3. FIGHTING IN A SMALL MOUNTAINOUS ARCHIPELAGO

The Philippines is a small mountainous archipelago. It is made up of some 7,100 islands and islets with a total land area of 299,404 square kilometers or 115,600 square miles. The eleven largest islands which are tabulated below compose ninety-four per cent of the total land area and also contain ninety-four per cent of the total population of the country. Every one of these and many other islands have a mountainous terrain with fertile soil.

The importance of an island is not determined solely by its size. Population, forest area and mountainous terrain are more important consideration for our people's war, especially at the initial stage.

There are three outstanding characteristics of the Philippines in being an archipelago. First, our countryside is shredded into so many islands. Second, our two biggest islands, Luzon and Mindanao, are separated by such a clutter of islands as the Visayas. Third, our small country is separated by seas from other countries. From such characteristics arise problems that are very peculiar to our people's war.

On the one hand, it is true that our countryside is wide in relation to the cities. On the other hand, it is also true that we have to fight within narrow fronts because the entire country is small and its countryside is shredded. The war between us and the enemy easily assumes the characteristics of being intensive, ruthless and exceedingly fluid. While we have the widest possible space for the development of regular mobile forces in Luzon and Mindanao, these two islands are separated by hundreds of kilometers and by far smaller islands where the space immediately appears to be suitable only for guerrilla forces throughout the course of people's war. The optimum condition for the emergence of regular mobile forces in the major Visayan islands will be provided by the prior development of regular mobile forces in Luzon and Mindanao.

Waging a people's war in an archipelagic country like ours is definitely an exceedingly difficult and complex problem for us. At this stage that we are still trying to develop guerrilla warfare on a nationwide scale, the central leadership has had to shift from one organizational arrangement to another so as to give ample attention to the regional Party and army organizations. This is only one manifestation of the problem. Armed propaganda teams and initial guerrilla units scattered in far-flung areas are susceptible to being crushed by the enemy. This is another manifestation of the problem.

There is no doubt that fighting in an archipelagic country like ours is initially a big disadvantage for us. Since the central leadership has to position itself in some remote area in Luzon, there is no alternative now and even for a long time to come but to adopt and carry out the policy of centralized leadership and decentralized operations. We must distribute and develop throughout the country cadres who are of sufficiently high quality to find their own bearing and maintain initiative not only within periods as short as one or two months, periods of regular reporting, but also within periods as long as two or more years, in case the enemy chooses to concentrate on an island or a particular fighting front and blockade it.

The development of the central revolutionary base somewhere in Luzon will decisively favor and be favored by the development of many smaller bases in Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao. Thus, we have paid attention to the deployment of cadres for nationwide guerrilla warfare. In a small country like the Philippines or more precisely in an island like Luzon, it would have been foolhardy for the central leadership to ensconce itself in one limited area, concentrate all the limited Party personnel and all efforts there and consequently invite the enemy to concentrate his own forces there. It would have been foolhardy to underestimate the enemy's ability to rapidly move and concentrate his forces in an island where communications are most developed.

The central leadership started the armed struggle where it best could by linking with the Red fighters in the second district of Tarlac in early 1969. Soon, Party cadres were dispatched to the mountainous and hilly area of Isabela. Subsequently, what amounted to the main forces of the New People's Army vigorously grew here from early 1971 to the eve of the fascist martial rule. A few cadres trained here were dispatched for rural work in other regions. The First Quarter Storm of 1970 and the succeeding mass protest actions and mass organizing in Manila-Rizal and other urban centers in the country yielded the greatest number of cadres for the national expansion of the Party and the people's army in the rural areas. These cadres start raw but are enthusiastic, develop new Party cadres from the ranks of the local mass activists and Red fighters, and are tempered in the course of fierce revolutionary struggle.

We have already created seven regional Party and army organizations outside of Manila-Rizal. After strengthening them, especially those of Northwest, Northeast and Central Luzon, we can more confidently look forward to and take the step towards building the central revolutionary base in a favorable terrain that is better populated and more extensive than the east of the Cagayan River. It should be in an area far more difficult for the enemy to blockade. Necessarily, the central leadership would be able to maintain more immediate relations with the regional Party organizations in Luzon than with those in the Visayas and Mindanao. The latter could still be administered through a special organ of the Central Committee.

In the long run, the fact that our country is archipelagic will turn out to be a great advantage for us and a great disadvantage for the enemy. The enemy shall be forced to divide his attention and forces not only to the countryside but also to so many islands. Our great advantage will show when we shall have succeeded in developing guerrilla warfare on a nationwide scale and when at least we shall have been on the threshold of waging regular mobile warfare in Luzon or in both Luzon and Mindanao.

We take the policy of "a few major islands first, then the other islands later." This is now well understood in the Visayas. In every island or in the specific part of an island that we choose to concentrate on, we must develop self-reliance; maintain our guerrilla units within a radius that is limited at a given time to avoid dissipation of our efforts but wide enough for maneuver; and advance wave upon wave, always expanding on the basis of consolidation. Our bitter experience has shown that overextending our guerrilla squads in the false hope of covering a wider area or attending to so many strategic points all at the same time result in shallow political work and are fatal for our squads. Among several guerrilla squads, it is necessary to have some center of gravity or rallying point either for temporary retreat or for a concentrated operation against the enemy. At the same time, we should never lose sight of the necessity of fluidity, which often requires the shiftiness of such a center.

Each regional Party organization should see to it that at the present stage it develops only one, two or three armed fronts. The regional executive committee of the Party should be based in the main front. More guerrilla bases and zones should arise only upon the consolidation of the few that could be sufficiently handled at one time. At present, it is not necessary to have an armed force in every province within a region. More often it is advisable for us to locate our armed force at an interprovincial border area for maximum effect because in the first place we do not have enough armed strength for every province.

The principle of self-reliance needs to be emphasized among all revolutionary forces on a nationwide scale. This is because our small country is cut off by seas from neighboring countries, particularly those friendly to our revolutionary cause. The Vietnamese, Cambodian and Laotian peoples are more fortunate than us in one sense because they share land borders with China, which serves as their powerful rear. Self-reliance can never be overemphasized among us. The basic needs of our people's war have to be provided for by the people's army and the broad masses of the people themselves. Our basic source of armaments is the battlefields. Our level of military technique and our ability in tactics and strategy will have to rise by our adhering strictly to the Marxist principle of advancing in stages and doing well at one stage to prepare for the next stage. The protractedness of our people's war is underscored by the archipelagic character of the country.

The mountainous character of the country countervails its archipelagic character from the very start. A mountainous terrain with some population and with thick vegetation is an excellent condition for our people's war. If on one hand the archipelagic character of the country has a narrowing effect on our fighting fronts, its mountainous character has both a broadening and deepening effect. Mountains are usually the natural boundaries of provinces. Thus, we can maintain influence on several provinces even if we were to operate from only one mountainous border area. Also, the enemy cannot easily approach us because of the rough terrain and we have more opportunity than anywhere else to conduct political work among the people. Before he starts to climb a hill, we can receive the relayed reports from the masses in the towns and in the barrios, we can actually see his coming from vantage points and we can size up his operation and its possible time span by the sight of his troops, trucks and planes. We can therefore prepare for his coming.

The Sierra Madre sews up almost the entire length of Luzon on the eastern side of the Cagayan Valley to the Bicol region through Central Luzon. It links as many as nine provinces. At certain points, it links two or three provinces at the same time. The Cordillera and Ilocos mountains cover the middle and western parts of Northern Luzon. These link as many as eleven provinces. At certain points, they link as many as four provinces at the same time. The mountain provinces and their fringes have the distinction of being the area where the heaviest concentration of Japanese troops in the Philippines in World War II, reaching up to 150,000, was wiped out by the guerrilla forces. The Tarlac-Zambales mountains link up five provinces. The armed struggle there has to be well-coordinated with the armed struggle in the wide plains below, with special attention given to the fact that U.S. military bases and major A.F.P. military camps are in the vicinity. There are many other smaller mountains in Luzon; they can also provide a favorable terrain for guerrilla forces.

Mindanao is an even more mountainous and more forested island than Luzon. At the center of Mindanao are the mountainous provinces of Bukidnon and Cotabato. These are as well-populated as the mountain provinces of Northern Luzon. These are linked up with almost all of the Mindanao provinces. Outside of Luzon and Mindanao, the mountains of Panay link four provinces and those of Samar, Leyte and Mindoro link two provinces at the same time.

A mountainous terrain, where more people inhabit the foothills, clearings, plateaus, and riversides or creeksides, is more favorable for the people's army. The usual inhabitants of the mountainous areas are national minorities and poor settlers. These are very receptive to revolutionary propaganda. Their common enemy is the reactionary government which treats their lands as "public lands" and either directly grabs these from them or allows big landlords, big bureaucrats or big capitalists to grab these from them. At the very outset, we should energetically arouse and mobilize them to defend their lands and meager possessions against the landgrabbers and the enemy forces. In launching military operations against us, the enemy always resorts to forced evacuation of these mountain inhabitants so as to prevent them from supporting us and so as to prepare the way for taking away their lands. We must thoroughly oppose every forced evacuation.

The fact that we have given the highest priority to creating guerrilla bases and zones in mountainous areas has helped us in a big way to preserve our guerrilla forces in the face of so many small and big campaigns of "encirclement and suppression" launched against us. Without the use of the Sierra Madre, our small forces in Cagayan Valley with only three companies as main force could not have preserved themselves against 7,000 enemy troops. Without the use of the mountainous areas of Sorsogon, our small initial forces there could not have expanded to their peak of one platoon-size main force and eight squads and could have been more easily reduced upon the coming of 1,000 enemy troops. However, it must also be pointed out that it is erroneous to rely exclusively on mountainous terrain. Our point is to use the combination of the less-populated mountainous terrain and the better-populated plains, relying mainly on the former for military purposes at this early stage of our people's war.

From the mountainous and hilly areas, we can expand towards the more-populated plains. Even when we shall have gone far in building bases on the plains, our mountainous and hilly bases will retain their strategic importance as guarantors of the victorious advance of people's war. The central revolutionary base can best stand on the well-inhabited mountainous terrain that is of the greatest breadth in Luzon. Everywhere, bases on the plains, seacoasts, lakes and rivers will find the indispensable support of bases in the mountainous and hilly areas.

Amidst the twenty guerrilla bases and zones already in existence and on the basis of the experience gained in creating them, the central leadership can proceed to establish the central revolutionary base somewhere in the well-inhabited mountainous area of Northern Luzon. The guerrilla bases and zones of Northeast Luzon, Northwest Luzon and Central Luzon can stand as the future terminals of regular mobile forces that are to arise at the central revolutionary base.

After doing well in building two or three guerrilla bases in every region outside Manila-Rizal, we can go on to create more guerrilla bases and zones of every type. Every regional organization of the Party and the people's army is to establish its own central base and raise in the long run regional mobile forces. On the eve of the nationwide seizure of power, Manila-Rizal shall be caught in a pincer between regular mobile forces from the north and from the two regions of Southern Luzon.

Mindanao is subdivisible into three or four regions, and a central revolutionary base can also be set up to coordinate these regions. The long-term task of our Mindanao forces is to draw enemy forces from Luzon and destroy them. We can cooperate very well with the Moro National Liberation Front and the Bangsa Moro Army in this regard. Our forces in the Visayas can take advantage of our gains in Luzon and Mindanao and contribute their own share in the task of forcing the enemy to split his forces and of destroying them.

Because our country is archipelagic, it is a matter of necessity for us to develop guerrilla bases and zones along the seacoast. Communications is one clear immediate reason. We should be able to develop as many routes as possible between Luzon, Visayas and Mindanao by conducting political work among the fishermen and seamen. Within the Visayas, boating is as common as trucking in the Luzon or Mindanao mainlands. If we take lessons from Southwestern Mindanao, especially from Sulu archipelago, we can further develop sea warfare, a form of guerrilla warfare making use of small bancas (boats) and big as well as small islands. This would constitute a good support for our guerrilla warfare on land.