Hope Against the Huks

It was a great week for Ramon Magsaysay (rhymes with fog-sigh-sigh), Defense Secretary of the Philippines.

Last month, Magsaysay alerted all military installations at Manila, on the eve of the ninth anniversary of the founding of the Communist-led Huk organization. Magsaysay was sure that the Huks would try to celebrate by an attack. Magsaysay s men caught 40 Huks as they stole into town to try to free six members of the Philippine Communist Party's politburo who had been captured last fall. He put the 40 in jail, sent the six politburocrats on a cruise in Manila Bay, where they would be safely out of reach of any more rescuers, and where, he said bitingly, "they can fish in peace." But while Magsaysay was busy in Manila, the Huks struck elsewhere.

Liquidation Week. Some 50 Huks descended on an isolated dairy farm near Antipolo, 20 miles from Manila, killed the American owners, John Hardie and his wife Irene, and their Australian foreman. Two days later, the Huks struck again. A force of 150 of them, dressed in stolen army uniforms and riding in army trucks, swooped down on Candaba, 48 miles north of Manila, seized the army post sacked the town, and shot 13 antiCommunists. Three days later, several hundred Huks attacked the busy Acoje chromite mines in mountainous Zambales province (where Magsaysay was born), killed six civilians and burned a million pesos' worth of property.

At his headquarters, Magsaysay pounded the table so hard that the ashtray bounced, and barked orders: "Put more men in and around Manila. I want every suspicious person searched, and every suspicious house raided. Get every soldier in the provinces alerted. Keep pounding on all known Huk lairs. Burn the Huks out of Candaba swamps. There are 8,000 Huks in the country. That makes five Huks to each one of our platoons. Let us make this week the liquidation week!"

The Man Behind the Battle. For the next few days, the Huks did not know what hit them. Magsaysay's army attacked them steadily all over Luzon. In the Sierra Madre, the troops caught up with the Huk band that had murdered the Hardies, killed 20. The army fell far short of Magsaysay's quota of five Huks to every platoon (it claimed a total of 300 Huks killed last week), but the Huks were beaten back. March 29, the Huk anniversary, proved to be one of the most peaceful days the Philippines had known in years. Even bitter critics of the government agreed that Magsaysay was doing a first-rate job. Said one: "He is not all mouth, after all. He gets results."

Magsaysay first started getting results during the Japanese occupation, when he organized a guerrilla force of 12,000 strong, in the mountains where he was born. Says he: "It was no joke, living in those jungles. I had to take care of myself, not only against the Japs but against my own men. For a few Japanese pesos, any one of them could "have killed me. But I treated them like men, and shared everything I had with them. As a result, they treated me like a man, too."

When President Quirino appointed him Minister of Defense last September, Magsaysay took over an army with poor morale worse discipline. Soldiers lived in shacks, ate bad food, while their officers lived well. Magsaysay promptly started firing bad officers. His generals warned: "You will demoralize the army." Replied Magsaysay: "I don't care. If they are bad, I will demoralize them some more." He went on firing officers, including two generals.

He gave the soldiers better food, better quarters. One cold night, visiting an army camp, he found soldiers sleeping without blankets. Furious, he called the officers together and, lending a hand himself, made them distribute blankets to the enlisted men.

Magsaysay is scrupulously honest. Recently a Chinese millionaire, who was to be deported from the Philippines for aiding the Reds, offered Magsaysay one million pesos ($500,000) to let him go free. Cried Magsaysay: "This does it! I may not have had conclusive evidence that he really aided the Communists, but when a Chinaman starts bribing a Filipino government official, I make it my business to see that he gets the hell out of this country." The man was deported, and now faces trial in Formosa.

Before he took over, Huks who surrendered or were captured were shot on the spot. "Now," says Magsaysay, "I give them first-class hospitalization, and a chance to turn over a new leaf. I don't know where to put all the Huks who surrender." He has started a large resettlement program for them on Mindanao, where they are to get land of their own (TIME, March 19).

Results So Far. Maysaysay works at a man-killing pace. On a typical day he is up at S, looks over reports in his office. By 6 he is aboard his plane Pag-asa (Tagalog for "Hope"), enroute to Zambales, where some of his men are fighting a Huk band. He joins his men, bawling them out if they are.slow, or praising them if they are doing well. Two hours later he is in an army camp 200 miles northeast, in the Cagayan valley, firing an officer for failing to send reinforcements to a hard-pressed army unit. He has lunch on board the plane, by noon sits with a group of soldiers in camp at Mount Arayat, 180 miles southwest, telling them over coffee that he is about to ask Congress for more money to improve soldiers' living conditions. During the rest of the afternoon, he flies to another camp, another battle area. By 6 he is back in Manila; until midnight he holds conferences, writes reports or, at times, his own press releases. He is in bed by 2 a.m.

Since he took over, the army claims 1,363 Huks killed, 487 captured, 3,000 surrendered. Although he has done better than anyone else before him, Magsaysay is still hampered by a generally corrupt and inefficient government, is still far from having defeated the Huks for good. He knows it. Says he: "I have to be 200% sure before I can say it's in the bag."

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