Alex Boncayao Brigade

The Alex Boncayao Brigade (ABB) was a Manila-based Communist hit squad that assassinated dozens of people on the orders of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) during the 1980s and 1990s.

Formed by a group a leftist intellectuals in the mid-1960s, in 1969 the CPP formed the New People's Army (NPA) and went to war against the Philippine government. The NPA operated mostly in the countryside surrounding Manila and the outlying islands of the archipelago. Throughout the 1970s, fighting was fierce between the Communists and government; the government was never able to completely eliminate the guerrillas. The guerrillas, however, were unable to consolidate their territorial gains. In the early 1980s, the NPA leadership decided that a strike at the heart of Philippine economic and political power was necessary. An attack on Manila, the capital, was planned.

The NPA lacked the resources for a ...