Alex Boncayao Brigade

The Alex Boncayao Brigade (ABB) is 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. The CPP was formed by a group of leftist intellectuals in the mid-1960s, and in 1969 the party created 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 the government, but 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, however, lacked the resources for a conventional military assault. Furthermore, the NPA's structure (forces were grouped into brigades of up to 100 men) was unsuited for attacking and fighting in a large city. The leadership had learned valuable lessons from its experiences in assaulting military outposts in the southern Philippines, and they decided that the new force would consist of hit squads of up to four men, who would carry out targeted assassinations of government officials, businessmen, soldiers, and police. Although the number of actual assassins was quite small—some sources estimate as few as 30, even during the peak of the brigade's activity—their support system was vast, with as many as 500 other members providing intelligence, supplies, and safe houses. The new squad would come to be known as the Alex Boncayao Brigade (ABB), after a labor leader turned guerrilla who was killed by security forces in 1983.

The ABB operated independently of its parent organization, launching its first attack in May 1984. It soon acquired a reputation for vicious efficiency. The ABB's hit men were nicknamed “sparrow squads” for their swiftness and skill at fluttering out of the hands of police. Throughout the 1980s, they killed dozens of people a year. The ABB did not limit its targets to Filipinos; the group is believed to have murdered Col. James Row and several other U.S. nationals.

In the early 1990s, the ABB's fortunes declined. The end of the Cold War had thrown the NPA into disarray, and factionalism and power struggles diminished its abilities as a fighting force. In 1994, the ABB's commanding officer, Felimon Lagman, was arrested, and the organization was left without leadership. Unexpectedly, however, the ABB reemerged in December 1995, carrying out a series of attacks on local business executives. The NPA disavowed any connection with these attacks, and in March 1997 the ABB announced that it had allied itself with the Revolutionary Proletariat Army (RPA).

Despite the arrest of ABB leader Nilo de la Cruz later that year, the new alliance began an offensive [Page 39]directed mostly at industrialists and business executives, particularly those in the oil industry. It also added bombings to its tactics. During the late 1990s, however, police arrested several key leaders. In December 2000, the remnant of the RPA-ABB signed a peace pact with the government of President Joseph Estrada. This pact included provisions for disarmament and the release of RPA-ABB prisoners. While the ABB has been accused of assassinating rival leftists, it appears to be largely abiding by the peace pact.

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