We climbed up a steep hill, past many makeshift houses, and surveyed the view. This village looked like many other villages I had visited over the years. But our guide, a key local advocate for Project AK-47, assured me there were plenty of soldiers (men, women and children) stationed just beyond the trees, watching us. We had just arrived at one of the many villages that house and station rebel soldiers in the hills of Mindanao, Philippines. We had been invited to meet with one of the most locally influential communist ideologists, Commander V. She amasses armies to fight the corrupt Philippine government and stand for the rights of the peasant farmers who have been trapped for many years in a corrupt system.