Kris and Campilan

In Lanao Province on the Philippine island of Mindanao this week, 10,000 fighting Moros sharpened kris, barong, campilan, tabas and spear for a fight to the death and no mercy asked.

"We recognize that the present conflict is a great emergency where all men of character must stand together united," they informed General Douglas MacArthur. "We will disregard differences in religion between Christian, Filipino, Mohammedan or pagan. ... To all of this we have sworn on the Koran."

It was expected that many more Mohammedan Moros, each looking forward to dark-eyed harem beauties in heaven for every Christian Japanese they killed, would join as fast as they could be sworn in.

Army men recalled that it was the Moros who kept on coming when struck by .38-caliber bullets, and forced the U.S. Army to change to .45 automatics. When the time came, the Moros in Lanao Province would be of invaluable assistance.

To General MacArthur, transmitting their "message of superb fidelity to the President of the U.S.," the pledge of loyalty from onetime enemies of the U.S. was heartening news. So were two other developments:

> On Bataan peninsula, rich young Andres Soriano, onetime unofficial pro-Fascist representative of General Francisco Franco in Manila, organized Filipino volunteers into a "Rizal Legion" (named for the national patriot, Jose Rizal) for jungle counter-sniping at the Japanese. > "Increasingly effective" throughout other parts of the Philippines was the F.F.F. (Fight for Freedom), a secret band whose terrorizing of Japanese, as well as of native traitors and informers, recalled the dreaded KKK (Kataas-tassan Kaga-lang-galang Katipunan ng Bayan) which opposed Spanish rule.

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