Army eyes 20,000 more troops to battle ‘crises’

The Philippine Army wants to enlist 20,000 more soldiers to fight the intransigent nationwide communist insurgency and a separatist rebellion in Mindanao.

Army chief Lt. Gen. Jaime de los Santos confirmed that the military establishment is increasingly concerned with "crises of insurgencies" that, he said, can only be resolved by enlisting more troops.

"We are having a crises of insurgencies," De los Santos said a day after Armed Forces spokesman Brig. Gen. Edilberto Adan described as an "emergency situation" the country’s continuing insurgency problems.

If Congress authorizes the military to enlist 20,000 more infantrymen, De los Santos said that would boost the Army’s strength by less than a third, or a total of 88,000 men, still less than the ground troops of Malaysia which has a population of only 24 million.

"In Malaysia, they have more troops although they are not faced with insurgency and they have only a 24-million population," the Army chief said.

De los Santos conceded, however, that the enlistment of more infantrymen may not be done this year since the military’s budget has already been submitted to Congress.

Neither did the Army chief say how much more the military would need to pay and equip the envisioned additional troops.

He stressed, however, that there was a real need to enlist more men because of the unusual confluence of actions of various threat groups.

"For the first time, all threat groups are active at the same time," De los Santos told The STAR in a telephone interview.

"We need additional men... The strength of the NPA is increasing," De los Santos added, referring to the communist New People’s Army which supposedly has some 12,000 guerrillas, double its estimated strength in the mid-1990s.

Aside from the NPA, De los Santos said the military still has to deal with some 11,000 fighters of the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).

Although the MILF agreed to a ceasefire in September pending the conclusion of ongoing peace talks, there are also some 1,000 members of the Abu Sayyaf group which has been linked with the al-Qaeda network of international terrorist Osama bin Laden.

There are also some 1,000 gunmen loyal to renegade rebel leader Nur Misuari, who recently attacked three military detachments in Sulu island and forcibly occupied a government facility in Zamboanga City.

Apparently speaking for the military high command, Adan had said on Saturday that with an estimated 25,000-strong insurgency, the political leadership should be treating the matter as an "emergency situation."

‘Don’t blame us for your failure’

But Senate President Franklin Drilon admonished the military establishment for trying to pin the blame on Congress for the growing insurgency.

"It would do well for the military leadership to look itself in the mirror instead of trying to find a scapegoat for its failure to curb the insurgency problem," Drilon said in a statement.

"With a mindset such as the one exhibited by Adan, I am not optimistic about the military campaign against the insurgents," he added, referring to Adan’s suggestion that Congress enact tougher measures against terrorism and insurgency.

The Senate president rebuked the military to "leave policy-making to Congress and concentrate on the battlefield."

Drilon was referring to the military’s suggestion that Congress pass new laws that would allow the authorities to freeze the assets of people linked with terrorists and to establish a national identification system to track down suspected criminals.

But Drilon said action, not new laws, is what is needed to fight insurgency.

He reminded Adan that Congress had already enacted an anti-money laundering law more than two months ago and advised him to be "more circumspect in his pronouncements."

Regarding the proposed national ID system, Drilon belittled Adan’s claim that it was crucial to the anti-insurgency campaign.

"What has the ID system got to do with the military’s failure to catch a small band of Abu Sayyaf terrorists in a small island?" asked a visibly irked Drilon.

"What is General Adan’s assurance that an ID system would finally turn the tide in the long-running war against the insurgents? Can the military cleanse our ranks of lawless elements through the simple application of an ID system?" he added.

If the military really needed an ID system in its anti-insurgency campaign, Drilon said, it could very well use the existing national voter’s ID.

If this is not enough, the other government-issued ID cards, such as the ones issued by the state pension funds and the Philippine Health Insurance Corp. (Philhealth), could be consolidated into one ID card to facilitate government transactions, he said.

Drilon said he saw little use for an ID system to the anti-insurgency campaign unless the military wants to conduct house-to-house operations to ferret out people without an ID card.

But he warned the military against pursuing such an action, saying it could lead to serious human rights violations and advised the military to drop the idea.

"That is not the purpose of the ID system," Drilon said. "If that is what General Adan has in mind, I would like to advise him to drop it now while it is early." - With reports from Aurea Calica