{"id":14779,"date":"2026-04-20T07:00:27","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T11:00:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/?p=14779"},"modified":"2026-04-29T15:32:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-29T19:32:11","slug":"searching-for-international-solidarity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/2026\/04\/searching-for-international-solidarity\/","title":{"rendered":"Searching for international solidarity"},"content":{"rendered":"

D<\/em><\/span>eeper Grounds, Darker Shadows<\/em> is the remarkable memoir of Eddie L. Quitoriano, a Filipino revolutionary who traveled across four different continents to find support for the struggle in his home-country. A book filled with stories of subterfuge and encounters with outlaws and dictators, it sheds new light on the history of the Maoist Communist Party of the Philippines<\/a> (CPP) and the limitations of its revolutionary strategy.<\/p>\n

Starting in 1986, for around eight years Quitoriano\u2019s revolutionary work was essentially that of an international networker. After moving out of the Philippines, Quitoriano was based largely in a safe house in Belgrade, in former Yugoslavia. Attempting to find support for the CPP, he visited a large number of countries, including Nicaragua, Syria, North-Korea and Cuba.<\/p>\n

Comrades from Japan<\/h4>\n

One of the surprising revelations made by Quitoriano concerns the extent of his cooperation with the Japanese Red Army (JRA), and its leader Fusako Shigenobu<\/a>. The JRA is today best known for the 1972 Lod attack when three JRA members opened fire on people in the waiting area of what is now Ben Gurion International Airport. The attack was carried out in cooperation with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and this cooperation of Japanese and Palestinian militants<\/a> drew considerable attention. But since 2001, when Shigenobu announced the dissolving of the JRA from prison, the organisation had largely been forgotten.<\/p>\n

One could wonder what the JRA had to offer the CPP. The JRA was an \u201curban guerilla group\u201d with at most dozens of members. The CPP, when it was at its height in the 1980s, was a movement with tens of thousands of cadres and a mass base numbering in the millions. Its armed wing, the New People\u2019s Army or NPA had thousands of full-time combatants and could mobilize many thousands more in its militia.<\/p>\n

But the JRA could offer international contacts, and this is what the CPP was lacking. Founded in 1968, the CPP declared it was \u201cvery fortunate\u201d to be close to China, the \u201ciron bastion of socialism.\u201d But after the CPP, in the early 1970s, botched<\/a> attempts to ship weapons to the NPA from China, material support ceased and by the mid-1980s the Chinese government was referring to Filipino dictator Ferdinand Marcos as an \u201cold friend.\u201d Just when the CPP seemed to become a serious contender for power, it found itself isolated internationally.<\/p>\n

In April 1986, Quitoriano met Shigenobu in an apartment in Manila where she offered to help in establishing international contacts. It was the JRA who initiated the relationship\u00a0with the CPP, through a member of a Japanese solidarity group. It was largely because of the support of the JRA and Fusako Shigenobu that Quitoriano could play the role of international emissary for the CPP. Shigenobu supplied Quitoriano with forged documents, cash, practical advice and contacts. The way that Quitoriano tells the story, the JRA had decided to shift from undertaking armed attacks to focus on facilitating international links between armed groups in the service of \u201cworld revolution.\u201d<\/p>\n

Only months before this meeting, in February 1986, Ferdinand Marcos had been overthrown in a popular uprising. This followed years of a deepening crisis of the regime after the 1983 assignation of Benigno Aquino, a leader of the bourgeois opposition. This crisis of the Marcos regime opened up new possibilities for growth of the CPP.<\/p>\n

The myth of people\u2019s war<\/h4>\n

To understand Quitoriano\u2019s international travels one needs to consider the CPP\u2019s strategy of \u201cprotracted people\u2019s war.\u201d The PPW was supposed to be structured in three stages<\/a>. It would start with small armed propaganda squads in the countryside and limited hit-and-run attacks. Gradually and systematically the NPA would organize support and recruit fighters to \u201caccumulate the strength to win bigger battles and campaigns to be able to move up to a higher stage of the war.\u201d In this second stage, \u201cthe strategic stalemate\u201d, the NPA would incorporate elements of regular warfare and its \u201cstrength shall be more or less on an equal footing with the enemy\u2019s.\u201d The third stage would be \u201cthe strategic offensive, when the enemy shall have been profoundly weakened.\u201d<\/p>\n

The PPW strategy posited that revolution in the Philippines would be an essentially military struggle. The populist rhetoric about \u201cserving the people\u201d did not change the fact that the CPP\u2019s vision of revolution was never a process of self-emancipation but rather a substitutionist seizure of power by the party on behalf of \u201cthe people.\u201d For the CPP, this strategy was the immediate consequence of its analysis of the Philippine social formation. The Philippines was assumed to be a country in which imperialism had locked social-economic development in a \u2018semi-feudal\u2019 stage, and the masses of landless peasants, born of that economic stagnation, were to be the base of the people\u2019s army.<\/p>\n

As the regime went into crisis and the movement grew, the limitations of this strategy became clear. On Mindanao, the large island in the south of the Philippine archipelago, there were more recruits than weapons. And to move from the first to the second stage, the fighters needed the kind of weapons that would allow them to engage government forces in longer battles. Quitoriano shows the NPA\u2019s dilemma in a chapter describing an attack by the NPA. After combining several units, the NPA ambushed an army transport. Well executed, the attack was initially successful and the guerrillas pinned down the government forces. But as soon as the government troops received reinforcements, the guerrillas were forced to retreat. Armed with nothing more than rifles, the NPA fighters were no match for a single armored vehicle.<\/p>\n

Without shoes<\/h4>\n

At the time of this attack, Quitoriano had been a party member for several years. He grew up in Misamis Oriental in northeastern Mindanao and was born in a farmer\u2019s family of small land-owners. Although considered better off because they owned their land, life was difficult. But Quitoriano was able to attend school and for college he entered a seminary. It is through Church circles that Quitoriano became politicized in the seventies. Initially, he was associated with the Khi Rho, a group of Catholic social-democrats. But the radical ideas propounded by the CPP and its satellite organizations became influential in progressive Catholic circles and Quitoriano ended up joining the armed struggle. There was no dramatic moment of radicalization or of opting for Maoism. For someone of his social background, this process of radicalization and the importance of progressive Catholicism was not atypical.<\/p>\n

In the first part of Deeper Grounds, Darker Shadows Quitoriano narrates his years as a party member in the Philippines, describing his joining the armed struggle as well as his arrest, imprisonment and torture. Quitoriano also introduces a recurring theme in the book; his \u2018selfishness\u2019 in wanting children while dedicating his life to the party, leaving his partner Agnes with the responsibility of caring for them. The CPP did not support families of those who worked full-time for the revolution. Such activists were expected to be able to organize the necessary support themselves. In practice this meant that many fell back on traditional patterns and women ended up carrying<\/a> most of the burden of the care work that made the full time political engagement of men possible.<\/p>\n

The first part of the book gives an insider view of the movement in the Philippines. In only six pages, the chapter \u2018Way sapatos\u2019, meaning \u2018without shoes\u2019, gives a fascinating picture of the early development of the NPA. The title refers to how upon joining the guerrilla, Quitoriano was told to get rid of \u2018petty-bourgeois\u2019 possessions like shoes and tooth-brush. Adopting a lifestyle that was poorer than many of the peasants they wanted to organize was propagandistically useful as it showed the revolutionaries\u2019 selflessness and dedication. But local realities do not match the crude categories of Maoist \u201cclass analysis\u201d, as was for example shown by a conversation with a leader of a indigenous community. After explaining to him the evils of the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos, Quitoriano and his comrade were politely asked, \u201cwho this Marcos was.\u201d The community was so isolated that roaming wild boars were a more pressing issue.<\/p>\n

\u201cWay sapatos\u201d also mentions a darker side to the NPA\u2019s functioning. To gain the support of local people, the NPA needed to make itself useful. Like other NPA members, Quitoriano \u201cassumed various roles\u201d; \u201chealth worker, legal advisor, marriage counselor, soldier and political broker.\u201d The NPA also \u201cgot rid\u201d of \u201cthieves, rapists, usurers and cattle rustlers.\u201d In the absence of a prison system, \u201cthe accused would face capital punishment and burial in unmarked graves.\u201d The cavalier way in which the NPA assumed the role of executioner would come back to haunt the movement in the \u201cpurges<\/a>\u201dthat wrecked it in the eighties.<\/p>\n

World traveler for the revolution<\/h4>\n

When Shigenobu offered to facilitate international travel for Quitoriano, his commander, Romulo \u201cRolly\u201d Kinatanar did not hesitate for a second. After the 1977 arrest of the CPP\u2019s first chairman and ideologue Jose Maria \u201cJoma\u201d Sison, a new leadership led the party to greater heights. Kintanar, who would be killed<\/a> in 2003 by his former comrades, became the overall commander of the NPA and built an overall command structure. It was Kintanar who asked Quitoriano to join this \u201cgeneral command\u201d and gave him the blessing to travel abroad.<\/p>\n

Whether Quitoriano visited the North-Korean Workers Party, Muammar Gaddafi, the Nicaraguan Sandinistas or Palestinian organizations sheltered by Syria, his pitch was the same: the NPA was fighting a U.S.-backed government, so any support they could give would weaken a common enemy. As a representative of the NPA\u2019s \u201cgeneral command\u201d, Quitoriano was not in a position to discuss political links. Quitoriano portrays himself as a loyal soldier, carrying out his assignment. But when describing the Byzantine worship of the Kim dynasty in North-Korea or Gaddafi\u2019s insistence that it is necessary to target the children of the enemy, it is clear what Quitoriano\u2019s feelings are.<\/p>\n

The concrete results of Quitoriano\u2019s travels were modest, or even useless, like the Libyans training NPA-members to drive tanks they did not have. Already in the late Cold War years, it was difficult to find a power that was willing and able to provide decisive support to the NPA.<\/p>\n

On paper, the CPP was a monolithic organization. Reality was more complicated. The archipelagic character of the country and the poor infrastructure made it difficult to concentrate forces but also provided the NPA with opportunities to evade government troops. The CPP adopted what it called \u201ccentralized leadership and decentralized operations.\u201d Cadre were responsible for specific regions and had to implement a \u201cgeneral line\u201d decided upon by the top leadership but to a large degree they were left to their own devices. They could go for months or sometimes even years without contact with the central leadership. Command structures often had an improvised character. The NPA was supposed to be led by a military commission but this commission was never convened. Kintanar instead formed the \u201cgeneral command\u201d from people he picked.<\/p>\n

When, after his release from prison in 1986, Sison again became party chairperson, he attempted to assert his authority over the NPA. But by this time, Sison was in exile in the Dutch city of Utrecht. According to Quitoriano, Kintanar \u201cworked hard to enable Sison to return home with his safety and security assured.\u201d But Sison was \u201cunwilling, preferring Utrecht\u2019s safe distance from the Philippine military.\u201d The result was deepening resentment between the two and conflicts over authority.<\/p>\n

Kintanar was first of all a soldier trying to address the question of how to move from one phase of \u201cpeople\u2019s war\u201d to another, a move that required specific skills and resources. The party\u2019s ideology was of little help here. It assumed that the growth of popular support and NPA military strength would correspond to each other in a process of linear development. The inspiration for this was a mythologized view of the Chinese and Vietnamese<\/a> revolutions, one that did not, among other factors, recognize the role of insurrections, foreign support, as well as international solidarity, and diplomacy.<\/p>\n

In the early 1980s the development of the revolutionary movement threw up questions that could not be addressed by the stereotyped notions of the Protracted Peoples\u2019 War. Urban protests and the mass movement outpaced predictions. And especially after the so-called \u201cgreen revolution<\/a>\u201d, the capitalist character of social relations in the country-side became more pronounced. The growth of a rural proletariat accelerated. Some activists, such as the head of the party\u2019s Mindanao commission, Edgar Jopson<\/a>, tried to develop alternative strategic notions. Rather than seeing the rural guerrilla as, per PPW definition, \u201cthe highest form of struggle\u201d the role of mass struggles, legal work and urban insurrections was re-evaluated.<\/p>\n

The principle of \u201ccentralized leadership and decentralized operations\u201d allowed a considerable degree of pluralism in practice but experiences that contradicted the PPW-strategy did not lead to a change in the party\u2019s orientation. The leadership rather tried to force the analysis of developments in the PPW framework. The PPW orthodoxy was not working out, but neither was an alternative strategy elaborated for the party.<\/p>\n

Things fall apart<\/h4>\n

In January 2003, two gunmen killed<\/a> Kintanar inside a restaurant. The CPP claimed responsibility, declaring a \u201cpeople\u2019s court<\/a>\u201d had sentenced Kinatanar to the \u201cmaximum penalty\u201d a decade earlier. Arrested in 1991, Kintanar had not rejoined the movement after his 1992 release. According to the CPP, Kintanar had been working for the government. The assination of Kintanar was part of a series<\/a> of killings<\/a> by the CPP of former members and other leftists.<\/p>\n

In the late 1980s\u00a0and early 1990s, a debate about strategy began to take place but this was cut short when Sison and his faction, supporters of Maoist orthodoxy and PPW, began expelling those they disagreed with. In 1992, Sison sent a statement to Philippine newspapers accusing<\/a> Kintanar and others of being enemy agents.<\/p>\n

Quitoriano portrays Jose Maria Sison as arrogant and out of his depth in international exchanges, a judgment<\/a> that corresponds with that of others. On the other hand, Quitoriano admires Kintanar, stressing his bravery and integrity. But some of Kintanar\u2019s decisions show questionable political instincts. According to Quitoriano, the NPA\u2019s 1987 announcement of a coming \u201cgeneral offensive\u201d\u00a0was a ruse, an attempt to distract the government army during an ultimately failed attempt by the NPA at bringing in weapons from North Korea. But what were the costs in terms of morale and credibility of announcing an offensive that never came? The single-minded pursuit of material resources also motivated what Quitoriano describes as \u201cdiving deep in the pernicious shadow economy\u201d; to \u201cencourage more daring\u201d efforts by militants, they were given \u201cincentives\u201d; \u201cthey could use part of their loot \u2013 cars, houses, guns and entertainment \u2013 as long as these things were justified as part of their operations.\u201d Such practices damaged the revolutionaries\u2019 credibility.<\/p>\n

In the end, it was the search for financial resources that would be the end of Quitoriano\u2019s revolutionary engagement. One of the concrete results of Quitoriano\u2019s travels was a gift of one million dollars from Gaddafi. Quitoriano describes how this money became mixed up with forged dollars supplied through the JRA. When a Dutch contact tried to deposit the sum in Swiss bank accounts, the forged bills were detected. The Dutch intermediary was arrested, the party lost access to over a million dollars. In the Netherlands, the affair triggered a scandal over the use of development aid to funnel money to armed revolutionaries. Quitoriano, whose association with Kintanar already made him suspect in Sison\u2019s eyes, was held responsible for the debacle.<\/p>\n

The book closes with an epilogue looking back at the purges mentioned before. Although Quitoriano was not involved directly, he does well not to ignore this horrible episode. At several points during the 1980s, CPP leaders became convinced that setbacks of the movement could be explained only as the result of sabotage from within. This led to hunts<\/a> for so-called \u201cdeep penetration agents.\u201d Not only were suspects assumed to be guilty, torture<\/a> was frequently used to make them \u201cconfess\u201d the names of co-conspirators. Predictably, this led to snowballing accusations as terrified victims said whatever they assumed their tormentors wanted to hear. Such \u201cconfessions\u201d were sufficient reason to murder people. Especially in Mindanao, the movement \u201cmutilated itself<\/a>.\u201d Well over 1000 people were murdered by their own comrades.<\/p>\n

Deeper Grounds, Darker Shadows<\/em> could be read as a morality tale. What started out as a heroic endeavor by shoeless guerrillas who as a kind of militant mendicant monks wanted to serve the people, ended up in criminal affairs and fratricidal murder. But such an interpretation would leave out other aspects, equally essential to the history Quitoriano describes. For example, how armed struggle, with all its demands, was essential to maintain resistance against the Marcos regime, even if the specific strategy of the People\u2019s War turned out to be a dead end. The CPP rose to be a mass movement, driven forward by ordinary people fighting for a better life for the poor and oppressed. Its successes, its failure and also its crimes are part of the development of the Philippine Left and need to be kept in mind by those working for a socialist alternative.<\/p>\n

\nOpinions expressed in signed articles do not necessarily represent the views of the editors or the Tempest Collective. For more information, see \u201cAbout Tempest Collective<\/a>.\u201d<\/em><\/small>\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Alex de Jong reviews the memoir of Eddie L. Quitoriano, a Filipino revolutionary and member of the \u201cGeneral Command\u201d of the Maoist Communist Party of the Philippines in the 1980s and 1990s.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":359,"featured_media":14781,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,11],"tags":[284,271],"class_list":["post-14779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-article","category-review","tag-philippines","tag-revolutionary-left"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/2.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/359"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14779"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14779\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14781"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tempestmag.org\/test02\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}