Victor Corpus, reluctant rebel

Victor Corpus, Philippine Military Academy (PMA) Class 1967, passed away on 4 April 2024 at the age of 79, leaving behind a tumultuous life.

My intimacy with Victor Corpus dates back to the lavish birthday parties of Narda Camacho, the Green Queen of environmental advocacy. Victor and I idolized Narda. We would sit together, eating lechon and drinking red wine, and ramble on, sharing deep insights on geopolitics, our favorite topic, while listening to piano bar songs for seniors. We picked each other’s brain, agreeing and disagreeing.

Victor was extremely anti-American, which was perhaps the reason he bolted the Armed Forces of the Philippines, joined the New People’s Army (NPA), got disillusioned, then reverted to the AFP.

Corpus joined the NPA on 29 December 1970. On 14 July 1976, he surrendered to the AFP and spent time in a military jail. In 1987, President Cory Aquino ordered his reinstatement in the Army as a “reserve officer.” He then held various posts in the AFP until 1990, when he was appointed AFP intelligence chief under the GMA administration. Corpus eventually wrote two books, Silent War (1989) and America’s Dim Mak Points: Unrestricted Warfare in the 21st Century (2009) [inquirer.net, 4 April 2024].

Corpus defected to the NPA as a Constabulary first lieutenant in 1970, and returned to camp in 1976. In his immersion in the insurgency movement for six-odd years, he learned everything he needed to know.

It was an in-depth course in Insurgency Warfare 101. He was a walking encyclopedia on the NPA.

He joined the NPA because he was extremely anti-American and thought his campaign against America would be realized in the rebel movement. He was known for his brinkmanship when he raided the PMA armory. But, disillusioned with the NPA, he decided to surrender.

Cory, upon the advice of her AFP generals, ordered his reinstatement because of the value of his intelligence on the rebel movement. He was the perfect double agent, although he did not intend it that way. He sincerely became a rebel, got disillusioned, and sincerely returned to the military fold. He then became AFP intelligence chief under GMA. These unplanned pendulum swings from soldier to rebel back to soldier catapulted Corpus to the top as an intelligence and counterinsurgency expert. He was the only one who had gotten a six-year immersion in the NPA.

A biographical film titled Operation: Get Victor Corpus, released in 1987, reflected his life of notoriety after he defected and before he returned to the AFP’s fold.

His two books became his legacy, the culmination of the unintended ex-double agent who wanted his voice heard in government counterinsurgency efforts. The introduction to his book Silent War states, “It is the first book ever written on insurgency by a member of the Armed Forces of the Philippines based on his own inside view of the enemy.” The keywords were “inside view.”

In Silent War, Corpus criticized AFP strategies, such as hamletization, search and destroy operations, and low-intensity conflict (LIC). He viewed the AFP masterplan to defeat the CPP-NPA as a complete failure.

In truth, the most successful move of the AFP was the fielding of “deep-penetration agents.” The DPAs would join the ranks of the NPA five to 10 years ahead of the operation to kill NPA officers later.

The CPP-NPA panicked, suspecting each other of being DPAs. They ended up killing each other on mere suspicion without clear evidence. It was a disaster.

In his second book, America’s Dim Mak Points: Unrestricted Warfare in the 21st Century, his true anti-American color emerged. It was actually a textbook in Counter-insurgency Warfare, a critique of US ideology and strategy.

The NDF-CPP-NPA’s final view of Corpus was that he was accepted with open arms and ended up a traitor. The final view of the AFP and the government was that he was the precious link to defeating the rebels, which never happened. Today, the rebel movement lingers, but has gradually lost its luster, a product of time, not of strategy.