Kumander Sisa – Hukbalahap Anti-Japanese Guerrillas’ Top Woman Leader in WWII
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Felicidad “Feleng” Sicangco del Rosario alias Kumander Sisa
In recent years, this leadership role was inadvertently credited to Felipa Culala, but records from the National Archives, in accordance with intelligence reports and correspondence from the U.S. Army, prove that Feleng was the only woman in the Military Council and the spokesperson for Hukbalahap Commander Luis Taruc (alias Juan de la Cruz). She was labeled by U.S. intelligence as a conservative socialist as well as a “friend of the people,” in contrast to other members who were allegedly rabid communists. She was the only woman in the Hukbalahap to negotiate directly with the US Philippine Island Forces (USPIF).
To understand the story of Feleng, one must dig deep into her family’s long history of sacrifice and heroism. Her activism was rooted in several generations of two families-- the del Rosario and Abad Santos clans--that fought the tyranny of the Spanish, Americans, and Japanese forces.
Her husband Agapito Del Rosario’s maternal grandfather was Vicente Abad Santos, the father of Pedro and Jose Abad Santos. Vicente was the son of a Chinese mestizo merchant who received legal training and became the Juez de Ganados, or superintendent of livestock, in his hometown of San Fernando, Pampanga in central Luzon. He helped many poor people in San Fernando, which may have included those who were engaged in anti-Spanish activities. Jose Rizal, the Philippine national hero, visited San Fernando in 1892 and was warmly welcomed by prominent members of the town. After Rizal was arrested a few months later and deported to Dapitan in southern Philippines, a wave of arrests took place in San Fernando, including Vicente, who was tried in court and found guilty of aiding the Filipino rebels. Sentenced, he was forced to walk to prison in the adjacent town of Bacolor with his hands bound with ropes tied to a horse. His eldest son, Pedro, who was only 17 at the time, followed behind him but was not allowed to help his suffering father, who was dragged by the horse. Only upon reaching Bacolor was Pedro allowed to help his father. Sadly, Vicente died in the arms of his son, who would later take care of his mother and six siblings.
Agapito Del Rosario and Toribia Abad Santos
Pedro (Perico) joined the Katipunan in 1896 with his best friend, Isabelo (Bikong) Tuazon del Rosario, who would later marry his sister, Emilia. After the defeat of the Spanish forces in 1898, Pedro and Isabelo went home to San Fernando, thinking they were seeing the beginning of an independent Philippines. When the Filipino-American war broke out in 1899, General Maximino Hizon, the supreme commander of Philippine forces in Pampanga, recruited Pedro as his komandante (aide-de-camp) and chief of staff. Isabelo became a captain and fought the Americans, leaving his pregnant wife, Emilia. Pedro was captured with General Hizon in June 1900 and sentenced to death, but his punishment was commuted to life sentence in prison and he was exiled to Guam with Hizon, Apolinario Mabini, Artemio Ricarte, and Melchora Aquino.
Pedro Abad Santos
Meanwhile, Isabelo was captured in early 1901 by the Americans. While in jail, Isabelo killed an abusive American guard with his bare hands and for that he was sentenced to death. His last wish before his execution in San Fernando was to play his beloved violin. On the day of his execution, he carried his violin with him and played the Danza Habanera, a passionate dance music from the Spanish colony of Cuba. Instead of giving his violin to the executioner after playing, he smashed it before walking to the gallows. He was only 22 years old. It was said that he received a pardon from Governor General Taft, but it was withheld by a townmate who was in love with his wife, Emilia. Emilia and her two sons, Pastor (two years old) and Agapito (one month old) were cared for by Pedro and his mother, Toribia, but in 1906 Pastor died at seven years old and Emilia passed away shortly after her son’s death.
Isabelo Del Rosario
Meanwhile, upon his return from Guam after serving his sentence, Pedro was appointed a Justice of the Peace in San Fernando, became a member of the Legislature between 1916 and 1922 and a member of the Philippine Commission which lobbied for Philippine independence in the United States in 1922. Because of the growing agrarian unrest in Pampanga, he established the workers’ union Aguman Din Maldang Talapagobra (AMT) to organize the peasant farmers. It became the Socialist Party of the Philippines, which later merged with the Community Party in 1938. Luis Taruc, who later became the Hukbalahap Supreme Commander, was Pedro’s protégé.
Young Agapito (Pitong) was raised by his uncle Pedro, whom he called Tatang Perico, and was educated in Hong Kong, the University of the Philippines, Shanghai, and later New York City at Columbia University, where he graduated with a degree in business management. Upon his return from the United States, he worked at the Department of Interior in Manila and married his townmate Felicidad “Feleng” Nuguid Sicangco, the daughter of Modesto Sicangco and Dominga Nuguid Sicangco. Dominga was the family bread winner but died when Feleng was only 16 years old. Feleng was forced to stop her studies to become the breadwinner to help her seven siblings through school. In the 1930s Agapito moved his family back to Pampanga to become Pedro’s right hand man. He became the mayor of Angeles, Pampanga shortly before World War II.
Feleng and Children, 1945
When the Japanese Army invaded the Philippines, Don Pedro instructed Luis Taruc to organize guerrilla resistance. Agapito moved his family to the Abad Santos residence in Manila after the bombing of Clark Air Field. He and Pedro were arrested shortly after by the Japanese army and thrown in jail in Fort Santiago. Don Pedro was later put in solitary confinement while Agapito remained in captivity. Agapito wrote short love letters to Feleng that were smuggled in food containers that their 16-year old son, Pastor, brought him. Pastor was the only one in the family allowed to visit. Feleng and her other children could only watch from afar the iron bars of her husband’s prison cell in Fort Santiago. Here is an excerpt from one of several letters that Feleng kept through the years:
(In Kapampangan) “Darling cu: E nacu taganang sumulat. E mu rugu daraptan ing eca macatadua sumulat uling ilang panaplac cung lungcut. Manaya cu abac at gatpanapun – macanian milalabas ing 24 oras. Maski nanung sabían mu masakit ing manaya dapat aguantan cu.”
(“My darling, I can’t really write much. But please don’t stop trying to write me twice as much because they ease my loneliness. I wait every morning and afternoon – that is how I let 24 hours pass. No matter how much you say that the waiting is painful and I must endure it.)”
Agapito was hospitalized because of his poor health and while in confinement he tried to escape from his guards by jumping from a window. He survived the fall but not long after, he was executed by the Kempei Tai in March 1942. Knowing that he was about to die, he asked a Japanese guard he had befriended to let his family know about his fate. Not long after, on May 2, 1942, his uncle Jose, Pedro’s younger brother, who was Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the Philippine Commonwealth and Acting President after President Manuel L. Quezon left the country, was executed by the Japanese Army. Pedro survived his confinement until January 15, 1945.
After her husband’s death, Feleng was inconsolable, but Pedro convinced her to think of her four young children’s future. He made arrangements with Taruc for her and Pastor to move to Pampanga to join the Hukbalahap and go into hiding. This is how Feleng emerged as Kumander Sisa. Her 16-year old son Pastor was given the code name Kumander Ross and led guerrillas to fight the Japanese. Her other three children were secretly smuggled out of Manila; her younger son, Rafael “Raf,” became a runner with the aliases “Cris” and “Eddy.”
Aside from being in charge of the Hukbalahap in Angeles, Feleng negotiated with the U.S. Philippine Island Forces (USPIF) on behalf of the Hukbalahap Military Committee. She brokered an agreement of cooperation, albeit short-lived, with Maj. Roy Tuggle of the Luzon Guerrilla Forces under Col. Merrill and on January 5, 1945, signed the agreement together with fellow Hukbalahap Military Committee member Moises Apostol. A letter from Maj. Tuggle to Sisa dated January 13, 1945, revealed the extent of her mediation between Luis Taruc and the US Army and the guerrillas. Tuggle clearly had great respect for her cooperation and negotiating skills and expressed deep appreciation for her efforts in assuring the safety of the American pilots who survived crashes and their safe return to the liberating Allied Forces. He even signed the letter “with best personal regards.” Ironically, after the war, the same Maj. Tuggle wrote a damaging report against the Hukbalahap, leading not only to its non-recognition as a guerrilla group, but also to the persecution and arrest of many of its leaders, as well as those from other peasant movements during the late 1940s and the 1950s.
“When the war ended, revenge killings of former collaborators took place in Angeles but Feleng was able to convince her fellow Hukbalahap members to restore peace in the city.”
When the Americans arrived in Pampanga in 1945, Feleng’s son, Pastor, was shot by a Filipino collaborator (Makapili) and left bleeding in the fields of Angeles. Because of her good relations with American soldiers, she was able to get their help in bringing him to a hospital. When the war ended, revenge killings of former collaborators took place in Angeles but Feleng was able to convince her fellow Hukbalahap members to restore peace in the city. She put her life as a guerrilla leader behind her and returned to normal life, raising her four children and becoming a successful business woman running a grocery store and a restaurant. She died in 1978 and her history as the top female commander of the Hukbalahap guerrillas went to the grave with her, remaining unknown even to members of her own family. It was only after the publication of a book written by one of her grandsons, Agapito Labalan del Rosario, named after her late husband, that some of this information came to light.
Feleng was a woman of her times, and like Esther in the Bible, answered the call to fight the tyranny imposed on her people. After the war, she did not speak or call attention to her seminal role in the Hukbalahap movement. But her story should serve as an inspiration to current and future generations so that we can appreciate the sacrifices and the steep cost of freedom that our ancestors paid. We must never forget!
Resources:
1. Lost Graves, Found Lives by Agapito Labalan Del Rosario and Rosario Cruz-Lucero
2. Hukbalahap Files from the U.S. National Archives
3. Photos from Lost Graves, Found Lives and from Feleng’s grandchildren, Jaime (Bing) Del Rosario and Patricia (Patty) Del Rosario.
Cecilia Gaerlan leads the Bataan Legacy Historical Society.
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