SAMPLE (MODEL) INTELLIGENCE SUPPORT TO WHITE AREA OPERATION INTRODUCTION: BACKGROUND: For over four decades now, the insurgency problem in the country remains a potent threat to our national security and democracy. The ultimatum set by previous administration to decimate the insurgency problem by the end of 2010 fell short of its goal as the CPP/NPA continues to thrive and has recently managed to project an image of strength by launching a series of successful tactical offensives in COMVAL areas in Mindanao and in Northern Luzon. Sporadic small-scale offensive actions such as liquidations and harassments against soft targets also persist in other areas of Samar, Negros and Mindoro. Moreover, during the recently concluded National Elections on 10 May 2010, the CPP’s above and underground political organizations managed to exploit the occasion and extorted a total of 15.8M pesos from different political candidates vying for various elected posts1[1]. Aside from this, several CPP/NPA/NDF supported candidates won congressional seats in the recent national elections including their Party List Bayan Muna, Gabriela and Anak Pawis2[2]. From the start, the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) has been engaging continuously on a Protracted People’s War (PPW) against the government. And this concept is being pursued by the most dominant faction among other LCM splinters, the CPP/NPA/NDF, having the superiority in terms of number, influence and area of operation. It follows the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist line of thought whose programs were guided by historical and dialectical materialism. The current trend of CPP activities indicates that insurgency in the country continues and is expected to escalate and regain its previous politico-military influence as long as the country’s socio-economic problem particularly poverty continues to be unaddressed. While it is true that the government holistic approach to solve the problem proved effective in many ways, it fails to sustain its gains and eliminate poverty. This structurally explains why insurgency problems still persist, especially in depressed rural and urban areas. The CPP-led insurgency is ultimately defined by its strategy of Protracted People’s War (PPW) which is designed to seize political power by violent means in terms of “encircling the cities from the countryside.” However, as time passes, its main strategy has been complemented by tactical flexibility which extends its struggle to urban areas. This tactical course is designed to polarize, isolate and weaken the ruling class, arouse, organize and mobilize progressive forces particularly the ranks of middle forces (professionals, students, health workers, rank and file employees and urban poor), and set up a ripe environment for Socialism. This tactical course is conceived so as to complement PPW with so-called popular front organizing which advocates “legal 1 2
ISAFP. Intelligence reports. recovered documents. 2010 ibid
1
struggles” across the 1) open mass movement, 2) electoral struggle, 3) peace negotiation and 4) international solidarity work. The CPP defines the united front as ‘’the unit of all revolutionary and strata against imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat capitalism. Through the national united front, the proletariat and its party extend its influence and win the support of the biggest number for the struggle. The leadership of the national united front is under the party and its program is based on people democratic revolution. The building of the national united front is aimed for waging armed struggle and it’s not a mere tactic for parliamentary struggle". 3 [3] The united front therefore will mobilize the population, present a solid phalanx of antigovernment forces and implicate it in the insurgency. Structurally, the united front is designed as a broad based social pyramid consisting of several CPP controlled mass organization coming from various sectors and strata. Moreover, this aimed to neutralize organizations and institutions that are supportive to the government. Significant to this approach is the mobilization and organization of various sectoral organizations in Urban and Rural areas to act as a major component in the People’s Protracted War (PPW) formula. These sectoral organizations are composed mainly of people coming from the middle class serving as shields of the CPP/NPA in a three-pronged approach to the Peoples Protracted War. This component is under the supervision and control of the National Democratic Front. CPP/NPA/NDF urban organizing dates back in 1983 and was mainly developed as a major source of Cadres and operational Funds. However, they found it very significant to their struggle, especially when the Party joins the Party List Election to infiltrate the government in 2001. At the start, four (4) sectors were considered as part of their revolutionary forces, the workers and laborers, the middle class which consists mainly of professionals, the students and the Urban Poor. However, to date, CPP/NPA/NDF Sectoral Organizing covers almost all sectors of the society, both in the Urban and Rural areas including Filipino migrant workers abroad. Currently, prominent CPP Sectoral Organizations under the umbrella of the National Democratic Front have been successful in advancing the communist cause under legal covers such as, to name some, the Confederation for Unity, Recognition and Advancement of Government Employees (COURAGE), MIGRANTE, General Assembly Binding Women for Reform, Integrity, Equality, Leadership and Action (GABRIELA), LFS, ACT, ANAKPAWIS and BAYAN MUNA. With the unabated sprouting of CPP/NPA/NDF Sectoral Organizations in urban and rural areas it is important that the government formulate an effective concept to match the organizing strategy of the CPP/NPA/NDF which has not only explored fresh sources for Party recruits but also buoyed up its logistic strength. Thus, a counter-concept to CCP/NPA strategy must ensure an effective ideological strategy through a combination of soft and solid approaches to the ideological challenge posed by the communist movement.
3
ISG. Enemy Module.CPP United Front. Pg 196.2010
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B.
PROBLEM STATEMENT
1. What is the current approach in sectoral organizing using intelligence strategy and what is the most effective way to complement the current intelligence strategy of ISAFP? 2. What sectors need to be addressed in terms of protecting and winning back people’s communities that are either prone to CPP/NPA/NDF recruitment strategy or have been influenced already by the communist movement and how will sectoral organizing as a complementary part of the present intelligence strategy of the ISAFP contribute to the current AFP counter organizing strategy against the CPP/NPA/NDF? 3. What can be done to institutionalize and enhance the role of intelligence in sectoral organizing? C.
RESEARCH MOTIVATION
The researcher has chosen the topic for a number of reasons, but foremost is the actual intelligence work that he is involved in being assigned with Intelligence Service Armed Forces of the Philippines (ISAFP). The experiences of subject officer in different intelligence units in the AFP in various capacities, and monitoring events involving sectoral organizations infiltrated by the CPP/NPA/NDF prompted the author to research on the topic. Furthermore, this study was conducted to help the government solve the four decade long insurgency problem besetting the country. For almost forty one long years of fighting the communist insurgents the government, through the AFP, has learned a lot of lessons that are useful in the formulation of more aggressive and sustainable campaigns to finally defeat the CPP/NPA/NDF. This lesson could also provide insight and ideas to government planners and policy makers in order to formulate concepts and laws that will effectively address the insurgency problem. Among the significant lessons learned from past campaigns is the employment of SOT teams in affected areas which are very effective in dismantling established CPP/NPA/NDF Organizations in affected barangays. However, the gains of SOTs could not be maximized and sustained because it lacks the support to eliminate poverty in cleared areas. Poverty continues to plague society, thus insurgents could immediately resurrect their influence thru effective propaganda and organizing activities. In the succeeding years of Internal Security Operations wherein the government applies the methodologies of a holistic approach, AFP counterparts from the Local Government Units and Local Government Agencies failed short of their efforts to deliver development assistance to affected areas. It goes without saying that the ISO campaign did not succeed. It was during the implementation of the campaigns that the government found out that the CPP/NPA/NDF’s strategies proved to be effective in terms of propaganda and organizing works, thus widening its influence. The key alternative, as this researcher believes, is to ‘turn the tables on the enemies’ by using the very same tool utilized by the CPP/NPA/NDF, hence, this study. D.
RESEARCH OBJECTIVES
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This study attempts to identify the role of the Intelligence Operations in sectoral organizing as the major solution to the Insurgency problem of the country. Specifically, this study proposes the following aim. 1. To neutralize the enemy in expanding their organizing works by infiltrating existing organizations and eventually influencing them. 2. To widen ISAFP’s Intelligence Network by utilizing formed organizations. This will eventually monitor any attempts from the CPP/NPA/NDF to sabotage the economy and overthrow the government. 3. Implement enhanced intelligence strategy. Linking organized sectors to National Government Agencies especially the National Anti Poverty Commission (NAPC) so as to access government’s program and network in terms of poverty alleviation program, a key component in sectoral organizing under an umbrella organization with chapters in all regions manned and supervised by Action Agents or Cadres from ISAFP. These organizations will expand to the grassroots level whose members are expected to become force multipliers in information collection. E.
REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE
According to Satur Ocampo, former member of the Central Committee, Politburo and EXECOM of the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) and former Secretary of the National United Front Commission (NUFC), national freedom and social emancipation, or freedom from foreign domination and genuine democracy has been the essential aspirations of the Filipino people since the 1896 Revolution. It stated that the present-day revolutionaries consider the 1896 Revolution unfinished and assert that the National Democratic Revolution (NDR) they have been waging since 1969 is a continuation of the Katipunan Revolution of 1896.4 It was only in 1930 that a consolidated socialist ideas and organization and principles were emboldened among the Filipino working class with the founding of the CPP. Two years later, the Socialist Party of the Philippine Army (SPP) was organized among the peasants of Central Luzon. The CPP and SPP merged in 1938 but the armed revolutionary struggle for national independence, social justice and land reform, which they waged in the wake of World War II, did not result in victory, unlike the parallel struggles in China, Korea and Vietnam. It was in 1968, that the CPP was re-established under the guidance of Marxism-LeninismMao Zedong Thought (MLMTT). The reestablishment was a step to rectify the erroneous form of its main struggle in the past, which is the “parliamentary struggle”. The reestablished CPP put forward a Program for a Peoples Democratic Revolution (PPDR), a new type of national democratic revolution with a socialist perspective. Thus, the PPDR is the immediate and minimum program of the new CPP in the struggle. Socialism becomes its long term and maximum goal. The founding of the CPP and the formulation of its program was influenced by the Communist Party of China (CPC) because of the basic similarities between the social 4
TIS,ISG. “The National Democratic Revolution in the Philippines”. 2004. HPA.
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condition of China in the past and that of the Philippines today and because of the great victories the CPC and the Chinese people. The CPP also acknowledged other communist and workers parties and other revolutionary movements such as the Bolshevik party led by LENIN, the Communist Party of Indonesia, the Vietnam Workers Party and other Southeast Asian Communist parties, the Korean Workers Partly, the Albanian Party of Labor and the Cuban Revolution. The lessons derived from those parties and movements involved the process of seizing political power. With regards to the Bolshevik revolution, the CPP recognized that it was the first victorious revolution led by the PROLETARIAT, it proved the validity of the teachings of MARX, ENGELS and LENIN, and it resulted in the establishment of socialism and began the period of proletarian socialist revolution. The CPP took special note of the fact that Bolshevik win the struggle in the civil war and interventionists war mainly in the countryside, with the workers partly establishing the basic alliance between WORKERS AND PEASANTS while in the cases of China, Vietnam and Korea, the CPP adopted its PROTRACTED WAR of encircling the cities from the countryside before the general offensive to seize political power in the cities. While those of Cuba, Algeria, South Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Guinea Bissau, Cafe Verde, Angola, Mozambique, South Yemen, Nicaragua and the like, the CPP considers the significance of the revolutionaries of these countries in succeeding without being directly benefited by an inter-imperialist wars.5 It was in 1971 that the CPP formed the Preparatory Commission of the National Democratic Group (NDG). It conceived the NDF as “the framework for the CPP, organs of political power and mass organizations in the guerrilla zones and the urban-based parties and organizations in danger of being suppressed and forces “underground”. The NDF will also become the framework for drawing-in the entire people to the revolutionary movement. After the declaration of martial law in 1972, the Preparatory Commission came out with the ten-point Program of the NDF on April 24 1973 and began publishing LIBERATION, the NDF official organ, and launched the BALITA NG MALAYANG PILIPINAS (BMP) in cooperation with the CPP National Press Bureau. These publications together with the CPP official organ, ANG BAYAN were the main sources of information and analysis of the national situation to the people. The mass organization of workers, peasants, urban poor and youth which were temporarily disrupted by martial law finally gained momentum again in 1975-1976 when workers and students protests actions revived the open mass movement. It was here that a broad anti-fascist united front began to expand. In 1977, the NDF came out with an elaborated Program, which sought to awaken the broad masses to step up the political isolation and overthrow the Marcos regime. It was in 1978, that the NDF and MNLF participated in the Conference on Cultural Imperialism where the NDF presented the Filipino peoples’ case against the government. In 1980, the 8th plenum of the CPP endorsed the NDF as the organizational form of the united front for armed struggle. In 1981, the CORDILLERA PEOPLES’ 5
TIS,ISG. “The National Democratic Revolution in the Philippines”.2004.HPA.
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DEMOCRATIC FRONT (CPDF) was formed in Northern Luzon to become as allied organization of the NDF. It was in this year, that the NDF Secretariat was set up and tasked with negotiating with independent groups - - The Marxist-Leninist Group (which broke up from the old CPP), the April 6 Movement (an anti-dictatorship group linked with US based Filipino bourgeois opposition that engaged in urban bombing projects), left-wing Social Democrats, and the Philippine Liberation Movement – to join the NDF and be represented in a provisional national council. In their pursuit to draw-in other political forces into the NDF, the Secretariat came out with revised draft program called the New Katipunan Draft Program which has a concept of a “vanguard front” and of the NDF as political center of the revolutionary mass movement, however, this program was replaced in 1982 with a new 12-point program which elaborated the concept of a coalition government wherein “no single political group shall monopolize political power” and whose precise structure shall be designed through mutual consultation by the participating forces. Following the assassination of Benigno Aquino Jr in 1983, unprecedented upsurge of mass protests occurred all over the Philippines. The National Democratic Movement accelerated its momentum of growth, both in the armed struggle and in the open mass movement. National democratic forces took leading role in most of the newly emerged peoples’ organizations and alliances of sectoral and multi-sectoral character. At that time, the CPP concluded that the armed revolutionary movement has surpassed the early substage of the strategic defensive and moved on to the advance sub-stage. With those developments, various studies and discussions were made in search of refinements in strategy and tactics to accelerate the achievement of total victory over the US-Marcos dictatorship. As this developed, the concept of “strategic counter offensive” was developed and operationalized by the regularization of NPA formations to intensify guerrilla warfare and overall advance all other forms of struggle were targeted. This concept however, was abandoned by the Politburo in 1990. NDF as a Federation: In 1985, the 9th plenum of the CPP Central Committee made a significant decision which is to go ahead in building the NDF without the participation of the organizations which they approached in 1981 and 1982 (MarxistLeninist Group); April 6 Movement, left-wing Social Democrats, and the Philippine Liberation Movement) after efforts to draw them in, proved unproductive. The CP decision, however, gave allowance for a national revolutionary united front. The plenum adopted the concept of the NDF as a FEDERATION OF ND underground mass organizations deciding by majority votes and as political center with full powers over the member organizations. This concept was later deem “erroneous” by the CPP because it runs counter to the consultative and consensual nature of the NDF as a untied front organization and to the leading role, independence and initiative of the CPP in the National Democratic Revolution. The draft program widely circulated here and abroad in 1985 was more definite in defining the process of formation of the coalition government or People’s Democratic Republic. Thus, a political consultative conference would be called among the forces supportive to the NDR to form a provisional revolutionary council, a constituent assembly representing all revolutionary and progressive sectors would draft a new constitution, after popular ratification of the new constitution, a general election
6
would be held, and finally, a new government would be installed. This political framework was the one approved by the NDF Founding Congress in 1990. In 1986, the NDF Secretariat began revising the 1985 draft program. Two inter-regional consultative conferences were held with the view of forming a Provisional National Council, and the underground mass organization was revitalized. The Provisional National Council provided the authority to the NDF negotiating panel in the 1986-1987 peace talks with the Aquino government but did not prosper, thus, the NDF secretariat proceeded to build up NDF structures and organs of political powers at levels higher that of the barrio. The CPP/NDF held its political congress in January 1987 and its organizational congress in March 1989. The NDF-building made headway in the NuevaVizcaya-Quirino Sub region in 1986 but suffered setbacks in 1988 because of Left errors in Southern Tagalog, two NDF municipal councils were set-ups in 1986. The NDFMindanao Secretariat and Coordinating Council set-up in 1985 suffered setbacks because of the erroneous anti-infiltration campaign, but began recovering in the latter half of 1986. The Visayas Secretariat set up in 1984 and the Island secretariat in Panay (1984), Negros (1985) and Samar (1985) continued to function amid intensified AFP attacks. In 1988, the NDF Secretariat undertook another revision of the draft NDF Program to reflect recent historical developments, the concrete lessons that have been learned from years of struggle, and a deeper understanding of the requirements for achieving a nationwide victory and building a national democratic state. Stressing the effort to reach out to various forces, the introduction to the 1988 draft called the program “the framework in which these people’s organizations unite, cooperate and carry out their owned specific programs”. It is also on the basis of this program that the NDF seeks out and develops mutually beneficial relations with other revolutionary and progressive forces in the Philippines and abroad, whether individuals, organizations, movements or political, economic, cultural and social affairs of the country. In the 1990 draft, the People’s Democratic Revolution (PDR) is defined as a united front of all democratic classes and the term political pluralism, has been changed to democratic pluralism. Some observers to mean those only workers, peasants have interpreted these, the petty bourgeoisie and national bourgeoisie can participate in political life, with revolutionary enemy classes excluded or disenfranchised. In July 1990, the NDF finally held its founding congress and approved the draft constitution and the final draft program based on the 1988 draft. The congress also elected a national council with a three-year term of office. Following the endorsement by the 10th plenum of the Central CommitteeCPP of the document “Reaffirm our Basic Principles and Rectify the Errors”, the NDF National Executive Committee (NEC) reportedly gave due course to the proposals of the CPP to correct the “misconceptions” and “dilutions” of the united front principles in the program and the constitution which was approved by the 1990 Congress. The NEC drafted a new constitution and programs in accordance with the basic revolutionary principles and the guiding policy on the united front and on the basis of solid achievement and principled criticism of misconception about the united fronts. The new draft constitution contains the recognition of the leading role of the working class in the two7
stage Philippine revolution (national democratic and socialist) in order to break out of the old bourgeoisie mold; the NDF as a genuine alliance or united front organization having a consultative and consensual character, in which the representatives of the allied organizations have equal rights in the NDF Conferences and councils (without prejudice to bilateral relations with them, e.g. the absolute leadership of the CPP over the NPA) and in which the CPP can retain its leading role, independence and initiative in the revolutionary movement; the councils of representatives may invite as council members’ personages who represent significant interest or trends or an organization or a section thereof still unwilling to join the NDF and the NDF is ready to admit into its fold additional allied organizations or to enter as one whole entity into bilateral or multilateral relations with other foundation in the broadening of the revolutionary united front. Accordingly, these changes were proposed to defeat the scheme of certain anticommunist and anti-proletarian elements to liquidate the vanguard role of the working class, erase from history the role of the CPP in building the NDF, discredit the CPP as an unwelcome “authoritarian”, superimpose on it the “democratic majority” will of petty bourgeoisie groups and individuals and recycle the old democratic revolution on behalf of the big bourgeoisie and landlord class”. On the other hand, the new draft program contains the development of national unity under the class leadership of the proletariat; the leadership of the working class as the core of peoples’ democratic power that arises from the new democratic revolution; the commencement of the socialist revolution after the basic completion of the national democratic revolution upon the seizure of political power; and The public ownership of the “commanding heights of the economy” although in the transition other forms of ownership are allowed. In present days, the Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) has gaining grounds on their Sectoral Organizing in the guise of being legal fronts through the National Democratic Underground Movement (NDUGMO) employing its organizational concept on united front effort as compared to casting a net and drawing the net in, the diversity of social strata and sector as perceived by the CPP through social analysis creates a special organizational problem. In mobilizing the population to support the insurgent movement, the CPP organized them into groups such as: Territorial Lines by communities, barrios, offices, factories, schools, hospitals, municipalities, provinces and regions; Sectoral Lines – by sex, age, occupation or calling church, health, teachers, youth peasant workers and Functional Lines – research, education, medical, finance, defense. This simplifies the organizational activity of the CPP agent/cadre. Propaganda issues are narrowed down as common link of the separate grievances of the various classes, sectors, organizations and individuals are discovered. The appropriate organizational structure is also set up following patterns established by higher party organs. The CPP united front effort provides the multidimensional character of the insurgency movement. Through the united front, the CPP achieve a decisive superiority in the balance of forces which is advantageous position to imposing its will upon Philippine society.6
6
ISG,PA handbook titled: CPP NATIONAL UNITED FRONT
8
Foremost of this work is the White Area Handbook published by DCSI; J2 entitled “The CPP-NPA-NDF” Web of Deception. The handbook outlines the communist movement’s concepts, strategies and tactics in advancing the armed struggle. Of significance is the concept adopted by CPP in establishing the National Democratic Front that serves as an umbrella organization whose function is to unify all revolutionary groups and individuals coming from the various sectors and regions of the country to support the armed revolution. The NDF follows an effective concept and system maximizing the use of agitation and propaganda which is very effective in the conduct of organizing works.7 The handbook demonstrates how the communists operate in both rural and urban areas which they classify according to the party’s ideological assumptions about society in general. The Communists define White Areas as areas where reaction holds sway over the revolution. These are areas where communist organizational structures, whose nature and purpose are aimed at enhancing the influence and control over power and resources of the reactionary forces, are in place. These are areas that remain defiant of the ideals of the revolution because of the predominant influence of the reactionary forces such as the Government. CPP defines a White Area as an area or territory held by the enemies of the Party, notably by the Government. These are areas where there are established Government political structures maintained and preserved by political leaders, assisted by the AFP or by the PNP that are defiant of the influence, power and ideology enunciated by the CPP. Urban centers like the provincial capitals and regional centers are identified as White Areas. Accordingly, the symbiosis and the emphasis of Red Area and White Area operation are dependent on the requirement of the different stages that requires flexibility in strategy and tactics. Therefore the forms of struggle and the applications will depend on the perceived advancement of the CPP. Liberated areas or those with established guerilla zones would require different approaches from non-liberated areas in both tactical and strategic levels. Another important document that provides valuable inputs to the study is the Briefing prepared by the Operation and Intelligence Division of ISAFP entitled “Knowing the Enemy” which explained the NDF’s deceptive tactics of organizing as envisioned by the CPP. The briefing presents the strategic development of the CPP; an additional perspective on the CPP-NPA-NDF framework vis-à-vis the protracted people’s war (PPW); and the prevailing operational conditions on the ground to be able to determine the gaps and lapses in the national government’s responses. The two aforementioned documents serve as valuable references to study and evaluate existing intelligence practice by the Armed Forces of the Philippines and to what extent this practice has addressed the problem of insurgency throughout the years. Similarly, the National Internal Security Plan (NISP) expounds on the comprehensive approach as one of the strategic concepts of the National Military Strategy. It aims to prescribe the general framework and provides policy guidelines for coordinating, integrating and accelerating overall government response to overcome insurgency through Strategy of Holistic Approach (SHA). 8 Four components of which are political wherein DILG as the lead convener; socio-economic/psychological with the DSWD, NAPC, OPARD; security by DND with DILG-PNP and information with OPS wherein 7
White Area Handbook-“The CPP-NPA Web of Deception”. Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (ISAFP): Philippines.2001 8 Bantay Laya II.s chapter 4.Supplemental handbook Pp 55.2010
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NAPC, DSWD, DND and OPAPP are member agencies. One responsible agency under (SHA) is the National Anti Poverty Commission (NAPC). Meanwhile, extracted from the ISO Plan is the Intelligence Task Allocation (ITA) whom CPP Central Committee, Strategic and Sectoral groups are given to the Intelligence Service Armed Forces of the Philippines (ISAFP) being the premier intelligence unit of the AFP as the unit primary responsible. Another document that provides additional information to the study is the information downloaded from the internet regarding the programs and missions of the National Anti-Poverty Commission or NAPC. The NAPC was established by virtue of Republic Act 8425 or the Social Reform and Poverty Alleviation Act which serves as the oversight and coordinating body of all poverty reduction programs of the government. On behalf of the government, NAPC has institutionalized the Basic Sector participation in governance at all levels of decision-making and management processes. Two equally important building blocks constitute the NAPC: the government sector and the civil society/basic sectors. The government sector consists of heads of national government agencies and the four (4) leagues of LGUs. On the other hand, the basic sector component is composed of the Sectoral Representatives of the basic sector. The Sectoral Representatives sit with the heads of the NAPC member agencies and the leagues of LGUs during NAPC En Banc meetings which the President of the Republic presides as the body’s over-all Chairman. Through the NAPC, basic sectors have been given a crucial role in the government efforts to put into operation efficient and effective poverty reduction mechanisms through effective planning, decision-making, implementation, monitoring and evaluation of poverty reduction programs at all levels of governance. Therefore, cognizant of the role of Basic Sectors in the government's and civil society's collective endeavor of pursuing an adequate, efficient and effective poverty reduction programs, and considering that they represent their respective sectors at the national level, all local government units are enjoined to accord due recognition and engage the NAPC Basic Sector Council members and Sectoral Representatives in their respective localities. NAPC acts as the Secretariat and is tasked to process the accreditation of organizations that could avail of government poverty alleviation programs. For this purpose, it will utilize the Regional Development Councils and the Regional Kalahi Convergence Groups in various Regions of the country to assist in the processing and accreditation of different sectoral organizations at the regional level. It shall organize agency clusters composed of the different government agencies at the local and national level such as the: Department of Agriculture (DA); DA-Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (DA-BFAR); DA-National Agricultural and Fishery Council (DA-NAFC); National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (NCIP); Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (OPAPP); Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR); Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR); Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG); National Youth Commission (NYC); Council for the Welfare of Children (CWC); Department of Education (DepEd); Commission on Higher Education (CHED); Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (OPAPP); Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA); Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE); Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR); Department of Health (DOH); Department of the Interior 10
and Local Government (DILG); Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD); ; Department of National Defense-Office of Civil Defense (DND-OCD); National Youth Commission (NYC); Department of Finance (DOF); National Council on Disability Affairs (NCDA); Department of Health (DOH); National Commission on the Role of Filipino Women (NCRFW); Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD); Department of Health (DOH); Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG); Presidential Commission for the Urban Poor (PCUP); Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC); Department of Trade and Industry (DTI); National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA); and, Cooperative Development Authority (CDA). Each cluster shall be joined by its concerned Sectoral Representative (SR)/ Officer-in-Charge (OIC). The Sectoral Councils that do not have appointed SRs shall issue a Resolution or Authorization Letter that shall identify the OIC tasked to represent the council in the clusters. This document shall be submitted to the NAPC Secretariat. Subject to the approval of the NAPC Lead Convenor, the lead agencies may include other partner agencies at the final stage of the accreditation process. Agency representatives in the clusters shall be authorized in writing by the agency head to participate in the cluster activities. The Lead Convenor shall recommend to the Office of the President the accreditation of organizations approved by the clusters. Fourteen (14) sectors of the society are identified to become potential beneficiaries of these programs; namely; Farmers and Landless Rural Workers; Artisanal Fisherfolk; Indigenous Peoples; Children; Youth and Students; Senior Citizens; Victims of Disasters & Calamities; Persons with Disabilities; Women; Urban Poor; Workers in the Formal Sector and Migrant Workers; Workers in the Informal Sector; Cooperatives, and NGOs Documents provided by NAPC regarding how the government addresses and implements its poverty alleviation programs at all levels of governance are important for this study to the extent that they not only provide a comprehensive sectoral map of the basic sector but also sufficient intelligence resources essential in identifying sectoral organizations that are perceived to be or are known to have links to the communist movement. In general, the complementing factor which NAPC will provide to the study is more on its role in spelling out the most objective reason behind the persistence of insurgency in the country, namely, widespread poverty. More so, the NAPC leadership and communication structure is vital to the work of ISAFP to penetrate existing sectoral organizations that have links, direct or indirect, to the CPP/NPA/NDF. A comprehensive mastery of the leadership and communication structure of NAPC is thus vital to the counter-organizing work of the AFP, and specifically, to the sectoral organizing work of ISAFP to complement the over-all counter-insurgency program of the national government. On matters of sector-based organizing strategy, the researcher has studied a number of references relevant to the exposition of how the communist insurgency is still in operation despite long decades of counter-insurgency campaign by the Philippine government. While the main bulk of the communist strength is spread across the countryside where the CPP holds sizeable armed revolutionary units, the importance of parallel organizing in the urban areas, especially, in the urban poor is taken seriously to complement the armed struggle. This is the one of the major points raised by Joma Sison 11
in his popular theoretical work on the future of the Philippine Revolution, namely, Philippine Society and Revolution.9 Another important work of Sison serves as a reference for the study, specifically, on understanding the Party’s parallel parliamentary struggle which is designed, in the words of Sison, “to make clear and repeated class analysis which can distinguish the middle forces and elements from the diehard revolutionaries, the principal enemies from the secondary enemies, the enemies of today from the enemies of tomorrow, and among friends, the reliable from the unreliable.” To effectively distinguish the enemy from the ally, it is only logically conceivable that the Party must have a comprehensive understanding of the social body. The polarization of the middle classes meanwhile is most observable in the urban divide, hence, the importance of penetrating the urban centers of power through organizing and recruitment. This Sison emphasized in the following statements he made in an internal party document: “We should excel in combing legal, illegal, and semi legal activities through a widespread and stable underground.” This is also in line with Sison’s call to build the revolutionary mass movements not only in the countryside but also in the cities. The Philippine communist movement is of course following the pattern of successful and existing socialist governments, predominantly, the Chinese communist model but also drawing lessons from the Russian Bolshevik revolution which specifically combined open mass organizing and insurrectionary methods. In times of poverty and misery, the mass populace became vulnerable to communist rhetoric, which the Russian revolution took advantage. But before the masses could be utilized for an open confrontation against the centers of power, the Bolsheviks had already formed distinct organizational units penetrating civil, political and even military institutions. These vanguard members of the party were tasked to penetrate people’s organizations, forming a parallel force with the partisan unit of the communist party whose task is to engage the state in terms of armed confrontation. In the experience of the Philippine revolution, communist cadres also penetrate government institutions. F.
CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
The theory of Protracted People’s War (PPW), encircling the cities from the countryside is being adopted by the CPP/NPA/NDF from the Marxist-Leninist-Mao Tse Tung Thoughts (MLMTT) as espoused by Jose Maria SISON. The goal is the seizure of political power and supplants our democratic form of government with a communist rule. Under the theory, the CPP applied the three (3) main weapons of the revolution in manipulating contradictions of the Philippine Society and in ensuring the Party’s victory in overthrowing the government and seizing political power. The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) is the brain of the people’s revolution. It provides the political leadership to the movement and determines the general line and direction of the revolution. It controls the activities of its armed component (NPA) and the united front (NDF) that shields the activities and carry out the propaganda of the communist movement. The National United Front (NUF) is the organizational effort of the CPP to mobilize the population, present a solid phalanx of anti-government forces and implicate 9
Joma Sison, Philippine Society and Revolution. Oakland, California: International Association of Filipino Patriots, 1979.
12
it in the insurgency. NUF is designed as a broad based social pyramid consisting of several CPP mass organizations coming from various sectors and strata. The creation of several mass organizations and the fielding of front organizations from various sectors of the society serve as a potent weapon for augmenting and amplifying the strength of the revolutionary forces and for rallying the broadest range of focus against the duly constituted authority. The CPP believes that it is a high time to sustain the momentum on organizing works to build the broadest possible union in furtherance with their objectives and rise victory over the government. The different sector of society which is best exemplified in the civil society organizations is a wide ocean of opportunities for the CPP/NPA/NDF to recruit. Hence, it is also paramount for the government particularly the intelligence community to recruit action agents who will act as vanguards against the enemies of the state. .A conceptual framework for a better perspective of the study is shown below.
CONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK
Figure 1: Conceptual Framework using the General Systems Theory The above conceptual framework shows the significance of the control over the sectors of the society by which whoever get the support from it would win the hearts and minds of every member. The role of the AFP particularly ISAFP together with the National Government Agencies, Local Government Units is vital to address security threats wherein sectors of the society were unwittingly utilized by the CPP/NPA/NDF to advance their cause. This conceptual framework will serve as guide in order not be shrouded or confused with military and intelligence operations or even psychological operations but solely in the aspect of developing and engaging society. In this perspective, the AFP aims not to
13
confront insurgency head-on but facilitating community building through security and development. G.
RESEARCH DESIGN
The researcher has adopted the Descriptive Method of Research. In going through with this method, the researcher made use of relevant books, articles, and publications as well as internet based sources treating on the topic. Intelligence reports and security briefings were also collated and reviewed. Documents and other sources gathered were subjected to content analysis which serves as the primary data gathering tool. An analysis of the stakeholders was also done to get a deeper understanding on the range of possible motives that would explain the behavior of the key players. Results of the analysis of various references were correlated with the interview of key informants where majority are considered experts in the field of study by virtue of their positions, experiences and the nature of their works. Some of the interviewees though not experts, are equally important and reliable sources to validate the proposals and recommendations on the possible courses of action which the government, the AFP and the Intelligence Community should adopt to counter the CPP/NDF after having identified the internal strengths and weaknesses as well as the external opportunities and threats of the Philippines .
14
H.
RESEARCH FRAMEWORK
In order to provide direction to the discussion of the study, the author uses the INPUTPROCESS-OUTPUT-OUTCOME framework to serve as guide in coming up with the possible answers to the problem statements. The framework has four parts: the INPUT, which comprises historical data and ideological perspective from related references that explains the evolution, growth and significance of the Sectoral Organizing; the PROCESS, which comprised of document analysis based on the preceding inputs and the collation of related Internal Security Operations (ISO) campaigns which were complemented by interview of selected key informants and focused group discussions; the OUTPUT are proposed countermeasures and possible courses of actions to be adopted necessary to rightfully address CPP/NPA/NDF front organizations and the OUTCOME, will be the realization of safe environment , widen intelligence networks and weakening CPP/NPA/NDF that would lead to a more secured and progressive nation. Figure 2: Research Framework
RESEARCH FRAMEWORK
INPUT CPP/NPA/NDF historical perspective on organizing works. Intel reports, articles,publicatio n &security briefings Lessons learned from ISO
PROCESS Document analysis Interview of key informants Collation of data from related ISO campaigns Focused group discussion
OUTPUT
OUTCOME
Proposed innovative counter measures
Realization on more secured and safe environment and progressive nation
Articulation on possible courses of action to be adopted to thwart CPP’s building /propagation on front organizations
Widen intelligence networks
FEEDBACK
15
I.
SCOPE AND LIMITATION
The study is limited to the review of the national security problem due to the armed struggle waged by the CPP/NPA/NDF which is considered to be the most potent threat to national security. It focuses on the CPP’s concept of White Area operations and its organizing works in urban centers, and how this could be addressed utilizing existing government resources, specifically in terms of its poverty alleviation programs. The researcher relies heavily on existing reports and lessons learned from past experiences in the government’s ISO Campaign which was proven effective but lack sustainability, as well as vital support mechanisms and efficient collaboration system among various government agencies. Useful data and information will be obtained through focus group discussions and interviews with selected respondents, survey and a thorough document analysis of relevant printed materials specific to the elaboration of the problems of the study as well as its research objectives. The research outlines one of the governments program poverty alleviation as embodied in the provisions of National Anti-poverty Commission (NAPC). If properly implemented, this program is very important to eradicate poverty in the country which is known to be the root cause of insurgency. J.
DEFINITION OF TERMS
1. Intelligence -is an end product resulting from recording, collection, processing, and evaluation of information. Timeliness on dissemination of intelligence is the most valuable aspect on it. 2. Civil society -refers to the arena of uncoerced collective action around shared interests, purposes and values. It is composed of the totality of voluntary civic and social organizations and institutions that form the basis of a functioning society as opposed to the force-backed structures of a state (regardless of that state's political system) and commercial institutions of the market. Civil societies are often populated by organizations such as registered charities, development non-governmental organizations, community groups, women's organizations, faith-based organizations, professional associations, trade unions, self-help groups, social movements, business associations, coalitions and advocacy groups10. 3. society
Sector-a component of an integrated system such as an economy or a
11
4. Organization -refers to a group of people or individuals who voluntarily and intentionally organize to accomplish an overall common goal or set of goals. A social
10
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki.
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q.07 Aug 2010 11
ibid
16
arrangement which pursues collective goals, controls its own performance, and has a boundary separating it from its environment. 12 5. Organization with Local Constituency -refers to any Non-Governmental Organization or People’s Organization that is operating, serving, and carrying out the agenda of basic or marginalized sectors within a region, province, municipality, barangay, or specific area or location in any of the three major islands of the Philippines (Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao) it seeks to represent.13 6. Organization with National Constituency -refers to any Non-Governmental Organization or People’s Organization that is operating, serving, and carrying out the agenda of basic or marginalized sectors in the three major islands of the Philippines (Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao) and in the National Capital Region (NCR) through their partners or representatives.14 7. A Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) -is a legally constituted organization created by natural or legal persons that operates independently from any government.15 8. Force Multiplier -a capability that, when added to and employed by a combat force or intelligence unit, significantly increases the potential of that force and thus enhances the probability of successful mission accomplishment. 9. Intelligence Network -a force multipliers that played a vital role in gathering information who are in-placed in a certain area/place but not necessarily known to each other for the purpose of information evaluation 10. Agent. Agent is any person of intelligence value who is recruited to perform clandestine task in behalf of an intelligence agency. 11. Agent Acquisition. It refers to the entire process by which potential agent is identified, their suitability is determined and their affiliation with the clandestine apparatus of an intelligence organization is affected. 12. Agent Management. It refers to the art of directing, guiding, motivating, training, testing, tasking, supporting, rewarding, controlling, communicating with, and if necessary, disciplining and/or terminating an agent relationship. 13. Accreditation refers to the process wherein the Office of the President (OP) issues a certificate to an organization that has complied with all the requirements, as herein prescribed, for it to participate in the NAPC, unless otherwise indicated. 14. Armed Struggle refers to the use of violence for the overthrow of the duly constituted government or authorities of the Philippines.
12 13 14 15
ibid ibid ibid http://gov.ph//webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?
17
15. Lead Agency refers to the National Government Agency (NGA) that is identified, based on its mandate, by the NAPC Secretariat to be the primary partner of the Basic Sector in the implementation of its sectoral agenda. The lead agency may or may not have regional offices. 16. Recognition refers to an expressed acceptance by word or by deed of the existence, intents, and contributions to sectoral development of an organization. 17. People’s War – It is a revolutionary political mass movement encompassing all forms of struggle, legal and illegal, armed and non-armed. 18. Protracted Peoples War – The strategy of encircling the cities from the countryside. It calls for the development of guerilla bases and zones at various strategic points in the country. 16 19.
Red Area - The CPP term for an area for military struggle.17
20. White Area - CPP defines a White Area as an area or territory held by the enemies of the Party, notably by the Government. 21. Basic Alliance – Alliance of the working class and the peasantry serving as the foundation of the Philippine Revolution, or specifically that of the national united front. 22. Communism –is a socioeconomic structure and political ideology that promotes the establishment of an egalitarian, classless, stateless society based on common ownership and control of the means of production and property in general. Karl Marx posited that communism would be the final stage of human society, which would be achieved through a proletarian revolution. 23. CPP Infiltration – is the method whereby Party members move into noncommunist organizations for the purpose of exercising influence for communism. If control is secured, the organization becomes a CPP Front. 24. Territorial Integrity – the territory of the country is intact and under the effective control of the government 25. Ecological Balance – the environment is able to support sustainable development strategies for the benefit of the nation and the people who depend on it for their existence. 26. Socio-Political Stability – there is peace and harmony among the divergent groups of people in the country, and mutual cooperation and support exists between the Government and the people as a whole.
16
Joma Sison, Philippine Society and Revolution. Oakland, California: International Association of Filipino Patriots, 1979. 17
ibid
18
27. Economic Solidarity – the economy is strong, capable of supporting national endeavors, and derives its strength from the people who have an organic stake in it through participation or ownership. 28. Cultural Cohesiveness – the people share the values and beliefs handed down by their forebears and posses a strong sense of attachment to the national community despite their religious, ethnic and linguistic differences. 29. Moral-Spiritual Consensus – there is moral and spiritual consensus among the people on the wisdom and righteousness of the national vision, and they are inspired by their patriotism and national pride to participate vigorously in the pursuit of the country’s goals and objectives. 30. External Peace – the country and the people enjoys cordial relations with their neighbors, and they are free from any control, interference or threat of aggression from any of them. 31. Intelligence Operations – are activities that are integral part of a well evaluated plan enhances understanding of the problem to be solved. 32. Colonialsm - The system or policy in which a country maintains foreign colonies in order to exploit the political, economic and social resources of the said colony. 33. Democracy - is composed of two (2) Greek words "demo" which means people and "crazy" meaning government. In other words, it is a government of the people governed through elective representatives. 34. Imperialism - a system of government forming and maintaining an empire seeking to control raw materials and world markets through conquest from other countries and establishments of colonies. Its policy is to seek and dominate the economic or political affairs of underdeveloped or weaker countries. 34. Communism - is an economic theory or system based on the ownerships of all property by the community as a whole. It is a system whereby all the natural wealth of the country is owned by the state. It is also characterized by a classless and stateless society and the equal distribution of economic goods to be achieved through revolutionary and dictatorial rather than gradual means. 35. Capitalism - the economic system in which all or most of the means of production and distribution of land, factories, railroads, etc are privately owned and operated for profit, originally under fully competitive condition. Generally, it is characterized by a tendency towards concentration of wealth and, in its later phase, by the growth of economic theory and system based on ownership and operation of the means of production and distribution big corporations and increase in government control. 36. Socialism - is an ownership of a property by society or the community rather than by private individuals with all members of society or the community sharing in the works and the products. K.
PARTS OF THE PAPER 19
The study is composed of three (3) chapters. Chapter 1 discussed the background of the paper, problem statement, research motivation why the author has chosen such topic, research objective, review of related literature, conceptual framework, research design, analytical framework, scope and limitation, definition of terms, parts of the paper, expected output and citations; Chapter 2 presentation of data findings (document review, survey, interview and focused group discussion results), analysis of data and interpretation; Chapter 3 summary and highlights of findings, conclusion, recommendations, strategic implications to national security, suggestions to future studies L.
EXPECTED OUTPUT
In going through with the process and evaluation of data gathered from the analysis as design on this paper, it is expected to achieve a proposed innovative counter measures and articulation on possible courses of action to be adopted necessary to thwart CPP/NPA/NDF from propagating front organizations who deliberately poisoned sectors of the society into their favor and threatens our democracy.
20
CHAPTER II PRESENTATION OF DATA FINDINGS AND ANALYSIS This chapter presents the context about the current Internal Security Operations (ISO) Plan and part of its main components is the Intelligence Task Allocation (ITA) of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and its lead unit more appropriately capable on implementing proposed strategy from this study. This also includes the Strategic and Tactical Activities of the Communist Party of the Philippines/New Peoples Army/National Democratic Front (CPP/NPA/NDF) in the white areas and its infiltration to different sectors of the society. This chapter furthers carry out the vital part of role which is to come up with the Analysis of Data being extracted from relevant data being presented deemed to be the answers of the existing problems and the prevailing operational conditions on the ground to be able to determine the gaps and lapses in the national government’s responses. A.
PRESENTATION OF DATA
1. THE ARMED FORCES OF THE PHILIPPINES INTELLIGENCE SYSTEM The Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, J2 is one of the coordinating staffs of the AFP whose mission is to assist the Chief of Staff, AFP in attaining intelligence objectives, manages and orchestrates the intelligence activities of all intelligence units of the AFP. It has the direct supervision over the Intelligence Service Armed Forces of the Philippines (ISAFP) which is the premier intelligence unit of the Armed Forces of the Philippines. While Intelligence Service Armed Forces of the Philippines (ISAFP) on the other hand, has primarily adhere to its mission which is to conduct strategic intelligence and counter intelligence operations domestic and foreign in support to the overall mission of AFP. Within ISAFP are Military Intelligence Groups (MIGs), each has Specialized Operation Teams (SPOTS) to cover the provinces, municipalities down to the barangays. Likewise, ISAFP directly supervises the Defense and Armed Forces Attaché system abroad. Execution of Intelligence actions and activities should follow the cycle from planning, collection of information, processing and evaluation the data gathered then dissemination of useful intelligence. Its objective is to provide accurate, timely and relevant knowledge about the enemy (or potential enemy) and surrounding environment. Expected from it as to describe places we have never been; identify customs and attitudes fundamentally different from our own; assess capabilities of unique and unfamiliar group; get into the mind of the enemy and read his thoughts; forecast the future. With all the relevant data case operations shall be launched to neutralized high value targets or its leaders. In the case of ISAFP it should be personalities from the Central Committee/Executive committee of the CPP/NPA/NDF and those occupying top positions in its front organizations among others. 2.
18
INTELLIGENCE TASK ALLOCATION18
AFP BLII(PEACE 2010) GHQ. OJ2
21
To provide Intelligence Task Allocation and target coverage on all threats to national security at all levels of Command in order to avoid gaps and excessive overlaps and thus optimizing the AFP intelligence resources in support to Internal Security Operations (ISO). On the Communist Terrorist Movement (Pro-Sison/Mainstream CPP-NPA-NDF), ISAFP shall be the unit primary responsible (UPR) on enemy’s Central Committee/Political Bureau/Executive Committee and the White Area where sectors or the front organizations of the CPP/NPA/NDF are developing while intelligence units from the other major commands of the AFP will be the support units (SU).
22
3.
NATIONAL INTERNAL SECURITY PLAN (NISP)
Executive Order 21 of 19 June 2001 creates the Cabinet Oversight Committee (COC) on Internal Security to, among other functions, formulate a National Internal Security Plan (NISP) to implement the Strategy of Holistic Approach taking into account the statutory mandates of the departments and agencies and their pertinent plans and programs; to recommend policies to ensure the coordination and integration of government efforts in the execution of the NISP; to develop and implement advocacy programs to encourage and facilitate the active participation of government-owned or controlled corporations, local government units, the business sector and civil society, in the execution of the NISP. Repeals Administrative Order 90 of 6 October 1999.19 The NISP expounds on the comprehensive approach of the strategic concepts of the National Military Strategy. It aims to prescribe the general framework and provides policy guidelines for coordinating, integrating and accelerating overall government response to overcome insurgency the Strategy of Holistic Approach (SHA). As such several agencies have their own responsibilities with regard to the different components of SHA.20 Responsibilities of Agencies under the Strategy of Holistic Approach COMPONENT CONVENOR MEMBER AGENCIES Political DILG DND/AFP,DOJ,DFA,OPAPP, OPARD Socio-economic/ DSWD, NAPC, OPARD NEDA, DOH ,DepEd, DA, Psychological DAR, DPWH, DND, DILG, OPAPP Security DND w/ DILG-PNP NSC Information OPS NAPC, DSWD , DND, OPAPP Table 1: Gov't agencies' responsibilities on Holistic Approach Under the NISP, the role of DND/AFP is started such the DND shall be responsible in providing policy guidance to AFP to implement the NISP. In particular, the AFP shall take the lead role in directly addressing the insurgent party, its army and mass organizations and the armed conflict itself. It shall be responsible in formulating strategies and programs for defending communities and protecting people.21 CPP/NPA has been a long fostering sore in the political stability of the country. It has drawing much of the country’s resources and is arguably, one of the stumbling blocks to national economic and social progress. 22 The military and civilian defense forces’ shortcomings in military and civil-military operations are some of the main obstacles in effectively countering the expansion http://www.glin.gov/view.action(11 provisions; pp. 5449-5452). 26 August 2010 19
20 21 22
BLII Supplemental Handbook. Chapter 4.“A brief review of the strategic plan”2008 BLII Supplemental Handbook.“A guide to ISO Concept”2008 Dr Cesar Pobre. National Security Review Vol XX pg 40.2002
23
campaign of the insurgents. However, the main obstacle to attaining a strategic victory against the insurgents is the failure to mobilize and orchestrate the efforts of the whole government bureaucracy, particularly the civilian agencies, to institute socioeconomic programs that would address the roots of discontent. In most cases all four; Clear-Hold-Consolidate-Develop (C-H-C-D) phases cannot be carried out to full execution for lack of a comprehensive plan, programs and projects to support it. Neither is there an effective system of coordination and integration of government efforts by the different departments. The Government’s Strategy of Holistic Approach seems to be a viable plan, but it has to be implemented in its real sense before its effectiveness and efficiency can be judged. 4.
NATIONAL ANTI-POVERTY COMMISSION (NAPC)
The National Anti-Poverty Commission was created by virtue of Republic Act 8425 or the “Social Reform and Poverty Alleviation Act” that became effective last June 30, 1998. RA 8425 institutionalizes the processes of the Social Reform Agenda (SRA) in order to sustain its gains. The law also mandates the NAPC to enhance the programs, approaches and strategies to strengthen the partnership between government and the basic sectors. Its Specific Mandates are the following: 1. To act as the “coordinating and advisory body” that exercises oversight functions in the implementation of the Social Reform Agenda (SRA) and ensures that is incorporated into the formulation of the national regional, sub-regional and local development plans; 2. To operate on the principle and strategy of institutionalizing the basic sector and NGO participation in the SRA management cycle; and 3. To develop and promote microfinance through the establishment of the People’s Development Trust Fund (PDTF), strengthening of the People’s Credit and Finance Corporation as the forerunner for microfinance services and encouraging private and government financial institutions to open a special window for microfinance. The NAPC is composed of a government sector component, with (13) national government agencies and presidents of the four (4) Local Government leagues; and a basic sector component, with fourteen (14) sectoral representatives. The President of the Republic chairs the NAPC. The President is assisted by the Vice-Chairperson for the Government Sector and another Vice-Chairperson for the Basic Sectors. NAPC is supported by a Secretariat, headed by a Lead Convenor. NAPC is the lead agency and houses the coordinating secretariat of Kapit-Bisig Laban sa Kahirapan (KALAHI), the strategic framework and program for poverty reduction of the Macapagal-Arroyo Administration. It provides policy review; targeting, planning and programming support; as well as monitoring and feedback mechanisms for KALAHI. The Commission's organizational structure embodies the principle of basic sector participation in policy decision-making at the highest level of governance. It 24
compromises a government sector component with thirteen (13) national government agencies (Department Social Welfare and Development; Department of Agrarian Reform; Department of Agriculture; Department of Budget and Management; Department of Education, Culture and Sports; Department of Environment and Natural Resources; Department of Interior and Local Government; Department of Finance; Department of labor and Employment; Department of Health; National Economic Development Authority; Peoples Credit and Finance Corporation; and Presidential Commission on Urban Poor) and presidents of the four (4) leagues of local governments (Leagues of Provinces; League of Cities; League of Municipalities; and Liga ng mga Barangay); and a basic sector component with representatives of fourteen (14) sectors such as Farmers and Landless rural workers, Artisanal fisherfolk, Urban Poor, Indigenous cultural communities/indigenous peoples, Workers in the formal sector and migrant workers, Workers in the informal sector, Women, Youth and students, Persons with disabilities, Victims of disasters and calamities, Senior Citizens, Non-government organizations, Children, and Cooperatives. Sector
Lead NGA
Sector
Youth & Students
NYC
Artisanal Fisherfolk
DA-BFAR
Indigenous Cultural NCIP Communities/ Indigenous Peoples Urban Poor PCUP HUDCC Persons with Disabilities NCDA
Workers in the InformalDOLE-BRW Sector Workers in the FormalDOLE Sector and Migrant Workers Non GovernmentNEDA Organizations Cooperatives CDA
Lead NGA
and
Farmers and Landless DA Rural Workers Children
DSWD-CWC
Senior Citizens
DSWD
Victims of Disasters andDND-OCD Women NCRFW Calamities Table 2: Basic Sectors with Lead Agencies 5. WHITE AREA OPERATIONS OF THE CPP/NPA/NDF23 3.1
Background
One of the most basic reasons why the Party subsists despite continuing counterinsurgency pressures applied by the government is its capability to adapt to changing political and socio-economic situations in the country. Its ability to explore creative ways to expand its area of operations, sustain its logistical and financial needs and dictate propaganda works transformed the Party into a formidable national security threat. Its history will tell us that not only was the CPP a product of the changing socio-political milieu but of its own internal struggle as well.
23
White Area Handbook-The CPP-NPA Web of Deception. Intelligence Service of the Armed Forces of the Philippines (ISAFP): Philippines.
25
The Communist Party of the Philippines was established as a national democratic movement as early as November 7, 1930 by Crisanto Evangelista. The founding of the CPP signaled the beginning of massive ideological, political and organizational formations based on the localized application of the Marxist-Leninist Thought. Being predominantly a working class organization, CPP was based in cities and urban areas in the country. CPP was subdued and banned as early as 1931 and was formally declared illegal by the Supreme Court in 1932. All cadres that were captured were sentenced and jailed. CPP collapsed because it wasn’t able to build party second-liners as a result of the immediate government action against it. On November 7, 1938, the CPP led by Evangelista and the Socialist Party led by Pedro Abad Santos merged to strengthen the Partido Komunista ng Pilipinas (PKP). With Evangelista as the Chairman, the PKP engaged in a massive urban-based anti-fascist movement. The peasantry was given only a secondary role in the movement. PKP was likewise able to build a core of party second-liners, which include Vicente Lava. During the Japanese Occupation, the Japanese captured most party first-liners. Vicente Lava was elected General Secretary of the Party on February 1942 and he established the Hukbo ng Bayan Laban sa Hapon (Hukbalahap) on March 1942. After the fall of the Japanese authority in the Philippines, the Party established the Democratic Alliance designed to conduct parliamentary struggle against the resumption of the American presence and the Commonwealth Government. Lava, on the other hand, was stripped of his position but retained membership in the Central Committee. PKP transferred the base of its political activities from the countryside to the cities after the Second World War and participated in parliamentary processes through the Democratic Alliance. In the countryside, the Hukbalahap was replaced by legal mass organizations such as Huk Veterans League and the Pambansang Kaisahan ng Magbubukid (PKM) while in the urban centers. 3.2
Identification of the White Area
At a conceptual level, White Areas are defined as areas where reaction holds sway over the revolution. These are areas where structures, whose nature and purpose are aimed at enhancing the influence and control over power and resources of the reactionary forces, are in place. These are areas that remain defiant of the ideals of the revolution because of the predominant influence of the reactionary forces such as the Government. At the operational level, CPP defines a White Area as an area or territory held by the enemies of the Party, notably by the Government. These are areas where there are established Government political structures maintained and preserved by political leaders, assisted by the AFP or by the PNP that are defiant of the influence, power and ideology enunciated by the CPP. Urban centers like the provincial capitals and regional centers are identified as White Areas. This delineation was made in recognition of the difference in the prevailing class contradictions in the said areas. The methods and form of revolutionary struggle to be implemented differs with the one implemented in the Red Areas or rural areas.
26
There are also non-urban and semi-urban areas lying strategically in between an urban area and a Red Area that are not yet under the influence of the CPP. These areas were termed as Countryside White Areas. In theory, countryside white areas will be easier to influence if parallel strength in terms of organization, ideological and political formations will be produced between the Red Area or guerilla zone and the urban centers. The symbiosis and the emphasis of Red Area and White Area operation are dependent on the requirement of the different stages that requires flexibility in strategy and tactics. Therefore the forms of struggle and the applications will depend on the perceived advancement of the CPP. Liberated areas or those with established guerilla zones would require different approaches from non-liberated areas in both tactical and strategic levels. 3.3
Identified Potential of the White Area
White Area harbors a large concentration of middle forces, sectoral organizations and various cause-oriented groups making ideological, political and organizing activities of the Party a relatively easy task for there are formations already in place. Middle forces consist of youth and students, professionals and semi professionals from the academe, religious, legal, health, media, education and other sectors. The ambivalence of those included in the middle forces makes it an urgent task of the Party to win them to the side of the workers and the peasantry. Similarly, the Party recognizes that the phenomenal increase in the incidence of urban poverty in White Areas can be utilized by the Party to its advantage. Thus, the party can utilize the youth and student sector’s vigilance and idealism to embark on massive organizing activities, the urban poor to provide the mass base or mass-support, and the middle forces to enable the Party to legally deliver basic social services such as health, education and legal services in urban areas. Aside from its organizational potential, White Area also has a massive financial and logistical value. Most of the Party financing, supplies and equipment procurement activities are centered in White Areas. 3.4
Profile of the White Area
One of the most important features of a typical White Area is that it is the locus of political power. It hosts the national, regional or local government agencies and is the center of the delivery of basic social services to the people, government transactions, government operations and other social institutions. Likewise, the White Area is the center of the economic, industrial and commercial life of the nation. It typically serves as an artery connecting major transportation and communication routes, the site of light to heavy manufacturing industries, factories and small and medium scale enterprises. In light of this characterization, urban areas normally has a high population density composed of mixed population whose members are predominantly engaged in industrial and commercial labor. 3.5
White Area vis-à-vis Red Area
27
White area orientation (WAO) for the CPP, as opposed to red area orientation (RAO), was a product of its own analysis of the current socio-political and economic condition of the country. It provided the proper distinction between peasant-based and urban-based ideological, political and organizational (IPO) activities. Despite the fact that, repeatedly in the past and even in the current organizational configuration of the CPP, avenues related to the exploitation of White Areas are deemed necessary and inescapable by the Party at the expense of differing party and grassroots opinion on the matter. The issue on how to approach the PPW and urban-based strategies without necessarily deviating from traditional national Democratic Party line was seen as one of the continuing manifestations of the debates within the party in the light of the changes in the strategic and political environment. 3.6
Ideological, Political and Organizational (IPO) Works in the White Area.
Ideological: White Area Work in the National Democratic Framework. The National Democratic Revolution, since its founding on 26 December 1968, the Communist Party of the Philippines wages a national democratic revolution guided by Marxism-Leninism-Mao Zedong thought for the complete seizure of political power through military means. Once total victory has been achieved, a people’s democratic republic shall be established run by a democratic coalition government dominated by the Party. As the vanguard of the working class, the CPP shall ensure the transition from a national democratic stage toward genuine socialism and, eventually, communism. The 1992 Rectification Paper by CPP Chairman Armando Liwanag enunciates the very nature of the national democratic revolution: Our people’s war is within the framework of the national democratic revolution. And within the anti-feudal framework, there is the necessary political integration of armed struggle, genuine land reform and mass base building. Our people’s war is revolutionary political mass movement encompassing all forms of struggle, legal and illegal, armed and non-armed. The Party primarily relies on the alliance of the workers and peasants, the proletariats, in the advancement of the new democratic revolution. In Philippine society as anywhere in the world, the working class is said to be the most advanced class and therefore the major agent of the revolution. Since workers outnumber the capitalist class and hold the means of production, they will eventually prevail in the struggle. However, given the semi-feudal and semi-colonial condition of Philippine society, the working class would not succeed without allying with the more numerous peasants in the countryside. Political Work in the White Area The identification of white area operation is determined by the requirement of the Party in terms of propaganda and organization. As such, the Party prioritizes urban areas that are likewise regional centers. Examples of these would be Davao, Metro manila, Cebu, and other major cities. Similar to the identification of guerilla fronts, the Party does not follow traditional political boundaries set by the government. Three features distinguish white areas from red areas. These are: 1) heavy presence of urban sectors such as workers, urban poor and middle forces (youth and 28
student, professionals, etc; 2) urban convergent centers for network of guerilla fronts; and 3) a profile which is basically the seat of political power and center of business, transport, communication and education. The CPP undertakes four broad programs in the white areas. These are 1) to be the venue for propaganda and psychological operations; 2) to provide network of allies and advocacy groups that can provide modern and highly technical support to the Party’s organization and programs; 3) to heighten contradiction of production) factories and businesses) which would threaten the economy; and 4) to polarize the ruling class or elite by exploiting their weaknesses. Thus, the presence of a significant middle sector is key in the Party’s success to consolidate the working class and the middle forces into a united front into a united front and isolate the ruling elite in the process. As has been evident, white area orientation is primarily political in nature and focused toward legal and united front struggles, both aboveground and underground. More specifically, this would include the establishment of open mass movement, electoral/parliamentary struggle, revolutionary united front, and armed city partisan warfare. A later section would establish the connection between the legal struggle and the CPP. 1.
The Legal Struggle
The legal struggle is basically aboveground and involves the open mass movement, the electoral/parliamentary struggle and the peace process. a). Open Mass Movement: allows the Party to be nationwide in scope and deeply rooted among the masses. It is also a venue for alliance building in establishing a united front. Being the hub of information technology and higher learning, urban centers also provide fertile grounds for the Party’s propaganda to isolate polarize and weaken the ruling elite through mass protests, strikes and work/transportation stoppages. Legal organizations, aside from advocating sectoral interests, serve as the legal mouthpieces of the Party. To illustrate, BAYAN claimed that membership in mass organizations has increased by 235% from 1994 to 2001. BAYAN-Philippines today boast a membership exceeding 1.5 million, making it the biggest alliance of mass organizations in the country. This alliance includes the following: KMU the biggest trade union organization; KMP the biggest peasant organization; Gabriela the biggest women organization; LFS the biggest student organization; Anakbayan the biggest youth organization etc. While the figures may not be totally accurate, the growth in membership is indisputable. What makes this growth more impressive is the fact that this happened after the Party underwent major internal divisions in the last decade. b). Electoral and Parliamentary Struggle- recognizing the width and breadth of mass base support, the Party entered into the parliamentary form of struggle as early as 1986. Ed de la Torre as part of the United Front conceptualized the Partido ng Bayan with Joma Sison’s blessing. It fielded candidates who were Party members such as
29
Horacio Morales, Jaime Tadeo and JV Bautista. PNB lost the elections decisively, which prompted the Party to rethink its strategy related to parliamentary struggle. Bayan Muna (BM) views the electoral and parliamentary struggle as a support to the militant mass movement. It is precisely this broad mass base of support that has enabled BM to have a permanent presence up to the barangay levels in its strongholds. Its involvement in this year’s barangay elections is widely perceived to be a prelude of how it would act in the 2004 elections. This only shows that Bayan Muna has the potential of becoming a formidable national political force. c). Revolutionary United Front- this refers to the ‘shadow’ organization of the National Democratic Front working within the various legal mass organizations and sectoral organizations. Of late, the term has been changed to ‘inter-organization committee (IOC) composed of the fourteen NDF organizations outlawed during the Martial Law. It serves as a conduit between the Party and the mass organization by serving as the vehicles for the transmission of the political leadership of the Party. The united front is principally for promoting the armed struggle and secondary the legal struggle. It likewise observes particular class lines in the attainment of the new democratic revolution such as: uphold the class leadership of the working class or the Proletariat; rely on the peasantry as the main ally of the proletariat; win over the pettybourgeoisie (middle class) as a progressive force; take advantage of the split among reactionaries who are big comprador bourgeoisie and landlords. The revolutionary united front is aimed at arousing, organizing, and mobilizing the broad masses of the people in their millions and the broadest range of organized forces against the narrowest target-the enemy at every given time. The following tables show the various NDF organizations working in particular sectors and legal fronts. d). Partisan Operations- Partisan activities are military operation occasionally conducted to harass the ruling class and create an environment of fear and chaos requisite to the revolutionary propaganda machination. Partisan activities are the military component of White Area work and are undertaken by the NPA. While military in nature, some partisan activities may actually be political in the end especially in instances where such was used to maintain leverage in any peace talks or political negotiations. e). Peace Process- based on the revolutionary framework laid down by the party, the party has nothing to gain from the peace process. The only thing the party didn’t want is to have a public opinion that the Party is anti-peace. It only hopes to make political compromises make sure that the government looks foolish and make it appear that it was the government that is trying to railroad the peace process. 2.
International Solidarity Work
International work was referred in an older CPP document as an orientation for Overseas Revolutionary Work (0RW) which defines the main international thrusts of engaging the enemy abroad, carrying on diplomatic work, securing materiel support and rallying overseas Filipinos. Majority of those who implemented the said program were former CPP cadres who went abroad either to work or to escape from government forces.
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Many cadres went to the Middle East where there is huge volume of working Filipinos and to communist countries in Europe. Through ORW, the Party was able to secure the necessary arms and financial support for its bolstering ranks. Quimpo, in his commentary about the death of former NPA Chief Romulo Kintanar expound the extent of the ORW of the CPP. Using Yugoslavia as their international base, [the CPP] linked up with many revolutionary or “anti-imperialist” governments (like Libya, North Korea and Iraq) and movements (like the Palestine Liberation Organization, the Sandinistas and even the Japanese Red Army). [They] were able to secure promises of arms but they were never able to solve the problem of smuggling the arms into the Philippines. The arms smuggling incident involving M/V Karagatan in the 1970s was a classic case pointing to the extent of ORW activities of the Party. The orientation later came out as International Solidarity Work (ISW), a program designed to establish an international front composed of Filipinos working or living overseas and supportive international groups to the cause of the national democratic revolution in the Philippines. ISW recently became an important instrument in the counter-propaganda campaign of the CPP against the government during the GRP’s extensive lobby in the EU and US for the declaration of the CPP=NPA-NDF as a foreign terrorist organization (FTO). It was carried out by different front organization of the CPP not only in the country but also by those comprising its international front. This campaign was carried out primarily through the Defend Sison Committees, International League of People’s Struggle (ILPS) and the Migrante International. These groups, the Migrante and the ILPS have the most extensive number of membership. ILPS is a coalition of Left-leaning and basically national democratic movements. It had the participation of may ND movements in various parts of the world; most were remnants of the old Cold War Socialist regimes. The Philippines has the most number of participating organizations in an effort to solidify linkage and international support to locally-based insurgency in the Philippines. Below is the list of all ILPS member organizations based locally. Take note that majority of them were legal fronts of the CPP. The list does not include participant organizations from the rejectionist bloc Defend Sison Committees on the other hand were CPP-organized cells of proSison cadres aimed at providing Sison the necessary propaganda leverage against the Philippine effort to expel him from Netherlands and be repatriated to the Philippines. It is neither a formal nor permanent group. It is more of a propaganda type, reactive and seemingly loose grouping serving solely Sison’s political purposes. Organizational Activities in the White Areas 1.
Organizational Structure of Regional White Area Committees
The organizational structure present in White Areas manifests an organization that though expanded, has a well-established Regional White Area Committee (RWAC) to look into the concerns of the CPP over various White Area that fall within the 31
jurisdiction. The creations of RWACs suggest effective delineation of authority and activities from that of Regional Red Area (RRA). RWACs primary concerns cover mass organizing, ideological and political activities in different urban and countryside white areas while a RRAC is primarily responsible over the maintenance, expansion and defense of guerilla units present in various guerilla zones connecting, in between or outside the White Area. Regional White Area is divided into territorial and sectoral committees. A territorial committee basically is a political committee. It is normally composed of 3-4 Provincial Committees (PC). An established PC handles the IPO work, financing activities, united front and alliance-building activities in a particular province under its AOR. It is further subdivided into several District Committee (DC) located within various cities and municipalities. DC, in turn, is further subdivided into Section Committees (SC) operating in the barangay level. Every SC has at least 3-4 Cadre Teams (CT) in charge of IPO work in a particular sectional unit. The role of CTs will be further elaborated in the succeeding sections of this paper. Sectoral Committee, on the other hand, approaches a particular White Area by sector. While almost similarly organized like the territorial committees, it focuses not on the established political structure on a certain area but on the sectors such as labor, youth, women and urban poor present within a particular political subdivision. This is where the strategy of arouse-organize-mobilize is usually undertaken for the ultimate aim of establishing ND chapters consisting of membership coming from the abovementioned sectors. Every district or city shall have at least one ND-affiliated chapter or an allied sectoral organization. These organizations will be organized into a Provincial Alliance and largely, in a regional alliance. Crucial to the work of sectoral committees is the establishment of ND-affiliated or allied organizations composed of middle forces. Middle forces include health, religious, education, youth, urban poor or those generally categorized as members of petty bourgeoisie, middle landed class and those engaged in national businesses, small and medium-scale enterprises. This activity was part of the alliance-building and united front organizing of the CPP centered on urban and regional centers. At present, a total of ten (10) Regional White Area Committee (RWACs) and 23 Provincial White Area Committee (PWACs) are established nationwide. 2.
Mass Organizational Structure in White Areas
In White Areas, expansion starts from the grassroots upon the establishment of PPO or Pangkat Propaganda Organisa. It was formerly known as POSST or political organizing search and struggle team and is composed of 3-5 persons. PPO IS SEMI-legal group. It is composed of a Team Leader, Vice Team Leader, a Finance Officer, an Education and Propaganda Committee Head and a Special Operations Head. The group is self-sufficient in terms of financing and operates within a particular sectoral, territorial or geographical area. If a PPO was able to infiltrate a certain labor union, a student organization or an urban poor community, it will coordinate with other PPO groups to establish a Komite ng
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Balangay within a particular territory, sector or geographical area increased; a Lupong Tagapapaganap (LT) may be established. Three (3) Kometeng ng Balangay will compose the Lupong Tagapagpaganap of the union, organization or community. An LT is composed of 3-5 members and has similar committee set-up with that of a Komite ng Balangay. If they were successful in increasing their members, they will be able to direct the plans and programs of the organization. If they are labor union, they can subject union member to GTU or general trade unionism orientation as a preliminary orientation. On the other hand, infiltrated student organizations may be given KM and PSR orientation. Those who have demonstrated leadership potentials within the union, organization or community will be projected as legal leaders. After two years of continuous participation in the organization, the prospective leader may be subjected to Rebolusyonaryong Kursong Masa (RKM) orientation. Dialectical Materialism and Historical Materialism (DMHM), introduction to the Party, democratic centralism and committee system orientation. These leaders may be elevated as Kandidatong Kasapi or KK (Candidate Party Members) in due time. Every LT will be assigned under the direct supervision of a Cadre Team. A Cadre Team acts as the Political Officer of at least three LT and determines the organization, decision, plans and programs related to recruitment, financing and other activities to be conducted by the LT. Party Financing Activities in White Areas-Overview of CPP Finance Activities/ Aspects of financial Activities In order to meet its surging operational requirements and projected expenditure resulting from heightened military operations against its armed activities, the CPP had waged in a number of legal and illegal finance activities. Such activity is so complex that is order to fully counter it. It is a must that there must be roper understanding how it is working for the party. Finance work of the party involves three and separate aspects namely. Collection: All personnel in different organs from the lowest level of the revolutionary mass organizations up to the top leadership are oriented towards securing funds for the revolution. Collection came basically from party members, mass support, political allies, class enemies and foreign-based supporters. Organized masses influenced middle forces underground cells in legal institutions and organizations were the primary source of funds of the CPP. Collection activities may be categorized according to its source: Cadre-Supported-Cadre-supported funds are funds which can provide only the minimum or basic requirement of the revolution. Funds collected of this nature are of very limited application. An example is the fund generated by the CPP through imposition of a regular monthly membership due to the members depending on the member’s monthly income and/or his personal and family needs. Fund Organization-Supported-These are supplementary funds generated by front organizations of the CPP to augment other financial requirements which cannot be maintained if the party was to rely only on cadre-supported funds. This type is necessary for expansion of party activities and most of them relate to arousing, organizing and 33
mobilizing objectives. Some of the activities both legal and illegal related to collection of this type of funds are the following: House to house solicitations; Solicitations from middle forces, civic group and professionals; Donations to religious institutions that are legitimate front organization of the Party; Cultural activities such as movie presentations, concerts, plays and other cultural presentations; Commercial activities such as sale of books, t-shirts, posters etc; Butaw o Kontribusyon Mula sa Organisadong Masa (BKOM); Government funds in the guise of poverty alleviation and people empowerment funds;30 percent share in the annual budget of allied NGO, and POs. Coercive/NPA-Supported- These are funds collected intended to support the operational requirements of the party. The NPA is both the heaviest user and primary collector of this type of fund. Collections activities that relate to this type of fund involve certain degree of coercion. Examples of this type of collection activity is the collection of revolutionary taxes from various businesses, permit to campaign (PTCs) during elections, confiscation of farm produce and equipments of wealthy landlords, kidnapping for ransom counterfeiting, shares from the congressional CDF and other coercive finance activities. ISW-Supported-Finance generated by the party from foreign-based supporters usually in terms of solidarity support, funded legal projects and funds coming from foreign allies exporting revolution overseas. These funds come into the hands of the party through intricate processes designed to evade money laundering and other financial restrictions imposed by the government. All members of the mass organizations are involved in the collection starting from the organizing teams (OT) to the local party branches or Sangay Partido Local (SPL). The OT takes the monthly contribution of the unorganized masses and new recruits. The Finance Officer within the (1) OT will collect such dues. The FO of the Komite ng Balangay (KB) will collect all finance contribution of the OT. The collected amount will be turned over to the FO of the established Lupong Tagapagpaganap (LT) in the territory. Such FO to FO relationship may be illustrated as follows: The Cadre Teams (CT) is responsible for the collection of monthly dues accumulated by the Finance Officers of the LT or SPL and even in cases where the mass organizations are still in the inception stage. The Section Committee is responsible for the collection of funds from the CT and all other collections with amount not exceeding P1000. The District Committee on the other hand takes charge over the collection of funds from the FO of the Section Committees, contribution from allies such as merchants, small businesses, farm owners and collection of revolutionary taxes with amount not exceeding P10, 000. The FO of the Front Committee is tasked to collect funds from different District Committees and is responsible for the collection of revolutionary taxes with amount not exceeding P50, 000. The FO of Regional Party Committee (RPC) collected funds from the Front Committees and conduct confiscations, extraction of revolutionary taxes above P50, 000. RPC likewise control the handling mechanism of funds and collect the Party shares in funds from foreign sources. Distribution/Centralization
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Every Section Committee has a Finance Officer (FO) who oversees the implementation of the Parthy’s finance policies and guidelines and exercises the necessary finance checks and balance. All party members centralize their funds to the FO of their respective Section. The latter on the other hand, centralize the funds to the higher party organs based on the following approved sharing policies and guidelines: Party Organ District Finance Committee Provincial Finance Committee Regional Finance Committee National Finance Committee
Share 10 percent of net cash receipt 50 percent of net cash receipt 20 percent of net cash receipt 20 percent of net cash receipt
Lower organs such as the Komite ng Balangay are expected to be self-sufficient based on the principle of self-reliance, simple living and arduous struggle. As a result, all full-timers are expected to do finance work to meet the needs of the IPO work, the comrades and their families and augment what the party is able to provide as subsidy. The system combines centralization and redistribution as follows: Salary/Income Classification Up to P5000 in net take home pay >P5000 up to P10, 000 >P10, 000 up to P20, 000 >P20, 000 up to 30,000 >P30, 000
Centralization 2.5% of net take home pay 5% of net take home pay 10% of net take home pay 15% of net take home pay 30% of net take home pay
Handling: Handling involves safekeeping of funds collected. Funds in excess of the projected annual expenditure of the party have to be “invested” and passed through financial staffs based in different NGOs, cooperatives and other legal organizations. As a result of the government efforts against money laundering, he Party has to continuously innovate and adopt new ways to handle funds. The recent surge of CPP’s financial acivities in urban areas was internally assessed by the Party as due to the following: a). Heightened revolutionary activities in all fronts. The state of IPO is before allowing the revolutionary movement to counter military operations.
better than
b). Heightened revolutionary activity on the part of the Party would entail increasing operational costs for the entire organization. c). The Party faces an increasing operational cost as part of the organizational compliance to the call of Jose Maria Sison to strengthen the guerilla struggle against the government. Increased funding was viewed as a crucial element for the continuity of this type of work. In view of this, it is necessary for the Party to seek creative recourse in order to maintain itself and its operations financially. d). Although funds available in the past relatively met the operational requirements, there is still a need to impose proper austerity measures and effective accounting procedures. 35
e).
Financial activities/extortion
The CPP has its own system of taxation call Rebulusonaryong Buwis Mula sa Kaaway na Uri (RBKU). Such system targets not only big businesses but also small and medium scale enterprises and private individuals. They impose heavy taxation as a necessary precondition for business firms to continue with their operations in areas where the CPP had achieved a higher level of politico-military control. Targets of extortion activities are: Logging and mining companies; Ranches and fishponds;Transportation and trucking companies; Construction firms; Telecommunication firms; Other large corporation of businesses. The amount extorted is based on the gross annual income of the business/company or to the total project cost in the case of government projects. The imposed rates are as follows: 1. Three to five percent (3-5%) of the total cost per project for foreign-owned companies, business entities engaged in reclamation activities, implementation of foreign and government –funded projects, extraction of land-filled materials, quarrying and mining; 2. One to three percent (1-3%) of the total project cost per project of Filipino-owned companies, business entities providing construction services and land-filled materials; 3.
One percent (1%) of the price per cubic meter of land-filled materials.
4. Three to five percent (3-5%) of the total cropping for fishpond/fish pen operations or one to three percent (1-3%) of the total income. This system, which legalizes within their organization the prohibition against extortion by our penal laws, has been the source of massive cash inflow for the CPP since it was implemented. 3.7
CPP INFILTRATION ON BASIC SECTORS OF THE SOCIETY 24 a)
CHURCH/RELIGIOUS SECTOR
The successful CPP infiltration of the Philippines Roman Catholic Church remains as the master stroke which accelerated the party's expansion to an unprecedented degree. The CPP was able to bridge the wide doctrinal gap between Marxist materialism and Judeo-Christian metaphysics. The staunch anticommunist of the Catholic Church gave way to the CPP's well thought plan of subverting religion to serve the party's interest. The CPP acknowledges the Church's pervasive influence over the nation's cultural life through the church-owned schools, the pulpits, radio stations, publications and other means. The party could not ignore the large membership of the church, their network of human and material resources which reaches all social classes and blankets the whole country. The party acknowledges the church's strength and influence to mobilize Church organizations for fund raising abroad and locally for building churches, 24
OID,ISAFP. Knowing The Enemy presentation 2006.
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for catechetical programs and other purposes. The wealth alone of the Roman Catholic Church in the Philippines is enough ground for suspicion of its motive and interest. The CPP plan to infiltrate the church was borne out of four (4) considerations, namely: 1) To take advantage of the vast human and material resources under the control or influence of the church. 2) To neutralize the church and prevent the government from utilizing it as an institution to stop the spread and growth of communism. 3) To provide the party with a legal conduct to channel its agitation-propaganda in a medium which is culturally acceptable to the Filipino people. 4) To give the party a security umbrella for protection of its political workers. The CPP considers the churches (Catholic and Protestant) as reactionary institutions because of: 1) Its class position in society; 2) The outlook and activities of the dominant forces within the sector are bourgeois oriented and cater to the ruling class; and 3) Religion is a form of escapism and is merely the outgrowth of man's search for meaning or his fear of the unknown. Though considered reactionary institutions, the party notes that a number of church members are wiling to support or even join the insurgent movement. It is a matter of identifying those persons by penetrating the church organizations to locate them and discovering the weak points of the church. b)
YOUTH AND STUDENTS SECTOR
CPP/NPA/NDF has defined this sector according to classification. The youth and student sector is considered as being part of the petty bourgeoisie, the lowest and most sizable stratum of the local bourgeoisie, together with the teachers, low-income professionals, office clerks and lower government officials; middle peasants; small businessmen; master handicraftsmen; carpenter contractors; fishermen with their own small motorized boats and implements; and relatively well-paid skilled workers. 25 On Political Importance Accordingly, the student and youth sector is categorized as part of the intelligentsia and is considered to be the most important and decisive in preparing public opinion in favor of the Philippine Revolution, on a nationwide scale. As differentiated from the National Youth Commission’s definition, the ANAKBAYAN under the CPP/NPA/NDF broadens 25
Amado Guerrero, Philippine Society and Revolution, (Revolutionary School of Mao Tse tung Thought: 1970), p. 83
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the coverage of the youth and students to the age group between 13 to 35 years old. 26 This includes students, out-of-school youths, young workers, young peasants, young teachers, young professionals and all other young men and women of which, in the real world, compose the majority of the population. The student/youth sector is of vital importance and plays an indispensable role in the society, as it comprises a large percentage of the nation’s population. Because of their idealism, dynamic character and keen sense of judgment, they have always been considered as an effective instrument for the attainment of radical changes. It is for this very reason that the CPP come to exploit this sector in order to achieve their respective objectives. Based from documents published by the CPP/NDF/NPA their objective is to: 27 Organize the youth in the provinces for the revolution; Elevate their understanding of the revolution by means of education; Allow them to participate in mass protest against the enemy of the nation; Healthily enforce the importance of the objectives of the democratic revolution; Support the Revolutionary Peoples Government; and Assist the agricultural sector and other barangay organizations. On Economic (Psycho-social) The fundamental objective of the CPP in the sector is to subvert its members in order to prevent this sector from carrying out its natural role in any society. In addition, the CPP’s intention is to be able to redirect the activities of this sector towards mass action to destabilize the nation’s economic and social well being, influence the people’s confidence in duly elected or appointed government officials and ultimately break the moral norms of the society. Further, part of the CPP effort is to separate the youth from the moral and parental guidance or influence of their parents by polluting the minds of these young citizens into thinking that they are ready to handle the problems of the society on their own without the intervention of the older generation. With regard to the economic objective of the party in the sector, the CPP/NPA/NDF aims to:28 Help in achieving progress and other forms of cooperation in order to improve the benefits of the citizenry and increase production (i.e. bayanihan, trade activities); Join in production works in order to support the NPA and the Revolutionary government; and Launch projects to help in solving the problems concerning livelihood such as cooperatives, agricultural irrigations, and others. In the student/youth sector, the Kabataang Makabayan (KM) serves as the National Democratic Underground Mass Organization (NDUGMO) which is under the supervision of the National Youth and Students Bureau of the CPP. It was established in 30 November 1964 as a comprehensive mass organization of the youth under the framework of the national democratic revolution. Included in its membership are the students and the out-of school youths (the young laborers, farmers, urban poor and professionals). It serves as the main link between the CPP/NPA and the student/youth organizations. Methods of Infiltration
26 27 28
ANAKBAYAN, Saligang Batas ng Anakbayan, National Council (Bukidnon, 2002) “Espesyal na Kurso para sa Masa”, CPP Document (translated by JRA MANGAHAS) “Espesyal na Kurso para sa Masa”, CPP Document (translated by JRA MANGAHAS)
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The CPP implements its tactics and strategies for agitations, propaganda and recruitment activities through various means. Its primary objective is to be able to influence the minds of the youth and students that the problems that they are currently facing and the pressing socio-political issues that are continuously arising in the community are the primary reasons why the CPP continues to harass the government. They intend to take advantage of the unpolluted, idealistic nature and positive attitude that the youth possesses and use such mind-set to supplement their ongoing political struggle. It is believed that the CPP directs current radical student activism through its National Youth/Student Bureau (NYSB), one of the seven (7) bureaus under the National Organizational Department (NOD) of the CPP, which forms the General Secretariat and is under the direct supervision of the Central Committee (CC). The NYSB is tasked to mobilize the youth and studentry in pursuit of the Party’s tactical goal of strengthening the student protest movement.29 The NYSB’s major tasks are as follows: a) Unite the whole studentry b)
Conduct seminars, trainings, workshops, discussion groups and other informative educational activities;
c) Protect and promote the ranks of the studentry d) Work for the restoration of all student councils and publications e) Reactivate and work for the recognition of student organizations f) Link the Student movement with the people’s movement for national independence g) Instill the basic issues affecting the people such as human rights and economic poverty30 Student activists are basically classified into two (2) groups namely the radicals, those who believe that changes can be effected by violent or drastic means, and the moderates, those who still hope for changes by legal and peaceful means.31 After being able to influence and control the mind of the unsuspecting student, the CPP shall then invite the youth and students to engage in mass protest actions beginning with legitimate issues and other pressing concerns regarding the sector. Later however, boycotting of classes and demonstrations/rallies advocating on academic freedom become part of agenda and which shall develop further until finally, issues pertaining to national and international issues are being covered and thus become part of the program of what the youth and students are knowingly or unknowingly fighting for. CPP organizers in schools are not only eyeing for individual recruits, they also focus on creating tactical alliances with fraternities and sororities. Some of the members in these 29
OID, ISAFP data ,CPP/NPA Infiltration in the Student/Youth Sector OID, ISAFP, Research work(Author unknown) 31 Arthur G Balmaceda, Student Front Organization of the Local Communist in Metro Manila, TIS,ISG,PA, Fort Bonifacio, Makati 30
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organizations are also members of the CPP front organizations. And due to the feudal system of lordship in the fraternities and sororities, leaders who are at the same time an activist can influence their brothers and sisters to join and shall then result to the latter’s indoctrination. Alliances are possible to occur when school issues that are raised directly affect the student organization. c)
MEDIA SECTOR
Significance of the Sector Political influence on prevailing attitudes of media people as well as for keeping media people informed of politically-significant development. The media sector which is considered as the “Fourth Estate “ or as a guardian of democracy and defender of public interest plays a vital role in forming public opinion of the government and of current national issues. The CPP recognizes that infiltration and subsequent manipulation of the tri-media sector can achieve successes for the party’s propaganda works and National Democratic Revolution. The CPP utilized the media sector as a favorable tool to advance and promote the dissemination of vital information that will shape public opinion on the revolutionary movements continuously propaganda to discredit the government and project political instability.32 Trade unionism in the media were continuously in upholding the economic and political interest of media people as workers and employees; developing their capability to take over ownership and management of media establishments on a substantial scale. 33 In terms of Media as a business, owner and management of this entity will continuously concentrate on the profit it will gain. The PEOPLE’S DEMOCRATIC REVOLUTION aims secure the media sector in the hand of the democratic forces to be able to manipulate the cultural behavior of the society through mass media. Another factor in advancing the Cultural Revolution is the active support and receptive of the mass media to the propaganda and press releases of the budding dissident movement. Media is an effective and wide-ranging tool in the CPP’s propaganda works, which can effectively broadcast the Party’s National Democratic Revolution through televisions, radio, newspapers, and internet. Through Mass media works, the party’s is given a venue to express its revolutionary process and objectives and to sow public discontent on government programs and policies perception of the government, the party can project its pro-people stance and assure mass support for the National Democratic Revolution. Meanwhile, the members of the sector which is composted of writers and artist, journalists and other mass media and cultural worker is also utilized to educate the revolutionary ranks in the countryside on propaganda and cultural works.34 32 33 34
SOT Manual, p. 53. Guillermo, cit. “Trade Unionism”op., p. 4. Ibid.
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Method of Infiltration CPP’s aim to infiltrate the media as part of its Modus Operandi has directly resulted in turmoil locally and projected the party’s, organizations and movement, political and academic funding institution and agencies abroad, such as the growing International Solidarity Movement. Specially, CPP’s infiltration of the media sector from the recruitment of practitioner from the fields of journalism, literature, and the arts into the revolutionary ranks has led the movement to the direct employment of the party members as reporters, radio and television broadcasters, staff writers, researcher, and editorial assistants and other media personnel to exploit controversial issues in the guise of news articles and publications which invoke propaganda to discredit the government. Significantly, these elements have been the main target party cadres either as recruit or as instrument for its united front building. This bespeaks the belief of the CPP that media acts as catalyst in molding the political consciousness of the masses in the modern war on propaganda. Meanwhile, there are four points that make the try-media ( print, broadcast, and television) prone to manipulations, namely: Orchestrating a launch of sustaining activity for issues and campaigns; Softening the impact of the government propaganda by providing the “other side of the story “ to the party’s advantage; Controlling the editorial of by lay-outing of issues; and, Creating a rift between the media practitioner and the government to further isolate the former for organizing and alliance-building. At present, the rise of information technology (IT) has introduced a wide array of media forms such as websites and cyber-newspapers that are gaining popularity and significance. The aforementioned groups are just among of the sectors of the society that being exploited, infiltrated, organized and mobilize by the CPP through the National democratic Front (NDF).
41
NATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS UNDER BAYAN LABOR Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU PEASANT Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) Ugnayan ng Manggagawang Agrikultural (UMA) FISHERFOLKS Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya sa Pilipinas PAMALAKAYA) TRANSPORT Pinag-isang Samahan ng Tsuper at Operator Nationwide (PISTON) GOV’T EMPLOYEE Confederation for Unity, Recognition and Advancement of Government Employees (COURAGE) MIGRANT/OFW Migrante URBAN POOR Kalipunan ng Damayang Mahihirap (KADAMAY) PUBLIC TEACHERS Alliance of Concern Teachers (ACT) HEALTH Health Alliance for Democracy (HEAD) Alliance of Health Worker (AHW) HUMAN RIGHTS Ecumenical Movement for Justice and Peace (EMJP) KARAPATAN CHURCH Promotion of Church People’s Response (PCPR) SCIENTISTS Scientist, Technologists, Engineers for the People (STEP) INDIGENOUS PEOPLE Kalipunan ng Katutubong Mamamayan ng Pilipinas (KAMPI) STUDENTS League of Filipino Students (LFS) Student Christian Movement of the Philippines (SCMP) National Union of Student of the Philippines (NUSP) College Editors Guild of the Philippines (CEGP) WOMENS GABRIELA /Kilusang ng Manggagawang Kababaihan (KMK)/ Samahan ng Malayang Kababaihang Nagkakaisa (SAMAKANA) CULTURAL BUGKOS Table 3: CPP Front Organizations (RJ Faction) Bagong Alyansang Makabayan-BAYAN. (English: New Patriotic Alliance or New Alliance for the People) or Bayan is a leftist political coalition in the Philippines. Its ideology is democratic socialism. Started in May 1985 during the Ferdinand Marcos dictatorship. It brought together more than a thousand grassroots and progressive organizations, representing over a million people, largely "national democratic" groups aligned with the Communist Party of the Philippines: NDUGMOs of RA
42
LABOR
Revolutionary Council of Trade Unions (RCTU)
PEASANT
Pambansang Katipunan ng Magbubukid (PKM)
YOUTH STUDENT
AND Kabataang Makabayan (KM)
WOMENS
Malayang Kilusang ng Bagong Kababaihan (MAKIBAKA)
CHURCH
Christian for National Liberation (CNL)
TEACHERS
Katipunan ng Gurong Makabayan (KAGUMA)
HEALTH
Makabayang Samahang Pangkalusugan (MASAPA)
GOV’T EMPLOYEES
Makabayang Kawaning Pilipino (MKP)
LAWYERS
Lupon ng Manananggol para sa Bayan (LUMABAN)
ARTISTA MANUNULAT SCIENTIST
AT Artista at Manunulat ng Sambayanan (ARMAS) Liga ng Agham para sa Bayan (LAB)
Indigenous People
Cordillera People’s Democratic Front (CPDF) Moro Revolutionary Organization (MORO) Revolutionary Organization of Lumad Table 4: NDUGMO (RA faction) NDUGMO RA RJ
- National Democratic Underground Movement -Reaffirmist Group -Rejectionist Group
43
STRATEGIC DEVELOPMENT OF THE CPP AGREV
75% Peasant
Landlord STRIKE MOVEMENT
15% Labor Political line to be carried out to heighten the class struggle
Business PSY-OPS
8% Youth & Student
Authority School Admin TACTICAL ALLIANCE
2% Allied
Narrow Target
END STATE: DISUNITY
Figure 3: Strategic Development of the CPP B.
DATA ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION
1. INTERVIEW OF KEY INFORMANTS AND FOCUSED GROUP DISCUSSION A Focused Group Discussion with some of the members/classmates of SIC CL 31, who have vast experiences for having been assigned in different units of the Armed forces of the Philippines as intelligence officers, operators/operatives have congruent reactions on the context of the existence of numerous leftist organizations in almost all sectors of the society that were infiltrated by the Communist Party of the Philippines and organized through a united front. Significant of the discussion was the current strategy of the AFP with regards to white area operations directly confronting to penetrate or infiltrate those front organizations of the CPP with the conduct of Special Operations Team in White Area (SOTWA). A well trained personnel who are equipped with psychological operations and traditional military approaches are being deployed for the purpose. It was further assessed from said discussion that overt operations no matter how noble it would be gains negative public reaction/opinion and prejudged as bias being a military led actions. This would be a result wherein CPP influenced sectors were already poisoned on the exploited current issues involving erring officials of the administration and rampant corruption of the government. Thus, there is a need to having an enhanced strategy through intelligence operations.
44
While an interview with Professor Virgilio A Rivas, an assistant Dean, College of Political Science, Polytechnic University of the Philippines in Sta Mesa Campus, Manila on 27 August 2010, gave an opening ideas wherein according to him the government has all the reasons to put a stop on this underground movements of the CPP especially front organizations but the operators, he addresses the military, would have first to have a moral transformation, values enhancement within themselves and a doable, sustain developmental program. “Confrontational strategy would only strengthen united front organizations whom grown ideology cannot be ruined by a temporary and abrupt solutions. Intelligence strategy is most likely the best applicable way to thwart imbalances for they have foreseen realities”, he ended. In an interview with a confidential agent and a very reliable source, his name and position is intentionally withheld, he suggested that these sectors would have to have choices of organizations for membership. The leftist whose ideology is going towards communism or a neutral organization whose existence promote harmony and support government programs. This is meant on organizing various sectors of the society from Professionals, businessmen down to the grassroots. Most importantly, that the would be organization/group having linkages to NAPC or NEDA as the lead agency and other NGAs. LGAs, LGUs to access programs of the government for them to form cooperatives for sustenance. Precisely to stand on their own with the assistance of the aforementioned agencies but dole outs are discourage. What he stressed here was a bad experience on the previous government funding system to cooperatives and some other clusters wherein recipients were no longer interested to pay or return the borrowed capital. On the other hand, interviews conducted to other subject matter experts had gained similar suggestions as to formulate some fine tuning on the ISO especially the role of intelligence in sectoral organizing whose area is delegated to ISAFP as the unit primary responsible (UPR). 2.
STAKEHOLDERS ANALYSIS
This sub-chapter analyzed the data obtained in the course of the study pertaining to the roles of intelligence in sectoral organizing. Using the Stakeholders Analysis, the affected and involved key players principal or secondary who have influences shall be identified. This further validates the intensity of actual and potential indifference and opposition against implementation of policies and strategies that would be formulated out of this study. .STAKEHOLDERS ROLES INTERNAL PRINCIPAL Sectors of society
INTEREST
CONCERN/ISSUE S
Exercise its social Stability & High expectation from integrity, political & good of living gov’t administration, economic activities. condition, Seek Feel the for good gov’t properimplementation of programs, govt programs. Peaceful environment. 45
ISAFP
Implement role of intelligence/strategic operations on sectoral organizations,
CPP Front Orgns
Organize, Arose & Mobilize front organizations.
NGAs/LGAs/LGUs
Delivery of gov’t programs, exercise power/authority, good governance.
Organize parallel sectoral orgns w/c is a God centered, Humane & Nationalistic; Create peaceful environment Exploit negative issues on gov’t, Seize power & promote communism. Implement policies & programs of the gov’t, exercise authority, greedy of power, etc.
Assist the gov’t/other NGAs & LGUs in the implementation of gov’t programs, Adherence to Human Rights & Roles of Engagement. Poverty, Corruption & other erring gov’t officials, etc. Enforcement of laws, assist the administration towards good governance, grandstanding/popularity, showmanship for future political agenda.
46
SECONDARY Church
Worsening morality, societal change, values deterioration, descending faith/spiritual belief, gambling & criminalities. Media Boost public Ahead from all Non-cooperation awareness, current from its subject watchdogs. issues/events, personalities exercise press /officials, freedom, exploit misleading issues, information, investigative security. journalism. NGOs Concerted efforts, Promote Disagreements, relationship w/ awareness, misconception from other sectors, study coordination of other gov’t & implement effort, get support agencies, delay on programs. from international program funds. & local project funding General public Awareness on Feel the progress & Benefits, current issues & government misappropriation of gov’t programs programs, good funds, corruption & governance. erring gov’t officials, security Professionals/Business Develop own Stability, ROIs Development sector progress, programs, opportunities. Economic instability, system implementation. Figure 4: Internal Principal and Secondary Stakeholders STAKEHOLDERS
Spiritual/Social responsibilities
ROLES
Guidance towards Godliness, goodness & decency; promote spiritual realization, uprightness.
INTEREST
EXTERNAL PRINCIPAL INTERNATIONAL Ensure Support peace & COMMNUNITY (UN), (EU), enforcement of development, ASEAN, BIMP-EAGA International retain diplomatic laws, relations, CAHRIL/IHL investment & business opportunities SECONDARY OTHER INTERESTED Monitor Advocate GROUPS/ORGANIZATIONS adherence on awareness,
CONCERN/ISSU ES Human Rights violations, instability of peace & development, government response Legislation & implementation 47
Human Rights & pressure IHL, watchdog & integrity Figure 5: External Principal and Secondary Stakeholders 3.
group of International instill laws
SURVEY RESULTS AND INTERPRETATION
Shown in this chapter the result of the survey conducted primarily to determine the perception of the respondents on the internal security operations of the Armed Forces of the Philippines particularly the Roles of Intelligence in Sectoral Organizing . The research work used the triangulation method which is defined as the mixing of data or methods so that diverse viewpoints or standpoints cast light upon a topic. The mixing of data types, known as data triangulation is often thought to help in validating the claims that might arise from an initial pilot study35. The selected respondents in the study are field grade and senior officers of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and Non-Commissioned Officers (NCOs) as well as students undergoing the Strategic Intelligence Course Class 31 at the Special Intelligence Training School. A total of 50 respondents submitted back the survey questionnaires. All respondents are either presently assigned in intelligence units or belonging to the intelligence community with vast and considerable experiences as operatives and tacticians. Using the Likert Scale to determine the perception of the respondents, five (5) relevant questionnaires are being used in this study. Statistical Treatment of Data Weighted through the use of a Likert Scale on a four point options: Strongly Agree (4) Agree (3) Disagree (2) and Strongly Disagree (1). The descriptive interpretation of the perception of the respondents on the Roles of Intelligence in Sectoral Organizing; Strongly Agree…………………………. Agree …………………………………… Disagree ……………………………….. Strongly Disagree……………………...
3.5 - 4.0 2.5 - 3.4 1.5 - 2.4 0.1 - 1.4
The respondents profile broken down by ranks Respondents Ranks Frequency Colonel 10 Lieutenant Colonel 25 Major 10 Captain 5 Total 50 Table 5: Distribution of Respondents
Percentage 20% 50% 20% 10% 100%
Table 5 shows the rank profile of the total number of respondents of the survey questionnaires. From a total number of 50 respondents who answered the questionnaires, 35
Wendy Olsen, M Holborn, Ormskirk, Causeway Press Final Version. 2004. Triangulation in Social Research.”Qualitative and Quantitative Methods”.
48
ten officers or 20 percent have the rank of Colonel , 25 officers or 50 percent are Lt Colonels, ten officers or 20percent are majors, and five officers or 5 percent are captains. The rank profile is an important variable and measure in the survey because rank denotes responsibility and authority. It also signifies longevity in the service, hence, an officer who have higher rank have longer years of stay in the service and the experience factor is explicitly implied. Respondents Category
Frequency
Percentage
Senior Officers 10 Field Grade Officers 35 Company Grade Officers 5 Total 50 Table 6: Respondents Category
20% 70% 10% 100%
Table 6 shows the respondents category profile. It is broken down into Senior Officers with frequency of ten officers or 20 percent, Field Grade officers 35 or 70 percent and Company Grade Officers 5 or 10 percent. The variable respondent category as officers is an important measure for the survey because it also connotes responsibility, longevity in the service and implied experience in the aspect of intelligence. Years in Intelligence Works Frequency 20 years & above 12 19-15 years 20 14-10 years 13 5 -9 years 5 Total 50 Table 7: Respondents Years in Intelligence Work
Percentage 24 % 40 % 26 % 10 % 100 %
Table 7 The respondents profile shows the length of service in the intelligence works. This is an important variable measure in the research study because the length of stay in the intelligence field determine his knowledge and experience in the job. Of the respondent officers in the survey, 12 officers or 24 percent have 20 years and above years of experience in the intelligence work ,20 officers or 40 percent have 15 to 19 years of intelligence experience, 13 officers or 26 percent respondent officers have 10 to 14 years of intelligence experience and 5 officers or 10 percent have 5 to 9 years of intelligence duties. Current ISO Strategy of the (SA) AFP 4 1. The confrontational way In fighting the enemy is successful
(A) 3 7 (21)
(DA) 2 38 (70)
(SDA) 1 5 (5)
TPP/N N=50
WM
DI
96/50
1.92
LE
2 AFP psychological warfare had gained support from the people. 3. Neutralizing CPP Front Organizations with ISAFP being the led unit as prescribed in ITA is possible
20 (80)
25 (30)
5 (10)
-
140/50
2.8
E
40 (160)
10 (30)
-
-
190/50
3.8
VE
49
4. Intelligence operatives are well informed on the current 40 10 190/50 ISO strategy of the AFP (160) (30) 5. Intelligence-wide network is 45 5 effective (180) (15) 195/50 Table 8: Respondents perception on the current ISO of the AFP
3.8
VE
3.9
VE
50
Descriptive Interpretation (DI) 3.0 - 4.0 ………………… 2.0 – 2.9 ………………… 1.0 – 1.9 ………………… 0.0 – 0.9 ………………...
Very Effective Effective Less Effective Ineffective
Table 8 shows the respondents perception on the current ISO strategy of the Armed Forces of the Philippines. Intelligence as a primary requirement for a strategy include Intelligence Task Allocation for ISAFP as the Unit Primary Responsible on the neutralization of Central Committee of the CPP/NPA/NDF especially Sectoral groups and its necessity to formulate/enhance ISO efforts to address this threat. The weighted mean (WM) on the issues pertaining to the current strategy of the AFP on intelligence shows that the perception of the respondent officers range from 1.92 to 3.9 which has a descriptive interpretation of less effective to very effective. The ISO efforts of the AFP though ranged from less effective to very effective as perceived by the respondents needs to be studied in order to craft a more formidable campaign plan particularly on the field of intelligence to address the lingering insurgency situation in the country. Current Role of Intelligence
(SA) 4 1. Psychological operations is the 5 primary tool in counter organizing (20) 2. ISAFP as the UPR against the higher organs and sectoral groups/front organizations of the CPP 3. Intelligence units should implement measures to defy recruitment of CPP in basic sectors 4. The role of intelligence in sectoral organizing is essential and timely as foreseen alarming.
(A) 3 35 (105)
(DA) 2 10 (20)
(SDA) 1
TPP/N N=50
WM
DI
-
145/50
2.9
S
45 (180)
5 (15)
-
-
195/50
3.9
VS
48 (192)
2 (6)
-
-
198/50
3.96
VS
50 (200)
-
-
-
200/50
4.0
VS
Table 9: Respondents perception on the current role of intelligence Descriptive Interpretation (DI) 3.0 - 4.0 ………………… 2.0 – 2.9 ………………… 1.0 – 1.9 ………………… 0.0 – 0.9 ………………...
Very Significant Significant Less Significant Not Significant
Table 9 shows the respondents understanding on the current role of intelligence in sectoral organizing. The arithmetic weighted mean (WM) on the parameter shows that the respondents perceived having a range of 2.9 to 4.0 which has a descriptive interpretation of significant to very significant. The result demonstrates that intelligence role is apparent in the counter organizing effort where ISAFP being the premier 51
intelligence unit of the AFP would lead to implement enhanced strategy in consonance with the Internal Security Operations. On CPP/NPA/NDF Organizations
Front (SA) 4
(A) 3
(DA ) 2
(SDA ) 1
TPP/ N N=50
W M
1.BAYAN, BAYAN MUNA, 50 KMU,GABRIELA,KARAPATA (200 200/50 4.0 N etc..are CPP’s Front ) Organizations 2.This is part of the strategy on 50 arousing, organizing and (200 200/50 4.0 mobilizing from MLMTT ) ideology in its desire to seize political power 3. Almost all sectors of society 40 10 are infiltrated already by the CPP (160 (30 190/50 3.8 forming into front organizations. ) ) 4. Intelligence operatives are well 50 informed on the extent of (200 infiltration of CPP/NPA/NDF in ) different sectors of the society Table 10: Respondents awareness on CPP/NPA/NDF front organizations
DI
VMA
VMA
VMA VMA
52
Descriptive Interpretation (DI) 3.0 - 4.0 ………………… 2.0 – 2.9 ………………… 1.0 – 1.9 ………………… 0.0 – 0.9 ………………...
Very Much Aware Aware Not So Aware Unaware
Table 10 shows the respondents awareness on the CPP/NPA/NDF front organizations’ entrenchment in our society. The arithmetic weighted mean (WM) on the issues pertaining to the extent of these organizations shows that the respondents perceived having a range of 3.8 to 4.0 which has a descriptive interpretation of very much aware in all the parameters illustrated in the questionnaire. This further explains how extensive the aboveground forces of the CPP/NPA/NDF have projecting its goals. Intelligence on Sectoral (SA) (A) (DA) (SDA) TPP/N WM DI Organizing 4 3 2 1 N=50 1. Intelligence units/ISAFP, 35 15 through action agents, should (140) (45) 185/50 3.7 VI organize sectors to deprive CPP/NPA/NDF from further infiltration 2.ISAFP as the UPR should have 45 5 an implanted action agents in (180) (15) 195/50 3.9 VI every front organizations of the CPP to monitor plans against the government 3. Action agents who have 40 10 penetrated CPP front organizations (160) (30) 190/50 3.8 VI are going to gradually guide comembers towards good programs of the government 4. Maximum utilization of 50 intelligence units/ISAFP with its (200) 200/50 4.0 VI regional MIGs in sectoral organizing will have a momentous effects complementary to ISO against CPP/NPA/NDF strategy 5. There is a need to formulate 46 4 new strategy to enhance ISO (184) (12) 3.92 VI efforts of the AFP Table 11: Respondents perception on the necessity of intelligence units to spearhead sectoral organizing Descriptive Interpretation (DI) 3.0 - 4.0 ………………… 2.0 – 2.9 ………………… 1.0 – 1.9 ………………… 0.0 – 0.0 ………………...
Very Important Important Less Important Not Important
53
Table 11 shows the respondents perception on the would be intelligence strategy in sectoral organizing. The outcome on the weighted mean (WM) as pertains to the necessity to formulate innovative approach from a traditional intelligence operation shows that the respondents have perceived a range of 3.7 to 4.0 which has a descriptive interpretation of very important in all the parameters. This prompts the attention of intelligence community the extreme necessity to conduct counter measures as indicated in the result of the survey. Indeed, this has to do with the proactive stance suppose the AFP, especially intelligence, would assert on. “Live with indicators”
54
CHAPTER III SUMMARY, CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS This chapter presents the summary of findings done in the course of analyzing all the data gathered by the researcher, the conclusions stemming from these findings, and lastly, recommendations for policy makers and implementers, strategic implications to national security and for purposes of future research undertaking. A.
SUMMARY AND HIGHLIGHTS ON FINDINGS
On problem number 1: What is the current approach in sectoral organizing using intelligence strategy and what is the most effective way to complement the current intelligence strategy of ISAFP? The current approach aims to neutralize leaders of the legal front of the insurgency movement, and, in due course, link these leaders and their organizations to underground and illegal activities perpetrated by the Communist movement. This means bringing them into the bar of law, hold them accountable for some of the worst crimes perpetrated against public order. However, this has produced meager effect. These front organizations continue to proliferate. Some of their legal front leaders have even penetrated the government bureaucracy, get publicly elected, enjoy immunity and protection from the very laws that they break by virtue of their direct or indirect hand in communist activities. This does not mean, however, that the traditional infiltration approach is a general failure. It is rather inadequate in terms of the goal of ending the insurgency. For instance, granting a successful arrest (of a high value targeted personalities), a next in line cadre can easily take over, hence, a smooth transition that avoids leadership vacuum among the communist hierarchy and clandestine party structures. The most effective way to complement the current intelligence strategy, taking all those aforesaid views into consideration, a counter-insurgency approach should hinge permanently on an ideology that embraces values formation, skills development, education and training, above all, a God-centered ethic. Taken altogether, these values are designed to counteract the leftist ideology which is basically the opposite of these values. Yet technical expertise of intelligence operatives is of essential. At the outset, the AFP can begin a new approach by establishing a nationwide umbrella organization of basic sectors that agree and believe in the values that it is promoting. This organization will be supervised and handled by MIG agents and cadres of the ISAFP serving as organic agents recruiting civilians, training and educating them, and coordinating basic sector activities, one approach to wean the public away from its attraction to progressive but often destructive ideology of liberation. This organization can also maximize its immediate access to government bureaucracy and state apparatuses to provide social services as a component of its sectoral organizing, particularly, in terms of skills development training and livelihood programs for the poor and the marginalized. But other than its sectoral activity, the organization of this type, with national and regional chapters supervised by MIGs across basic sectoral organizations, preferably, among the grassroots, will serve as listening posts of the ISAFP to monitor counterinsurgency. This will certainly systematize and expand the scope of its intelligence 55
network in terms of its ability to mobilize counter-insurgency efforts at no time, at least, on the home front. On problem number 2: What sectors need to be addressed in terms of protecting and winning back people’s communities that are either prone to CPP/NPA/NDF recruitment strategy or have been influenced already by the communist movement and how will sectoral organizing as a complementary part of the present intelligence strategy of the ISAFP contribute to the current AFP counter organizing strategy against the CPP/NPA/NDF? Given is the fourteen (14) basic sectors as defined by the NAPC shall be the priority in addressing out of the enhanced intelligence strategy to assure support and avail its program on poverty alleviation, as it known that poverty is the root cause of insurgency. Other sectors shall also be the subject for organizing such as church/religious, professionals, businessmen, etc. It is sad to note that almost all sectors now in our society are influenced if not infiltrated by the CPP/NPA/NDF ideology. Intelligence community are aware the presence of these groups but counter measures are just limited to the rules of engagement whom respect of human rights should be the primary considerations above all things. Hence, the new strategy will introduce an ideology, program and organization that would allow the targeted sectors to choose between a deceptive group sprouted by the ideology of the CPP and an organization that would lead them to recover from diminishing moral and spiritual values towards an end of poverty and this should be carefully crafted for their eventual recognition of the good programs of the government. Moreover, the institutionalization of intelligence roles in basic sectoral organizing will not only complement the counter-insurgency campaign in general. It will also provide intelligence units to have wide networks and force multipliers thus depriving enemy from executing plans against the government. On problem number 3: What can be done to institutionalize and enhance the role of intelligence in sectoral organizing? From the data gathered and document analysis shows that the roles of intelligence in sectoral organizing could be institutionalized and enhanced by incorporating this new strategy into the Internal Security Operations (ISO) giving emphasis the task allocated to ISAFP as the Unit Primary Responsible (UPR) on dealing with CPP’s front organizations among others. At present, however, said task is misconstrued and somehow given less importance wherein its activity is limited to the launching of a Case Operations Plan (COPLAN) and Special Operations Team in White Area (SOTWA) conducted by the Civil Military Operations Unit (CMOU), AFP. Furthermore, ISAFP will conduct long termed case operations on this strategy. Long term because this is an infinite activity from the fielding of an action agents, who are also within the targeted sectors, realizing the whole of government approach in order to attain its ultimate objective to having a safe environment. B.
CONCLUSION
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The front organizations binds rope as legal struggle being waged by CPP/NPA/NDF that serves as a potent weapon for augmenting and amplifying the strength of the revolutionary forces and for rallying the broadest range against the duly-constituted government. It is basically aboveground such as Open Mass Movement. This movement the creation of united front allows the CPP/NPA/NDF to expand its influence to different sectors of Philippine society in an effort to lure the people unknowingly organized as revolutionary forces to join in mass actions. Only recently, the CPP/NPA/NDF in furtherance to their struggle has pursued innovative ways to penetrate legal spaces to advance its political and ideological cause. Taking advantage of the expanding latitude for democratic expression since the fall of dictatorship in the late 80s, the communist movement has successfully penetrated traditional political structures that were once outside its framework of engaging its enemy. Now, as elected public officials communist front leaders have access to government bureaucracy and enjoy legal protection, a far cry from the party stance of the last 20 years or so which viewed bourgeois democracy as a sham. While democratic spaces continue to widen, communist front organizations have gained new grounds in terms of recruitment that was in previous decades heavily concentrated in the countryside among farmers, rural folks and peasants. Today, its national democratic front has successfully included urban legal fronts, by far outweighing its rural recruits. Nonetheless, urban recruits mostly end up being sent to the countryside to beef up its guerilla units that in contrast are now dwindling in numbers. At its current pace, the legal fronts are now the most dependable political structures of the communist movement. Needless to say, the success of these legal fronts lies in their sectoral organizing strategy which takes advantage of people’s dissatisfaction and their tendency to rebel against duly constituted authorities. There has to be a fair admission here that people’s dissatisfaction is not a fabricated reality. Nevertheless, the ideological underpinning for stoking the flames of dissatisfaction proves more detrimental to the people than it claims to offer. The people are being led to support the overthrow of duly constituted government in order to achieve an egalitarian society which is more real in words than in the actual translation of rhetorics. The people are being led to believe that the means to achieve peace is through violence that is founded on the single notion of mistrust of authorities in wanton disrespect of the processual and judicious change that a society must undergo to realize its vision without incurring needless collateral damages as a result of conflicts. Hence, knowing the CPP/NPA/NDF concepts and strategies of sectoral organizing could be a great advantage to the government forces because out from it, the government could now prepare and implement an effective plan that will counter and defeat enemy’s efforts in the urban centers which is popularly called by the insurgents as “white area”. Maximizing the capability of intelligence units, particularly ISAFP, the government could now launch counter-organizing activities. Bringing back Filipino values and ideology on God fearing, Humane, Environmentally concerned and Nationalistic. It is obvious therefore, that a direct confrontational battle against leftist groups in sectoral organizing would only generate negative public reactions while the best way is to have a 57
parallel organization, aside from infiltration/penetration, for them to choose until they would realize the essence of becoming a good citizens.
58
C.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Drawing on the findings of the study, the researcher believes that formulating a new strategic approach to counter-insurgency must be a tall order for the leadership of the Armed Forces of the Philippines. If there is an opportune time to develop a new framework for winning the war on insurgency that time is now. It is recommended that the Armed Forces utilize the prevailing public trust in duly constituted authorities as a result of a transition in governance in which it can tap an enlivened public sphere to embrace meaningful terms of peace and justice. In this light, the study strongly recommends the following points to consider: 1.
Thorough review of the historical development of the changing tactics of winning the war on insurgency on the part of the Armed Forces of the Philippines.
2.
Realize strategic, tactical, and most specifically, intelligence gaps that will serve as guides for a more effective means to curb the tide of counterinsurgency both in urban and rural areas.
3.
Reorient its personnel to the real complexion of the war on insurgency which as time has proven cannot be won anymore by just the force of arms.
4.
Intelligence units, especially ISAFP, to remain relevant in this new framework, should be able to keep abreast with the evolving nature of the strategic and tactical policies of CPP/NPA/NDF, and be able to challenge them both in theory and practice.
5.
Sustain continuing internal study for purposes of updating and sustaining the relevance of the new counter-insurgency framework.
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D.
STRATEGIC IMPLICATION TO NATIONAL SECURITY
Political At its current pace, CPP’s white area operation is unstoppable. Its legal fronts are now the most dependable political structures of the communist movement and their democratic spaces continue to widen and gaining grounds. Their participation in political exercises and even getting seats from congress down to the lowest structure in the barangays, precisely hinders legislation of laws in contrary to their hidden agenda. Economic The CPP’s grand design is to weaken or imbalance the economy of the country to create an environment ripe for people’s dissatisfaction. The issue on poverty has much exploited to trigger uprising and would brings the government uncomfortable. Sociological The rapid growth of NGOs/POs in the country has given advantage of the CPP to influence those and organize each sector of our society to satisfy their goal in arousing on current issues such as corruption, poverty, capitalism, social injustice. All these are design to create a bandwagon effect to their side contributory in organizing and to finally mobilize controlled sectors to air grievances against the government. The people are being led to support the overthrow of duly constituted government in order to achieve an egalitarian society which is more real in words than in the actual translation of rhetoric. In view of the foregoing, the innovative solution on the roles of intelligence in sectoral organizing has to come to enhance AFP Internal Security Operations in support to the overall National Internal Security Plan of the government and address this quiet alarming situation. Ensuring political, economic and sociological stabilities, among others, would lead towards winning back the support every sectors of our society .
60
E.
SUGGESTIONS TO FUTURE STUDIES
The researcher has underlined suggestions for future studies in light of the above findings and other concerns relevant to the study’s framework. These suggestions indicate areas of concentration that have been considered but not given full account in the study owing to structural limitations, time constraints, most especially, due to the chosen limitation and scope of the research: 1. Program of Instruction (POI) for Cadre Training to the action agents who will be fielded for sectoral organizing and budgetary requirements. 2. strategy.
Implementing guidelines on the conduct of the enhanced intelligence
3. Legal impediments and requirements on the establishment of an umbrella organization that will oversee its chapters in ensuring unison of effort. 4. Accreditation to lead NGAs such as NAPC and NEDA as prescribed in the holistic approach strategy on National Internal Security Plan (NISP). 5. Sustainment of a self reliant organization in terms of fund sourcing with an idea of running a cooperative and or a foundation. 6. Pillars to be created from the umbrella organization/confederation and further replication to its regional and subordinate chapters for smooth supervision, monitoring of compliances and feedback system. 7.
Agent handling procedure on the force multipliers and networks established from this strategy.
.
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BIBLIOGRAPHY A.
BOOKS
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22.
AFP.”Bantay Laya Supplemental Handbook”2004. AFPSOTC.”SOTWA Manual” Banlaoi, Rommel.NDCP.”The Asean Regional Forum”.NDCP NDCP vol xx # 1“National Security Review” NDCP vol xx # 4”National Security Review” AFP.”ISO Plan BLII Annex C 01-10”2010. AFPM 2-026.”Operational Intel Directives 2009” AFPM 2-022.”Operational Intel Directives 2008” AFPM 2-021.”Operational Intel Directives 2007” ISG,PA,” Enemy Module CPP United Front” Pg 196.2010 TIS,ISG. “The National Democratic Revolution in the Phils”. ISG,PA.”CPP NATIONAL UNITED FRONT” ISAFP. White Area Handbook-“The CPP-NPA Web of Deception” Sison, Joma.”Philippine Society and Revolution”. 1979.Oakland, California. AFP BLII.”ISO Plan PEACE 2010”.GHQ. OJ2 AFP BLII. Chapter 4.“ A brief review of the strategic plan”2008 AFPBLII“A guide to ISO Concept”. Dr Cesar Pobre. National Security Review Vol XX pg 40.2002 Guerrero,Amado.1970.” Revolutionary School of Mao Tse Tung Thought” Balmaceda, .Arthur.TIS,ISG,PA. “Student Front Organization” Guillermo, cit. “Trade Unionism”op. p 4. Olsen.Social Research.”Qualitative and Quantitative Methods”.
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B.
PUBLICATIONS AND INTELLIGENGE REPORTS
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6.
ANAKBAYAN, “Saligang Batas, National Council” (Bukidnon, 2002) JRA MANGAHAS. CPP Document”Espesyal na Kurso para sa Masa”, OID,ISAFP. “Knowing The Enemy presentation 2006” ISAFP. Intelligence reports. recovered documents. 2010 OID, ISAFP data ,CPP/NPA Infiltration in the Student/Youth Sector OID, ISAFP, “Research work 2008”
C.
INTERNET
1. 2. 3.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki. Aug 2010 http://gov.ph//webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?.07 Aug 2010 http://www.glin.gov/view.action(11 provisions; pp. 5449-5452).26 Aug’10
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APPENDIX “A” AFP INTELLIGENCE THRUSTS (CY 2005) I. INTELLIGENCE THRUST Intensify intelligence and counterintelligence operations to provide proactive, comprehensive and outcome-oriented support to combat and civil-military operations focusing on ISO in order to decisively defeat all threat groups. II. FUNTIONAL OBJECTIVES A. Primary Objectives INTERNAL SECURITY OPERATIONS 1. Enhance high-impact, target-specific, time-bound and outcome-driven operations against leaders of the main armed threats with emphasis on the CTM, and tactical intelligence operations in support to the clearing of targeted guerilla fronts. 2.
Enhance intelligence and counterintelligence efforts against JI and SPSGs and support in the conduct of Sala’am operations in SPSG-affected areas.
3.
Sustain target-specific operations against the remaining ASG elements.
4.
Enhance counterintelligence efforts against scalawags in the AFP, espionage and destabilization plots.
5.
Provide intelligence support to peace initiatives of the government.
6.
Enhance intelligence fusion at all levels of Command.
7.
Enhance financial and operational capabilities, especially of field/combat unit.
8.
Sustain efforts to enhance intelligence capabilities, to include equipage, training and education of all intelligence personnel.
9.
Enhance utilization of AFP Reservists in the conduct of information gathering.
B. Secondary Objectives TERRITORIAL DEFENSE OPERATIONS 1. Enhance strategic intelligence efforts especially in the Kalayaan Island Group and the rest of the Philippine Exclusive Economic Zone. 2.
Promote stronger ties and harmonious relations with foreign armed forces and defense establishments.
3.
Strengthen strategic sensing capabilities against international terrorism, transnational crimes and similar concerns.
SUPPORT TO NATION-BUILDING
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4.
Strengthen inter-agency coordination and cooperation to address criminality, local terrorist networks, and disaster emergency situations through the Joint AFP-PNP Intelligence Committee (JAPIC) and other bodies/instrumentalities.
5.
Enhance intelligence support to the non-traditional roles of the AFP and developmental programs of the government.
6.
Promote the comprehensive approach in addressing the root causes of insurgency through the integration of the political, economic, cultural and military instruments of national power. AFP INTELLIGENCE THRUSTS (CY 2006) Intensify Intelligence and Counterintelligence operations in support of reinvigorated ISO and institute strategic reforms in line with the PDR program. On Internal Security Operations (ISO): A. Enhance high-impact, target-specific, time-bound and outcome-driven operations against leaders of the main armed threats focusing on the CTM, and tactical intelligence operations in support to the clearing of targeted guerilla fronts. B. Enhance target-specific operations to destroy the threat posed by the remaining ASG elements. C. Enhance intelligence and counterintelligence efforts against the SPSG and JI, and support in then conduct of Sala’am operations in SPSG-affected areas. D. Strengthen counterintelligence operations and measure against scalawags in then AFP, espionage, sabotage, secession and destabilization threats, and support the strengthening of government institutions. E.
Enhance intelligence support to government peace initiatives.
F. Support efforts to enhance overall institutional capabilities focusing on the attainment of intelligence fusion and enhancement of financial and enhancement of financial and operational capabilities, especially of field/combat units. G.
Enhance utilization of AFP reservists in the conduct of information gathering.
On Territorial Defense Operations (TDO) A. Strengthen strategic intelligence efforts especially in the Kalayaan Island Group and the rest of the Philippines Exclusive Economic Zone. B. Promote stronger ties and harmonious working relations with foreign armed forces and defense establishments. C. Enhance strategic sensing capabilities against international terrorism, transnational crimes and similar concerns. In Support to Nation-Building 65
A. Sustain intelligence support to non-traditional roles of the AFP and developmental programs of the government. B. Sustain inter-agency coordination/cooperation to address criminality, local terrorist networks, and disaster and emergency situations through the Joint AFP-PNP Intelligence Committee (JAPIC) and other bodies/instrumentalities. C. Sustain cooperation with concerned government agencies in addressing the root causes of insurgency and secessionism.
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AFP INTELLIGENCE THRUSTS (CY 2007) The AFP Intelligence thrust is to “intensify Intelligence and Counterintelligence operations in support of reinvigorated ISO and institute strategic reforms in line with the PDR program 1. Achieve unity of effort, intelligence, fusion, and lines of accountability and responsibility of major service intelligence subordinate units in the Joint Operational Area of the Unified Commands. 2. Intelligence Task Allocation shall be focused on providing secure, timely and accurate information on knowing and finding the enemy, enemy programs in the basic sector and enemy Courses of Action (COAs), in order to launch decisive combat initiatives and effective civil-military operations. 3. The effectiveness of intelligence operations in support to combat operations and CMO shall also be measured.
PROPOSED INTELLIGENCE PLAN TO AFP OPERATIONS THRUSTS AND OBJECTIVES (CY 2008) I. FUNCTIONAL THRUST: Intensify Intelligence and Counterintelligence operations in support of reinvigorated Internal Security Operations (ISO) and institute reforms in line with the Philippine Defense Reform Program. II. OBEJECTIVES: A.
Primary Objectives 1.
Sustain the high-impact, target-specific and time-bound intelligence projects to defeat CTM capability by 2010, degrade SPSG and destroy the ASG.
2. Enhance intelligence and counterintelligence efforts against JI and SPSGs, and provide intelligence reports to the Sala’am operations. 3. Provide intelligence report to the peace process with the MILF and other peace initiatives of the government. 4. Strengthen intelligence support to legal offensives and enhance legal offensive capability of intelligence offices/units. 5. Enhance intelligence fusion at all levels of Command. 67
6. Sustain efforts to enhance intelligence capabilities under the IRIS program, AFP CUP and other programs. 7. Enhance counterintelligence efforts against scalawags in the AFP, espionage, ultra-rightist elements and destabilization plots. 8. Support inter-agency efforts for a more holistic approach in addressing the root causes of insurgency. B. Secondary Objectives 1.
Enhance strategic intelligence efforts especially in the Kalayaan Island Group and the rest of the Philippine Exclusive Economic Zone.
2.
Promote stronger ties and harmonious working relations with foreign armed forces and defense establishments.
3.
Strengthen strategic sensing capabilities against international terrorism, transnational crimes and similar concerns.
4.
Strengthen inter-agency coordination and cooperation to address criminality, local terrorist networks, and disaster and emergency situations the Join AFP-PNP Intelligence Committee (JAPIC) and other bodies/instrumentalities.
5.
Enhance intelligence support to developmental programs of the government.
INTELLGENCE THRUSTS (CY 2009) BROAD OBJECTIVES 1. Intelligence efforts shall be focused on providing secure, timely and accurate information on knowing and finding the enemy, in support of combat and civilmilitary operations. 2. Assist efforts to increase appreciation of the multi-dimensional requirements of ISO. Inter-agency coordination and cooperation shall be intensified to consolidate all instruments of national power (political, economic, cultural and military) in addressing ISO. 3. Pursue intelligence fusion at all levels of Command. A closer coordination is desired between the AFP Unified Commands. A closer coordination is desired between the AFP Unified Commands, Task Forces and Major Services Special Intelligence Units, especially in Mindanao to be able to come up with accurate 68
assessment and predictive intelligence that can substantially support the requirements of operating troops. 4. Aside from ISO, AFP Intelligence support shall also be provided to International Defense/Security cooperation and agreements, peace program with the different rebel groups, development activities and humanitarian/civil assistance and in countering the destabilization efforts against the current administration. 5. Enhance intelligence training security education and skills development geared towards operational intelligence and counterintelligence capability of operating units and continue monitor destabilization moves against the government. 6. Ground combat forces must be provided timely intelligence. The AFPs capability to conduct effective intelligence operations in support of internal security and counter-terrorism operations shall be geared towards a more capable, proactive and responsive intelligence system that provides timely, accurate and relevant intelligence to all AFP command levels. 7. It is the responsibility of the AFP/PNP units to determine what tactic was used by the enemy to vacate the priority area. Nearby AFP/PNP units must confirm or deny the presence of CPP/NPA units from the priority area in their area of responsibility. 8. A deliberate and intelligence-driven AFP ISO campaign with the active support of the PNP and LGUs have to be launched to clear areas of CTM influence, neutralize the leadership of the CTM politico-military infrastructures, insulate unaffected areas and sectoral organization from CTM infiltration and effectively deny the CTM’s recovery in the cleared area and co-opted sectoral organization.
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INTELLIGENCE THRUSTS (CY 2010) BROAD BJECTIVES 1. Conduct intelligence and counterintelligence operations in order to provide all levels of Command with timely, accurate and relevant intelligence in support AFP operations as follows: a. a
Counter insurgency (COIN) operations against the CTM (CPP-NPA-NDF); Peace process with the MILF b 2010 National Election c Counter Terrorism d External Defense e National Development; and f Disaster Relief & Rescue Operation (DRRO)
2. Provide intelligence support to the Philippine National Police in law enforcement operation, especially in the dismantling of Partisan Armed Groups (PAGs) 3. Enhance intelligence collection capabilities with focus on Human Intelligence (HUMINT) and Signal Intelligence (SIGINT) 4. Improved production analysis capability by developing highly motivated and competent analysts. 5.
Properly manage and allocate intelligence resources.
6. Reform intelligence structure to conform and adapt with newly formulated intelligence doctrines concepts and processes developed through the PDR. 6.
Improve intelligence support systems particularly the Intelligence Computer and Communication Systems (ICCS) to enhance intelligence dissemination. APPENDIX “B” INTELLIGENCE TASK ALLOCATION TO FRAGO 01-10 AFP ISO PLAN BANTAY LAYA II (PEACE 2010) I. Intelligence Support to Internal Security Operations PA PAF PN ISAFP 1. Communist Terrorist Movement (ProSison/Mainstream CPP-NPA-NDF) A. Central Committee/Political SU SU SU UPR Bureau/Executive Committee 1) National Organizational Department UPR SU SU UPR 2) National Educational Department SU SU SU UPR 3) Functional Commission a) National Military Commission UPR SU SU UPR b) National United Front SU SU SU UPR Commission c) National Finance Commission SU SU UPR UPR d) International Department SU SU SU UPR 70
e) International Finance Department f) National Peasant Commission g) National Propaganda Commission B. White Area Committee 1) Labor 2) Student/Youth 3) Urban Poor 4) Peasant 5) Religious/Human Rights Group 6) Political/Broad Alliances 7) Professional 8) Women 9) Cultural Minority Groups/Indigenous People 10) Transport 11) Fisher folks 12) Agro-Industrial 13) Media 14) Health 15) Legal
SU UPR UPR
SU SU SU
SU SU SU
UPR UPR UPR
SU UPR SU SU SU SU SU SU SU
SU SU SU SU SU SU SU SU SU
SU UPR SU SU UPR SU SU SU SU
UPR UPR UPR UPR UPR UPR UPR UPR UPR
SU SU SU SU SU SU
SU SU SU SU SU SU
SU SU SU SU SU SU
UPR UPR UPR UPR UPR UPR
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