ABSTRACT
By the early 1980s, Davao was on the verge of becoming the Philippines' second largest city. The sprawling southern port was home to 700,000 people scattered over a vast incorporated area that ranged from densely packed slums to isolated rural villages. Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) cadres on Mindanao saw a need to upgrade the movement's urban activities. Cadres found that the rural population was highly mobile and that even peasants usually spent part of their lives living and working in urban areas. Resources were simply too precious for Mindanao's Party organization to risk squandering them on uncertain urban political ventures. Between 1978 and 1985, the urban Davao CPP organization saw its membership increase twentyfold from 50 to about 1,000 Party members. The cadres were encouraged by what they read about the Sandinistas' victory in Nicaragua and the integration of rural and urban political and military warfare in South Vietnam.
