Small War on Basilan (catch all)

[carl]

.I'm no expert on the military side, but there seems to be a repeating pattern of Philippine forces walking into these situations and taking heavy casualties, and a continuing inability to rapidly reinforce or support forces that run into trouble in the field. I have to wonder if US training and material support, which has been in place for quite a while now, is doing anything to address that.

I know nothing about the Philippine Army and Marines so I have some questions. Do they have a well developed NCO corps? Are the junior officers, a junior officer would I assume be leading a 41 man unit, selected for merit or something else? How experienced would he have been? Would the Marine guys who were around in 2007, not just the ones in the fight, still be around the area and if they were would they and the Army talk to each other?

These questions are prompted by Dayuhan's observation that the same thing happened in the almost the same place before.