Civic-military work is Aquino’s new tack vs rebels

MANILA – President Benigno Aquino unveiled on Tuesday the Philippine military’s new counter-insurgency plan focusing on measures to cut poverty to defeat Maoist and Muslim rebels.

Since the late 1960s, the Philippines has been fighting leftist and Islamist rebellions that have killed more than 160,000 people, displaced 2 million and stunted growth in the poor but resource-rich country.

Under the plan, troops will be shifted from combat operations to civilian-military work, such as building roads, schools, clinics and potable water systems in conflict areas across the country.

Soldiers from close ally the United States have been operating in the Philippine south since 2002, providing medical care and repairing schools and roads to help defeat a small group of Islamist militants with ties to al Qaeda.

Aquino, speaking at an armed forces anniversary ceremony at the main army base in Manila, told troops to put more effort in delivering social services and building rural infrastructure rather than chasing rebels.

“If we can stop poverty, then we can stop the war and the shooting,” Aquino said.

He also announced the government would nearly double troops’ monthly combat pay, and promised housing and medical benefits.

He also pledged to upgrade the military’s capabilities to defeat internal threats and to protect the country’s exclusive economic zones from poachers, smugglers and pirates.

Aquino said sustained peace was needed to foster growth and investment.

Lieutenant-General Gaudencio Pangilinan, a military area commander, said the strategy was aimed at eliminating the conditions that breed rebellion.

Soldiers would double as teachers and health workers to make people feel the presence of the government and to reduce the rebels’ influence, Pangilinan said. –Manny Mogato, Reuters