Friends and Enemies: The Philippines and Cuba during the Cold War

This year marks the 60th anniversary of the first bilateral document signed between the Philippines and Cuba, the Treaty of Friendship which was signed on 03 September 1952 in Washington D.C. by former Philippine Foreign Secretary Carlos P. Romulo and then-Ambassador of Cuba to the United States, Mr. Aurelio Concheso. However in just a little more than nine years after signing the Treaty, the two countries found themselves in competing camps during the Cold War. This is the story of the Philippines and Cuba during the Cold War.

Bilateral relations between the two countries have seen highs and lows through the years, but the nadir was probably reached in 1961. This was when the Cuban Embassy in Manila was forced to close down after the Philippine Government expelled the former’s top diplomat due to alleged subversive activities. Until today, no official explanation has been issued on the expulsion of the Cuban diplomat. Reading the signs of times may just give a plausible explanation.

1961 was the year when the Invasion of the Bay of Pigs happened. The Philippines was firmly on the side of the United States during the Cold War being a former colony of the latter, while Fidel Castro and his band of revolutionaries had just cast their lot with the Soviet Union after seizing power on 01 January 1959.

As early as 1960, the United States was busy arming and training Cuban exiles to oust Castro. This is where the Philippines, or more accurately, the participation of some Filipinos, came into the picture. It can be argued that the participation of said Filipinos was not officially cleared by the Philippine government.

In 1954, the Philippines had just won its own battle against Communist Huk insurgents with the covert assistance of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The top CIA spook in Manila then was Edward G. Lansdale, who acted as an adviser to then-Defense Minister Ramon Magasaysay, who was himself a former anti-Japanese guerrilla leader.

The Huks were former left-wing anti-Japanese guerrillas who later waged war against the new Philippine Republic from 1946-1954. By 1950, the Huk rebellion was successfully contained after the capture of its leader, Luis Taruc. Magsaysay got the credit for ending the Huk rebellion, which later propelled him to the presidency.

There is very little appreciation of the crucial role the CIA played in defeating the Huks. It was through the help of the CIA that Magsaysay was able to organize what was called then as Battalion Combat Teams (BCTs). These were essentially Special Forces batallions which were designed to beat the insurgency. The BCTs were instrumental in militarily defeating the Huks. They employed dirty tricks tactics, such as, psychological warfare, infiltration, water torture and hamleting.

One of those who excelled in the battle of against the Huks was Col. Napoleon Valeriano, an ROTC graduate from University of the Philippines (UP) – Diliman. He later headed the most feared of these BCTs, the infamous Nenita Unit. This unit bore as its insignia a skull-and-crossbones banner, thus earning the monicker – the Skull Squadron. Valeriano’s unit later earned so much notoriety that a municipal council in the Philippine Province of Nueva Ecija published a resolution keeping them out of the town.

When the United States began formulating a strategy to subvert the Castro regime, the CIA turned to two of their most successful black ops operatives at that time – Lansdale and Valeriano. These personalities would later play major roles in the controversial Phoenix Program in Vietnam.

Col. Valeriano started helping train Cuban exile infiltration groups in Louisiana who were bound for the Escambray Mountains in Cuba. On the other hand, Lansdale led Operation Mongoose, whose aim was to assassinate Fidel Castro by all means necessary.

The nascent Cuban Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR) was, at that time, fighting a low-level insurgency against a thousand anti-Castro guerrillas in the Escambray Mountains. These ragtag anti-Castro rebels were led by an American, William Morgan, who was later killed by the Castro regime.

When the US government decided to ante up the pressure against Castro, the covert subversion activities become an overt preparation for an invasion by Cuban exiles. Valeriano was tasked with helping train these Cuban exiles.

Valeriano is fondly remembered as El Chino Viejo by the survivors of Brigade 2506, the codename of the Cuban expatriate invasion task force. As was the case for many educated Filipinos in that time, Valeriano spoke Spanish and English, and thus was the perfect intermediary for the Americans for the invasion force.

It is also a little known fact that some Filipino volunteers, along with a motley crew of White Russians, Poles, Germans, South Koreans, Slovaks and Americans, were members of the so-called Falcons. These were foreign volunteers whose responsibilities included, among others, training the exile force and flying infiltrators into Cuban countryside in support of the coming invasion.

Air support or the lack of it was crucial in the defeat of the exile invasion force in Playa Giron or, as it is known in the US, the Bay of Pigs. Analysts could also point out that the the small invading force was overreliant on a perceived general uprising against Castro that was supposed to follow their invasion, to be led by the insurgents in Escambray Mountains. This general uprising never materialized. Fidel Castro had the invasion force penetrated from the start. He quickly had every perceived enemy locked up immediately after the invasion.

It was President John F. Kennedy who withheld air support from the invasion force. This sealed the fate of the tragic Cuban brigade. JFK was looking for plausible deniability in the event of the invasion’s failure. And failed it did due to his clumsy decision-making. Nowadays, the synonym for the word traitor in Calle Ocho, Miami, which is the epicenter of the city’s Cuban-American community, is known as a kenedito.

At the height of the Cold War, the Philippines and Cuba found themselves in opposite camps. This was only nine years after signing a Treaty of Friendship. Some Filipinos were thrust in the forefront of abetting Cuban exiles in their bid to oust Fidel Castro.

The participation of these Filipinos, although not officially sanctioned by the Philippine Government, must have been known to the Castro regime. In a span of one year, the Cuban top diplomat in Manila would be declared persona-non-grata by the Philippine government for reasons unknown. The Cuban Embassy would be forced to close down immediately after that.

According to wild rumors I heard in Cuba, the sugar cane-producing Negros Island in the Philippines came up as an alternative base of operations for Che Guevara after his failed Congo adventure. It is said that Che Guevara was of the belief that the sacadas (sugar cane harvesters) of Negros Island were ripe for a rebellion.

Of course, Che Guevara would go on to embark on a failed rebellion in Bolivia, where the CIA, employing the same tactics used by the BCTs in the Philippines ,successfully cornered him near Cochabamba. Cuban exiles and, some say, Filipino advisers, played crucial roles in organizing the Bolivian battalions that pursued Che’s infiltrators. The tactics of these Bolivian forces were essentially copied from the anti-Huk BCT playbook.

It’s not clear if Che Guevara indeed contemplated on starting a rebellion in Negros Island in the Philippine as payback to Filipino participation in the covert operations against the Castro regime. In hindsight, Che Guevara was right in that respect because the Maoist National People’s Army (NPA) would be established in 1969. It continues to be the longest running Communist insurgency in Asia.

Cubans and Filipinos would later find themselves in competing sides in the battlefields of Vietnam. In Philippines’ case, a fighting force called the Philippine Civic Action Group (PHILCAG), was deployed to South Vietnam. As earlier mentioned, Valeriano and Lansdale played important roles in the controversial Phoenix Program, which was desgined to kill, assasinate, and destroy Vietcong guerillas.

Therefore, it can be argued that American black operations during the entire Cold War heavily followed the playbook employed during the operations against the Huks in the Philippines. Such tactics were later used by the Americans in their clandestine tactics against the PKI in Indonesia, the Vietcong in Vietnam, against Che Guevara’s band of infiltrators in Bolivia and against Castro himself in Cuba.

So much for being “friends.

Philippine-Cuban bilateral relations was repaired in 1975 when the dictator Ferdinand Marcos sent his wife, Imelda Marcos, to negotiate directly with Fidel Castro in Havana. Marcos had just successfuly negotiated a similar rapprochement with Libya’s Muamar Gaddhafi and China’s Deng Xiao Peng.

Legend has it that Imelda demanded that Fidel Castro himself should meet her at the airport and drive her around Havana. This rumor was, by the way, confirmed by one of her grandsons, who visited Havana in 2012. Imelda successfuly negoatied a rapproachement with Cuba. In 1976, Cuba reopened its Embassy in Manila. The Philippines followed suit and opened its Embassy in Havana in 1984.

Fast forward 28 years later, Philippine-Cuban relations has again reached a new low. The Philippines has decided to close down its Embassy in Havana due to, for creative reasons, austerity measures. Havana reciprocated by announcing the impeding closure of its Embassy in Manila. I am afraid that we may no longer have another force of nature like Imelda Marcos to restore what had been foolishly cast off.