Learning How to Fight

Jet planes scar the countryside with napalm and fragmentation bombs. Warships and artillery bombard areas suspected of harboring guerrillas. Infantrymen burn huts. As villages and crops are destroyed, hundreds of thousands of citizens are left homeless and hungry. Meanwhile, the guerrillas grow stronger and bolder. Hit-and-run harassment has escalated to well-organized offensives. Last week the army lost 28 men as it broke a week-long siege of a town housing two beleaguered companies of constabulary troops.

It all sounds a little like Viet Nam. In fact, the intensifying conflict between the Philippine government and Moslem insurgents in the southern Philippines is notably different in at least one respect: no foreign power is yet directly involved on either side. Though the U.S. traditionally supplies arms to the Philippines, it has not increased its aid because of the rebellion. As for the insurgents, there is some evidence that their weapons are smuggled in by speedboats from the Malaysian state of Sabah (see map page 37), and that faraway Libya stands ready to finance fellow Moslems. But there has been no overt intervention, so far, on their behalf.

Nevertheless, the Philippine conflict threatens to replace Viet Nam as Asia's ugliest war. Casualty figures are unreliable, but each side claims to be killing its enemies at a rate of up to 100 a week. Other kinds of casualties may well run higher. "My husband was a farmer," says Mrs. Alayna Sosokan. "The soldiers told him to lie on his stomach, and then they shot him, along with four other men. Then the homes were burned." Army officers, for their part, tell gruesome tales of soldiers being mutilated by the guerrillas.

Ironically, President Ferdinand Marcos hardly mentioned the Moslem insurgency when he proclaimed martial law throughout the Philippines last September. The major reason he cited then was the insurrection of a group of Maoist rebels in the far north. Now, all is relatively quiet on the northern front. Meanwhile, Marcos has had to pour some 13,000 troops into the southern islands (specifically, Mindanao and the Sulu group). As a result, the rest of his 70,000-man armed forces are stretched exceedingly thin.

Following the spread of Islam throughout Southeast Asia, Moslems dominated the southern Philippines for five centuries. They successfully defended their culture against the Spaniards who conquered the rest of the Philippines and against the Americans who replaced them. A Moslem decline began in 1938, when Commonwealth President Manuel Quezon proclaimed Mindanao the "land of opportunity," and Christian Filipinos from the crowded north started moving in. Better educated, the Christians gained control of Moslem land and of the region's economy. They also practiced religious discrimination in employment and education. Though the Moslems number more than 2,000,000, they now represent only about one-third of the region's total population.

Disputes over land ownership --some of them caused by opportunistic Moslems who sold the same piece of property to different people--finally erupted into sectarian violence in late 1969. Christian immigrants formed quasi-vigilante groups called Ilagas (rats) to ward off Moslems who were trying to seize land. The Moslems formed terrorist gangs known as Barracudas and Blackshirts. As the communal violence spread, young Moslem intellectuals began to oppose not only the Christian settlers and the government but even their own elderly Moslem leaders, whom they accused of corruption. The young dissidents preached secession.

The militants did not get far, though, until Marcos made a mistake last September: he included Mindanao in the martial law decree prohibiting the possession of firearms. To the Filipino Moslems, who regard guns as their most prized possessions, it was a direct threat. With a speed and solidarity that took the Philippine authorities by surprise, hundreds of hitherto law-abiding Moslems took to the hills. Since then, the hundreds have grown into thousands. Moslem insurgents are now estimated to number 13,500 in eastern Mindanao and 6,000 in the Sulu islands, chiefly Basilan and Jolo.

Impressive. Though their leadership varies, the best-trained and best-equipped groups seem to be under the command of well-educated militants in their late 20s. Knowledge of the hilly terrain helps make the Moslem rebels impressive foes. "These people are better fighters than the Viet Cong," says a Filipino colonel who spent 13 months in Viet Nam. "This is the cream of the Philippine army down here and they are teaching us how to fight."

Apparently recognizing his difficult situation, President Marcos has lately been attempting conciliation along with military force. He acknowledged last month that the largely impoverished Moslems have legitimate grievances and promised them a larger share in his so-called "new society." "We must give the Moslems what they are entitled to --a share not only in government but also in the rewards of our progress." To that end, Marcos pledged more opportunities for young Moslems to study at universities and to enter the Christian-dominated Philippine Military Academy. Last week he also dispatched an engineering battalion to Mindanao to work on electrification projects in Moslem communities. But such gestures may be too little, too late. In guerrilla wars, they often are.

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