Amigo warfare 2.0

ON Feb. 19, 2024, my “Pugad Bloggers” (at DZRJ 810 AM) co-host and fellow micro-blogger, Maricar Serrano, managed to recruit the former spokesman for President Rodrigo Duterte, Ernesto Abella, as a last-minute guest. It was my first time meeting him, albeit online.

Abella was surprisingly interested in my approach to the analysis of Philippine politics using history, and he invited me to be a guest in his own show, “Kapehan ni Tatay: Ernie Abella with Anna Sotto,” on Thursday, Feb. 29, 2024. The topic for that episode was “Amigo Warfare,” which is a term that I got from Reynaldo Ileto’s book, ”Knowledge and Pacification: On the US Conquest and the Writing of Philippine History” (Ateneo University Press, 2017).

I have used this concept before in my column for this paper dated Nov. 19, 2021 to talk about the last-minute moves on the final day of substitution for the presidential elections of May 9, 2022. “Amigo warfare,” according to Ileto, was the term the Americans coined for the type of warfare the Filipinos used against them during the Filipino-American War: “The Filipinos were friends during the day or when confronted, but at night or when no one was looking, they were guerrillas.”

The context of amigo warfare during the Filipino-American War begins with the preponderance of military power utilized by the United States during the war. According to some sources, the United States at some point deployed 70,000 troops to a country that only had about 6 million population. By comparison, the current strength of the Armed Forces of the Philippines is at 150,000 troops for a population of roughly 110 million people.

In contrast with Spanish colonial rule, where everything other than military power was used for conquest, the Americans relied on the principle of “Civilizing ‘em with a Krag” to assert US colonial rule in the Philippines at the outset. “Krag” is short for the Krag-Jorgensen, a repeating bolt-action rifle used by the United States to arm troops during the Filipino-American War.

In the face of such potent military force, Batangueño guerrilla fighters under the leadership of Gen. Miguel Malvar such as Colonels Ladislao Masangcay — former gobernadorcillo (town mayor) of Tiaong — and Norberto Mayo — originally from Lipa but moved to Tiaong at the age of 10 and eventually a militar ilustrado (educated person) — “practiced… [a type of warfare that] depended much on evasion, dissimulation and… straddling and shifting of identities while waiting for aid and eventual independence.”

Amigo warfare is quite convoluted. For instance, Malvar conceived of a way to exploit the American policy of attraction with the elite through the holding of local elections in 1901.

His instructions regarding the elections were: “If the Americans insist on the election of presidentes (i.e., town mayors – VY), councilmen and village headmen, the military chiefs and revolutionary mayors (jefes locales) should ensure that those who are installed are people we are thoroughly acquainted with, who will not turn their backs on their compatriots and are recognized for their ability to take the Americans for a ride (marunong bumilog ng ulo ng mga Amerikano).”

As a matter of survival, the town mayors elected under US auspices had to walk a fine line between earning the trust and confidence of the Americans and covertly providing aid and assistance to the guerrillas. The American officers assigned to various localities in the Philippines during the FilipinoAmerican War were often ignorant of everything that was happening in their midst and were frequently fed false or misleading information. The mayors were generally more wary of the guerrillas because they were townmates who had deep roots and connections in the area. It was often easier to get along with the Americans who relied quite heavily on the assistance of the local officials.

History mirrors the fluidity of current Philippine politics.

Ordinarily, national politicians never really waste too much time with local politicians. Thoughtful local politicians, however, immediately realize that national politicians above them could easily crush them should the need (or desire) arise. Thus, the relationship between them is something that needs to be managed properly to their benefit.

Conflict sometimes comes between national and local politicians. At that point, skilled local politicians rely on deception, deflection, evasion and other strategies to keep the political colossi breathing down their necks at bay. They know to camouflage all of their moves and take advantage of every small opportunity afforded them by the circumstances.

Often playing for survival or incremental rise in position at most, local politicians do not usually make a successful jump straight into the highest levels of politics — Duterte is the only one to have done it so far. When they do, it means they have mastered Philippine politics, and that makes them very deadly indeed.