Assessment of the Philippine Counterinsurgency Operational Methodology

The roots of the Philippine communist insurgency problem are multidimensional, encompassing political and socioeconomic dimensions. The Arroyo administration recognized this when it formulated the National Internal Security Plan (NISP) in 2001. The NISP developed the Strategy of Holistic Approach (SHA) with the following components: 1) legal, diplomatic and political; 2) peace and order and security; 3) socioeconomic and psychosocial; and 4) information. The SHA involves the mobilization of the whole government bureaucracy from the national down to the regional and local levels to address the different aspects of the communist insurgency problem including its root causes. The NISP intends to implement the SHA in four phases called Clear-Hold-Consolidate-Develop (C-H-C-D). This study attempts to examine the government's success so far in implementing the C-H-C-D operational methodology. The government still shows interest in pursuing the series of peace negotiations the two parties have been conducting on and off for a long time. But although CPP negotiators sit with the government there is yet no indication until this time that the CPP has any genuine interest in settling differences with the government peacefully. Meanwhile, military efforts to neutralize the insurgents fall short on their own targets. There is a greater need for the military to intensify intelligence and combat operations to effectively reduce insurgency strength and incapacitate its politico-military building capability. Rather than concentrate in clearing villages the military should focus on thwarting the insurgents' efforts to expand its mass base operations and establish guerrilla fronts. The military and civilian defense forces' shortcomings in military and civil-military operations are some of the main obstacles in effectively countering the expansion campaign of the insurgents.

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