Antonio Cinco - guerrilla brigand

An American war a correspondent Royal Arch Gunnison observed:.

“At the start, a few Filipino roustabouts saw the advantage of making up small gangs and preying on the public. They’d call themselves guerillas but they plundered and pillaged both the Japs and the Filipinos. If they had a grudge against anyone, the word was passed on and the man was killed. It grew on Leyte and Samar and elsewhere on open terrorism.

“…With no overall organization, the best comparison is that of a gangland mob on each island, with their territories marked off by gentleman’s agreements between the mob leaders. All this was done in the name of the guerilla movement. If the civilians in the barrios or towns refused to send food or information or even their daughters into the hills, they were marked as fifth columnists or pro-Japanese. Farmers were prevented from bringing food into towns…”[i]

A case in point is Antonio Cinco, USAFFE sergeant before the war. When the order to surrender was issued, he was one of those who gave up, thinking that he would be more secure under the Japanese. He was conscripted into the Bureau of Constabulary with the likes of Causing and Sevilla and deployed for duty. But the Japanese did not trust the wily Cinco. So they had him arrested, beat him up and brought him back to prison.

He managed to escape and at once took to the hills, forming his own guerilla band and operating around Tanuan, Dagami, Tolosa and the unoccupied portions of Burauen, Dulag and La Paz. Then he began pillaging the countryside.  He sent his men to the villages for food, clothing, women, money and ammunition, and his men insisted on taking more than they needed. If a civilian refused, his house would be burned and his wife or daughter taken to the hills.[ii]

In one instance, he burned the town of Tanauan because his wife was captured by the Japanese, believing that she was betrayed by the townspeople.[iii]

According to one writer, Ira Wolfert,

“he was enjoying himself very much. He had more women than any other men I had ever known. But I have never seen him smile. Cinco’s face appears frozen…Leading a man like that is a matter of tying a rope around his neck, unless you are leading him where he wants to go.”[iv]

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[i] Royal Arch Gunnison, “Filipino Firebrands,” Colliers, CXIV, Dec. 16, 1944, p. 74 as quoted by Lear

[ii] Ibid, pp. 36-37

[iii] Ibid, Lear in an interview with Balderian, p. 84

[iv] Ibid, Lear, quoting from Ira Wolfert’s “American Guerilla in the Philippines”, p37