Word: magsaysays
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Back in Manila I informed President Magsaysay of the possibility of bringing Taruc back alive. The President referred me to the stern peace terms he had just offered the Huks...
...President would not budge from these terms. Nor did he need to. The Philippine army, reinvigorated since Magsaysay took over, was scoring fresh victories. The dry season was setting in, allowing the troops to penetrate to the deepest Huk lairs, particularly the Candaba swamp which was Taruc's favorite refuge. A turning point had been reached: there were solid indications that the antirebel drive was sapping the morale as well as the armed strength of the hard-pressed enemy...
Taruc evidently was being squeezed by the mounting pres sure. Through a courier he sent me a note asking for a meeting with Magsaysay himself, "whenever and wherever" the President desired. Magsaysay refused. "I will not give him the importance of meeting me," he said. As far as the President was concerned, Taruc was a common criminal, wanted for murder and sedition. He could either accept the government's terms or suffer the consequences at the hands of the Philippine army...
...biggest prize taken in the eight-year-old war against the Huk guerrillas. Looking relaxed and confident, Taruc announced that he had"come down" because of"a deep conviction of the sincerity of the President . . . to work out a program which will give peace and prosperity." Magsaysay's terms, he said,"laid the basis of negotiations," and he was now "joining the forces of law and order...
...amnesty, returned to his seat in the Philippine Congress (to which he was elected in the liberation days of 1946), collected his back pay, and skedaddled back to the Luzon hills. This time, snapped General Jesus Vargas, the army's chief of staff, no deal had been made; Magsaysay owed Taruc nothing."We have the upper hand. Why should we grant conditions...