Examining the Capacity of the Philippine Army's Enlisted Corps to Accomplish the Government's Counterinsurgency Strategy

<p>The Philippines faces a 39-year old communist insurgency. For years it tried in vain to solve the problem by kinetic means. Deeply rooted in poverty resolving this insurgency calls for non-kinetic approaches. This led to the creation of the Special Operations Team (SOT) concept which supports the Philippines' Strategy of Holistic Approach (SHA) which is comparable to the interagency process. A product of military innovation SOT becomes the main COIN tool. The most salient point is the troops' immersion into communist-influenced communities to conduct wide-ranging activities designed to address people's grievances while achieving military objectives to dismantle enemy politico-military structure set up counter organizations and introduce developmental projects. The Army's enlisted corps is the backbone of the SOT program. The object of this study is to examine the capacity of this force based on the five critical areas of training doctrine leadership resources and interagency support. It turns out that the enlisted corps is severely handicapped to accomplish the SOT mission due to substantial deficiencies based on each of the five criteria. To empower the enlisted force the AFP must institutionalize SOT training refine its COIN doctrine re-educate its officer corps boost SOT-intended resources and strengthen its interagency capability.</p><p>This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it. This work was reproduced from the original artifact and remains as true to the original work as possible. Therefore you will see the original copyright references library stamps (as most of these works have been housed in our most important libraries around the world) and other notations in the work.</p><p>This work is in the public domain in the United States of America and possibly other nations. Within the United States you may freely copy and distribute this work as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.</p><p>As a reproduction of a historical artifact this work may contain missing or blurred pages poor pictures errant marks etc. Scholars believe and we concur that this work is important enough to be preserved reproduced and made generally available to the public. We appreciate your support of the preservation process and thank you for being an important part of keeping this knowledge alive and relevant.</p><br>