Philperiodicals

The Legioner, was the official monthly organ of the Philippines Legion, a veteran association
created by Manuel Roxas in 1948. Its contents were mainly military, which made it a very
interesting source to understand the military conflicts of the period from a Filipino perspective.
In all the issues hold in the UPD collection the Huk insurgent appears as a very important topic.
Underscoring the HUK problem was written for the number of February 1948 by Alejo S.
Santos, representative of the 2nd district of Bulacan, and it’s interesting for the crude photos
(courtesy of Manila Chronicle) that it included. Santos, former CO of the Bulacan Military Area
during the Ocuppation, defended that violence was not the best means to solve the problem and
confirmed first hand that the Huk, one of the best anti-japanese guerillas, never stayed away
from the ways of peace or terrorized the people of Bulacan until Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas’
efforts to ameliorate farmers' conditions (and its electoral victory) were neglected by the Partido
Liberal, whose measures were ineffective against landlord rule. In fact, the victims of the
military actions were the poor barrio residents that only attended to destroy feudalism, which
only fueled the conflict.

1966 was a year marked by incendiary debates in congress about Filipino involvement in the
Vietnam War. In March, Senator Sergio Osmeña Jr. supported sending troops there, an opinion
that, as Panorama remarked, was neither that of the journal nor of all Filipinos. Osmeña blamed
the war on the communists (their only way to take over a well-faring South Vietnam) and argued
that US president Lyndon Johnson was just defending peace. Invoking his father, late president
Osmeña, he advocated for an alliance and a military base agreement with the US, arguing this
would have spared the Philippines the Japanese Occupation and would protect them now from a
Red Chinese invasion. For Osmeña, the Philippines had an obligation to South Vietnam, and
could not afford not to afford it if it wanted to preserve its own liberty and freedom.
Debates about the Vietnam War remained a dividing issue until the end of the conflict on 30
April 1975. President Ferdinand Marcos had to be convinced of supporting the Americans after
his electoral victory in 1965, but massive demonstrations against it pressured him to retire the
2000 Filipino contingent. For the Philippines, the cold war was over in the summer of 1968.

Following the increasingly anti-communist tension, Philippines Armed Forces Journal published
an article on “The Reality of the New Huk Struggle”, where the journal tried to unmask the
“blueprint of subversion” of the Huks (which include political, literary, economic, social and
cultural fields).
Although it clearly stated that it was an exaggeration that the Army was on a “witch-hunt”, the
article showed concern about the infiltration of the Huk in politics, the military, the economy,
and the social and cultural fields. Its concern with insidious propaganda on President
Magsaysay's stand on the US bases issue, as well as the commitment with the Seato and the
sending of Filipino troops to Korea and Vietnam, suggests the unrest that those issues woke in
the population.
The pictures showed the menacing committed, and how Magsaysay’s social programs were
precisely planned to counter the Huk's “vicious plan of subversion” by working on
industrialization, security, education, and rural problems in the archipelago, and by signing a
commercial alliance with Washington. Although it was not sufficient, the Land reform launched
in 1954 by Magsaysay’s administration had in fact a big effect in reducing support for the Huk,
seen as a defensor of peasants from landlord abuse.

The Cross: National Catholic Magazine was the official bi-monthly organ of the Knights of
Columbus in the Philippines, a catholic order brought to the Philippines in 1905 and filipinized
in 1918. The Cross included all kinds of opinion articles, but also reader’s contributions, prayers,
news digest, and book reviews. During the Cold War, it followed a strong anti-communist line,
following Piux XII's encyclical Summi Maeroris (1950).
On May 1950, it expressed the fears of Asian Catholics, after the victory of Mao Zedong in the
Chinese civil war and the establishment of the People's Republic of China on 1 October 1949 with
an editorial cartoon, “No Footsteps coming out” from the Moscow Cave. The image, portraying Mao
dressed like a Mandarin, suggested the end of traditional Chinese culture, to be devoured by the
Soviet Union, and the submission of the Chinese State to the Soviet strategy as it had happened in
Eastern Europe. In March 1950 the Chinese government launched a Stalinist anti-
counterrevolutionaries campaign the image interpellated the reader's fear of an enemy now at the
doors of the Philippines. As the front page of the number shows, the Catholic Church saw itself
especially menaced by these soviet victories.

Senator Eulogio Balao (1907-1977), a WWII veteran and head of Quirino’s anti-Huk campaigns,
he was Secretary of Defense for President Magsaysay between 1956 and 1957. In June
1956, he published Illogical Neutralism in the Philippines Armed Forces Journal where he
made a defense of the SEATO agreement that expressed the government's view on the
issue.
Balao saw WWII as an event that had waked Asian nationalism and independence after a period
of docility and foreign rule, but he stated that neutrality, seen as a product of anti-colonial era
anxieties, was an impulsive and baseless fear that could condemn weak nations to be devoured
not by Western, but by Asiatic colonialism, such as the Japanese or the Russian. During a period
marked by democracy, when no western country would consider colonizing, only Russia, due to
its dictatorial and totalitarian nature, had colonies, Balao argued.
Bllao partially expresses the fear that, after the conflicts in Korea and Vietnam, only armed force
could stop communism. For small, young countries such as the Philippines, that meant allying
with “an unselfish America” through initiatives such as the SEATO to preserve freedom,
religion, and a wholesome life that communism wasn’t seen to provide.

A few months after the Korean Armistice Agreement (27 July 1953), which put an end to the
Korean War and established the actual border at the 38th parallel, the Philippines Armed Forces
Journal reprinted an article from Military Review by Brigadier General Samuel Lyman Atwood
Marshall, an important journalist appointed chief combat historian of the U.S. Army during
WWII and the Korean War.
The strongly anti-communist article took up against Communist China, seen as the primary and
real enemy (at least in the Korean War), not the Soviet Union. For Marshall, the Chinese knew
what was at stake and had a clear strategy, having constantly outmatched the US-lead coalition:
the Chinese knew their objective was not the prevention of killing, but victory, and Marshall
believed the US had conformed with a stalemate, without ever committing enough resources.
Marshall advocated for “a new era of firmness” and enough budget to prepare for the next
communist aggression in Asia.
The reprint also included several pictures of the Filipino troops, fighting, praying, and enjoying
the visit of Filipino stars such as Pablo Virtuoso, Cora Madrid, or Rumelia Flores. Thank to that
we can imagine how their life was during the armistice negotiations

In A Hard Look at the Anti-red law, published by Panorama, Perfecto V. Fernandez, professor of
law at UPHI and constitutional lawyer, argued that the Anti-Subversion Act of 1957 (Republic
Act No. 1700), was “politically” fair (as it protected the Republic from totalitarianism, and the
enslavement of its citizens), but problematic from the perspective of the individual, as it
sacrificed political and opinion freedom for the security of the state. The law illegalized the
Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas-1930 and the Hukbalahap, without, as Fernández noted, giving
any mention to the means of the party, identifying communism with violence and preventing it
from legitimately aspiring for political power.
Fernández's opinion that if given the chance communism should be allowed as long as it
accepted the peaceful rules of the democratic game, gave voice to a minority that saw with
concern the political developments caused by the Cold War in the archipelago, as the law
negated political liberty and was contrary to democracy. Fernández suspected that the law had
different ideological reasons than the protection of democracy, as “Surprisingly, some of those
who say this profess an admiration for Franco but this can be excused because Franco was the
appropriate religious views”.