The old paradigm for winning the peace

THE Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) have been engaged in an antiinsurgency campaign for decades. Over time, it has come to the realization that peace cannot be won by military operations alone. Lt. Col. Cordova states: “The AFP, specifically the Philippine Army (PA), had realized overtime that the current insurgency problem cannot be addressed by a military solution alone. It is a multidimensional problem that requires a multi-dimensional approach as well as the involvement of the different sectors of our society.” Despite this realization, Col. Cordova continues: “For a long time, the Army had not effectively implemented a framework that would formally involve the other sectors of society in solving the insurgency problem. We crafted and implemented good campaign or operational plans that highlight stakeholder involvement, but the level of engagement we had with our stakeholders was limited on a case-to-case or on a need-to-know basis. More often than not, the engagement was one-way, i.e., from a military unit to a specific government agency or organization. It was rarely a two-way process.” In other words, it was too much of a military operation still.

This meant that the military units were conducting “peace operations” with the usual military mind-set. Col Cordova again: “Our relationship with our stakeholders was very transactional. We had our own operational objectives; they had their own set of objectives, based on their organizational interests. We rarely shared the same goals. The relationship with our stakeholders was not built around a shared goal.” This was a case of: We’ll call you when we need you, but in the meanwhile, we each go our separate ways.

This mind-set started to change in 2001. Reports Col Cordova: “In 2001, the Arroyo administration adopted a National Internal Security Plan (NISP) that advocated close engagement with internal security and development players at the regional and local levels. To implement this plan (NISP, 2001), the AFP implemented a campaign strategy that adopted a ‘Clear-Hold-Consolidate-Develop’ (CHCD) operational methodology to address the insurgency problem. The AFP in coordination with the police would ‘clear’ the affected areas of enemies and threats; ‘hold’ cleared areas and ‘consolidate’ them to prevent re-entry of the enemies through our Integrated Territorial Defense System, which involves the police and the local government units (LGU); and then ‘develop’ these cleared areas through the efforts and initiatives of the concerned national agencies, local government units (LGU) and other stakeholders.”

As a concept, this was a welcome change. The NISP 2001 clearly called for a close collaboration between military units and other major instrumentalities of government in any area of operations. Col. Cordova makes the following observations: “On paper, NISP 2001 was perfect, because it espoused a ‘Strategy with a Holistic Approach’, involving key stakeholders with an interest in addressing the insurgency problem. The approach, however, required that the LGUs and the other civilian stakeholders would play a big role. In fact, the ‘consolidate’ and ‘develop’ portions of the operational methodology were the most important aspects of the process, because it would directly address the root causes of insurgency. Here the LGUs, national government agencies, and other stakeholders would need to play a very big role. But the civilian stakeholders, especially the LGUs, perceived it as a very military-centric strategy. It was still a strategy crafted by the military sector and the other stakeholders had little involvement in the formulation of the strategy. Thus, there was low enthusiasm and little support from the civilian stakeholders. As a result, the AFP was not able to fully implement the entire ClearHold-Consolidate-Develop strategy. In this light, the NISP, while conceptually sound, failed to attain the strategic objective of winning the peace”.

Clearly, a different approach had to be taken. To this, Col. Cordova now turns.