soon numbered 10,000 armed fighters. Subsequent negotiations with President Elpidio Quirino in June and August 1948 also failed. By the presidential elections of 1949, the Huks had abandoned electoral politics in favor of armed insurgency. The Huks controlled most of central Luzon, the “rice basket” of the Philippines, including two provincial capitals, by 1950. Their motto, "a democratic peace, or martyrdom." Luis states, "The peasants' hatred was founded on centuries of exploitation and oppression, feudal landlordism, and bad government. But the rich...were driven by fear of losing their power and their social privilege...this was naked class war." In the Politburo meeting of December 1949 to January 1950, the Huks were reorganized as the HMB, "Hukbo Mapagpalaya ng Bayan", or "People's Army of Liberation", with Luis as a Politburo Supervisor (PBS) for the Party's Regional Committee, Reco 2, in the Zambales Mountains. By November 1950, Luis was removed from his post of command entirely. By then, the Huks had 15,000 armed men, and the country was embroiled in a "miniature civil war", with ambushes on the major highways common.

President Quirino assigned Ramon Magsaysay, secretary of national defense, to combat the Huk insurgency. On 18 October 1950, Magsaysay captured the Secretariat, including the general secretary José Lava, following the earlier capture of the Politburo in Manila. effectively ending the Huk rebellion. On 15 June 1954, Luis met with President Magsaysay and Gen. Eulogio Balao at Camp Murphy, where Luis agreed to a trial.

Taruc's trial started in August 1954, where he pleaded guilty to rebellion, "in the spirit of my agreement with the president", and sentenced to 12 years of imprisonment, plus a "huge fine". After his release, he continued to work for agrarian reforms. His struggle on behalf of the poor farmers persuaded local and national leaders to strengthen the legal rights of farm workers and led to a more equitable distribution of farm land. In his later years Taruc claimed to have never been a real communist, but rather always advocated Christian democratic socialism; he supported land reform strengthening the rights of local, small farmers over corporations and hereditary feudal elite.

Legacy

Taruc dictated Born of the People (1953) to American communist and ghost writer William Pomeroy. Luis Taruc used Alipato, meaning "spark that spreads a fire", as his pseudonym. "Born of the People" was Nelson Mandela's reference on peasant resistance and guerrilla warfare when he was the commander in chief of the uMkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation).

While in New Bilibid Prison, Taruc composed He Who Rides the Tiger (1967). Luis wrote, "I know now from experience, that the nationalism of the Communists is indeed opportunism, and that they use it for their own ends. Any nationalist who makes an ally of the Communist is going for a ride on a tiger." Additionally, Luis wrote, "For ruthlessness and cruelty are alien to Christian thought, and when men in the Free World use such methods, they do so in defiance of their own morality and ideals. The atheist Communist, however, believes that the end justifies the means, or in Lenin's words, 'Morality is subordinate to the class struggle.' For this reason, the Communist can pursue a policy of terror and cruelty with a clear conscience."

In 1985, Taruc would tell F. Sionil Jose that one of the reasons for the failure of the insurgency was that dissenters were killed. He also said that dogmatic fundamentalism scared away many potential allies. The Huk movement commanded an estimated 170,000 armed troops with a base of two million civilian supporters at the apex of their power in 1952. In 2003, he explained to historian Keith Thor Carlson that he attributed the revolution's failure to the dogmatism of members of the politburo's Russian-trained elite, in particular José and Jesus Lava, an accusation that runs contrary to the views of the Lavas and William Pomeroy who countered that Taruc suffered from a cult of personality.

Several Huk veterans organizations dispute the credit heaped on Taruc for organizing the Hukbalahap during World War II. They contend that Taruc only joined the movement when several prominent Huk leaders were captured and executed by the Japanese, and that there were several Huk brigades operating in concert, under Castro Alejandrino, Eusebio Aquino, and Mariano Franco among others.

Death

On May 4, 2005, Luis Taruc died of a heart attack in St. Luke's Medical Center in Quezon City at the age of 91, a month before his 92nd birthday. Many political figures went to Luis Taruc's wake to pay respect and give support to his family.

References

References

1. Sangil, Max. (25 September 2019). "Sangil: The surrender of Ka Luis Taruc (Last part)". SunStar Publishing Inc..
2. [[1946 Philippine House of Representatives elections. Elected in 1946]]. Served for only a week and left to resume the leadership of the [[Hukbalahap Rebellion]].
3. Orejas, Tonette. (26 June 2017). "Huk founder Taruc finally declared hero by gov't body". INQUIRER.net.
4. "Luis Taruc {{!}} Filipino political leader".
5. Taruc, L., 1967, He Who Rides the Tiger, London: Geoffrey Chapman Ltd.
6. [http://globalnation.inquirer.net/propertyfocus/propertyfocus/view/20081017-166835/Aliases Aliases - INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos] {{webarchive. link. (29 December 2013)
7. [http://opinion.inquirer.net/inquireropinion/columns/view/20090420-200322/American-socialist-in-the-Philippines American socialist in the Philippines - INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos] {{webarchive. link. (23 April 2009)
8. [http://everything2.com/title/Hukbalahap Hukbalahap@Everything2.com]
9. Jesus Lava, Memoir of a Communist (Anvil Press, 2003)
10. (June 4, 2013). "Honors set for Hukbalahap Supremo's 100th birth anniv". SunStar Pampanga*.