ABSTRACT
A few days after Marcos called the election, top Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) leaders huddled with Bayan officials in an effort to thresh out the organization's official position on the polls. To many CPP elements, from Rodolfo Salas on down through the ranks, there seemed no compelling reason to get involved in "bourgeois" elections. After all, while boycotting elections Marcos held in 1978, 1980, 1981, and 1984, the Party had enjoyed spectacular successes. CPP leaders maintained that this rapid growth was due to the soundness of the Party's "political line," which emphasized armed struggle over legal or parliamentary ventures. The boycott question was sparking serious debates inside the movement, particularly within the ranks of the CPP's legal allies. While Aquino's campaign was attracting tens of thousands of fervent supporters, the boycott rallies were drawing embarrassingly small crowds. The rise of Aquino and the burden of the discredited boycott policy forced the CPP to dramatically realign its strategy.
