Philperiodicals

The Reality of the new Huk struggle

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.

Fecha

1956

Fuente

The Reality of the new Huk struggle, Philippines Armed Forces Journal, April 1956, pp. 52-55

Relación

Portera, Eric F., and Antonio C. Hila. 2020. “Liberating Farmers from Tenancy Bondage: The Land and Agrarian
Reform Programs of Ramon Magsaysay (1954-1957)”. Philippine Social Science Journal 3 (1), 142-54.
https://doi.org/10.52006/main.v3i1.118 .
Woods, Colleen. 2020. Freedom Incorporated: Anticommunism and Philippine Independence in
the Age of Decolonization. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. https://muse.jhu.edu/book/74494

Materia

Huk insurgency
Social programs during Ramon’s Magsaysay Administration
Philippines Armed Forces Journal.