Reordering national security priorities - Miriam Coronel Ferrer
For so long, our national security agencies have considered the armed political groups as the greatest threat to the country’s security. To meet the national security goal of defeating the communist insurgency by 2010, the AFP and Department of Interior and Local Governments (DILG)’s Ronaldo Puno have beefed up recruitment for the Citizen Armed Forces Geographic Units (CAFGUs). Now numbering almost 60,000, these men make up almost two-thirds of the country’s fighting force. With very little training in skills, discipline and respect for human rights, they are sent to wage combat. Many times, they are even made to man the frontlines.
Executive Order 546 issued by President Arroyo in 2006 required all local chief executives to integrate counter-insurgency in their public safety plans. Local governments were enjoined to form “Civilian Volunteer Organizations” (CVOs) to address “peace and order” problems in their communities, referring mainly to threats posed by the New People’s Army and the Moro armed groups. Several DILG memoranda followed along this line. Puno issued the most recent one on 25 September 2009, the day before the Ondoy flood. It asked LGUs to support so-called Barangay Peacekeeping Action Teams and Police Auxiliary Units for the same purpose.
Despite the constitutional ban on paramilitary groups, many other names for these quasi-military groups have emerged. Variations include the Barangay Tribal Defense System in Bulacan, and the Integrated Territorial Defense System in Pampanga . Citizen-mobilization and LGU management, under Puno , have alarmingly taken on a militarist tack.
These CVOs are issued firearms. Intensive training for a total of 25,000 new police recruits by 2010 are also ongoing, with many being trained in crowd control. The massive recruitment for combat operatio has justified procuring more weapons using DILG and local government funds. Considering that the DILG’s budget has increased by more than 44% since Puno took charge in 2006, the amounts involved are significant.
Useless weapons
Post-Ondoy and Pepang, we can now see that this militaristic focus on “public safety” of the DILG chief was made at the expense of the preparedness of local governments to respond to a greater threat to their constituents – the deadly consequences of natural disasters. Looking back, of what use were those guns to those trapped on rooftops or traversing flooded terrain while precariously hanging on to a slippery rope? Those weapons were made for killing, not saving lives. If only some of those funds were used to buy life-saving gear. But no, local governments merely followed the baton of the secretary. After all, it gave them access to some funds and handy men who could serve their partisan security needs. Meanwhile, since counter-insurgency has been fought largely on land, the navy’s dire need for watercraft never got enough attention from the security honchos.
Security policy review
Just as we are now compelled to review the country’s infrastructure program, dam management, real estate development, zoning and housing regulations to enhance disaster prevention and response, so must we take a long hard look at our national security priorities.
When many municipalities and provinces were unable to undertake basic preventive measures and crucial rescue operations to save the people buried by landslides or submerged in flood water, we can only wonder what were discussed in briefings, trainings, and countless meetings of local government officials and their various leagues. If local governments are supposed to be at the frontline of disaster prevention and response, what has the national government done to impress its importance and enhance the capability of these officials? Rather, these meetings have become mere mechanisms for patronage appropriation and party-building of the people at the top, and for securing ground-level support to counter-act the political opposition to the president.
Only this week did Puno finally convene local chief executives in calamity-affected areas to discuss disaster protocols. This, after three years in office and a month short of his resignation so he can run for vice-president.
For his part, defense secretary Gilbert Teodoro mobilized the CAFGUs and soldiers to undertake rescue operations. He ordered a suspension of military operations in affected areas. Upholding the principle of neutrality in humanitarian work, the AFP spokesperson advised that rebels lining up for relief in calamity areas should not be arrested. All these are laudable measures. But long-term and recurring problems cannot be solved by ad hoc policies. CAFGUs and CVOs do not have sufficient training neither for military warfare nor disaster response.
Disaster-response CVOs
If we have learned our lessons and are truly reordering our priorities, then we should opt for “CVOs” trained in disaster response than in warfare. This type of CVOs will not need guns. They will need hard hats and life-saving equipment for use in case of floods, earthquakes, tsunamis and the like.
Armed groups should also take heed of the call of the times. They should rethink their equally war-fixated strategies. They should not abet illegal logging in exchange for contributions to their coffers. They should not make the unpopular mistake of targeting soldiers and CAFGUs engaged in humanitarian work, as they have done in the past. They can reciprocate with a declaration of suspension of offensive military operations to minimize the complications involved in the long, hard task of reconstruction. And if they are not involved in the criminal acts of which they are accused – such as in the most recent kidnapping of Fr. Michael Sinnott -- they should mobilize their forces to help in the resolving the crisis.
Finally, we need to engage in a national dialogue that will help us define our national security priorities so that we can veer away from the orthodox focus on the “threat groups”. We need to unite on a set of political and economic reforms that will enable these groups to participate meaningfully in society and politics. This way we can more sustainably utilize scarce resources and energies not in destroying but in rebuilding lives, livelihoods, schools and communities.
E-mail: mcf178@yahoo.com
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Rethinking Solutions
You certainly have hit the heart of the problem madam, the national government should rethink our counter-insurgency strategy. Our solution to the insurgency issue never changed for over almost half the century already, they updated it by replacing nomenclatures to different approaches and solutions to the fight but still it is being fought the same old way; sending warm bodies to the fight and clearing hostile territories the army way. At the initial stage of the republic when we were still recovering from the ashes of WW2 perhaps the strategy is the most pragmatic solution to the problem but 10 – 20 years later the once patch solution became a national policy adopted by different administrations and it only became the seed for authoritarian rule.
One of the problems stems from the lack of civilian think thanks that provide insights to military affairs, the likes of RAND Corp, Heritage Foundation, and Brookings Institution among many others. These civilian led think thanks provide a counter balance to the opinion of military led think tanks such as the War (army, navy, air) Colleges like the Strategies Studies Institute in Fort Leavenworth , Naval Post Graduate School, Opinions of Flag Officers and military essays such as the Armed Forces Journal written by many Junior Officers. In this way, decision makers in the highest echelon are provided with the best information and it is up to the National Security Council to deliberate and brain storm based on this information’s and provide the president the best option for decision.
In our case, we don’t have such intellectual counter-balance in opinion making. The think thanks are dominated by retired generals, the national Security Council is dominated by retired generals other civilian members of the national Security Council are unfamiliar in military-security affairs (I bet most just learned about the story of the Battle of Thermopylae in the movie 300) and the president can only listen to this one tracked opinion and decide with only that information in hand. Career military history professors whose opinions, insights and deep level of understanding in the Military-World-Political Affairs were only best used to teach dozing cadets in the academy.
Any Military History and Policy observer knows that the heart of the fight is not in the battle field nor on the bureaucracy and intricacies of political weightlifting , but on the hearts and minds of the one who feeds it; the very people that provides that Armed Forces with hot chow, equipment and moral support to sustain the fight. But in our case, we failed to see that basic tenet that any Armed Force will never win a fight in its own soil with its own people on the other side. Regardless of the intensity and weight of the supposed enemy, they are still its own citizen and the people’s opinion and support will always go to the underdog. That is why the word “masa” is popular, everybody wants to be aligned to masa, if you want to win elections use the “masa” as a mantra; the underdogs, poor, underdeveloped and unsupported class in our society, ironically that word best also describes the supposed “enemy” the armed forces is fighting with.
The national government by using the armed forces to fight on its own soil not only dwindled the support of the populace but also gave the “enemy” the same weight with an armed forces; a Belligerency in the eyes of the world and by definition in the international law.
With this they can ask foreign governments and negotiate with them, for these nations to put pressure on our government to sit-down and negotiate and perhaps exchange POW’s thus granting them more belligerency status. Same with other groups in the country, ranging from secessionists to terrorists the government has wasted its time and resources to so many fronts and groups to negotiate with. In short and simple language, we made our solution further complicate the problem.
Almost half a century of fighting has placed our armed forces to skin and bone status, were our assets designed to protect our archipelago in the time of war are moored on bases to rot and sailing to Batanes is considered a prestige already. And the modernization is still primary focused in sustaining that half a century fight, enhancing the “move-shoot-communicate” capability.
Reflecting on the history, one could see that we have misallocated our resources for a long time, putting our armed forces to the breaking point (not break-up but capability to fight national wars). A once patch solution of a struggling nation became a long term one where a supposed law enforcement issue has become state-state issue.
At this point in time, pulling out or sudden drawdown of forces in the different battle fronts would result to a massive vacuum that may become tragic to our society. But the government should rethink its approach to these problems, if the type of solution did not work well for almost half a century, one can only postulate that it will not work as well for the next half a century. The government should study ways on how to effectively turn this over to law enforcement and have this people treated as common criminals; murderers, holdupers, kidnappers and rapists, the type of citizens people despise with and not associate with. A police/NBI with a warrant of arrest issued by a local court in hunting this people is more effective in gaining support from the populace and pointing out their hideouts than sending a platoon of Light Reaction Unit were the people would instead keep their mouth shut in fear. Also, a soldier or marine is trained to fight and kill an enemy and assault a strategic hill and hold it till ordered to leave at all cost while a policeman is better trained to sense criminals and catch them using information provided by the people. There is a huge disconnect on what these people are trained for and what they were used to.
The Armed Forces can still become part of the counter-insurgency campaign but under the new law enforcement approach strategy and will serve only as a Supporting Effort while the Police/NBI will serve as the Main Effort. The government can utilize the civilian auxillary units of the Armed Forces to serve as members of the barangay volunteer rescue teams and decentralize the distribution of rescue equipments and taskings down to the barangay level. Given our huge population, the right level for immediate and real time response to crisis would be at the barangay level. Ondoy and Pepeng served as a warning for many more to come, the government must heed the warning and take this as a national security concern; the damage brought by the two typhoons dwarfs the economic damage, especially in terms of personal, property, productivity and opportunity compared to terrorism.