Kabataang Makabayan (KM or Nationalist/Patriotic Youth in English) is the youth front for the banned Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP), and its armed wing, the New People's Army (NPA), a violent terrorist group that has fought against the Filipino government for nearly 40 years. While the Kabataang Makabayan is generally a peaceful outfit, preferring protest to armed insurrection, the group has been involved in terrorist action in the past, and is widely seen as a major source of new membership for the CPP-NPA. <P><br />KM was founded as a radical leftist student organization by Jose Maria Sison in 1964, dedicated to the establishment of a communist state in the Philippines and vehemently opposed to the large presence of U.S. troops on the islands. Five years later, Sison would go on to found the Communist Party of the Philippines (and the NPA), with the KM as the group's main student organization.  In the mid 1970s, members of the CPP (which had been outlawed) established the New/National Democratic Front (NDF), a legitimate political party which serves as the legal face of the CPP-NPA and as an umbrella organization for diverse leftist groups including the KM.  While the NDF remains a legal party, it is essentially a front for the CPP-NPA, who continue to be one of the most active and violent terrorist organizations in the Philippines.   <P><br />For their part, the KM is generally thought of as a protest group operating under the legal NDF and eschewing the openly militant methods of the CPP-NPA. The KM was an active participant in massive student protests between January and March 1970, famously dubbed the "First Quarter Storm." These protests often ended in violence and radicalized many in the movement, leading to a surge in membership for both the KM and the CPP-NPA. In response to this unrest, some of which was no doubt provoked and instigated by the government, Filipino President Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law in 1972. Marcos would reign as dictator for over a decade, inflaming and energizing the cause of the KM and CPP-NPA. <P><br />Despite violent protests, and open support for the terrorist CPP-NPA, the KM is only thought to be responsible for one notable incident of terrorism in over 40 years of existence. In early 1971, alleged members of the KM hijacked a Philippines Air Lines flight to Peking, China. The demands of the hijackers were never made public, and upon arrival in China, the hijackers were apparently chastised by Chinese authorities and forced to apologize to the passengers. The plane returned to the Philippines in short order and the hostages were released. <br /><br />