Word: luzon
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...devaluing the peso. Because funds are running out, Marcos will become the first allied president to pull forces out of Viet Nam. In December, he intends to bring home the 1,500-man Philippine civic-action group. He will put the men to work in the impoverished central Luzon, where the Huk guerrillas still remain troublesome. No longer the fiery Communists that they were in the insurrection of the 1950s, the Huks have turned to Mafia-style extortion, which Marcos hopes he can counter with a program of better law enforcement and increased hopes for a better life...
...Asia's enduring insurgency problems is the feud between the guerrillas of the Hukbong Mapagpalayang Bayan* and the Philippine government. For more than two decades, the Huks have been active in what is commonly called "Huklandia," an area in Central Luzon where social and economic ills create a fertile breeding ground for discontent. At the height of the insurgency in 1950-51, the Huks had an estimated 20,000 well-organized men under arms. A concerted government drive led by the late Ramon Magsaysay, then Defense Secretary, whittled that number down drastically, but did not succeed in stamping...
Thus Manila had reason for satisfaction last month when government forces killed 21 Huks in two bloody shoot-outs in Luzon. The paramilitary Philippine Constabulary had eliminated four guerrilla commanders, including the third-ranking man in the Huk hierarchy, Efren Lopez, who went by the nom de guerre of Commander Freddie. The action apparently resulted in part from factional division and rivalry among the insurgents. Government forces had trapped Freddie and his men on a tip-off -and that tip-off had evidently come from Commander Sumulong, who ranks directly below Huk Supremo Pedro Taruc. Sumulong had apparently felt challenged...
General Raval dismissed the ambushes as Huk attempts to "salvage what is left of their prestige." But a junior officer was less optimistic. "Nobody in uniform is safe in Central Luzon until the Huks get their pound of flesh," he said. "And they'll get it, sooner or later." They probably will-considering that the government has promised much and done little. Huk strength is still estimated at around 300 armed men, which does not sound impressive-but they are supported by thousands of sympathetic or frightened peasants...
...Philippines, church bells clanged in suddenly tilted steeples as a 1-min. quake rolled across the island of Luzon in predawn darkness, catching most Filipinos in their beds. Cracks appeared in the façades of luxury hotels in Manila, and glass panes were wrenched out of the airport control tower by the shock. A five-story apartment building in Manila's Chinese quarter collapsed, trapping 600 people under tons of rubble. At least 111 were known dead in the Philippines' worst earthquake in over a decade...