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Philippines Financing and Foreign Support
The CPP traditionally relied on "revolutionary taxes" as the
principal income for what the communists portrayed as a selfsufficient , home-grown movement. In the areas where they were
active, CPP and NPA cadres obtained funds from individuals and
businesses through a combination of coercion and persuasion. The
party's peasant supporters usually were more forthcoming,
providing a few pesos and supplies such as rice to local
guerrilla fighters. However, the CPP obtained most of its funds
by extorting money from businesses--such as logging, mining, and
planting--that operated in guerilla zones. NPA units commonly
promised not to foment labor strikes, restrict the transport of
goods, destroy company property, or assassinate executives in
return for money or material support. The communists enforced
their threats through NPA attacks on uncooperative owners and
businesses. In addition, the rebels derived some revenues from
growing and selling marijuana in remote areas.
During the 1980s, foreign nongovernment financing, mainly
from sympathetic leftist groups in Western Europe, but also from
the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, and other Asian
countries, became increasingly important to the rebels. By 1990
the AFP chief of staff estimated that support from foreign
sympathizers netted the CPP from US$6 million to US$9 million
annually, an amount that rivaled the estimated US$7.5 to US$10
million that the CPP netted in domestic revenues. Increased
foreign donations resulted in part from intensified
"international solidarity work" by the communist-controlled
National Democratic Front through its international office in the
Netherlands. Luis Jalandoni, a former Catholic priest, headed the
CPP's fund-raising and international liaison efforts. He was
joined in this work by Jose Maria Sison, the CPP's founder and
reputed chairman in absentia, following Sison's release by Aquino
in 1986. Donated monies frequently were funneled through party
front groups, such as the KMU labor federation.
The CPP also began to appeal openly for support from
sympathetic foreign governments for the first time during the
late 1980s. Although there was no evidence that any foreign
government had responded to the CPP's request in 1990, this
campaign represented a dramatic departure from the communists'
self-reliant approach, long a source of pride. (Two Chinese
attempts to ship weapons to the Philippine communists--in 1972
and 1974--were intercepted by the AFP. Chinese support apparently
ended in 1975.) The policy reversal resulted from the CPP's
conclusion that more and better weapons were needed to escalate
the war against government forces and that domestic revenues
could not be increased without aggravating growing popular
resentment of rebel taxation.
Data as of June 1991
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