17. The Sparrows

17 THE SPARROWS

Philippines

1992

Victor Corpus graduated from the Philippine Military Academy in 1967 and was commissioned a second lieutenant in the army. He was young, idealistic, a devoted patriot. In three years of service, the corruption of the Ferdinand Marcos regime left him morally repelled. The rot was so bad it extended through the ranks of the army. In 1970, he was assigned to the Philippine Military Academy as an instructor.

He grew disillusioned. Convinced he could not effect change from within, he emptied the armory at the academy and drove off into the Luzon countryside, where he joined the Marxist revolutionary New People’s Army (NPA). The weapons and ammunition were sorely needed for a guerrilla force founded only a few years earlier with sixty firearms—all of which the Philippine Army quickly captured.

Maoist in orientation, the NPA sought to bring down Marcos with a three-phased revolution centered around armed conflict in the countryside. The first phase was a defensive one, where the NPA would keep the regime off balance with lightning-quick attacks in rural areas throughout the archipelago. Phase two envisioned a strategic stalemate where Marcos’s power would slowly erode as the NPA’s attacks grew more punishing and powerful. Phase three would see the NPA launch massive conventional offensives into the cities, where they would wrest control of the country and set up a dictatorship of the proletariat.

Ferdinand Marcos used the NPA’s threat of a communist takeover as leverage to remain in power and shake down the United States for more aid money. The truth was, the NPA was a tiny force in those days, unable to do much real damage. Yet after its operatives threw grenades onto the stage of a political rally in 1971, killing or wounding a number of key liberal opposition figures to the Marcos regime, the blowback that followed helped spur the NPA’s growth.

Marcos declared martial law. He suspended the writ of habeas corpus and used the crisis to remain in power despite the Philippine constitution’s two-term limit for its presidents.

What followed became the longest-running Marxist guerrilla war in history.

Victor Corpus rose to power within the NPA, earning a seat on the Communist Party of the Philippines’ Central Committee. Yet in the field, he witnessed corruption and brutality that equaled or exceeded what prompted him to desert from the Marcos regime. He concluded that they were two sides of a corrupt, evil coin. In 1976, he recognized casting his lot with the Marxists had been a terrible mistake. He surrendered to the Marcos regime, where he and his wife were thrown in prison.

They languished there for the next eleven years as the NPA’s strength steadily grew. From the insignificant force founded in 1969, by the mid-’80s, the NPA counted almost thirty thousand fighters in its ranks. They carried out bombings in the cities as well as assassinations and raids on outposts, and they blackmailed corporations through protection rackets to raise funds.

In 1986, the Yellow Revolution swept Marcos from power. Cory Aquino replaced him and was determined to rebuild a democracy in the Philippines. She pardoned and released thousands of political prisoners, including the NPA’s founder, Jose Maria Sison, who went into exile in the Netherlands. Victor Corpus and his wife were also released.

For a short time, it looked like Aquino might secure peace in the archipelago. A cease-fire took effect between the NPA and the army. But it only lasted a year. Political instability—army officers attempted multiple coups from 1987 to 1989—led the NPA to believe they could return to the fight and destroy the nascent democracy.

Open warfare broke out again. Aquino turned to Victor Corpus for help. He was reinstated in the army with the rank of lieutenant colonel. By this point, he was a national figure, a man whose principals and moral compass were so widely admired that a movie was made on his life. Operation: Get Victor Corpus opened throughout the Philippines in 1987. In it, he accused the NPA of orchestrating the 1971 bombing and also fingered key members of the military for plotting against Cory Aquino.

When I arrived in Manila after my South American tour in the summer of 1990, I worked under a legendary officer named “Dave,” who became a lifelong friend. Dave was my kind of guy, rugged and capable, loyal, fearless in the moment. He was whip-smart, a man at ease on a Harley as much as in a senior planning meeting with generals and diplomats. He played hard, worked harder, and always took the toughest assignments. From the first day in Manila, I loved working with him.

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We worked closely with Lieutenant Colonel Victor Corpus. He was the assistant GZ (intelligence officer) for the Philippine Army at the time and was tasked with hunting the NPA down. His knowledge of its organization, leaders, and tactics may have dated back more than a decade but remained relevant in a land writhing in near-perpetual conflict.

He was a man of principle, a person I would later call a “warrior of the light.” He despised corruption and sought to bring peace to the Philippines with his loyalty to Cory Aquino. He played an important role in helping the army track down and destroy the company-size NPA cells raiding through the countryside.

Yet the NPA’s strength and capabilities continued to grow. By the late ’80s, they had their own wing of the NPA that operated in urban areas. Later on, it broke off from the NPA and became its own Marxist organization called the Alex Boncayao Brigade.

This urban guerrilla force quickly flexed its capabilities. The year before I arrived, a hit squad ambushed and killed legendary Green Beret Nick Rowe. He was one of only a handful of Americans to escape from a North Vietnam prison during the war, after which, he set up the army’s Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape school in 1981.

Nick had come to the archipelago as part of the Philippine’s Joint U.S. Military Assistance Group (JUSMAG) to assist in the effort against the NPA. The Marxists detected his presence, surveilled him, then executed an ambush that killed him with a lucky shot as he drove in an armored limousine through Quezon City. He’d reported only a few days before that the NPA was about to execute a major attack and that his name had been found on a hit list.

Though the intelligence war Vic and his comrades waged against the NPA was paying dividends—the army was really taking it to the cells in the countryside when I arrived—the urban cells and assassination teams were still capable and extremely dangerous.

A few weeks before I arrived in Manila, NPA hit teams murdered three American servicemen in hopes of derailing the negotiations between the U.S. and Aquino’s government on extending American base leases in the Philippines. Those dramatic attacks made international headlines.

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Dave and I developed a thorough understanding of the threat facing both the government and Americans in the islands. They were the most dangerous insurgency I’d seen yet.

We provided the Philippine Army with electronic SIGINT (signal intelligence) systems that could listen in on NPA radio chatter. This always proved useful, and the systems picked up great nuggets of information. The trick was these electronic devices had to be deployed all over the country, usually in hostile NPA territory. Working with the good guys required helicoptering out to these remote posts, usually on some forsaken mountaintop with a tiny landing zone. The SIGINT gear would be protected XXXXXXXXX with razor wire, sandbags, and trenches.

During the week, Dave handled most of the local meetings and oversaw the logistical coordination from Manila, while I flew around to the SIGINT sites helping to coordinate delivery of equipment and making sure everything functioned well. I’d come home for a few days to be with the family in Manila, then back in the field by Monday morning.

Threats were plentiful out in the field in those days. The rural NPA companies routinely launched attacks on these remote outposts, and not a few were overrun. The cities saw their share of NPA operations, too, conducted by the ABB wing. They would carry out bombings or surprise attacks on governmental targets. Flying around the XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX required exceptional discipline and situational awareness. Hell, if an unbeatable badass like Nick Rowe could be killed, we were all mortals.

Then there were the communist hit squads, known as the Sparrows. They added a different dimension to the carnage, one that was intensely personal and exceptionally effective.

Sparrow Teams usually consisted of three men who carried out lightning-quick assassinations inside major cities. In Davao, on the southern island of Mindanao, the Sparrows honed their skills by assassinating police as they walked their beats. One man would pull the trigger, the others would grab the cop’s weapon and ammunition, then vanish into the city. Very few got caught.

Legend had it, the ABB used three men for a special reason. The assassin would be given one bullet to carry out his mission. If he failed, the other two would kill the assassin. It was a very Marxist way of ensuring complete obedience and dedication to the mission.

To maximize surprise, the Sparrows developed a quick-draw method second to none in the world. They wore loose sweatpants and T-shirts to conceal a 1911 Colt .45 in their crotches. With one hand in their pockets, the other hitched at their waists, they looked benign to most observers. But a quick push upward from the pocket hand sent the pistol right into the assassin’s gun hand ready and waiting at his waist. The move was so fast, they could draw and shoot in a third of a second.

The ABB kept a tight control on the Sparrow Teams, developing target lists based on their own intelligence network. If they suspected an NPA member of being a double agent and supplying information to the Philippine Army, the ABB would target them.

They would carry out preoperational surveillance, get to know the targets’ routines, then send the Sparrows in to take care of business. Check out their legendary move in this YouTube clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPMEVzv0AO4

Their success paid dividends all over the Philippines. By the late 1980s in Davao and Cebu City, cops often refused to walk the streets. Nobody wanted to encounter these stone-cold killers.

As these teams and others operated around us, we continued our mission to develop SIGINT on their activities. Dave usually remained chained to a desk in Manila while I went into the field, but on one occasion, he came with me to Cebu Island in the Central Philippines to meet with a particularly aggressive and successful captain I’d come to respect a great deal.

The captain was a stud. He ran a tight ship, disciplined, capable, and very effective against the NPA. We spent the day in meetings with him and his subordinates, visiting sites and getting information on what they needed from us. At the end of the day, the captain invited us to go grab some drinks in Cebu City and then go to dinner. Dave, the captain, one of his lieutenants, two other tech guys—“Ernie” and “Bernie”—and I climbed into a pair of cars and headed into town.

At the bar, we drank beer and told stories, bonding with our allies. The drivers remained outside with the rigs. When we finished a final round, we settled up and left to go find a dinner spot.

Our Filipino friends Ernie and Bernie exited first. They hit the street shoulder to shoulder, chatting happily. Dave went next, lagging a bit from the main group. I was slightly behind Dave and to his left, last to leave. As I went through the door, I looked around quickly to get a handle on the situation in the street. Orange on the Cooper’s Color scale was a way of life in the Philippines.

Immediately, I spotted three guys not far away, chatting with each other. The middle one saw us and locked on like a predator. The other two stopped talking. They glanced at each other, the middle one made a gesture, and they began walking three abreast, straight for Dave and me. The middle one had his hands in the classic Sparrow position. One in a pocket, shooting hand on his waistband ready to grip the pistol hidden in his crotch. The other two had hands in their left pockets.

Everything happened so fast after that. Adrenaline surged through my body. My heart rate spiked; I got tunnel vision. Dave was in front and just to the right of me, yet I lost sight of him. All I could see were the three men coming at us.

Instinctively, I went from Orange to Red. Under my tan vest, I kept a holstered, chrome M1911 Colt .45 Officer’s model. I grabbed it and pulled it clear.

They kept coming. Eyes boring into ours.

I pointed the .45 at the middle one and dropped the safety with what sounded to me as an ominous click.

You quick on the draw, pal? My Colt is already pointed at you. Checkmate.

That got their attention. The chrome .45 looked menacing as hell. They knew the jig was up. If they tried anything, I’d fire first before they’d even be able to get their weapons out. My expression said just that.

They made no attempt to hide their intention. Their steely-eyed predator look remained and they sneered as if to say, Next time, Yanquis!

They kept walking, seemingly without concern, but their eyes never left ours even as they went by. I held my .45 on them until they vanished down the street.

“Holy shit, did you see that?” Dave exclaimed.

I turned around to see him standing nearby, his own pistol out and still trained down the street. I had such tunnel vision that I never even saw him draw his weapon.

“Fuckin’ A, I did,” I said. “The question is, why didn’t our other guys?”

We both looked up the street. The rest of our group was several feet ahead of us, totally unaware of what had just gone down. The Filipinos we couldn’t do anything about, but our own guys were going to get an earful about situational awareness.

Dave pulled out a cigarette and tried to light it. His hands were shaking badly. He was a decorated Vietnam vet. Nothing usually fazed him, and this was not fear; it was “the juice”—full adrenaline rush.

My hands were shaking, too. “Holy shit,” I muttered.

We didn’t even give thought to going after them. Any assassination team would have established a perimeter. No telling who that might have been. Had we given chase, we may have been ambushed ourselves. I remembered the cop in South America who tried to stop the female bomber after she had blown up the palace guard. Fixated on chasing her, he never saw her backup and paid for that mistake with his life. Surely those three would have had backup lurking nearby. Not worth the risk.

We cleared the area fast. Later that night, we had a long, loud discussion with Ernie and Bernie for being in the White in the middle of a city well known for its NPA presence.

To this day, I am convinced that if Dave and I had not seen those guys and pulled our weapons first, both of us would have died. Lesson learned. There is no downtime in the field. There are no after-work hours where you can relax. You’ve got to be alert and aware of your surroundings at all times. It was our way of life in the clandestine world if you wanted to survive. I never forgot that lesson. Those who did rarely got a second chance.

It was heady stuff, tailor-made for types who loved to live on the edge and prove themselves day after day doing meaningful work to curb the violence. But even sometimes the best of us let our guards down. No human can be at Orange twenty-four hours a day, week after week. The assassins only have to be lucky once. Their targets have to be lucky every time. It was a game stacked against us, and the near misses drove that point home. To better prepare us, the Agency created a new three-week course called the CODA—Case Officer Operations in Dangerous Areas—which was designed to teach counterterror techniques for officers in foreign posts where insurgencies raged. It was a great class, filled with new techniques and countermoves against a variety of threat scenarios. Staying alive in Indian country was becoming more and more a science and less seat of the pants.

One day, after I’d returned to Manila from another inspection run to the countryside, Dave and I met with XXXXXXXXXX, another important figure in the war against the NPA. As we were talking, I mentioned some of the tactics I’d learned while attending the CODA. XXXXXX was very interested in it, especially since there had been many threats on his life over the years. “Ric, you gotta teach me some of this stuff.”

We were always up for a range day, so Dave and I agreed to run through some of the things I’d learned. XXXXXX said, “I’m going to bring my new Glock 18.”

After the meeting, Dave looked at me and asked, “What’s a Glock 18?”

“Hell if I know,” I replied.

“Well, we have Glock 19s, so ours must be better,” Dave said.

The Agency had just made the switch to Glock pistols. As we came to find out, there was a big difference between the 18 and 19.

The next day, XXXXXXXXXXXXX joined us on the range with his new Glock. I started teaching a short-range, quick-draw scenario based on a meeting that had gone badly.

Dave went first. Cigarette dangling from his mouth, he drew and fired at two point-blank targets with his pistol. He had good shot groupings, and he hit both targets with a few rounds.

Then XXXXXX’s turn came. He flipped a selector switch on his Glock 18.

“You understand what to do?” I asked him.

“Yeah,” he said casually, “I think I got it.”

The scenario began. XXXXXXXXXX drew his Glock, aimed, and fired in one fluid movement. A hail of bullets streamed out of the pistol’s barrel, raking the first target. He switched to the second and laced it as well. When he was done, both target silhouettes had bullet holes from crotch to forehead.

Dave’s cigarette fell out of his mouth. I gaped. We had no idea the Glock 18 could be fired fully automatic.

XXXXXX turned around with a cat-ate-the-canary grin on his face.

He was our kind of guy.

It was good training for all of us, especially since the threats remained significant.

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That last Friday night before he was forced to abandon his house, Dave, Carmen, and I went over for a final dinner party. We gunned up for this affair. Beside the MP5K machine pistols we carried daily in the Philippines, each of us had our pistols, plus a backup. In my case, the holster on my ankle housed that Lady Smith five-shot revolver. That stainless revolver was a prized possession, call it what you may. Thanks to my good friend “Ed L.,” I learned the utility of wheel guns.

We left the MP5s in our vehicle under the care of our designated bodyguard, Howie, a former professional football player and one of the most capable security operators in country. Upon entering XXX’s lovely home, we placed our primary pistols on a high shelf in the entryway to the house, away from the reach of the kids playing around the house. The dinner was a smash hit, even if an aura of sadness at its purpose hung over it. At the end of the evening, we retrieved our weapons and headed home.

The next day, XXXX moved out of his house.

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Two days later:

“Where is he?

“Where is the target?”

The terrorists were watching the house.

XXXXXX sent a team back to investigate. The property included a plaster-covered cinder-block wall about ten feet high. In the far back of his wooded lot, we found a four-foot hole carefully chipped out of the wall. Only the plaster on the inner side remained. The NPA hit squad had left that intact to arouse no suspicion. They were days, perhaps even hours away from launching an assault on XXXX’s home. Had it happened during the party, Carmen would have come under fire. The thought of that kept me up late for weeks after the discovery.

XXX’s house was well protected, but the assigned guards did not patrol outside the walls into the brush; otherwise, they would have detected this long before. The NPA assassins discovered this weakness and conceived a brilliant means to exploit it.

XXXXXXXX With the security team on-site, a surprise assault on a target like this would have probably taken a good-size force, perhaps a half dozen men. The house would have become a free-fire zone with women and children inside.

Including my wife. We’d gotten lucky. Again.

Not long after this, a father was kidnapped while dropping his kids off at the same school our boys attended. It was a reminder that in places like Manila, the whole family could be a target, not just me. There were moments in South America where I lost sleep worrying about an attack on Carmen and the boys by the professor’s cultish adherents. There would be no mercy for them. In Manila, the same threat from the NPA and ABB existed, plus a new dimension. That dad who was kidnapped in front of the international school was snatched by a criminal syndicate, seeking only to leverage his life for a payout. The ransom was paid. He survived. The political kidnappings the ABB carried out never ended well. They routinely killed whomever they snatched.

As we worked to manage and minimize the dangers we faced as a family in Manila, a totally new threat of unimaginable power emerged that took everyone by complete surprise: Mother Nature.