27 Facts About Luis Taruc

Luis Taruc was the leader of the Hukbalahap group between 1942 and 1950.

Luis Taruc's involvement with the movement came after his initiation to the problems of agrarian Filipinos when he was a student in the early 1930s.

The latter merged with the Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas as part of the Common Front strategy, and Luis Taruc assumed the role of Commander-in-Chief of the military wing created to fight the Japanese.

The Luis Taruc faction opposed the parity rights that the US required from post-independence Philippines as a condition for rehabilitation funding.

Luis Mangalus Taruc was born of peasant stock in the barrio of Santa Monica, township of San Luis, Pampanga on 21 June 1913.

Luis Taruc attended to the University of Manila for two years, studying medicine and law, but no longer able to afford the expenses, returned to Batasan without getting a degree to set up a tailor shop with his brother.

Luis Taruc was influenced by Pedro Abad Santos, a Marxist, whom Luis regarded as a true socialist.

Luis Taruc's wife died in Dec 1938, suffering from goiter and anemia.

Luis Taruc would serve time in prison three times before the war, in his struggle for the militant workers' and peasants' unions.

Luis Taruc was killed by government soldiers on 11 April 1952.

Luis Taruc was elected to the Philippine House of Representatives in 1946 as a member of the Democratic Alliance.

In particular, Luis Taruc opposed the Bell Trade Act, the Parity Amendment to the Constitution, and the Military Bases Agreement.

Luis Taruc went underground in late 1946, following failed negotiations with President Roxas, and the Huks soon numbered 10,000 armed fighters.

In January 1953, Luis Taruc was suspended from the Politburo and Secretariat for his "Call for Peace".

On 15 June 1954, Luis Taruc met with President Magsaysay and Gen.

Eulogio Balao at Camp Murphy, where Luis Taruc agreed to a trial.

Luis Taruc's trial started in August 1954, where he pleaded guilty to rebellion, "in the spirit of my agreement with the president", and sentenced to 12 years of imprisonment, plus a "huge fine".

From 1956 to 1958, Luis Taruc was put on trial for the execution of Feliciano Gardiner, Japanese occupation governor of Tarlac, for which he was found guilty and sentenced to four life sentences.

Luis Taruc was pardoned by President Ferdinand Marcos on September 11,1968, and Marcos gained the former Huk leader's support.

Luis Taruc dictated Born of the People to American communist and ghost writer William Pomeroy.

Luis Taruc used Alipato, meaning "spark that spreads a fire", as his pseudonym.

In 1985, Taruc would tell F Sionil Jose that one of the reasons for the failure of the insurgency was that dissenters were killed.

Luis Taruc said that dogmatic fundamentalism scared away many potential allies.

In 2003, he explained to historian Keith Thor Carlson that he attributed the revolution's failure to the dogmatism of members of the politburo's Russian-trained elite, in particular Jose and Jesus Lava, an accusation that runs contrary to the views of the Lavas and William Pomeroy who countered that Luis Taruc suffered from a cult of personality.

Several Huk veterans organizations dispute the credit heaped on Luis Taruc for organizing the Hukbalahap during World War II.

On May 4,2005, Luis Taruc died of a heart attack in St Luke's Medical Center in Quezon City at the age of 91, a month before his 92nd birthday.

Many political figures went to Luis Taruc's wake to pay respect and give support to his family.