Unlimited minding other people’s business

IAM glad that some suggestions that I made ages ago were in fact being implemented quietly without fanfare. For example, I proposed that we arm our three unsinkable aircraft carriers, namely islands of Palawan, Mindoro, and Luzon with ballistic missiles that could reach at least the boundaries of our Spratly’s and United Nations Convention on the Laws of the Sea (UNCLOS) economic zones.

This paper carried a story this week that the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) Modernization Program has allocated a budget for the acquisition of Shore-Based Ballistic Missiles (SBBM). However, the purchase of the missiles was reprogrammed for next year, the reason being that the new AFP leadership prefers to purchase urgently needed helmets, body armor, and other equipment in order to lessen the casualties suffered by the Armed Forces. Fine, but let us not forget to really acquire the SBBMs.

During the Mamasapano hearings in the Senate, I noticed that our Army did not have amphibian light armored vehicles. Precisely, in a country such as ours, where many areas become flooded during the rainy season, such vehicles are indeed needed. Besides in an area like Mamasapano, with its rivers, and the Liguasan Marsh in Mindanao, such vehicles would give our troops maximum advantage and superiority of arms.

As to the usual casualties suffered by the AFP caused by improvised explosive devices (IED), I ask the question, ‘Why not install armored steel bodies in our troop carriers?’ I am sure that our AFP engineers can design and manufacture such equipment. Certainly the use of armored troop carriers will lower casualties. Of course I need not emphasize that the purchase of more helicopters is urgently required.

Furthermore, our soldiers know the importance of being able to communicate with one another, preferably from the squad leader all the way to the company commander. In fact, soldiers of units of many modern armies can converse with each other.

So let’s go to other ideas that would be of some future use: following the example of our Philippine Navy LCT (Landing Craft Tank) or is it LST (Landing Ship Tank) that was deliberately grounded in the Spratlys: How many antique PN ships are available for the same mission as that LST? Let me stop here because the PLA (Panda Liberation Army) will surely read this article!

During WWII, the United States Armed Forces had huge concrete warehouse floating barges. Some of these surplus barges were used by the Cebu Stevedoring Company to store commercial goods at the Cebu Harbor. I wonder if our AFP has those kinds of concrete barges and if they think they can be used to defend our territory?

The equipment that an army has is only as effective as the soldiers who are using them. I am, to say the least, disturbed by the report that some of our soldiers were killed by the New People’s Army (NPA) in Gingoog City, Misamis Oriental, while they were playing basketball. Is this report true? There are other reports that some police detachments were caught by surprise again by the Communists who pretended to be AFP soldiers. There have been other bloody incidents that occurred which caused casualties to our soldiers and policemen. What am I trying to call attention to?

Many of the incidents are actually a repetition of the same tactics used by the rebels. I would like to believe that our AFP is very much aware of these strategies.

I suggest that, besides the usual intelligence briefing when a new officer or commander takes over a unit, the various incidents that caused harm to our soldiers should be pounded into the heads of all members of a unit so that instead of being ambushed, it would be the AFP that would trick the enemy so that it will be defeated in the field of battle.