The passing of the Old Guard

THE last of the Old Guard passed away with the death of Huk Supremo Luis Taruc.

I met Taruc, sort of, when I wrote the chapter "Banished From the House," in the PCIJ book The Rulemakers.  I have never seen him in person, but reading the transcripts of the House session in 1946, in my mind’s ear I was hearing him speak, defending the peasant class’s right to be represented in the Philippine Congress. He was elected Tarlac congressman in 1946, but the pro-American landlords and businessmen feared that he and his fellow members of the Democratic Alliance would block the passage of the bill granting Americans equal rights as Filipinos in business and the economy. In their paranoia, the traditional politicians fought tooth and nail to have these leftists expelled from the chamber, even if the leftists were too few to have mustered the votes needed to block the parity bill.  

Taruc and his partymates were humiliated and belittled by the traditional politicians who at some point even refused to let them take the floor or speak in Pilipino. At one point, tempers flared, and congressmen (then allowed to bring firearms into the session hall), resorted to bringing out their guns and laying them out in the open.  Taruc, Jesus Lava, and their partymates were eventually expelled, but even before that, Taruc had fled to the hills to continue armed rebellion.

Whatever succeeding generations of leftists make of Taruc (he surrendered to the Magsaysay government through Ninoy Aquino and was seen as having been coopted by the Marcos regime), he was a wartime hero who led Filipino guerillas in fighting the Japanese forces in Central Luzon, and struggled alongside peasants in their quest for agrarian reform.  His brief stint in Congress is also a testament to the viciousness of traditional politicos who would move heaven and earth to exclude the masses from rightful representation in Congress.