The Forest: A Personal Record of the Huk Guerrilla Struggle in the Philippines

by William J. Pomeroy

While writing a book on the Hukbalahap, a wartime anti-Japanese resistance movement in the Philippines, William “Bill” Pomeroy met and fell in love with Celia Mariano, one of its most active women members. The Forest tells the story of the two years―1950–1952―Bill and Celia spent in the mountains with the Huks.

Genres: Nonfiction, History, War

Paperback

First published January 1, 1963

Reviews

[Orion · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bill Pomeroy came to the Philippines as an American soldier in World War II. During the war, Philippine Huk Guerrillas battled Japanese occupiers. One of the Huk was Celia Mariano. After the war the Huk continued fighting for the freedom of the people against the Philippine government and oppressive landlords. Celia and Bill married and Bill joined the Huk movement. In 1950 Celia and Bill left Manila to join the Huk guerrillas in the Sierra Madre mountains as they struggled to free the islands from foreign influence and the power elite. The Forest tells the story of their two years living with the Huk and training them in revolutionary theory in various mountain camps. It has short chapters in chronological order with months marked out as if it was a journal. As a personal account by the only American in the Huk movement it is a valuable inside look that can help us understand what it was like in such a group at the time.

[Karlo Mikhail · Rating 2 out of 5]

Everything in the book exemplifies bourgeois pessimism. In the main, as already pointed out four decades ago, ”The book deals mainly with panic and blind flight through the forest and sheer struggle for physical survival in the absence of a wide and strong political base to rely on.” In this sense, the book reminds me of Che Guevara’s Bolivian Diaries. While abounding with details of Pomeroy’s day-to-day experiences, the book fails to raise these to the level of theory. Instead of becoming a constructive vehicle for learning lessons from the Huk uprising’s defeat, the book serves to discourage against revolutionary struggle. Perhaps the only good thing is that I actually got acquainted with some of the quirks of the Huk movement (executions and excessive punishments for minor transgressions within their ranks, allowing of polygamous relationship for ranking leaders, etc.). One more thing is the literary quality of Sicat’s poetic translation in Filipino over Pomeroy’s drab English original.

[Wogie · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is vividly narrated by the author, who is an American, joining the post-war struggle of the Hukbalahap. It is written in a diary-like format and gives the reader an insight on the daily and mundane lives of the Huks in the mountains.

[Michael John · Rating 4 out of 5]

nice

[Kyle · Rating 5 out of 5]

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