Communist Insurgency in the Philippines (catch all)

[Dayuhan]

Diin ka sa Caraga? Dugay ako didto, kaniadto...

That language has gone all rusty, been north way too long...

The Communist Insurgencies (there are more than 1 in the Philippines) are for the most part devoid of ideology on the ground. There is very little political development within the NPA with the ideologues almost entirely relegated to the insurgency's political echelon, the CPP (Communist Party of the Philippines").

Agree on the absence of ideology on the ground. I wouldn't say there's been much ideological development among the ideologues either, even on the CPP level the discourse often seems a repetitive collection of 70s-vintage mantras.

Though the Peace Process is at its highest point in well over 7 years it still won't produce much in the way of tangibility.

Agree on that one too...

Aside from the AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines) shifting gears with its new COIN Programme (Oplan Bayanihan), a move actually adopted unofficially in the summer of 2010... there is not a whole lot happening (the shift is not radical when examined).

Yes. Certainly on the ground where i am (Cordillera) there's no visible change.

the NPA/CPP/NDF (the last being the National Democratic Front aka National Democratic Front of the Philippines) is trying to depict itself as receptive its goals haven't changed, it is all or nothing.

Agree again.

I do think that IF the government were able to pose a sincere offer of limited regional autonomy in Mindanao within NPA AOR, to allow the CPP to employ its social-welfare programmes more fully, openly without interference it would produce much more progress

An autonomous region (or regions) in north/east Mindanao, then, apart from the (rather hypothetical) autonomy of ARMM? Interesting idea, but don't you think it would be dominated by the same crop of politically connected families that dominate now? Those guys aren't exactly concerned with social welfare, nor are they going to be receptive to anything that might shake their power.

If we look at Luzon and the now defunct CLA (Cordilleran Liberation Army), and Northcentral Mindano's RPM-M we can learn an important lesson. Both these CPP/NPA spin-offs had a message and fought to see it expressed. When both were brought to the table and offered a very real chance to put their vision into play what happened?

What happened with the CPLA was largely a devolution into competing factions breaking down largely among tribal lines. The glue holding the fight together here came from the Chico Dam and Cellophil projects, along with the subsequent resort to state terror and military abuse, but once the projects were terminated and the military presence scaled back there wasn't that much to hold the coalitions together. I'm not sure there's a single symbolic project in the south that would sum up the target of resistance in the south the way the Chico Dam did here (though Cellophil would have impacted more people).

Ergo, allowing the implementation under controlled parameters (say state:substate, or the more likely regional autonomy actually given to the CLA) allows an irrefutable demonstration to both concerned entities and their mass base, both potential and realised.

The political grant of theoretical autonomy to the Cordillera is pretty much invisible on the ground, except for another layer of bureaucracy. What keeps the Cordillera effectively autonomous is the very limited in-migration from lowlanders (opposite of Mindanao) and the generally successful effort to keep land and business ownership local (where I live they won't allow anyone not from here to own land or do business). That's kept political control in the hands of Igorots: all elected officials here are Igorot, a lowlander wouldn't have a chance.

Unfortunately, this is not possible with the CPP/NPA. When discussing the NPA Insurgency we are essentially discussing the NPA's "Insurgency in Mindanao." The 2 largest island is home to the largest number of NPA "Fronts" and has been home to the highest number of contacts since the mid-1980s.

True as well... there's NPA activity elsewhere, but in both quantity and quality Mindanao is where it's happening.

At the same time the island had seen an extreme shift towards resource-based development, particularly mining. Simply examining the "Tampakan Project" shows one what's at stake, and that is just the tip of the iceberg (in what will be the country's largest mine Tampakan will be an open pit standing over the borders of 4 provinces. Primarily concentrating on copper and gold it is ranked as the world's 2nd largest gold mine if and when developed though its window for commencement, 2016, seems to be right on schedule despite tremendous local opposition). The government will never take its fingers over some of the most lucrative mineral concessions in the world, to say nothing of the nation's largest source of timber, and its main source of rice and corn. Had the government had the fore sight to try and implement limited autonomy before 1995, the year the island was "opened up" things might be very different.

Would autonomy have prevented resource-based development? It's true that opposition to mining has been more effective in the north, but I'm not sure that's a function of political autonomy. Certainly the regional "autonomous" government hasn't been a major factor opposing mining, it's been more NGOs and people's organizations, with very effective linkages to international groups and media. Also, except for some parts of the Abra River valley, the lack of settlement from outside has prevented the development of a potential pro-mining constituency competing with the anti-mining tribal units, and tribal leaders here have proven very difficult to bribe or coerce. Again, that's due to strength of culture, a fairly high educational level among the tribal people, and local unity, not political autonomy granted from above.

While the big resource extraction projects get most of the attention, there's a lot of abuse of lumad populations coming from much smaller sources, or at least there used to be when I was down there. That was typically violent land-grabbing by powerful local families who have close relationships with military and police, along with control and exploitation of economic activity by locally connected armed groups. It used to seem to me that the military were more closely connected to local elites than to the national chain of command (that was some time ago, may have changed). I suspect that unless the local elites could be brought within the rule of law, they would end up dominating an autonomous region and using it for their own interests, which are very different from those of the lumad. The state is a problem for the lumad, but isn't it true that the politically dominant factions of the settler population are also a problem, amd a much closer one?

Could be pointed out that while not too many people (certainly not on the left) complain about the unchecked "large scale small scale" mining in the east, both the exploitation and environmental destruction are huge. Of course the left won't complain because they share the proceeds, but that kind of extractive industry doesn't seem very preferable to the big mines.

I've always felt that one of the keys to peace on Mindanao, both in the North/East and the Muslim areas, would be imposing the rule of law on the local elites, who have enjoyed and abused immunity for way too long.

As for the other areas of the country, there needs to be regional SPs (Security Plans), not a single programme

Agree there, though I'd repeat that targeting predatory local elites has to be a priority... yes, it's a bit of a fetish of mine.

It needs to concentrate on properly training its security personnel, with an emphasis on restraint and should include sufficient Cultural Sensitivity Training before deploying or re-deploying personnel into new regions.

Training would help but there also needs to be attention paid to the tendency of military units in the field to get into bed with the local powers, often to the personal profit of both. Can't keep the peace when you're taking sides and doing business.

The re-deployment of the 82 IB for example. In autumn 2010 they were re-deployed from Central Luzon to the 10ID in the Davao Region of Mindanao. Not only are they taking troops who are ignorant of the languages and customs of Mindanao but they brought them south primarily to man. PDTs! Peace and Development Teams are supposed to represent the best side of the military. Wouldn't it be nice then if they could hold the most basic of conversations with the locals they are dealing with?

Same problem up here, we get units coming in from Mindanao that haven't got a clue. The police are pretty careful to staff this area with people from this area. I guess military could try to do the same, but that might have complications too. Certainly it would make sense to staff PDTs with troops from the area though.

Anyway, too many different things to discuss when trying to asses the direction and performance of the NPA facet of the AFP COIN Programme.

Pretty broad, yes, but not entirely useless to discuss bits and pieces of the picture!