ABSTRACT
The sketches that follow should be viewed less as a comprehensive inventory of the rebel hierarchy or psychological profile than an attempt to give flesh and blood to some of the most prominent faces behind the Philippine revolution. After 20 years of carefully cultivated anonymity, the men and women who headed the Philippine revolution remained mysterious shadows even to most of the Party membership. While Sison was attracting the attention of military intelligence back in Manila, the revolution was being led by a once-obscure student activist named Benito Tiamzon, who was in his late thirties by 1988 and something of an unknown quantity even to many prominent members of the movement. The 1986 cease-fire negotiations offered the revolutionary movement its first opportunity in 20 years of struggle to publicly project its views. Satur C. Ocampo was deeply impressed by the experience and what he felt were the positive effects communist revolution had wrought on China.
