SPORADIC FIGHTING CONTINUES IN CENTRAL LUZON

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 90, Issue 167, 22 July 1946, Page 5

SPORADIC FIGHTING CONTINUES IN CENTRAL LUZON

CRISIS APPROACHING Recd. 8.15 p.m. Manila, July 20. Sporadic fighting between military police and armed Hukbalahap peasants is reported over the entire Central Luzon area. The Manila Press reports 10,000 Hukbalahads are massing in Nueva Ecija, in the path of a military armed column which is pursuing a Hukbalahap group retreating north after heavy fighting, which lasted two days. The Hukbalahap leader, Taruc, announced that the Secretary of the Interior, Zulueta, has accepted his offer to return to the provinces and personally appeal for the end of bloodshed. Taruc will confer with Roxas before leaving on a mission on which he will be accompanied by an officer of the Interior Department and a military police escort. Taruc declared the situation was fast approaching a crisis. “Our people are being hunted down like animals and the fighting also has caused the killing of many innocent , peasant women and children,” Taruc said. The root of the problem was ! economic. I One per cent, of the population [owned 95 per cent, of the land in Pampanga, and less than 95 per cent. !of. the land in other Central Luzon provinces. Big hacienda owners who wished to return to pre-war semifeudalism were backing the Provincial Governor’s mailed fist. A spokesman for the plantation owners denied feudalistic desires, asserting that the bulk of the peasants were peaceful, but were continually stirred up by roving lawless bands, which must, be eliminated.