Photo from Malacañang Palace
To understand the modern Philippines, we must look at the legacy of the Philippine Underground Movement, whose deep historical roots stretch back long before the Marcos dictatorship.
These origins speak to centuries of struggle against unfair rule. Theirs is a story of the long fight for justice, land, and freedom that created today’s resistance movements.
The book Chasing Windmills by Maya Butalid helps center this long narrative within a more familiar frame. A part of her story shows us how past battles planted seeds for future fights.
The modern underground movement is not new. It is a new chapter in a very old story of Filipino people standing up for their rights.
Photo from Wikicommons
The Deep Historical Roots of Struggle
The historical roots of modern revolutionary thought in the Philippines begin with colonial resistance. For over 300 years, Spain ruled the Philippines with a harsh hand. The empire seized land from indigenous peoples and demanding high taxes from those forced to serve their colonies.
Filipino farmers and workers lived in abject poverty.
But they never stopped fighting back despite the odds.
From the very start, there was resistance against foreign rule, with early leaders like Lapu-Lapu fighting the forces of Magellan when they first set foot in the archipelago.
Later, as the Spanish presence grew, bigger revolts erupted across the islands with people rebelling against unfair taxes, forced labor, and the control of their land by Spanish friars.
These early rebels may not have used modern words like “revolution,” but their goal was the same: to reclaim their freedom and their way of life.
It was about the right to live with dignity in the land of your birth.
The Katipunan and a Nation’s Dream
This long history of anger culminated in 1896 with the rise of the Katipunan. Led by Andres Bonifacio, this was the first true underground movement aiming for national freedom: a secret society that united Filipinos from different regions and social classes.
For the first time, a clear vision for an independent Philippine nation was born from below, from the people themselves.
The Katipunan proved that organized colonial resistance in the Philippines could shake an empire. Their struggle showed a key part of Filipino revolutionary history: the power of the masses coming together in secret to plan for a better future.
This spirit—of great sacrifice for national freedom—has become a dormant part of the Filipino psyche. Even when new colonizers arrived.
New Colonizer, Same Struggles
After a short period of independence from Spain, the United States quickly took control of the Philippines.
For many Filipinos, this was not liberation but just a change of masters; thus, the social roots of Philippine rebellion grew even stronger as American business interests took over vast areas of land for plantations, pushing many Filipino farmers off the land their families had worked for generations.
Poverty and inequality simply continued.
Resistance continued, as well, with figures like Macario Sakay leading guerrilla forces against American rule. Peasant groups, often called Colorums or Guardia de Honor, staged many uprisings in the countryside. They were fighting for the same things their ancestors fought for: land and self-rule.
As Chasing Windmills suggests, the core issues have nevertheless remained unchanged for centuries:
“The central promise of the revolution—land for those who till it—remained unfulfilled.”
The Old Fight for Land and Justice
The Hukbalahap (Huks) began as a guerrilla army fighting the Japanese occupation. But after the war had passed and the Philippines was granted independence, they turned their focus to the new government.
Their primary demand was simple and old: give land to the farmers.
The Huk Rebellion shows the powerful social roots of the Philippine rebellion: a movement of poor farmers in Central Luzon, who had grown tired of being controlled by wealthy landlords.
The Huks organized villages, built their own justice systems, and fought a protracted guerrilla war.
Although the government eventually defeated them militarily, the Huk movement was crucial because it proved that a large-scale, organized peasant rebellion was still possible in modern times.
The struggle of the Huks trained a generation of leaders in guerrilla tactics and mass organizing, and, most importantly, it kept the land issue at the center of Philippine politics.
The ideas and methods of the Huks would directly influence the next generation of activists, creating a clear line in revolutionary history.
Building the Modern Movement
By the 1960s, the historical roots of discontent had reached deep: a history of colonial abuse, extreme poverty, and landlessness, all intertwined to oppress the Filipino people.
In universities, a new generation of students began to read about these old struggles, getting introduced to new ideas about socialism and national liberation.
They began to connect the dots of the eternal struggle that troubled the Philippines and saw that the problems of their time—the rich getting richer, the poor getting poorer, and the government serving foreign interests—were not new. The problems the Filipinos suffered then, they still suffer now.
Photo from Wikicommons
They began to see the Katipunan, the Colorums, and the Huks as their ancestors in struggle, arguing that the Philippines was not truly free; it was now just controlled by a new elite and foreign companies.
From this analysis, the background of the modern national democratic movement emerged, which aimed to complete the revolution that Bonifacio and the Katipunan began.
This movement would combine the historical roots of peasant rebellion with the power of organized workers and students, creating a new kind of politics that was deeply Filipino and aimed at total national and social liberation that would emerge bright after a great period of tumult.
A Legacy Written in Struggle
The long historical roots—from the first battle against colonization to the peasant uprisings for land—provided the soil in which the modern underground movement could grow.
The anti-Marcos struggle was a significant battle in a war that started long, long ago.
Understanding this long revolutionary history is key to understanding the Philippines today; regardless, the fight for a just society continues, still fed by these deep historical roots.
To truly dive into this gripping and human story of resistance, get your copy of Maya Butalid’s Chasing Windmills and see how the Filipino revolutionary spirit manifested during the Marcos years.
