Democracy in Hukland

"The Huks are fighting the government mainly because they want a house and land of their own," said the Philippines' Defense Secretary Ramon Magsaysay. "All right, they can stop fighting, because I will give them a house and land."

Escorted to the ship by the dynamic Secretary himself, a batch of 75 Communist guerrillas, who had surrendered or been captured in the hills of Luzon, set sail with their families for sparsely populated Mindanao, where they would farm their own land. At first, the Huks who had volunteered for Magsaysay's resettlement program were doubtful. Some half suspected they were walking into a trap. Six days later their doubts vanished when government trucks carried them into a vast resettlement farm at Kapatagan, and they found rows of neat, new houses and 16,000 acres of fertile land waiting for them. Said one of the settlers: "I guess Magsaysay was not kidding us after all."

That day, the farm commandant held a lottery and assigned each Huk family a house on a 2,000-sq. ft. lot and a 15-to 25-acre parcel of farm land. There were difficulties: the Huks had no money; the women did not have enough cooking utensils; there was little bedding, no mosquito nets to ward off the malaria-bearing anophele, no electric wiring in the houses. Bustling Secretary Magsaysay promptly chewed out the commander. "I promised these settlers electric lights," he roared. "If there's anything I hate it's being unable to keep my word."

Last week, as the second batch of 100 Huk settlers reached Mindanao, the camp had electric lights. It also had plenty of pots & pans, plates, spoons, forks, bedding, cigarettes, mosquito nets, a radio-phonograph with the latest U.S. records, a new commander.

Magsaysay meanwhile was busy with two more projects:

1) A carpentry shop at Manila's Camp Murphy, operated by reformed Huks. This month, making mess tables for the Philippine army, the shop netted a profit of $582. Said Foreman Manuel Caiyot, a onetime Huk leader known as Ahmad the Killer: "I didn't believe it, but here we are, doing business with the army and getting cash instead of bullets."

2) A second resettlement area right in the heart of Huk-infested Luzon. Said Magsaysay: "I'll, make it a model farm with comfortable beds, refrigerators and movies. It will be the show window of democracy in Hukland. It will attract the Huks like a jukebox attracts teen-agers."

According to latest government estimates, 8,000-10,000 Huk guerrillas still lurk in the Philippine hills, and enough more are joining them each day to make up for those captured or surrendered. Defense Secretary Magsaysay hopes that he can lick the Huk problem "in maybe five years." But fighting Huks--as well as giving them land--is expensive. "Only God knows," says the Secretary, "whether our government can spend $89 million every year for five years and still live."

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