Rudy Liporada: The Jennifer “Maria” Carino NPA Command
- Published on Saturday, 18 February 2012 14:20
- Category: Opinions
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As news of the March 29, 2011, 42nd year founding anniversary of the New Peoples’ Army splashed on press media and the internet, my memory jolted me back to a clipping I saved way back in 2006. The item of February 18, 2006 read:
Another daring NPA raid yields numerous firearms, this time in Benguet
February 10. Benguet. -- Additional twenty-three firearms were added to the arsenal of NPA when a small-sized platoon of Jennifer “Maria” Cariño Command (JMCC) successfully raided and overran the 54th IB and CAFGU detachment at Cabiten, Mankayan. As the government soldiers tried to defend their camp, two 54th IB elements and a CAFGU paramilitary were killed. The Red fighters seized one M203, four M16, seven M14, eleven Garand and plenty of ammunitions and packs.
Jennifer Cariño in 1968 was not a command. She was a real person and my classmate. And there was no New People’s Army to talk about. Only Jennifer was real. We knew her better as Jing-jing. With thick jet black and wiry hair, she strolled through the University of the Philippines - Baguio campus with the air of confidence although she smoked with trembling hands. Her long eye lashes accented her penetrating and contemplating eyes which could switch to being jovial in moments of her friendliness. Those moments could be plenty once you get to know her. Her face was sculptured to an ethnic beauty of Igorot and Cebuano combined – aquiline nose, tiny pursed lips. She exuded such a beauty that it was intimidating.
Always on intellectual high gear, she was always asking the proper questions that made our instructors flinch. Ones (or A’s in the American academic vernacular) were cheesecakes for her in quizzes and exams. She was never satisfied with simple answers. Somehow, to her, there is always something far beyond beneath a fact.
Her brains and beauty made her almost untouchable, most often alone anywhere on the grass spreads of the campus with a book on her lap and popping a cigarette.
But we talked about her. The grapevine told me that she wanted to become a nun at the age of sixteen or something but that the mother superior advised her to seek out other opportunities outside of the nunnery walls first. If and when she is truly convinced that the life of prayer in isolation and service to the Lord was really what she wanted, she could decide to come back. She really wanted to help the poor even if only in prayers. Frustrated that she could not, she also turned to the bottle even passing out in disco places because of being overwhelmed by the spirits.
Later on, I would find out that her ancestors used to own the lands which are now known as the John Hay complex grounds in Baguio City. At that time, I did not know if she or her family cared. For sure, I did not. All I know is she comes from a well-to-do clan.
During our junior year, I noticed a change in Jennifer. She has become more gregarious. I did not know at that time what happened during the semestral break, but there was Jennifer running for the student council and the banner holder of their Partido Progresibo. Their platform included lowering of tuition fees and removal of the Spanish courses which were deemed not necessary. She would move on to be in the forefront of student activism sweeping the country in this part of the Islands. Her once reserved voice blared anti-imperialist, anti-feudal, and other “ism” slogans. Unless you got involved with activism at that time, it was hard to comprehend the transformation of Jing-jing from one who wanted to be a nun, a very intelligent lady at that, into a ranting accepted norms perturber.
Then there were trickles of news regarding a newly founded New People’s Army (NPA). As history unfolded, the NPA was founded in March 29, 1969 under the leadership of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP). According to Amado Guerrero, then CPP chariman, the NPA started with sixty fighters armed with nine automatic rifles and twenty-six single shot rifles and handguns in the second district of Tarlac. They were initially confined in Central Luzon and in the early 70’s, expanded to Isabela. The Philippine Armed Forces (PAF) of the government regarded the NPA as a mere ragtag group that could be quashed in no time.
In tune with growing student activism, workers unionism and picket fights, however, the NPA appeared to be growing in Isabela. Martial law was then declared even when NPAs were only known to be operating in only negligible fronts.
I do not really know what happened to Jing-jing except to hear that she had joined the NPAs somewhere in Benguet in Northern Luzon. I would also later on hear that she had died in the mountains.
Perhaps, many would not understand why she joined the NPAs. Could there be some religious implications since at first, she wanted to be a nun but did not find what she wanted in the confines of a convent? Could her inquisitive mind have led her to truths that may be just eluding many us because, for now, we have not really searched enough?
Maybe answers will come if we really ask ourselves, how could Jing-jing, coming from a well-to-do family and possessing such academic prowess that could have propelled her to high echelons in the professional or business world, leave everything behind for a presumed hard life in the mountains?
Maybe the answer eludes many.
What I am only sure of is: a unit of the NPA has been named after her. This only means that the NPA of before is now a far cry from what it has become. According to the PAF itself, the NPA is now at least 7,000 strong operating all over the archipelago in units called by names like the Jennifer “Maria” Cariño command.
The PAF is still talking about quashing the NPA. In spite of the Operation Bantay Laya I and II during the term of Gloria Arroyo, however, the NPA continued to grow to its present state. The NPA even now claim that they could reach a strategic stalemate with the PAF within five years. According to the NPA, their guerilla warfare against the Philippine Government will be done in three stages. First and where they are now is the Strategic Defensive where the PAF is very much larger than the NPA. In this stage, the NPA do ambuscades and grab arms from the PAF to grow the guerilla forces. The NPA in this stage would just do hit and run attacks against the PAF. In the second stage, the Strategic Stalemate, the NPA would have equaled the PAF forces after growing its ranks mostly from the peasantry who the NPA defines as the most oppressed class in the Philippines. In the last stage, the Strategic Offensive, the NPAs would have more forces than the PAF and would be able to overrun the government akin to the final Tet Offensive in Vietnam which defeated the combined forces of the United States Armed Forces and the Armed Forces of South Vietnam – where over 50,000 American troops have died.
Pinning the NPA to be the cause of the worsening economic and social conditions in the Philippines is not also working. The NPA claims that the roots of the economic and social ills of the Islands had deeply embedded themselves within the Philippine fabric before they started and continue to worsen which cause the people to become adherents of the guerilla movement. To date, the NPA is noted as the longest running communist guerilla movement in the world. The CPP also declare that the ongoing Peace Talks with the Philippine Government could only be sustained as long as a prolonged truce be not a prerequisite – which to the CPP is tantamount to laying down of arms or surrender.
So, if the PAF have not quashed the NPA when the ragtag group was only in Central Luzon and the Cagayan Valley, how could they quash it now — when we read news of NPA successful ambuscades against the PAF all over the Islands? Couple this with the riddling corruption within the ranks of the PAF which should cause more rifts among the echelons and demoralization among the files.
If the NPA could not be quashed and continue to flourish, perhaps, Jing-jing, her kind, and especially what she believed in, have something to do with it. #
