Honor rites for Huks resume in Nueva Ecija amid pandemic
CITY OF SAN FERNANDO, Pampanga, Philippines — No aging freedom fighters or old members of the 1930 Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas came to the 80th founding anniversary of the Hukbo ng Bayan Laban sa Hapon (Hukbalahap) on Tuesday.
And there was no monument yet for the homegrown anti-Japanese guerrilla movement founded in Cabiao town in Nueva Ecija.
But some cultural advocates and historians gathered at the founding site. The place used to be called Sitio Bawit in Barangay San Julian, but has been renamed Bagong Sikat.
The National Historical Commission of the Philippines installed a marker at Bagong Sikat Elementary School in 2017 to mark the founding there of a “large and successful guerrilla movement” in Luzon.
The Holy Angel University’s Center for Kapampangan Studies (CKS) organized the event two years after the COVID-19 pandemic broke out. Surviving Huk members might be too weak to go to the event, said CKS director Robby Tantingco in a phone interview.
Article continues after this advertisement“Eighty years ago, when the Japanese invaded, the government fled into exile and our soldiers fought gallantly until their surrender in Bataan,” Tantingco said in a statement after the wreath-laying ceremony.
Article continues after this advertisement‘Supremo’
He added: “It was the common folk, the farmers and workers, who picked up arms and continued the resistance and never surrendered.”The late Luis Taruc, hailed as a Hukbalahap “supremo,” was also honored at a shrine in San Luis town, Pampanga province.
Tantingco said the United States and Philippine governments “outlawed, persecuted, imprisoned and denied these guerrillas their rightful pension.”
“It was only during the administrations of Ferdinand Marcos and Corazon Aquino that they finally got financial assistance, but it was small compared to what the soldiers received,” Tantingco added.
Aside from having no monuments of their own, he said the guerrillas’ names “do not appear in monuments and shrines, unlike those of the soldiers.”
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