'Good governance, law enforcement to help anti-insurgency campaign'

MANILA, Philippines - The country’s anti-insurgency and terrorism campaign will be successful if there is good governance with an active law enforcement support.

Director Leocadio Santiago, operations chief of the Philippine National Police (PNP) and outgoing commander of the newly formed police and military Joint Public Safety Coordinating Center (JPSCC), said the use of force in dealing with insurgents, terrorists and other threat groups would only result in deaths and will not solve the decades-old insurgency problem.

Santiago, who will retire on March 15, said that after stepping out of the Philippine Military Academy (PMA) more than 30 years ago, his mindset was to defeat the insurgents and terrorists.

“Mortal combat was my driving force not realizing that it is the least effective weapon in the arsenal to fight the insurgents and the terrorists,” Santiago said.

Santiago said he learned that the root cause of insurgency is not poverty but injustice.

“People are recruited into the New People’s Army (NPA) not because they are hungry or have nothing materially. They are recruited and join the NPA because they were abused, taken advantage of and the NPAs took advantage of this by fueling their feelings of being disenfranchised,” he said.

He noted that past governments have tried but failed to fight insurgency and terrorism.

The Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) and the PNP created the JPSCC, in coordination with local government units, to fight insurgents and terrorists.

The JPSCC is based at the military headquarters in Camp Aguinaldo and at the PNP headquarters in Camp Crame.

“Immediately after its creation, there was synergy between the police and the military in the operational aspects, especially at the tactical level which the insurgency and terrorism-affected areas felt,” Santiago said.

Santiago called for the expansion, funding and institutionalization of the joint military and police task forces under the JPSCC to finally rid the country of its insurgency and terrorism security problems.

Santiago said he believes that the insurgency and terrorism problems can be solved under the Aquino administration