I needed to explain myself to the judge.
Naga City Regional Trial Court (RTC) Judge (retired) Soliman Santos – or simply Sol to his colleagues and comrades – had been judiciously following up the book review that I have been promising for quite a long while). I said that it was taking me so much time to finish his book because I’ve been reading it “in small increments.”
Sol’s reply, probably his way of manifesting patience over my glacial pace, was that “later-generation of activists” who read Tigaon 1969: Untold Stories of the CPP-NPA, KM, and SDK by may find it “more difficult than usual, say, compared to reading To Suffer thy Comrades” (in reference to my book on the CPP-NPA internal purges). Tigaon 1969 has “many pre-martial law interrelated facts (especially names and places in another unfamiliar region) …including, and in correlation with, contemporaneous KM-SDK and even intra-SDK dynamics.” On the latter initials, Sol was referring to the militant organizations Kabataang Makabayan (KM, or Nationalist Youth) and Samahang Demokratiko ng Kabataan (SDK, or Democratic Organization of the Youth). Both organizations, in “friendly competition,” have effectively recruited tens of thousands of students and young people and mounted massive protest actions against President Marcos, Sr. in the early 70s.
Sol is right, albeit partially. It took a long stretch to reach his book’s finish line not so much because of generational unfamiliarity, but more because of information surplus. Tigaon 1969 does not proceed in a continuous narrative flow because each fact or anecdote presented is peppered with details surrounding it – who’s involved, where it happened, source of information, manner information was acquired, challenges and counterclaims, and so forth. Sol seemed to feel the urge to say everything about something – oftentimes within one sentence! Poring over this encyclopedic left history with focus to an obscure place within a region Sol evidently loves, I was quietly wishing he had punctuated it with more periods. The sentences could have been cut into more bite-sized pieces – but this might just be me, a matter of stylistic preference. After all, I also confess to being a slow reader with attention issues.
Now, having put that minor quibble out of the way, let me share my takeaway. Tigaon 1969: Untold Stories of the CPP-NPA, KM, and SDK is as explicit and literal as a title can get. The book comes in two parts:
One, it is a historical opus that asserts the “true origins” of the revolutionary movement in Bicol. It challenges the official narrative of the Communist Party of the Philippines–New People’s Army (CPP-NPA), which pegs the revolutionary beginnings in the region in 1970, with the return of Bicolano student activists from Metro Manila. Most prominent among these was Romulo Jallores (Kumander Tangkad), who rose to prominence after he led the team of youth protesters that commandeered a firetruck that rammed the presidential palace gates in Malacañang at the height of the First Quarter Storm (FQS). He later commanded the first NPA unit in Tigaon and was killed in battle – in dramatic fashion, as depicted graphically in the book. The NPA unit in Bicol, which continued to grow in strength during the martial law years under Marcos, Sr., was henceforth named after Jallores.
Sol, however, insists that the revolutionary seeds in Bicol have been planted in Tigaon, Camarines Sur a year earlier – and this, he emphasizes, needs to be acknowledged in official Party history. This initial effort was carried out by a “First Five” expansion team, including CPP Politburo member Ibarra Tubianosa (from Sorsogon) and Francisco Portem (from Albay), along with three Tigaon natives: Marco Baduria, Nonito Zape, and David Brucelas. The five, all members of Kabataang Makabayan (KM), were deployed to Tigaon to for mass work and organizing.
Tigaon was selected because it epitomizes the country’s “semi-feudal and semi-colonial society.” Dominated by large, landed estates held by wealthy families, the town represents an exploitative environment conducive to organizing landless peasants – providing fertile conditions for revolution. After months of organizing in Tigaon, however, the central CPP leadership ordered the team to pull out in late 1969 after a parallel effort in the Negros island experienced catastrophic failure (the so-called “Negros debacle”). Two of the Tigaon natives, Baduria and Zape, nevertheless defied the directive and continued organizing in the area despite being cut off from the Party center. This act of local agency and perseverance, Sol argues, was the true genesis of the revolutionary movement in Bicol – without which the later, officially recognized, armed struggle would not have been possible.
What was the reaction of Jose Ma. Sison, CPP founder, to Sol’s assertion? Interestingly – as gleaned from the email exchanges between the two – Joma was defensive and even combative. He denied the claim that the CPP stopped supporting the initial expansion efforts in Bicol in 1969 by insisting that they have supported the expansion efforts of Jallores in 1970 onwards. It was a breathtakingly erroneous argument, for Joma famously misses the mark: the bone of contention was 1969, not 1970. On the matter of Bicol’s revolutionary origins, Joma has either totally forgotten, or completely ignored or rejected the pre-1970 efforts. However, Joma somehow changed his tune late in life, confirming the initiatives of Baduria, Zape, et al via a Facebook post in 2016.
To the casual observer, this contention would matter very little. Whether the revolution in Bicol was started by Jallores, et al in 1970 or Baduria, et al in 1969 might seem to be of no consequence. But it does for those who believe that the revolutionary movement played a key role, positively or otherwise, in shaping the country’s history – not only as a matter of due credit, but on the imperative of speaking truth to (revolutionary) power.
Two, the book elaborates on the strategic and organizational debates of the period. A key conflict was the “wave upon wave” versus the “leapfrog” strategy for revolutionary movement-building. The former involves initial base-building followed by a systematic, contiguous expansion from the base — which was favored by the central leadership early on. The latter involves jumping to strategically chosen areas with ripe objective conditions for germination and expansion, such as the actions done in Negros and Tigaon. The Party’s initial preference for the wave-upon-wave option eventually gave way to the leapfrog mode, as the country’s archipelagic, multi-island feature favors decentralized operation. The CPP-NPA’s expansion and strengthening in many regions, albeit in varying levels, proved this to be correct.
The other organizational tension that manifested in the Tigaon showcase involves the rivalry between the two leading militant youth groups: the Kabataang Makabayan (KM) and the Samahang Demokratiko ng Kabataan (SDK). It was a foreshadowing of the split within the CPP (into the Reaffirmists and Rejectionists) two decades later and was itself foreshadowed by Joma and his cohorts split from the old Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas (PKP). Sol gave due emphasis to one key observation: the history of the Philippine revolutionary movement, as elsewhere, is a history of splits.
The KM started off as the youth arm of the PKP. When Joma was expelled from the Party, he brought with him his loyal KM followers and formed the CPP in 1968. In 1969, he forged an alliance with Bernabe Buscayno (Kumander Dante), who was then leading his own guerrilla army, thus forming the formidable bond between the CPP and the NPA. The KM continued to recruit and expand as a radical youth organization, but some members disagreed with what they perceived to be Joma’s authoritarian leadership. They formed the SDK, which gave more emphasis on education and critical thinking and encouraged independence and initiative.
SDK stalwarts constituted the “second wind” to the Bicol revolutionary work in 1970, with the arrival of a reinforcement group from the SDK University of the East (UE)-Taytay chapter, which included Romulo Jallores. It also brought in a new set of tension, specifically on the question of whether to reconnect with the CPP central leadership or retain its autonomy – which the new SDK group insisted on. The Tigaon locals, led by Baduria and Zape, voted to seek renewed guidance from the central CPP leadership and compelled the “renegadish” SDK Taytay group members to leave the front. Hence, the CPP at the Tigaon front was reestablished by early 1971, followed by the subsequent formation of the local NPA unit, which began to carry out acts of “revolutionary justice” (liquidations of “bad elements”) and land reform.
Midway into the book, Sol dives deep into introspection. Armed revolution – is it still a viable call? We know that the fundamental problems of society remain – massive poverty, inequality, injustice, corruption. The author accepts that the long, hard fight for “systemic change” is still on-deck, but he laments the enormous human costs of waging an armed struggle. For all the revolutionary movement’s noble aspirations, Sol wryly observes its predilection for eliminating stray elements, those who no longer toe the line. He cites as an example a “CPP directive in mid-1971” to a local Party committee to monitor a certain “revisionist” group operating within their area of responsibility “with an order to liquidate (shoot-to-kill) them.” He critiques this “surprisingly early resort…to ordering the physical liquidation of inner-Party dissenters,” pointing out that this kind of intolerance was what Sison accused the old PKP of being guilty of in the first place. This practice of witch hunt, Sol proposes, is a “precursor of sorts” to the bloody internal purges in the 1980s that led to the torture and execution of thousands of suspected deep-penetration agents (spies) from among their ranks. The blood and the mess throughout the revolutionary movement’s existence – were all this worth it? He offers no answer, as it is not “the subject or coverage of this book,” but invites the readers to consider it in light of our struggles in the present.
Sol concludes by arguing that history evolves, as reiterated by Dominic Caouette in his Foreword. His book contributes to this evolutionary process not only by correcting and complementing existing records but also by highlighting its relevance to contemporary times. He compares this contentious history to the current political landscape, where social movements grapple with the restoration of the Marcos family to power in 2022. The book is relevant to present-day activists and revolutionaries, whichever bloc they are aligned with. At the very least, they would benefit from the meticulous research poured into the project. More than this, he poses his thesis as a necessary problematique for revolutionary theorists who hold that the masses ultimately decide their fate and are therefore responsible for the outcome of history. Historians, too, will have an increased appreciation of local histories and how they help shape national stories.
To be sure, this remains a work-in-progress, and we have not yet reached “the end of history.” It is incumbent for us to continue rewriting and refining our understanding of history to better interpret the world as a self-help measure for people like us, bold and foolish enough to try and change it.
About the book reviewer
ROBERT FRANCIS “BOBBY” B. GARCIA wrote To Suffer thy Comrades: How the Revolution Decimated Its Own, a national book awardee and a bestseller after its publication in 2001. Updated and relaunched in 2017, the book continues to be cited in human rights education programs, academic courses, and legal opinions, including the Supreme Court. He recently headed the Technical Assistance Team of GOJUST II-Human Rights (GJII-HR 2022-2025), a project of the European Union and AECID-Spain that provided financial and technical support to the Commission on Human Rights (CHR), where he also served as transitional justice (TJ) consultant of the CHR. He was Undersecretary at the Office of the Political Adviser under the Office of President Benigno S. Aquino, Jr. He served as Executive Director of several NGOs, including the Popular Education for People’s Empowerment (PEPE), as well as worked in various international organizations including the UN, ASEAN, and Oxfam.
Where to purchase the book
TIGAON 1969, a Finalist for Best Book in History of the 2024 National Book Awards, was published by the Ateneo de Manila University Press and is available for P600 at its bookstore there (Bellarmine Hall, Katipunan Avenue, Loyola Heights, Quezon City, Tel. 8426-5984, mobile 0920-864-7049, as well as in the country’s leading bookstores. It may be ordered online from ADMU Press through: books.unipress@ateneo.edu, ndarroca@ateneo.edu, http://www.ateneo.edu/ateneopress.
In Naga City, it is available at the RS (Ramon Sia of Bonings) Newspaper & Magazine Headquarters, Block 4, Stall 1,3,5, G/F Naga City People’s Mall (Public Market), Gen. Luna St. near cor. Prieto St., Tel. (054) 2059068, mobile 0997-807-0180 and 0918-923-6188.